Another man, with steely gray eyes and a stubble of beard, ventured the opinion that they must have had a pretty poor quality of gumption in that outfit, or somebody would have got the lioness into her cage. He was mighty sure George Conklin would have done it. George was over in Europe now handling big cats for the Barnum show. There wasn't anything George didn't know about lions.
"Why, I'll give you a case," said he. "We were showing out in Kansas, and one night a cage fell off the circus train, became unlashed or something as she swung round a curve, and when we stuck our heads out of the sleeper there were a pair of greenish, burning eyes coming down the side of the track, and we could hear a ruh-ruh-r-r-r-ruh—something between a bark and a roar—that didn't cheer us up any, you'd better believe. Then George Conklin yelled, 'By the Lord, it's Mary! Come on, boys; we must get her!' and out we went. Mary was a full-grown lioness, and she was loose there in the darkness, out on a bare prairie, without a house or a fence anywhere for miles."
"Hold on," said I; "how did your circus train happen to stop when the cage fell off?"
With indulgent smile, he explained that a circus train running at night always has guards on the watch, who wave quick lanterns to the engineer in any emergency.
"Well," continued the man, "George Conklin had that cage fixed up and the lioness safe inside within forty minutes by the clock. Do? Why, it was easy enough. We unrolled about a hundred yards of side-wall wall tenting, and carried it toward the lioness. It was a line of men, holding up a length of canvas so that it formed a long, moving fence. And every man carried a flaming kerosene torch. There was a picture to remember, that line of heads over the canvas wall, and the flaring lights gradually circling around the lioness, who backed, growling and switching her tail—backed away from the fire, until presently, as we closed in, we had her in the mouth of a funnel of canvas, with torches everywhere, except just at her back, where the open cage was. Then Conklin spoke sharp to her, just as if they were in the ring, and snapped his whip, and the next thing Miss Mary was safe behind the bars. It was a pretty neat job, I can tell you."
During this talk a broad-shouldered man had joined the group, and my companion whispered that he was "Bill" Newman, the famous elephant-trainer. Mr. Newman at once showed an interest in the discussion, and agreed that there are times when you can do nothing with an animal but kill it.
"Now, there was old Albert," said he, "a fine ten-foot tusker, that I'd seen grow up from a baby, and I was fond of him, too, but I had to kill him. It was in '85, and we were showing in New Hampshire. Albert had been cranky for a long time—never with me, but with the other men—and in Nashua he slammed a keeper against the ground so hard that he died the next morning just as we were coming into Keene. That settled it, and at the afternoon performance Mr. Hutchinson announced in the ring that we had an elephant on our hands under sentence of death, and he was willing to turn this elephant over to the local rifle corps if they felt equal to the execution. You see, he had heard there was a company of sharpshooters in Keene, and it struck him this was a good way to be rid of a bad elephant, and get some advertising at the same time.
"Well, those Keene riflemen weren't going to be bluffed by a showman. They said to bring on the elephant, and they'd take care of him. So, after the performance I led old Albert back to a piece of woods behind the tents, and we hitched tackle to his four legs and stretched him out between four trees so he couldn't move, and then the rifle corps lined up about twelve paces off, ready to shoot. That elephant knew he was going to die; yes, sir, he knew it perfectly well, but he was a lot cooler than some of those riflemen. Why, there was one fellow on the end of the line shaking so he could hardly aim. You see, they were afraid old Albert would break loose and come at 'em if they only wounded him.
"'Do you men know where to shoot?' I called out.
"'We're going to shoot at his head,' answered the captain.