CHAPTER XXIX
"Guess I'll have to wash my hands of him," Collins told Johnny.
"I know Del Mar must have been right when he said he was the
limit, but I can't get a clue to it."
This followed upon a fight between Michael and Collins. Michael,
more morose than ever, had become even crusty-tempered, and,
scarcely with provocation at all, had attacked the man he hated,
failing, as ever, to put his teeth into him, and receiving, in
turn, a couple of smashing kicks under his jaw.
"He's like a gold-mine all right all right," Collins meditated,
"but I'm hanged if I can crack it, and he's getting grouchier
every day. Look at him. What'd he want to jump me for? I wasn't
rough with him. He's piling up a sour-ball that'll make him fight
a policeman some day."
A few minutes later, one of his patrons, a tow-headed young man
who was boarding and rehearsing three performing leopards at
Cedarwild, was asking Collins for the loan of an Airedale.
"I've only got one left now," he explained, "and I ain't safe
without two."
"What's happened to the other one?" the master-trainer queried.
"Alphonso--that's the big buck leopard--got nasty this morning and
settled his hash. I had to put him out of his misery. He was
gutted like a horse in the bull-ring. But he saved me all right.
If it hadn't been for him I'd have got a mauling. Alphonso gets
these bad streaks just about every so often. That's the second
dog he's killed for me."
Collins shook his head.
"Haven't got an Airedale," he said, and just then his eyes chanced
to fall on Michael. "Try out the Irish terrier," he suggested.
"They're like the Airedale in disposition. Pretty close cousins,
at any rate."
"I pin my faith on the Airedale when it comes to lion dogs," the
leopard man demurred.
"So's an Irish terrier a lion dog. Take that one there. Look at
the size and weight of him. Also, take it from me, he's all
spunk. He'll stand up to anything. Try him out. I'll lend him
to you. If he makes good I'll sell him to you cheap. An Irish
terrier for a leopard dog will be a novelty."
"If he gets fresh with them cats he'll find his finish," Johnny
told Collins, as Michael was led away by the leopard man.
"Then, maybe, the stage will lose a star," Collins answered, with
a shrug of shoulders. "But I'll have him off my chest anyway.
When a dog gets a perpetual sour-ball like that he's finished.
Never can do a thing with them. I've had them on my hands
before."
And Michael went to make the acquaintance of Jack, the surviving
Airedale, and to do his daily turn with the leopards. In the big
spotted cats he recognized the hereditary enemy, and, even before
he was thrust into the cage, his neck was all a-prickle as the
skin nervously tightened and the hair uprose stiff-ended. It was
a nervous moment for all concerned, the introduction of a new dog
into the cage. The tow-headed leopard man, who was billed on the
boards as Raoul Castlemon and was called Ralph by his intimates,
was already in the cage. The Airedale was with him, while outside
stood several men armed with iron bars and long steel forks.
These weapons, ready for immediate use, were thrust between the
bars as a menace to the leopards who were, very much against their
wills, to be made to perform.
They resented Michael's intrusion on the instant, spitting,
lashing their long tails, and crouching to spring. At the same
instant the trainer spoke with sharp imperativeness and raised his
whip, while the men on the outside lifted their irons and advanced
them intimidatingly into the cage. And the leopards, bitter-wise
of the taste of the iron, remained crouched, although they still
spat and whipped their tails angrily.
Michael was no coward. He did not slink behind the man for
protection. On the other hand, he was too sensible to rush to
attack such formidable creatures. What he did do, with bristling
neck-hair, was to stalk stiff-leggedly across the cage, turn about
with his face toward the danger, and stalk stiffly back, coming to
a pause alongside of Jack, who gave him a good-natured sniff of
greeting.
"He's the stuff," the trainer muttered in a curiously tense voice.
"They don't get his goat."
The situation was deservedly tense, and Ralph developed it with
cautious care, making no abrupt movements, his eyes playing
everywhere over dogs and leopards and the men outside with the
prods and bars. He made the savage cats come out of their crouch
and separate from one another. At his word of command, Jack
walked about among them. Michael, on his own initiative,
followed. And, like Jack, he walked very stiffly on his guard and
very circumspectly.
One of them, Alphonso, spat suddenly at him. He did not startle,
though his hair rippled erect and he bared his fangs in a silent
snarl. At the same moment the nearest iron bar was shoved in
threateningly close to Alphonso, who shifted his yellow eyes from
Michael to the bar and back again and did not strike out.
The first day was the hardest. After that the leopards accepted
Michael as they accepted Jack. No love was lost on either side,
nor were friendly overtures ever offered. Michael was quick to
realize that it was the men and dogs against the cats and that the
men and does must stand together. Each day he spent from an hour
to two hours in the cage, watching the rehearsing, with nothing
for him and Jack to do save stand vigilantly on guard. Sometimes,
when the leopards seemed better natured, Ralph even encouraged the
two dogs to lie down. But, on bad mornings, he saw to it that
they were ever ready to spring in between him and any possible
attack.
For the rest of the time Michael shared his large pen with Jack.
