"Well, I did the thing, and got through all right. Young Wallace hasn't forgotten what happened to him. I got the best of him by a trick: had a little shelter cage placed inside the big arena cage, and at first I stood in the small one, and let the lion come at me. Oh, you'd better believe he came! I thought sure he'd jump clean over the thing and land on me; for there was no roof to my cage—only sides of wire netting. He didn't quite do it, though; and as soon as I saw he was getting rattled I stepped out quick and went at him hard with whip and club. And I drove him all over the ring, and the people went crazy, for he was the maddest lion you ever saw.
"That was all right as far as it went, but the people wanted more. They got to be out-and-out bloodthirsty there in Indianapolis. Wanted me to go in the ring with Rajah, that big tiger. See, over there! Come up, Rajah. Beauty, isn't he? Doesn't pay any special attention to me, does he? Nearly killed me, just the same. Look!" He lifted his cap and showed wide strips of plaster on his head.
"Point about Rajah was that he'd killed one of my keepers a couple of weeks before. Poor fellow got in his cage by mistake. And now these Indianapolis folks wanted to see me handle him. Between you and me, this keeper wasn't the first man Rajah had killed, and I didn't care much for the job. As for my wife—well, you can imagine how she felt when she heard I was going in with Rajah.
"On the morning of the performance I decided to have a rehearsal, and called on a few picked men to help me. I knew by the way he had killed his keeper that Rajah would go at my head if he attacked me at all, so I rigged up a mask of iron wire, and wore this strapped over my head like a little barrel. Then I drove him into the arena and began, while the others looked on anxiously. It's queer, sir, but that tiger went through his tricks as nice as you please, back and forth, up on his pedestal and down again, everything just as he used to do in the old days before he went bad. Never balked, never turned on me; just as good as gold.
"RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY.
"Soon as I was satisfied I drove him across the bridge and down the runway toward his den. I came about a dozen feet behind him, carrying a long wooden shield, as we generally do in a narrow space. Rajah reached his cage all right, and went in. You see, he couldn't go down the runway any farther, for the door opening outward barred the passage. Behind that door I had stationed a keeper, with orders to close it as soon as Rajah was inside; but Rajah went in so silently that the keeper didn't know it, the peep-holes in the door being too high for him to see very well. The result was that the cage door stood open for a few seconds after the tiger had gone in. It seems a little thing, but it nearly cost me my life; for when I came up Rajah's head was right back of the open door, and when I reached out my hand to close the door he sprang at me, and in a second had me down, with his teeth in my arm and his claws digging into my head through openings in the mask.
"Then you'd better believe there was a fight in that runway! The keepers rushed in; Bonavita rushed in. They shot at him with revolvers, they jabbed him with irons, they pounded at him with clubs; and one of the blows that Rajah dodged knocked me senseless. Well, they got me out finally. I guess the mask saved my life. But I didn't take Rajah into the ring that evening, and Rajah won't be seen in the ring any more. He's made trouble enough. Why, the things I could tell you about that tiger would fill a book."
Some of these things he did tell me, for I brought the talk back to Rajah whenever the chance offered. I well remember, for instance, the occasion when I heard how Rajah once got out of his cage and chased a quagga—one of those queer little animals that are half zebra and half mule. It was late at night, and we had entered the runway, Mr. Bostock and I, after the performance, for he wanted me to realize the perils of this narrow boarded lane that circles all the dens and leads the lions to the ring. It is indeed a terrifying place—a low, dimly lighted passage, curving constantly, so that you see ahead scarcely twenty feet, and are always turning a slow corner, always peering ahead uneasily and listening! What is that? A soft tread? The glow of greenish eyeballs? Who can tell when a bolt may slip or a board give way? So many things have happened in these runways! Of course a lion has no business to be out of his den, but—but suppose he is? Suppose you meet him—now—there!