CHAPTER XXIII
THE MAD ELEPHANT
BUT Ike was equal to the emergency. With one motion, he had leaped to the foot of the swaying pole, which held up a great weight of wet canvas, and he had grabbed the rope which had slipped on account of the manner in which the tent swayed.
“Come on, you fellows!” yelled Ike to his men.
They came with a rush. The rope was slipping from the grasp of the head canvasman, but with the aid of his sturdy helpers he managed to hold it. They took a turn about a tent stake driven deep into the ground, and the fallen pole was held in place.
“That was a close call,” whispered Sam to Jack.
The boy clown nodded. He had had a glimpse of the dangers that beset a circus, and he had no liking for them. Only by a narrow margin had a terrible tragedy been averted.
But now the band was playing. The crowd, that had seen the masterful manner in which Ike saved the pole from falling, was becoming quieter. The panic was dying away, though the storm was now fiercer than ever. The big tent withstood the blast, however, and the maddened throng, being turned back from rushing at the steep bank, swerved around and poured out of the main entrance and into the driving rain.
“Those who wish to remain until after the shower is over may do so!” shouted Mr. Paine, when the band had done playing. “We will not take the tent down for some time yet.”
There were cries of thanks from many who had no liking for going out and getting drenched. Many did go, however, for they lived at a distance and wanted to get home. Others, more nervous, still had some fear that the tent would fall.
“We can’t do much in this storm, anyhow,” said the manager to some of his men, who had gathered near him. “Get the seats out of the way, and we’ll take the tent down as soon as it stops blowing. The other stuff can go, and we’ll hold a few cars for the canvas and rush it through on an extra.”
Half an hour later the storm had practically ceased, and then came the hard work of taking down a wet tent. You boys who have gone camping, and been obliged to handle your small tent when it was soaking wet, have some idea what it means to handle tons of damp canvas. Yet the circus men went at it as if it was the easiest thing in the world, and to such a system had they reduced the work that the tent was down in a short time, and packed in wagons, ready to run on the flat cars.
Jack and Sam, when they saw that the danger was over, had gone to the train, and, with the other performers, were soon being whirled to the next town where the show was to give an exhibition.
“Well, this is something like weather,” remarked Sam the next morning, as he peered out of the sleeping-car window. The sun was shining brightly and the air was soft and warm. There was scarcely a trace of yesterday’s storm, though this town was but thirty miles from the one where the tent had so nearly fallen.
“I dreamed I was being smothered under a lot of canvas coverings,” said Jack.
“I nearly was, once,” declared Sam simply.
“How?”
“Just like last night. Tent blew down in a tornado, and the whole show, and a big crowd, was caught. Pole hit me on the head, and I lay there unconscious and slowly smothering. They got me out in time, but fifteen people were killed.”
“This is a more dangerous life than I thought,” mused Jack.
“Dangerous? I guess it is. Folks on the outside don’t know anything about it. They think being in a circus is fun. I wish some of them had about six months of it.”
The performances that afternoon and evening went off well, and for a week after that the circus played in good weather. The show was gradually working back east, and as there had been big crowds, and no mishaps to speak of, every one was in good humor.
Jack had no further trouble with the ugly ringmaster and Ted Chester, and his act was now looked upon as one of the most “drawing” features of the show. Mr. Paine promised the lad if he would stay with him the next season that he would pay our hero twenty-five dollars a week.
Jack did not know what to do. He had quite a sum saved up, but not enough to go to China with, and yet he desired to go and seek his parents. He disliked to do as Sam had suggested, and appeal to the professor, although he felt that it might be the best plan. If no news had been received from China, Jack made up his mind he would remain with the circus for another summer, but there was one difficulty in the way.
The show had no winter season, and Jack would be out of a job until next spring. He would have to live in the meantime, and, unless he could get a place in some theatre, which was doubtful, all his savings might go to support him while the show was in winter quarters. It was a harder problem to solve than he had any idea of, and he decided he would talk with Sam about it.
“That’s what I’ll do,” Jack decided one day after the afternoon performance had come to a close. “I’ll ask him what he would do.”
Sam was not in the dressing-tent, and on inquiring where he was Jack was told that his friend was in the animal tent talking to one of the trainers. Thither the boy clown went.
As he passed the roped-off enclosure where the elephants were chained to heavy stakes, Jack saw Bill Henyon, the trainer of the huge beasts, rather carefully regarding Ajax, the largest tusker in the herd.
“Going to put him through some new tricks, Mr. Henyon?” asked Jack, for he had made friends with the elephant trainer. The man shook his head.
“Something’s wrong with Ajax,” he said. “I don’t like the way he’s acting. He’s ugly with me, and he never was that way before. I’m afraid I’m going to have trouble. He acts to me as if he was going to have a mad spell.”
“Do elephants get mad?” asked Jack.
“Well, not in the way dogs do, but there comes a certain time when they get off their feed, or when they have distemper or something like that, and then they go off in a rage, destroying everything they come up against. When an elephant gets that way in the wild state they call him a ‘rogue,’ and even the best hunters steer clear of him. He’s a solitary brute, that kills for the love of killing.”
“Do you think Ajax will get that way?”
“I hope not, yet I don’t like the way he’s behaving. I think I’ll double shackle him.”
Jack passed on, glad that it was not his duty to take charge of the big ungainly brutes. Mr. Henyon proceeded to fasten Ajax to the ground with heavy chains about the animal’s feet.
“Now if you want to go off on a tantrum, you’ll have hard work getting away,” remarked the elephant man.
Ajax looked at his keeper with his wicked little eyes, and, lifting up his trunk, gave a shrill trumpet. Nor was the animal trainer’s mind made any more easy as he noticed that Ajax was not doing his accustomed swaying motion, which all those big beasts, at least in captivity, seem to be always doing. Clearly something was wrong with Ajax.
Jack found Sam, and had a long talk with his friend. The head clown again advised the boy to write to the professor, and see if any news had come from the boy’s folks.
“If they’re still somewhere in China,” said Sam, “you had better stick with the show. Maybe I can help you get a place in some theatre this winter.”
“All right, I’ll do as you say,” agreed Jack. “I’ll write to-morrow. But now I’ve got to go and fix some things on my airship. I broke a hoop in the bag this afternoon.”
Jack started for the property tent, and he had scarcely reached it when, from the menagerie, there came such a terrifying yell, mingled with a trumpet of rage, that every one who heard it stood still in horror.
“That’s an elephant!” cried Mr. Delafield. “Something’s gone wrong!”
“Ajax! It must be Ajax!” shouted Jack. “Bill told me he was acting queer a while ago!”
“Then he’s killed some one,” exclaimed the property man, as he rushed from his tent. “I know that yell. I heard one like it once before! Ajax has killed a man!”
Jack ran out of the tent after Mr. Delafield. As he got outside he heard the shrill trumpet again. Then came a rattle of chains, and a side of the animal tent bulged out.
“Ajax’s loose! Ajax’s loose!” cried a man, and the next instant the mad elephant, which had broken the double chains, rushed from the tent, trunk in the air, trumpeting shrilly, its wicked little eyes agleam with rage.