This recalls a story that Mr. Bostock told me, showing how Bianca's fondness for her lions persisted even in the face of fierce attack. It was in Kansas City, and for some days Spitfire had been working badly, so that on this particular afternoon Bianca had spent two hours in the big exhibition cage trying to get the lioness into good form. But Spitfire remained sullen and refused to do one perfectly easy thing, a jump over a pedestal.
"Ask Mr. Bostock to please come here," called Bianca, finally, quite at her wit's end, with the performance hour approaching and hers the chief act. To go on with Spitfire in rebellion would never do, for the spirit of mischief spreads among lions and tigers exactly as it spreads among children. Spitfire must jump over that pedestal.
Mr. Bostock arrived presently, and at once entered the cage, carrying two whips, as is the custom. There is something in this man that impresses animals and tamers alike. It is not only that he is big and strong, and loves his animals, and does not fear them; that would scarcely account for his extraordinary prestige, which is his rather because he knows lions and tigers as only a man can who has literally spent his life with them. From father and grandfather he has inherited precious and unusual lore of the cages. He was born in a menagerie, he married the daughter of a menagerie owner, he sleeps always within a few feet of the dens, he eats with roars of lions in his ears. And his principle is, and always has been, that he will enter any cage at any time if a real need calls him—which has led to many a situation like that created now by Spitfire's disobedience.
There were many groups in the menagerie at this time, each with its regular tamer; and while Bostock, as owner and director, watched over all of them, it often happened that months would pass without his putting foot inside this or that particular cage. And in the present case he was practically a stranger to the four lions and the tiger now ranged around on their pedestals in a semi-circle thirty feet in diameter, with big Brutus in the middle and snarling Spitfire at one end.
"Well," said Mr. Bostock, explaining what happened, "I saw that Bianca had made a mistake in handling Spitfire from too great a distance. She had stood about seven feet away, so I stepped three feet closer and lifted one of my whips. There were just two things Spitfire could do: she could spring at me and have trouble, or she could jump over the pedestal and have no trouble. She growled a little, looked at me, and then she jumped over that pedestal like a lady. I had called her bluff.
BIANCA RESCUES BOSTOCK FROM "BRUTUS."
"The rest was easy. I put her through some other tricks, circled her around the cage a couple of times, and brought her back to her corner. Then, as she crouched there and snarled at me, I played a tattoo with my whip-handle on the floor just in front of her. It was just a sort of flourish to finish off with, and it was one thing too much; for in doing this I turned quite away from the rest of the group and made Brutus think that I meant to hurt the lioness. He said to himself: 'Hullo! Here's a stranger in our cage taking a whip to Spitfire. I'll just settle him.' And before I could move he sprang twenty feet off his pedestal, set his fangs in my thigh, and dragged me over to Bianca, as if to prove his gallantry. Then the Frenchwoman did a clever thing: she clasped her arms around his big neck, drew his head up, and fired her revolver close to his ear. Of course she fired only a blank cartridge, but it brought Brutus to obedience, for that was Bianca's regular signal in the act for the lions to take their pedestals; and the habit of his work was so strong in the old fellow that he dropped me and jumped back to his place.
"There wasn't any more to it except that I lay five weeks in bed with my wounds. But this will show you how Bianca loved those lions: she wouldn't let me lift a hand to punish Brutus. Of course I called for irons as soon as I got up, and, wounded or not, I would have taught Mr. Brutus a few things before I left that cage if I could have had my way. But Bianca pleaded for him so hard—why, she actually cried—that I hadn't the heart to go against her. She said it was partly my own fault for turning my back,—which was true,—and that Brutus was a good lion and had only tried to defend his mate, and a lot more, with tears and teasing, until I let him off, although I knew I could never enter Brutus's cage again after leaving it without showing myself master. That's always the way with lions: if you once lose the upper hand you can never get it back."