“Yeh. I know it.”
And Mike continued to sleep in the hippopotamus den—without pay. Another month passed. Two more after that. The circus rounded into its trip down the west coast, for its final effort at possible dollars before the cold weather closed in. Then, one night, the emergencies suddenly clamped hard. There had come a shrieking cry from the shrouded wagons atop the flat cars, the warning of that feared thing of the circus:
“Fire! F-i-r-e!”
FEED A HIPPOPOTAMUS AND HE’LL DO THE REST.
BON, THE BABY HIPPO, FOR WHOM A MAN GAVE HIS LIFE.
Hurrying men “spotted” the cage where a red glow had shown for an instant, then faded—the hippopotamus den, evidently set afire by a spark from the engine. The train stopped. Workmen and performers rushed forward.
The den was dripping with water, evidently carried from the circus water-cart just ahead. A bucket lay beside the cage. But Mike the “hippo nurse” was not to be found.
Then came a shout. They had discovered him by the right of way, his neck broken; in the fight for his grotesque comrade’s life, he evidently had slipped on the top of the den and fallen from the train. Death had been instantaneous.