They were well cared for, as were all animals at Cedarwild,
receiving frequent scrubbings and being kept clean of vermin. For
a dog only three years old, Jack was very sedate. Either he had
never learned to play or had already forgotten how. On the other
hand, he was sweet-tempered and equable, and he did not resent the
early shows of crustiness which Michael made. And Michael quickly
ceased from being crusty and took pleasure in their quiet
companionship. There were no demonstrations. They were content
to lie awake by the hour, merely pleasantly aware of each other's
proximity.
Occasionally, Michael could hear Sara making a distant scene or
sending out calls which he knew were for him. Once she got away
from her keeper and located Michael coming out of the leopard
cage. With a shrill squeal of joy she was upon him, clinging to
him and chattering the hysterical tale of all her woes since they
had been parted. The leopard man looked on tolerantly and let her
have her few minutes. It was her keeper who tore her away in the
end, cling as she would to Michael, screaming all the while like a
harridan. When her hold was broken, she sprang at the man in a
fury, and, before he could throttle her to subjection, sank her
teeth into his thumb and wrist. All of which was provocative of
great hilarity to the onlookers, while her squalls and cries
excited the leopards to spitting and leaping against their bars.
And, as she was borne away, she set up a soft wailing like that of
a heart-broken child.
Although Michael proved a success with the leopards, Raoul
Castlemon never bought him from Collins. One morning, several
days later, the arena was vexed by uproar and commotion from the
animal cages. The excitement, starting with revolver shots, was
communicated everywhere. The various lions raised a great
roaring, and the many dogs barked frantically. All tricks in the
arena stopped, the animals temporarily unstrung and unable to
continue. Several men, among them Collins, ran in the direction
of the cages. Sara's keeper dropped her chain in order to follow.
"It's Alphonso--shillings to pence it is," Collins called to one
of his assistants who was running beside him. "He'll get Ralph
yet."
The affair was all but over and leaping to its culmination when
Collins arrived. Castlemon was just being dragged out, and as
Collins ran he could see the two men drop him to the ground so
that they might slam the cage-door shut. Inside, in so wildly
struggling a tangle on the floor that it was difficult to discern
what animals composed it, were Alphonso, Jack, and Michael looked
together. Men danced about outside, thrusting in with iron bars
and trying to separate them. In the far end of the cage were the
other two leopards, nursing their wounds and snarling and striking
at the iron rods that kept them out of the combat.
Sara's arrival and what followed was a matter of seconds.
Trailing her chain behind her, the little green monkey, the tailed
female who knew love and hysteria and was remote cousin to human
women, flashed up to the narrow cage-bars and squeezed through.
Simultaneously the tangle underwent a violent upheaval. Flung out
with such force as to be smashed against the near end of the cage,
Michael fell to the floor, tried to spring up, but crumpled and
sank down, his right shoulder streaming blood from a terrible
mauling and crushing. To him Sara leaped, throwing her arms
around him and mothering him up to her flat little hairy breast.
She uttered solicitous cries, and, as Michael strove to rise on
his ruined foreleg, scolded him with sharp gentleness and with her
arms tried to hold him away from the battle. Also, in an
interval, her eyes malevolent in her rage, she chattered piercing
curses at Alphonso.
A crowbar, shoved into his side, distracted the big leopard. He
struck at the weapon with his paw, and, when it was poked into him
again, flung himself upon it, biting the naked iron with his
teeth. With a second fling he was against the cage bars, with a
single slash of paw ripping down the forearm of the man who had
poked him. The crowbar was dropped as the man leaped away.
Alphonso flung back on Jack, a sorry antagonist by this time, who
could only pant and quiver where he lay in the welter of what was
left of him.
Michael had managed to get up on his three legs and was striving
to stumble forward against the restraining arms of Sara. The mad
leopard was on the verge of springing upon them when deflected by
another prod of the iron. This time he went straight at the man,
fetching up against the cage-bars with such fierceness as to shake
the structure.
More men began thrusting with more rods, but Alphonso was not to
be balked. Sara saw him coming and screamed her shrillest and
savagest at him. Collins snatched a revolver from one of the men.
"Don't kill him!" Castlemon cried, seizing Collins's arm.
The leopard man was in a bad way himself. One arm dangled
helplessly at his side, while his eyes, filling with blood from a
scalp wound, he wiped on the master-trainer's shoulder so that he
might see.
"He's my property," he protested. "And he's worth a hundred sick
monkeys and sour-balled terriers. Anyway, we'll get them out all
right. Give me a chance.--Somebody mop my eyes out, please. I
can't see. I've used up my blank cartridges. Has anybody any
blanks?"
One moment Sara would interpose her body between Michael and the
leopard, which was still being delayed by the prodding irons; and
the next moment she would turn to screech at the fanged cat is if
by very advertisement of her malignancy she might intimidate him
into keeping back.
Michael, dragging her with him, growling and bristling, staggered
forward a couple of three-legged steps, gave at the ruined
shoulder, and collapsed. And then Sara did the great deed. With
one last scream of utmost fury, she sprang full into the face of
the monstrous cat, tearing and scratching with hands and feet, her
mouth buried into the roots of one of its stubby ears. The
astounded leopard upreared, with his fore-paws striking and
ripping at the little demon that would not let go.
The fight and the life in the little green monkey lasted a short
ten seconds. But this was sufficient for Collins to get the door
ajar and with a quick clutch on Michael's hind-leg jerk him out
and to the ground.
