CHAPTER XXXIII
For two years Michael sang his way over the United States, to fame
for himself and to fortune for Jacob Henderson. There was never
any time off. So great was his success, that Henderson refused
flattering offers to cross the Atlantic to show in Europe. But
off-time did come to Michael when Henderson fell ill of typhoid in
Chicago.
It was a three-months' vacation for Michael, who, well treated but
still a prisoner, spent it in a caged kennel in Mulcachy's Animal
Home. Mulcachy, one of Harris Collins's brightest graduates, had
emulated his master by setting up in business in Chicago, where he
ran everything with the same rigid cleanliness, sanitation, and
scientific cruelty. Michael received nothing but the excellent
food and the cleanliness; but, a solitary and brooding prisoner in
his cage, he could not help but sense the atmosphere of pain and
terror about him of the animals being broken for the delight of
men.
Mulcachy had originated aphorisms of his own which he continually
enunciated, among which were:
"Take it from me, when an animal won't give way to pain, it can't
be broke. Pain is the only school-teacher."
"Just as you got to take the buck out of a broncho, you've got to
take the bite out of a lion."
"You can't break animals with a feather duster. The thicker the
skull the thicker the crowbar."
"They'll always beat you in argument. First thing is to club the
argument out of them."
"Heart-bonds between trainers and animals! Son, that's dope for
the newspaper interviewer. The only heart-bond I know is a stout
stick with some iron on the end of it."
"Sure you can make 'm eat outa your hand. But the thing to watch
out for is that they don't eat your hand. A blank cartridge in
the nose just about that time is the best preventive I know."
There were days when all the air was vexed with roars and squalls
of ferocity and agony from the arena, until the last animal in the
cages was excited and ill at ease. In truth, since it was
Mulcachy's boast that he could break the best animal living, no
end of the hardest cases fell to his hand. He had built a
reputation for succeeding where others failed, and, endowed with
fearlessness, callousness, and cunning, he never let his
reputation wane. There was nothing he dared not tackle, and, when
he gave up an animal, the last word was said. For it, remained
nothing but to be a cage-animal, in solitary confinement, pacing
ever up and down, embittered with all the world of man and roaring
its bitterness to the most delicious enthrillment of the pay-
spectators.
During the three months spent by Michael in Mulcachy's Animal
Home, occurred two especially hard cases. Of course, the daily
chant of ordinary pain of training went on all the time through
the working hours, such as of "good" bears and lions and tigers
that were made amenable under stress, and of elephants derricked
and gaffed into making the head-stand or into the beating of a
bass drum. But the two cases that were exceptional, put a mood of
depression and fear into all the listening animals, such as humans
might experience in an ante-room of hell, listening to the
flailing and the flaying of their fellows who had preceded them
into the torture-chamber.
The first was of the big Indian tiger. Free-born in the jungle,
and free all his days, master, according to his nature and
prowess, of all other living creatures including his fellow-
tigers, he had come to grief in the end; and, from the trap to the
cramped cage, by elephant-back and railroad and steamship, ever in
the cramped cage, he had journeyed across seas and continents to
Mulcachy's Animal Home. Prospective buyers had examined but not
dared to purchase. But Mulcachy had been undeterred. His own
fighting blood leapt hot at sight of the magnificent striped cat.
It was a challenge of the brute in him to excel. And, two weeks
of hell, for the great tiger and for all the other animals, were
required to teach him his first lesson.
Ben Bolt he had been named, and he arrived indomitable and
irreconcilable, though almost paralysed from eight weeks of cramp
in his narrow cage which had restricted all movement. Mulcachy
should have undertaken the job immediately, but two weeks were
lost by the fact that he had got married and honeymooned for that
length of time. And in that time, in a large cage of concrete and
iron, Ben Bolt had exercised and recovered the use of his muscles,
and added to his hatred of the two-legged things, puny against him
in themselves, who by trick and wile had so helplessly imprisoned
him.
