MY stars!” said Billy, as he cast a frightened look around, “I don’t wonder now that my friend Bob ran for his life and hid under the barn when he saw animals like these coming toward him. I’d run too if I could, but I can’t now. If all these people feel safe and can have a good time, I guess I can take care of myself.”
Having in a great measure collected his wits by this time, and his heart no longer beating so that he could scarcely breathe, the result of the excitement of rushing past the ticket takers, he made a more careful survey of his surroundings and quickly decided on his course of action.
He saw that he was in the section of the great tent devoted to the wild animals and freaks. As all readers know just how the cages are placed around the sides of the tent, with the elephants and camels in the middle; and how the human skeleton, the fat lady, bearded woman, hairy man, dwarf, giant and such like freaks are seated on a raised and rickety platform not far from the elephants, we will not stop to describe the scene that now presented itself to Billy Whiskers’ wondering gaze. It looked grand to him and he was just as excited as boys and girls are when they find themselves inside the great tent with all its wonders spread out before them.
“I’ll first call on the animals and make friends with those that look pleasant and answer good-naturedly the few questions which I want to ask,” thought Billy. “Then I will go in and see the Circus that the billboards at The Corners had so much to say about, and especially the clown who makes Tom and Harry Treat laugh so that they can never mention him without almost splitting themselves. I didn’t like all the things they said about him. If he makes those poor horses race too fast and strikes people with that board of his that cracks so, I shall be tempted to give him a dose of his own medicine. I am not so meek yet, in spite of what Terrence Bull Pup is pleased to say, that I can stand it to see horses abused or innocent actors hurt by an outlandish looking clown.”
What really happened to the clown, owing to Billy, we shall hear a little later.
So with only the thought to bother him that some member of the Treat family might spy him and take him out for safe-keeping before he had seen all the sights, Billy started right in at the cage nearest to hand. As for the Treats, he knew that there was nothing to do but take his chances and that they were pretty good considering the great size of the tent and the thousands of people in it.
As he approached the cage in question, a big one, he discovered that it contained six or eight animals about the size of his friend Bob, the dog at Cloverleaf, though not nearly so pleasant to look at.
“Indeed,” thought Billy to himself, “I’m glad that crowd are where they can’t get at me. I don’t like their looks. I’ll just see who they are and pass along.”
This was easier said than done for every one of the group of prisoners was restlessly pacing up and down, evidently looking for some way to get out.
It was a minute or two before Billy was able to catch the eye of one of them for they seemed to never look at anyone, afraid to, in fact. At length the largest, who seemed bolder than the rest, caught sight of Billy Whiskers and was so surprised that he stopped short to take another look. As this was the chance Billy had been waiting for, he quickly improved it.
“How are you?” said he. “Do you mind telling me the name of your interesting and lively family? I am a stranger here and want to learn all I can. As you see, I am an animal myself and have none but the friendliest feeling for all our race.”
This polite speech won for Billy an answer, as he felt sure it would.
“How do I do?” snapped the caged beast. “I’m most unhappy. We are wolves. I, myself, came from the boundless steppes of faraway Russia where I and my people for hundreds of years, have been wont to roam wild and free and far. We are all robbers and live by plundering farmers. When quite young, I grew so bold that I was finally captured alive while eating a sheep I had killed. After endless travels over land and sea, I arrived in a dreadful place called New York, and was shortly sold to this show and put into a cage with these other wretches and ever since we have been a spectacle to crowds of people day after day. I have no words with which to tell you, sir goat, how we hate this life.”
The snarl with which he said these last words was so fierce that it made Billy fairly shiver.
Without waiting for a reply, the big wolf went on:
“My companions are no less unhappy than I am, though there is little in common between us as we have been collected from all over. There is no quarter of the globe in which branches of our family do not exist. We never stop trying to find a way to get out, and if we ever do, we will make some of these cruel people who have come here to look at us with never a thought of pity for our forlorn condition, wish they had stayed at home. There is that little rosy-cheeked, brown-eyed boy with his mother. He’s about three years old, I guess, just the right age to be tender eating. How I’d like to get my jaws into his throat!”
The old wolf smiled wickedly as he said it.
Billy looked to see whom he meant, and to his horror saw his own little Dick holding fast to his mother’s hand. They had passed within a few feet of Billy, but had not seen him. He was thankful for that because he felt that he could never look a member of the Treat family in the face again if he had been caught hobnobbing with the great Russian wolf, especially if it ever leaked out what the wolf had said.
Billy’s nerves were so shaken and he felt so sick after hearing the dreadful threats the wolf had made that he crept between the wheels under the cage and lay down behind the wooden side of the cage which was banked against the far wheels. Here he had time to recover his composure in peace and pull himself together.
It was not long, of course, before Billy felt well enough to go on.
Strange to tell, the more he thought of the old wolf’s story, the less he blamed him for being so savage. He realized that in picking out little Dick as the one on whom he would like to wreak his vengeance, he had not known that he was Billy’s dearest friend and that Billy had once risked his own life to save him from drowning in the old swimming hole, and was more than willing to do so again if the necessity ever arose. Finally Billy owned to himself if he had been treated as the wolf had been, captured, taken far from home, penned up in a narrow cage to be looked at by thousands of people day after day, year in and year out, with not the faintest hope or chance of escape, he would feel the same way. The very thought of such a fate made him quake and wish he had stayed at home.
