Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

Another day he said: "A man gets more confidence every time he faces an angry lion and comes out all right. Finally he gets so sure of his power that he does strange things. I have seen a lion coming at me and have never moved, and the lion has stopped. I have had a lion strike at me and the blow has just grazed my head, and have stood still, with my whip lifted, and the lion has gone off afraid. One day in the ring a lion caught my left arm in his teeth as I passed between two pedestals. I didn't pull away, but stamped my foot and cried out, 'Baltimore, what do you mean?' The stamp of my foot was the lion's cue to get off the pedestal, and Baltimore loosed his jaws and jumped down. His habit of routine was stronger than his desire to bite me."

Again, Bonavita explained that there is some strange virtue in carrying in the left hand a whip which is never used. The tamer strikes with his right-hand whip when it is necessary, but only lifts his left-hand whip and holds it as a menace over the lion. And it is likely, Bonavita thinks, that to strike with that reserve whip would be to dispel the lion's idea that it stands for some mysterious force beyond his daring.

"You see, lions aren't very intelligent," said he; "they don't understand what men are or what they want. That is our hardest work—to make a lion understand what we want. As soon as he knows that he is expected to sit on a pedestal he is willing enough to do it, especially if he gets some meat; but it often takes weeks before he finds out what we are driving at. You can see what slow brains lions have, or tigers either, by watching them fight for a stick or a tin cup. They couldn't get more excited over a piece of meat. One of the worst wounds I ever got came from going into a lion's den after an overcoat that he had dragged away from a foolish spectator who was poking it at him."

BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY.

I finally got Bonavita to tell me about the time when the lion Denver attacked him. It was during a performance at Indianapolis, in the fall of 1900, and the trouble came at the runway end where the two circular passages from the cages open on an iron bridge that leads to the show-ring. Bonavita had just driven seven lions into this narrow space, and was waiting for the attendants to open the iron-barred door, when Denver sprang at him and set his teeth in his right arm. This stirred the other lions, and they all turned on Bonavita; but, fortunately, only two could reach him for the crush of bodies. Here was a tamer in sorest need, for the weight of the lions kept the iron doors from opening and barred out the rescuers. In the audience was wildest panic, and the building resounded with shouts and screams and the roars of angry lions. Women fainted; men rushed forward brandishing revolvers, but dared not shoot; and for a few moments it seemed as if the tamer was doomed.

But Bonavita's steady nerve saved him. As Denver opened his jaws to seize a more vital spot, the tamer drove his whip-handle far down into his red throat, and then, with a cudgel passed in to him, beat the brute back. The other lions followed, and this freed the iron door, which the grooms straightway opened, and in a moment the seven lions were leaping toward the ring as if nothing had happened. And last of the seven came Denver, driven by Bonavita, white-faced and suffering, but the master now, and greeted with cheers and roars of applause. No one realized how badly he was hurt, for his face gave no sign. He bowed to the audience, cracked his whip, and began the act as usual. As he went on he grew weaker, but stuck to it until he had put the lions through four of their tricks, and then he staggered out of the ring into the arms of the doctors, who found him torn with ugly wounds that kept him for weeks in the hospital. That, I think, is an instance of the very finest lion-tamer spirit.

Among various meetings with tamers of animals, I recall with particular pleasure one afternoon when my friend Newman brought to see me a tamer famous in his day—George Arstingstall. I knew that Arstingstall was the first man in this country to work lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, sheep, monkeys, and various other beasts all in a great circular cage. Also that his fame had spread across Europe and his daring feats been shown from London to Moscow; but I did not know what a simple, modest man he was, nor realize until then the charm of listening to a couple of circus veterans, comrades for years, talking of the old stirring days. Here were two men getting on to sixty, yet talking with the eagerness of boys about their exploits and perils under fang and claw.

It was: "Say, Bill, do you remember when that bull pup caught Topsy by the trunk and stampeded the—"