So, on this morning when hell yawned for him, he was ready and
eager to meet all comers. They came, equipped with formulas,
nooses, and forked iron bars. Five of them tossed nooses in
through the bars upon the floor of his cage. He snarled and
struck at the curling ropes, and for ten minutes was a grand and
impossible wild creature, lacking in nothing save the wit and the
patience possessed by the miserable two-legged things. And then,
impatient and careless of the inanimate ropes, he paused, snarling
at the men, with one hind foot resting inside a noose. The next
moment, craftily lifted up about the girth of his leg by an iron
fork, the noose tightened and the bite of it sank home into his
flesh and pride. He leaped, he roared, he was a maniac of
ferocity. Again and again, almost burning their palms, he tore
the rope smoking through their hands. But ever they took in the
slack and paid it out again, until, ere he was aware, a similar
noose tightened on his fore-leg. What he had done was nothing to
what he now did. But he was stupid and impatient. The man-
creatures were wise and patient, and a third leg and a fourth leg
were finally noosed, so that, with many men tailing on to the
ropes, he was dragged ignominiously on his side to the bars, and,
ignominiously, through the bars were hauled his four legs, his
chiefest weapons of offence after his terribly fanged jaws.
And then a puny man-creature, Mulcachy himself, dared openly and
brazenly to enter the cage and approach him. He sprang to be at
him, or, rather, strove so to spring, but was withstrained by his
four legs through the bars which he could not draw back and get
under him. And Mulcachy knelt beside him, dared kneel beside him,
and helped the fifth noose over his head and round his neck. Then
his head was drawn to the bars as helplessly as his legs had been
drawn through. Next, Mulcachy laid hands on him, on his head, on
his ears, on his very nose within an inch of his fangs; and he
could do nothing but snarl and roar and pant for breath as the
noose shut off his breathing.
Quivering, not with fear but with rage, Ben Bolt perforce endured
the buckling around his throat of a thick, broad collar of leather
to which was attached a very stout and a very long trailing rope.
After that, when Mulcachy had left the cage, one by one the five
nooses were artfully manipulated off his legs and his neck.
Again, after this prodigious indignity, he was free--within his
cage. He went up into the air. With returning breath he roared
his rage. He struck at the trailing rope that offended his
nerves, clawed at the trap of the collar that encased his neck,
fell, rolled over, offended his body-nerves more and more by
entangling contacts with the rope, and for half an hour exhausted
himself in the futile battle with the inanimate thing. Thus
tigers are broken.
At the last, wearied, even with sensations of sickness from the
nervous strain put upon himself by his own anger, he lay down in
the middle of the floor, lashing his tail, hating with his eyes,
and accepting the clinging thing about his neck which he had
learned he could not get rid of.
To his amazement, if such a thing be possible in the mental
processes of a tiger, the rear door to his cage was thrown open
and left open. He regarded the aperture with belligerent
suspicion. No one and no threatening danger appeared in the
doorway. But his suspicion grew. Always, among these man-
animals, occurred what he did not know and could not comprehend.
His preference was to remain where he was, but from behind,
through the bars of the cage, came shouts and yells, the lash of
whips, and the painful thrusts of the long iron forks. Dragging
the rope behind him, with no thought of escape, but in the hope
that he would get at his tormentors, he leaped into the rear
passage that ran behind the circle of permanent cages. The
passage way was deserted and dark, but ahead he saw light. With
great leaps and roars, he rushed in that direction, arousing a
pandemonium of roars and screams from the animals in the cages.
He bounded through the light, and into the light, dazzled by the
brightness of it, and crouched down, with long, lashing tail, to
orient himself to the situation. But it was only another and
larger cage that he was in, a very large cage, a big, bright
performing-arena that was all cage. Save for himself, the arena
was deserted, although, overhead, suspended from the roof-bars,
were block-and-tackle and seven strong iron chairs that drew his
instant suspicion and caused him to roar at them.
For half an hour he roamed the arena, which was the greatest area
of restricted freedom he had known in the ten weeks of his
captivity. Then, a hooked iron rod, thrust through the bars,
caught and drew the bight of his trailing rope into the hands of
the men outside. Immediately ten of them had hold of it, and he
would have charged up to the bars at them had not, at that moment,
Mulcachy entered the arena through a door on the opposite side.
