Careers of Danger and Daring

Mr. Bostock arrived presently, and at once entered the cage, carrying two whips, as is the custom. There is something in this man that impresses animals and tamers alike. It is not only that he is big and strong, and loves his animals, and does not fear them; that would scarcely account for his extraordinary prestige, which is his rather because he knows lions and tigers as only a man can who has literally spent his life with them. From father and grandfather he has inherited precious and unusual lore of the cages. He was born in a menagerie, he married the daughter of a menagerie owner, he sleeps always within a few feet of the dens, he eats with roars of lions in his ears. And his principle is, and always has been, that he will enter any cage at any time if a real need calls him – which has led to many a situation like that created now by Spitfire's disobedience.

There were many groups in the menagerie at this time, each with its regular tamer; and while Bostock, as owner and director, watched over all of them, it often happened that months would pass without his putting foot inside this or that particular cage. And in the present case he was practically a stranger to the four lions and the tiger now ranged around on their pedestals in a semi-circle thirty feet in diameter, with big Brutus in the middle and snarling Spitfire at one end.

"Well," said Mr. Bostock, explaining what happened, "I saw that Bianca had made a mistake in handling Spitfire from too great a distance. She had stood about seven feet away, so I stepped three feet closer and lifted one of my whips. There were just two things Spitfire could do: she could spring at me and have trouble, or she could jump over the pedestal and have no trouble. She growled a little, looked at me, and then she jumped over that pedestal like a lady. I had called her bluff.

"The rest was easy. I put her through some other tricks, circled her around the cage a couple of times, and brought her back to her corner. Then, as she crouched there and snarled at me, I played a tattoo with my whip-handle on the floor just in front of her. It was just a sort of flourish to finish off with, and it was one thing too much; for in doing this I turned quite away from the rest of the group and made Brutus think that I meant to hurt the lioness. He said to himself: 'Hullo! Here's a stranger in our cage taking a whip to Spitfire. I'll just settle him.' And before I could move he sprang twenty feet off his pedestal, set his fangs in my thigh, and dragged me over to Bianca, as if to prove his gallantry. Then the Frenchwoman did a clever thing: she clasped her arms around his big neck, drew his head up, and fired her revolver close to his ear. Of course she fired only a blank cartridge, but it brought Brutus to obedience, for that was Bianca's regular signal in the act for the lions to take their pedestals; and the habit of his work was so strong in the old fellow that he dropped me and jumped back to his place.

"There wasn't any more to it except that I lay five weeks in bed with my wounds. But this will show you how Bianca loved those lions: she wouldn't let me lift a hand to punish Brutus. Of course I called for irons as soon as I got up, and, wounded or not, I would have taught Mr. Brutus a few things before I left that cage if I could have had my way. But Bianca pleaded for him so hard – why, she actually cried – that I hadn't the heart to go against her. She said it was partly my own fault for turning my back, – which was true, – and that Brutus was a good lion and had only tried to defend his mate, and a lot more, with tears and teasing, until I let him off, although I knew I could never enter Brutus's cage again after leaving it without showing myself master. That's always the way with lions: if you once lose the upper hand you can never get it back."

III

BONAVITA DESCRIBES HIS FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS AND GEORGE ARSTINGSTALL TELLS HOW HE CONQUERED A MAD ELEPHANT

IN the course of days spent with Mr. Bostock and his menagerie, I observed many little instances of the tamer's affection for his animals. I could see it in the constant fondling of the big cats by Bostock himself, and by Bonavita, his chief tamer, and even by the cage grooms. And no matter how great the crush of business, there was always time for visiting a sick lioness out in the stable, who would never be better, poor thing, but should have all possible comforts for her last days. And late one afternoon I stood by while Bonavita led a powerful, yellow-maned lion into the arena cage and held him, as a mother might hold a suffering child, while the doctor, reaching cautiously through the bars, cut away a growth from the beast's left eye. It is true they used a local anesthetic; but even so, it hurt the lion, and Bonavita's position as he knelt and stroked the big head and spoke soothing words seemed to me as far as possible from secure. Yet it was plain that his only thought was to ease the lion's pain.