Billy crept out of his hiding-place and slipped quietly past the next three or four cages without stopping to ask any questions, fearing that the wolves would see him and make an uproar trying to call him back to hear more of their sad story and to persuade him to find some means for their escape. Billy was always tender-hearted when it came to the cases of those in trouble and suffering, and he knew it would hurt his feelings to be obliged to disappoint even that pack of wolves, thieves and robbers though he knew them to be.
By just glancing sidewise at the cages he thus passed and observing the labels on each he was able to learn the names of the animals he felt obliged to skip. They were the North American panther or mountain lion, red deer, wild boar, and hyenas. The last were such ugly, awkward, unclean and altogether terrifying looking beasts that Billy did not mind not making their personal acquaintance, though he would have liked to exchange greetings with the beautiful, mild-looking, gentle-acting deer; and to have put a question or two to the mountain lion about his diet. He was crouched in one corner of his cage and looked for all the world as though he were ready to spring upon some victim.
The cage before which Billy now stopped was marked in big gilt letters:
AFRICAN LION, KING OF BEASTS.
Somehow this did not please Billy Whiskers. Though he would not have admitted it, down deep in his heart he thought that he himself was probably the king of beasts, and it did not suit him to see that another was thus publicly given this proud title.
“I’ll stop and see what he looks like,” thought Billy. “I don’t believe he is so much after all. If I get the chance I’ll make him feel small enough.”
All this time Billy had not been able to see the lion on account of the crowd of people before his cage. At last he squeezed to the front row and took his first look. That alone would have been quite enough to convince Billy that he was justly entitled to be called king of beasts, but other proof was not lacking, for as soon as the great, shaggy-headed lion saw a goat was gazing at him he was so surprised that he let out a terrific roar.
Even the people were startled and shrank back. As for Billy, he would certainly have keeled over in a fit of fright had not the legs of the on-lookers crowded against his sides so tight that he was held up in spite of himself. His giddiness passed away in a minute or two, but came near overcoming him a second time when he perceived that the great lion was addressing his remarks to him.
In telling the story afterward, Billy could never remember exactly what was said, he was so rattled at the time.
In spite of the lion’s great voice and savage appearance, Billy was surprised to find that his remarks were not unkind so far as he was personally concerned, but perfectly shocking about his captivity, the sort of life he was obliged to live, the dead meat he had to eat, the people who looked at him and never once remembered the suffering he daily endured.
“Little goat,” roared the lion, “I wish I could change places with you. Though I am called king of beasts, I would gladly give the title and all that goes with it to any free member of the animal kingdom, little or big, who will exchange his freedom with my captivity. I came from over the sea. My home is in the wild African desert where for ages my ancestors have reigned supreme. Boundless was our kingdom and no one there dared to oppose our will. My food I got by strength, and stealth, and cunning. Like all my race, I scorned to eat that which any other had killed. All went well with me and mine until a strange terror crept over the length and breadth of our wide domain. I heard the story, and laughed, when I heard it, that black men from the coast country were coming to the desert to capture the lions, that they had been bidden to do this by the king of the Belgians who in some way had cast an evil spell over them so that they had no choice but to obey his will, that if they failed of success they were tortured, maimed and even put to death. It was said that we lions were valuable and could be sold for much gold and that was why we were wanted.
“But why do I tell you, little goat, all this sad story? Because I can see that while you are as afraid as death of me, you are still sorry for me and sympathize with me in my awful sufferings.
“When about a year old, large and strong for my age, I was caught in one of the cunning traps set for us. Though my case was a hopeless one from the first, when the black men came to take me, I fought as I had never fought before. Two of my captors fell, never to rise again. With a stroke of my paw I had crushed the skull of each. Others of them were frightfully mangled and wounded. But it was all of no use. I was brought to America, sold to this show, and here I have been ever since.”
The other things he said Billy Whiskers would never try even to repeat. They were too dreadful. His one hope seemed to be that he might some day break out of his cage when a great crowd of people were before it, spring upon them and kill right and left until he should feel that he had paid off the score of all his wrongs and sufferings.
Billy tried to comfort the lion for he was truly sorry for him. He realized what a magnificent beast he was and what a wretched life it must be shut up all the time in one little cage. He told him, however, that it would be wrong for him to visit his wrath on the innocent people who came to admire him if he ever succeeded in breaking out, but that he would be justified in dealing with the wicked king of the Belgians as he saw fit if he were ever able to get his claws on him.
Billy then sadly said farewell, for although all this conversation had taken place in the animal language in much less time than it takes to tell it, he now felt that he must hasten on as there was still much to see and hear.
Turning about, Billy discovered that the cage of the big African lion was just opposite the place, near the centre of the tent, where the elephants were stationed. So Billy went to look at them, hoping for more cheerful things than the stories of the wolf and lion.
What he found the next chapter will tell.