No bars stood between Ben Bolt and this creature, and Ben Bolt
charged him. Even as he charged he was aware of suspicion in that
the small, fragile man-creature before him did not flee or crouch
down, but stood awaiting him.
Ben Bolt never reached him. First, with an access of caution, he
craftily ceased from his charge, and, crouching, with lashing
tail, studied the man who seemed so easily his. Mulcachy was
equipped with a long-lashed whip and a sharp-pronged fork of iron.
In his belt, loaded with blank cartridges, was a revolver.
Bellying closer to the ground, Ben Bolt advanced upon him,
creeping slowly like a cat stalking a mouse. When he came to his
next pause, which was within certain leaping distance, he crouched
lower, gathered himself for the leap, then turned his head to
regard the men at his back outside the cage. The trailing rope in
their hands, to his neck, he had forgotten.
"Now you might as well be good, old man," Mulcachy addressed him
in soft, caressing tones, taking a step toward him and holding in
advance the iron fork.
This merely incensed the huge, magnificent creature. He rumbled a
low, tense growl, flattened his ears back, and soared into the
air, his paws spread so that the claws stood out like talons, his
tail behind him as stiff and straight as a rod. Neither did the
man crouch or flee, nor did the beast attain to him. At the
height of his leap the rope tightened taut on his neck, causing
him to describe a somersault and fall heavily to the floor on his
side.
Before he could regain his feet, Mulcachy was upon him, shouting
to his small audience: "Here's where we pound the argument out of
him!" And pound he did, on the nose with the butt of the whip,
and jab he did, with the iron fork to the ribs. He rained a
hurricane of blows and jabs on the animal's most sensitive parts.
Ever Ben Bolt leaped to retaliate, but was thrown by the ten men
tailed on to the rope, and, each time, even as he struck the floor
on his side, Mulcachy was upon him, pounding, smashing, jabbing.
His pain was exquisite, especially that of his tender nose. And
the creature who inflicted the pain was as fierce and terrible as
he, even more so because he was more intelligent. In but few
minutes, dazed by the pain, appalled by his inability to rend and
destroy the man who inflicted it, Ben Bolt lost his courage. He
fled ignominiously before the little, two-legged creature who was
more terrible than himself who was a full-grown Royal Bengal
tiger. He leaped high in the air in sheer panic; he ran here and
there, with lowered head, to avoid the rain of pain. He even
charged the sides of the arena, springing up and vainly trying to
climb the slippery vertical bars.
Ever, like an avenging devil, Mulcachy pursued and smashed and
jabbed, gritting through his teeth: "You will argue, will you?
I'll teach you what argument is! There! Take that! And that!
And that!"
"Now I've got him afraid of me, and the rest ought to be easy," he
announced, resting off and panting hard from his exertions, while
the great tiger crouched and quivered and shrank back from him
against the base of the arena-bars. "Take a five-minute spell,
you fellows, and we'll got our breaths."
Lowering one of the iron chairs, and attaching it firmly in its
place on the floor, Mulcachy prepared for the teaching of the
first trick. Ben Bolt, jungle-born and jungle-reared, was to be
compelled to sit in the chair in ludicrous and tragic imitation of
man-creatures. But Mulcachy was not quite ready. The first
lesson of fear of him must be reiterated and driven home.
Stepping to a near safe distance, he lashed Ben Bolt on the nose.
He repeated it. He did it a score of times, and scores of times.
Turn his head as he would, ever Ben Bolt received the bite of the
whip on his fearfully bruised nose; for Mulcachy was as expert as
a stage-driver in his manipulation of the whip, and unerringly the
lash snapped and cracked and stung Ben Bolt's nose wherever Ben
Bolt at the moment might have it.
When it became maddeningly unendurable, he sprang, only to be
jerked back by the ten strong men who held the rope to his neck.