"I couldn't have done that with all my lions," Bonavita said to me after the operation; "but this one is specially trained. You know he lets me put my head in his mouth."

Bonavita is a handsome, slender man, with dark hair and eyes, quite the type of a Spanish gentleman; and I liked him not only for his mastery of twenty-odd lions, but because he had a gentle manner and was modest about his work. According to Mr. Bostock, Bonavita has but two strong affections: one for his old mother, and one for his lions. Occasionally I could get him aside for a talk, and that was a thing worth doing.

"People ask me such foolish questions about wild beasts," he said one day. "For instance, they want to know which would win in a fight, a lion or a tiger. I tell them that is like asking which would win in a fight, an Irishman or a Scotchman. It all depends on the particular tiger you have and the particular lion. Animals are just as different as men: some are good, some bad; some you can trust and some you can't trust."

"Which is the most dangerous lion you have?" I inquired.

"Well," said he, "that's one of those questions I don't know how to answer. If you ask which lion has been the most dangerous so far, I should say Denver, because he tore my right arm one day so badly that they nearly had to cut it off. Still, I think Ingomar is my most dangerous lion, although he hasn't got his teeth in me yet; he's tried, but missed me. It doesn't matter, though, what I think, for it may be one of these lazy, innocent-looking lions that will really kill me. They seem tame as kittens, but you can't tell what's underneath. Suppose I turn my back and one of them springs – why, it's all off."

Another day he said: "A man gets more confidence every time he faces an angry lion and comes out all right. Finally he gets so sure of his power that he does strange things. I have seen a lion coming at me and have never moved, and the lion has stopped. I have had a lion strike at me and the blow has just grazed my head, and have stood still, with my whip lifted, and the lion has gone off afraid. One day in the ring a lion caught my left arm in his teeth as I passed between two pedestals. I didn't pull away, but stamped my foot and cried out, 'Baltimore, what do you mean?' The stamp of my foot was the lion's cue to get off the pedestal, and Baltimore loosed his jaws and jumped down. His habit of routine was stronger than his desire to bite me."

Again, Bonavita explained that there is some strange virtue in carrying in the left hand a whip which is never used. The tamer strikes with his right-hand whip when it is necessary, but only lifts his left-hand whip and holds it as a menace over the lion. And it is likely, Bonavita thinks, that to strike with that reserve whip would be to dispel the lion's idea that it stands for some mysterious force beyond his daring.

"You see, lions aren't very intelligent," said he; "they don't understand what men are or what they want. That is our hardest work – to make a lion understand what we want. As soon as he knows that he is expected to sit on a pedestal he is willing enough to do it, especially if he gets some meat; but it often takes weeks before he finds out what we are driving at. You can see what slow brains lions have, or tigers either, by watching them fight for a stick or a tin cup. They couldn't get more excited over a piece of meat. One of the worst wounds I ever got came from going into a lion's den after an overcoat that he had dragged away from a foolish spectator who was poking it at him."

I finally got Bonavita to tell me about the time when the lion Denver attacked him. It was during a performance at Indianapolis, in the fall of 1900, and the trouble came at the runway end where the two circular passages from the cages open on an iron bridge that leads to the show-ring. Bonavita had just driven seven lions into this narrow space, and was waiting for the attendants to open the iron-barred door, when Denver sprang at him and set his teeth in his right arm. This stirred the other lions, and they all turned on Bonavita; but, fortunately, only two could reach him for the crush of bodies. Here was a tamer in sorest need, for the weight of the lions kept the iron doors from opening and barred out the rescuers. In the audience was wildest panic, and the building resounded with shouts and screams and the roars of angry lions. Women fainted; men rushed forward brandishing revolvers, but dared not shoot; and for a few moments it seemed as if the tamer was doomed.

But Bonavita's steady nerve saved him. As Denver opened his jaws to seize a more vital spot, the tamer drove his whip-handle far down into his red throat, and then, with a cudgel passed in to him, beat the brute back. The other lions followed, and this freed the iron door, which the grooms straightway opened, and in a moment the seven lions were leaping toward the ring as if nothing had happened. And last of the seven came Denver, driven by Bonavita, white-faced and suffering, but the master now, and greeted with cheers and roars of applause. No one realized how badly he was hurt, for his face gave no sign. He bowed to the audience, cracked his whip, and began the act as usual. As he went on he grew weaker, but stuck to it until he had put the lions through four of their tricks, and then he staggered out of the ring into the arms of the doctors, who found him torn with ugly wounds that kept him for weeks in the hospital. That, I think, is an instance of the very finest lion-tamer spirit.

