Part 16 (2/2)
Black Bruin sniffed the bars of his cage where the man's hand had rested upon it for a moment, as the three moved away. The man-scent too awoke strange memories which he could not understand. It was like coming upon a well-remembered spot in a stream where he had once captured a large salmon, or some burrow under a stump where he had dug out a luckless rabbit. But soon even the remembrance of the pleasant voices, that in some strange way suggested something dim and distant, was forgotten, the man-scent on the bars of his cage was obliterated, and Black Bruin was back in the old rut, b.u.mping and thumping over paving-stones and seeing his van continually being rolled on or off the flat car which carried it.
Finally the long hard trips were over for that season and the circus went into winter quarters.
This winter Black Bruin did not hibernate as he usually did, but spent the time in a series of short naps. Each day he came forth from his improvised den to stretch and to eat. Toward spring, by dint of much coaxing and liberal rewards of sugar and honey, the keeper got upon good terms with him and finally discovered most of his tricks.
When the next season opened, the prisoner found that he was to have a little more freedom and a rather more varied existence than that of the year before.
Upon the circus bills he appeared as Napoleon Bonaparte, the wonderful trick-bear; and there was a striking and astonis.h.i.+ng picture of him in the act of opening a bottle and drinking from it.
Small boys stood spellbound before this picture, and they were still more astonished when the real live bear was led into the ring and marched up and down with a wooden gun upon his shoulder, while the performance of his bottle-trick always created a rustle all over the tent. This was the surest sign of a great hit.
So now each day, in addition to appearing in the grand cavalcade and the street-parade, Black Bruin had to come into the ring each afternoon and evening and go through his senseless tricks.
The only thing that kept him good-natured and up to the mark, was the fact that his bottle was always filled with some pleasing drink, so he had that to look forward to after each performance of the trick. There were also sweets in waiting for him when he came out of the ring.
Thus went the endless round. Here to-day and there to-morrow. In the evening a magic city of white tents would be seen upon the grounds, but by midnight all had been stowed away in four or five long trains, which soon were thundering over the rails to a distant city, where for the past three weeks posters had announced the coming of the circus.
Thus the days and weeks of Black Bruin's second year in the circus pa.s.sed and they concluded the season at Nashville, Tennessee. Then all the paraphernalia was loaded with even more care than usual, for they were off for the long trip northward, to their winter quarters.
That night when they loaded the elephants and the trick-ponies, some of them hung back and refused to board the train, a tendency most unusual on their part; but they finally obeyed the goad and lash and all were stowed away in their customary places.
It was about midnight when the train bearing Black Bruin's van pulled out. One by one the cars b.u.mped over the switch and the long train got under way. At first the locomotive puffed and panted as though the load were too great for it, but finally the train got up momentum and the car-wheels sang their old song of rat-a-clat-rat-a-clat-rat-a-tat-tat, while the engine a.s.sumed its familiar song of
”Rus.h.i.+ng, pulling, s.n.a.t.c.h the train along, Tugging, pulling, locomotive strong.”
This is the song that a locomotive always sings when it is off for a long, hard pull.
On, on through the darkness the train sped, the engine sending forth showers of sparks that twinkled in the gloom like fireflies, and then went out.
But the most conspicuous thing about the train was the headlight, which threw its long cylindrical shaft of light far ahead, like a mighty auger of fire boring into the darkness. No matter how hard the engine puffed and panted or how fast the drivers thundered over the rails, this bright cylinder of light was always just so far ahead, illuminating the gleaming rails, flas.h.i.+ng into deep cuts, lighting up cliffs and forest, and long stretches of open fields.
Black Bruin was not asleep in his cage, as he usually was on long journeys like this. Somehow, he felt restless and ill at ease. He sniffed his bars often, but the heavy shutters were down and no sign of freedom was at hand. Yet in some unaccountable manner, the wind sucking through the cracks between the shutters blew fresher and sweeter than usual. It tasted of pine-woods and deep tangles of swamp-land, where all the roots that a bear likes grow.
The train had left the low-lying lands far behind and was coming into the foothills--those friendly steps by which tired feet climb to the mountains above. It was rus.h.i.+ng down a steep grade, traveling by its own momentum, upon a rather precipitous pathway cut in a side hill, when something happened. Perhaps it was a broken rail, or maybe a great boulder had toppled down the mountainside and lay upon the track; but the important thing was that suddenly, without a second's warning, the engine bucked like a balky broncho, and after one or two mad plunges along the roadbed, toppled over the bank and rolled into the gulley below. At the first impact of the locomotive with the long train behind it, the freight arched its back and writhed and twisted like a mighty serpent. Three of the cars went over the bank still attached to the engine and the rest piled up on one another or rolled down into the gulley, as fate willed.
There was crash upon crash and thunder upon thunder as the heavy cars piled in a frightful heap. There was the groan of iron and steel being bent and broken, and the crash and creak and crackle of breaking, grinding car-floors.
When we add to this the roar of lions, the shrieking of horses, the trumpeting of elephants, the snarling and snapping of wolves, jaguars, hyenas and a chorus of other cries from the circus bedlam, the roar of steam as it escaped through an open valve in the locomotive, and the shriek of the whistle which blew continually, we can get some idea of the wreck, as the gorgeous splendor of the barbaric show was piled in ruins.
It was such sights and sounds as these that greeted Black Bruin as he squeezed through the battered, broken door of his cage into freedom. He had felt himself rolling over and over. First he was upon the bottom of his cage and then standing upon the inverted roof. Three times he b.u.mped from the top to the bottom and back again in rapid succession. What did it mean? His van had never acted like this.
It was all so quick that he merely emitted a frightened bawl or two and lay still, cowering in the corner of his cage. Then in some unaccountable way he became aware that his cage-door was open. His back was to it, but the wind that blew in upon him, was the wind of the woods and the waters, and not the stifling, filtered wind of his prison.
As this sense was borne in upon him, Black Bruin lost no time in scrambling out through the opening.
His first act on coming forth into the open air with the moon and the stars and the free sky above him, was to stretch. He then looked about him as though uncertain what was coming next.
As he stood irresolute, looking first at the wreck and then away to the outline of a great mountain that stretched above him, seeming to reach up into the very heavens, the long, lithe form of a panther slipped by him and melted into the darkness. A moment later a jaguar followed it; they were going back to freedom.
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