And wrath, and ferocity, and intent to destroy, passed out utterly
from the tiger's inflamed brain, until he knew fear, again and
again, always fear and only fear, utter and abject fear, of this
human mite who searched him with such pain.
Then the lesson of the first trick was taken up. Mulcachy tapped
the chair sharply with the butt of the whip to draw the animal's
attention to it, then flicked the whip-lash sharply on his nose.
At the same moment, an attendant, through the bars behind, drove
an iron fork into his ribs to force him away from the bars and
toward the chair. He crouched forward, then shrank back against
the side-bars. Again the chair was rapped, his nose was lashed,
his ribs were jabbed, and he was forced by pain toward the chair.
This went on interminably--for a quarter of an hour, for half an
hour, for an hour; for the men-animals had the patience of gods
while he was only a jungle-brute. Thus tigers are broken. And
the verb means just what it means. A performing animal is BROKEN.
Something BREAKS in an animal of the wild ere such an animal
submits to do tricks before pay-audiences.
Mulcachy ordered an assistant to enter the arena with him. Since
he could not compel the tiger directly to sit in the chair, he
must employ other means. The rope about Ben Bolt's neck was
passed up through the bars and rove through the block-and-tackle.
At signal from Mulcachy, the ten men hauled away. Snarling,
struggling, choking, in a fresh madness of terror at this new
outrage, Ben Bolt was slowly hoisted by his neck up from the
floor, until, quite clear of it, whirling, squirming, battling,
suspended by his neck like a man being hanged, his wind was shut
off and he began to suffocate. He coiled and twisted, the
splendid muscles of his body enabling him almost to tie knots in
it.
The block-and-tackle, running like a trolley on the overhead
track, made it possible for the assistant to seize his tail and
drag him through the air till he was above the chair. His
helpless body guided thus by the tail, his chest jabbed by the
iron fork in Mulcachy's hands, the rope was suddenly lowered, and
Ben Bolt, with swimming brain, found himself seated in the chair.
On the instant he leaped for the floor, received a blow on the
nose from the heavy whip-handle, and had a blank cartridge fired
straight into his nostril. His madness of pain and fear was
multiplied. He sprang away in flight, but Mulcachy's voice rang
out, "Hoist him!" and he slowly rose in the air again, hanging by
his neck, and began to strangle.
Once more he was swung into position by his tail, jabbed in the
chest, and lowered suddenly on the run--but so suddenly, with a
frantic twist of his body on his part, that he fell violently
across the chair on his belly. What little wind was left him from
the strangling, seemed to have been ruined out of him by the
violence of the fall. The glare in his eyes was maniacal and
swimming. He panted frightfully, and his head rolled back and
forth. Slaver dripped from his mouth, blood ran from his nose.
"Hoist away!" Mulcachy shouted.
And again, struggling frantically as the tightening collar shut
off his wind, Ben Bolt was slowly lifted into the air. So wildly
did he struggle that, ere his hind feet were off the floor, he
pranced back and forth, so that when he was heaved clear his body
swung like a huge pendulum. Over the chair, he was dropped, and
for a fraction of a second the posture was his of a man sitting in
a chair. Then he uttered a terrible cry and sprang.
It was neither snarl, nor growl, nor roar, that cry, but a sheer
scream, as if something had broken inside of him. He missed
Mulcachy by inches, as another blank cartridge exploded up his
other nostril and as the men with the rope snapped him back so
abruptly as almost to break his neck.
This time, lowered quickly, he sank into the chair like a half-
empty sack of meal, and continued so to sink, until, crumpling at
the middle, his great tawny head falling forward, he lay on the
floor unconscious. His tongue, black and swollen, lolled out of
his mouth. As buckets of water were poured on him he groaned and
moaned. And here ended the first lesson.
"It's all right," Mulcachy said, day after day, as the teaching
went on. "Patience and hard work will pull off the trick. I've
got his goat. He's afraid of me. All that's required is time,
and time adds to value with an animal like him."