Among various meetings with tamers of animals, I recall with particular pleasure one afternoon when my friend Newman brought to see me a tamer famous in his day – George Arstingstall. I knew that Arstingstall was the first man in this country to work lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, sheep, monkeys, and various other beasts all in a great circular cage. Also that his fame had spread across Europe and his daring feats been shown from London to Moscow; but I did not know what a simple, modest man he was, nor realize until then the charm of listening to a couple of circus veterans, comrades for years, talking of the old stirring days. Here were two men getting on to sixty, yet talking with the eagerness of boys about their exploits and perils under fang and claw.

It was: "Say, Bill, do you remember when that bull pup caught Topsy by the trunk and stampeded the – "

"Stampeded the whole business. Do I remember, George? Up in Boston. Bing! bang! over the Common, and the Old Man wild! Well I guess. But, say, George, that wasn't as bad as the stampede in Troy, when those four elephants cleaned out the rolling-mill. Oh, what a night! Let's see. There was Nan and – "

"And Tip."

"Yes, poor old Tip. I strangled him at Bridgeport. You remember, George, he wouldn't take the poison. Oh, he was no fool, Tip wasn't, and I told the Old Man we'd have to put nooses on him and cut off his wind."

"I know, Bill, the Old Man said it wasn't possible to strangle an elephant – "

"And say, George, I had his wind shut off inside of three minutes after the boys began to haul. Oh, you can't beat three sheave-blocks, George, for finishing off a bad tusker. Well, this night in Troy those four elephants went sailing through this rolling-mill, trumpeting like mad, right over the hot iron, scaring those Irishmen blue, and then smashed down a steep refuse bank into the mud. Oh, what looking elephants! Nan had her legs all burned, and – "

"I know, and say, Bill, do you remember where I found Tip? Three miles out of Troy, standing up in a corn-field sound asleep, and two little boys on a rail fence looking at him. He'd knocked over a shanty and smashed open a barrel of whisky – a whole barrel, Bill – and there he was sound asleep. When I saw those little boys I made up my mind I'd found Tip.

"'What ye lookin' at, little boys?' I sung out.

"'El'phunt, mister,' says one of the boys, sort of careless like, just as if it was a common thing in Troy for elephants to be asleep in corn-fields."

"I know, that's the way little boys act," remarked Newman, sagaciously. "Say, George, tell about the time you took that car-load of animals over the Alleghanies."

After some preliminaries, Mr. Arstingstall responded to the invitation, and I heard a story that Victor Hugo might have turned into a masterpiece of description.

It was back in the winter of 1874, and circus trains were not fitted up as completely then as they are to-day. Arstingstall was in charge of a car packed with a medley of animals – lions and tigers in cages, some camels, some boxes of monkeys, some hyenas, a sacred bull from Tibet, and a young male elephant recently brought from Africa and as yet untrained. All these were on their way to Wisconsin, where the show was to make its spring opening in a couple of weeks, during which Arstingstall was expected to break the young elephant for driving in a chariot race.

At one end of the car was a stove against the bitter weather, but the elephant was chained at the other end, and as they came into the mountain region Arstingstall noticed that the elephant was suffering from cold, and at the first stop sent a man out for half a bucket of whisky, which he filled up with water and gave to the shivering animal. There is no use giving an elephant whisky unless you give him enough.

Now came a run of an hour and a half without stop, and during this time Arstingstall was alone in the animal-car, and about as busy as he ever expects to be on this earth. The trouble began when he unloosed the elephant's chains to lead him nearer the stove, for it looked as if his ears might freeze, as happens. Indeed, an elephant's ears will sometimes freeze so hard that big pieces drop off, while a frozen tail has been known to drop off entirely.