Not on that first day, nor on the second, nor on the third, did
the requisite something really break inside Ben Bolt. But at the
end of a fortnight it did break. For the day came when Mulcachy
rapped the chair with his whip-butt, when the attendant through
the bars jabbed the iron fork into Ben Bolt's ribs, and when Ben
Bolt, anything but royal, slinking like a beaten alley-cat, in
pitiable terror, crawled over to the chair and sat down in it like
a man. He now was an "educated" tiger. The sight of him, so
sitting, tragically travestying man, has been considered, and is
considered, "educative" by multitudinous audiences.
The second case, that of St. Elias, was a harder one, and it was
marked down against Mulcachy as one of his rare failures, though
all admitted that it was an unavoidable failure. St. Elias was a
huge monster of an Alaskan bear, who was good-natured and even
facetious and humorous after the way of bears. But he had a will
of his own that was correspondingly as stubborn as his bulk. He
could be persuaded to do things, but he would not tolerate being
compelled to do things. And in the trained-animal world, where
turns must go off like clockwork, is little or no space for
persuasion. An animal must do its turn, and do it promptly.
Audiences will not brook the delay of waiting while a trainer
tries to persuade a crusty or roguish beast to do what the
audience has paid to see it do.
So St. Elias received his first lesson in compulsion. It was also
his last lesson, and it never progressed so far as the training-
arena, for it took place in his own cage.
Noosed in the customary way, his four legs dragged through the
bars, and his head, by means of a "choke" collar, drawn against
the bars, he was first of all manicured. Each one of his great
claws was cut off flush with his flesh. The men outside did this.
Then Mulcachy, on the inside, punched his nose. Not lightly as it
sounds was this operation. The punch was a perforation.
Thrusting the instrument into the huge bear's nostril, Mulcachy
cut a clean round chunk of living meat out of one side of it.
Mulcachy knew the bear business. At all times, to make an
untrained bear obey, one must be fast to some sensitive portion of
the bear. The ears, the nose, and the eyes are the accessible
sensitive parts, and, the eyes being out of the question, remain
the nose and the ears as the parts to which to make fast.
Through the perforation Mulcachy immediately clamped a metal ring.
To the ring he fastened a long "lunge"-rope, which was well named.
Any unruly lunge, at any time during all the subsequent life of
St. Elias, could thus be checked by the man who held the lunge-
rope. His destiny was patent and ordained. For ever, as long as
he lived and breathed, would he be a prisoner and slave to the
rope in the ring in his nostril.
The nooses were slipped, and St. Elias was at liberty, within the
confines of his cage, to get acquainted with the ring in his nose.
With his powerful fore-paws, standing erect and roaring, he
proceeded to get acquainted with the ring. It certainly was not a
thing persuasible. It was living fire. And he tore at it with
his paws as he would have torn at the stings of bees when raiding
a honey-tree. He tore the thing out, ripping the ring clear
through the flesh and transforming the round perforation into a
ragged chasm of pain.
Mulcachy cursed. "Here's where hell coughs," he said. The nooses
were introduced again. Again St. Elias, helpless on his side
against and partly through the bars, had his nose punched. This
time it was the other nostril. And hell coughed. As before, the
moment he was released, he tore the ring out through his flesh.
Mulcachy was disgusted. "Listen to reason, won't you?" he
objurgated, as, this time, the reason he referred to was the
introduction of the ring clear through both nostrils, higher up,
and through the central dividing wall of cartilage. But St. Elias
was unreasonable. Unlike Ben Bolt, there was nothing inside of
him weak enough, or nervous enough, or high-strung enough, to
break. The moment he was free he ripped the ring away with half
of his nose along with it. Mulcachy punched St. Elias's right
ear. St. Elias tore his right ear to shreds. Mulcachy punched
his left ear. He tore his left ear to shreds. And Mulcachy gave
in. He had to. As he said plaintively:
"We're beaten. There ain't nothing left to make fast to."
Later, when St. Elias was condemned to be a "cage-animal" all his
days, Mulcachy was wont to grumble:
"He was the most unreasonable animal! Couldn't do a thing with
him. Couldn't ever get anything to make fast to."