Against such chances Arstingstall wished to take precautions, so he led the elephant down the car, through the jumble of animals and cages, all the less prepared for mischief as this was rather a smallish elephant, not over six feet at the shoulder and showing only half-grown tusks. But they were sharp. Whether it was the whisky taking violent effect or some sudden hatred for his keeper – at any rate, that elephant, long before he reached the stove, set forth upon a murderous campaign the like of which Arstingstall had never known. Before he realized the danger, he felt the creature's trunk twisting around his neck, and he was hurled violently to the floor. There he lay helpless, while the elephant hesitated, one might fancy, whether to kneel on him and crush the life out or run him through with his tusks.

In that moment's pause Arstingstall made a last despairing effort, did the only thing he could do, sunk his teeth into the fleshy finger that curls around the end of an elephant's trunk and covers the opening so that no invading mouse may enter and work destruction. In all an elephant's great body, there is no spot so sensitive as this finger, and, with a scream of pain, the animal loosed his hold, whereupon Arstingstall sprang behind one of the cages. But the elephant was after him in a moment, swinging his trunk and trumpeting black murder. Arstingstall dodged behind the camels, behind the sacred bull, behind the stove. The elephant followed him everywhere, profiting by his smallness, and where he could not go himself he sent his curling trunk. Arstingstall, out of breath, climbed on top of the lion's cage, thinking to find some respite, but the red-ended trunk pursued him. Once more he tried biting tactics, and as the reaching finger swept along the cage top he seized it again in his teeth, and this time took a piece clean out of it, which was not pleasant for him, and less so for the elephant.

Now came a truce of some minutes, during which the elephant put forth screaming challenges, but kept at a distance, and allowed Arstingstall to reach the bunks beside the monkeys' cages. From the topmost bunk opened a trap-door in the car roof, the only exit, as the sliding side-doors were bolted. He might escape here to the back of the train, but that would leave a mad elephant in possession of the car, a thing not to be thought of. Thus far the elephant's rage had been directed solely against his keeper, but, the keeper gone, he might turn to destroying the other animals, might kill the sacred bull, or smash open the lions' cages – there was no telling what he might do. Arstingstall saw that his duty lay in that car. Whatever came, he must —

Crash! came the elephant again, and the lower berth was a wreck. And now the din became infernal with the roaring and bellowing and chattering of the other animals. Arstingstall did some quick thinking. There was sure death before him, unless he could somehow conquer this frenzied creature, whose rushes, coming harder and harder, must soon batter down the car, for all its stout oak timbers. Oh, for a weapon, a prod of some sort, a – like a flash the thought came; down at the other end was the pitchfork used for throwing fodder. There was his chance; he must get that pitchfork.

For the next hour it was a fight, man against elephant, for the winning and holding of that pitchfork. There was the whole story, and some day I hope to give its details, the moves and counter-moves, the strategy of brute against human, the conflict of brain against crude force. Arstingstall won, but by what patience and quiet nerve he alone knows. Foot by foot, cage by cage, he worked his way down the length of that car, the elephant now on the defensive, one would say, as if he realized what was planning, the man watching, resolute, biding his time, ready for a sudden rush, forced now and again to use his teeth upon that murderous trunk.

Finally, he got the pitchfork, and for a moment – what a moment that was! – held four prongs of flashing steel before the elephant's eyes, red-burning, unsubmissive. It was all over now, the battle was won, the animal knew, and stood still awaiting the blow. Down came the weapon, and right through the trunk went those four sharp points, down into the timbers under foot. Then Arstingstall braced the handle under a wall-beam, so that the elephant was nailed fast to the floor, nose down. And then the brute squealed his submission.

Three weeks later Arstingstall drove that elephant, perfectly broken, in a chariot race, and for years after there was not a better little bull in the herd than he.

IV

WE SEE MR. BOSTOCK MATCHED AGAINST A WILD LION AND HEAR ABOUT THE TIGER RAJAH

WHENEVER I made the round of cages with Mr. Bostock I was struck by the fierce behavior of a certain male lion with brown-and-yellow mane, – "Young Wallace," they called him, – who would set up a horrible snarling as soon as we came near, and rush at the bars as if to tear them down. And no matter how great the crowd, his wicked yellow eyes would always follow Bostock, and his deep, purring roar would continue and break into furious barks if the tamer approached the bars. Then his jaws would open and the red muzzle curl back from his tusks, and again and again he would strike the floor with blows that would crush a horse.

"Doesn't love me, does he?" said Bostock, one day.

"What's the matter with him?" I asked.

"Why, nothing; only he's a wild lion – never been tamed, you know; and I took him in the ring one day. He hasn't forgotten it – have you old boy? Hah!" Bostock stamped his foot suddenly, and Young Wallace crouched back, snarling still, a picture of hatred and fear.

"Yes," went on Bostock, "he's wild enough. You see, after the fire, I had to get animals from pretty much everywhere, and get 'em quick. Did some lively cabling, I can tell you; and pretty soon there were lions and tigers and leopards and – oh, everything from sacred bulls down to snakes, chasing across the ocean, and more than half of them had been loose in the jungle six months ago. It was a case of hustle, and we took what they sent us. Then we had fun breaking 'em in. Ask Madame Morelli if we didn't. She's in the hospital now from the claws of that fellow." He pointed to a sleepy-looking jaguar.

"Tell you how I came to take this wild lion into the ring. I had a press-agent who had been announcing out West what a wonder I was with wild beasts, and how I wasn't afraid of anything on legs, and so on. That was all very well while I was in Baltimore; but when I joined my other show after the fire, of course I had to live up to my reputation. And when they got up a traveling men's benefit out in Indianapolis and asked me to go into the ring with Young Wallace, why, there wasn't anything to do but go in. It wasn't quite so funny, though, as it seemed, for I might as well have taken a lion fresh from the wilds of Africa." Mr. Bostock smiled at the memory.

"Well, I did the thing, and got through all right. Young Wallace hasn't forgotten what happened to him. I got the best of him by a trick: had a little shelter cage placed inside the big arena cage, and at first I stood in the small one, and let the lion come at me. Oh, you'd better believe he came! I thought sure he'd jump clean over the thing and land on me; for there was no roof to my cage – only sides of wire netting. He didn't quite do it, though; and as soon as I saw he was getting rattled I stepped out quick and went at him hard with whip and club. And I drove him all over the ring, and the people went crazy, for he was the maddest lion you ever saw.

"That was all right as far as it went, but the people wanted more. They got to be out-and-out bloodthirsty there in Indianapolis. Wanted me to go in the ring with Rajah, that big tiger. See, over there! Come up, Rajah. Beauty, isn't he? Doesn't pay any special attention to me, does he? Nearly killed me, just the same. Look!" He lifted his cap and showed wide strips of plaster on his head.

"Point about Rajah was that he'd killed one of my keepers a couple of weeks before. Poor fellow got in his cage by mistake. And now these Indianapolis folks wanted to see me handle him. Between you and me, this keeper wasn't the first man Rajah had killed, and I didn't care much for the job. As for my wife – well, you can imagine how she felt when she heard I was going in with Rajah.

"On the morning of the performance I decided to have a rehearsal, and called on a few picked men to help me. I knew by the way he had killed his keeper that Rajah would go at my head if he attacked me at all, so I rigged up a mask of iron wire, and wore this strapped over my head like a little barrel. Then I drove him into the arena and began, while the others looked on anxiously. It's queer, sir, but that tiger went through his tricks as nice as you please, back and forth, up on his pedestal and down again, everything just as he used to do in the old days before he went bad. Never balked, never turned on me; just as good as gold.

"Soon as I was satisfied I drove him across the bridge and down the runway toward his den. I came about a dozen feet behind him, carrying a long wooden shield, as we generally do in a narrow space. Rajah reached his cage all right, and went in. You see, he couldn't go down the runway any farther, for the door opening outward barred the passage. Behind that door I had stationed a keeper, with orders to close it as soon as Rajah was inside; but Rajah went in so silently that the keeper didn't know it, the peep-holes in the door being too high for him to see very well. The result was that the cage door stood open for a few seconds after the tiger had gone in. It seems a little thing, but it nearly cost me my life; for when I came up Rajah's head was right back of the open door, and when I reached out my hand to close the door he sprang at me, and in a second had me down, with his teeth in my arm and his claws digging into my head through openings in the mask.