“Mule up there—mule up! Tails!”
Another two blocks and the command changed; more, the elephant line obeyed. A block after that, and the whole section was peacefully shuffling along again, simply through the fact that the frightened beasts had been made to believe that their trainer really desired them to run, and that in their breakaway they were merely carrying out orders. Nor could they know that in obeying the command of tails, they handicapped themselves so that the speed of one could be no greater than that of another, and that as long as the leader kept to a straight line, so must the rest.
Further, the occupation of their single-track minds in the execution of an order which coincided with their natural tendencies had wiped out in forgetfulness the fact that something had threatened them, and brought to them the belief that their trainer merely was running them away from an obnoxious thing. Therefore, when the command came to slow down they did so in confidence, and in the assurance that any danger was over. Many a person went that day from watching the parade, wondering perhaps why the elephant trainer should desire to put his beasts through their paces. But few of them realized that the little play of speed had saved not only the circus but the downtown section of Berkeley, with its thronged sidewalks, from disaster.
The trick works time after time; it is the stand-by of the elephant keeper, his first hope at the beginning of a breakaway. A few years ago, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a circus had just arrived on the lot, with the consequent confusion of setting up, of yowling caged animals, of lumbering, trucking wagons, and trotting ring stock as the various elements of the show traveled into position. Standing near the menagerie tent were two elephants, secured side by side with neck chains, which fastened one to the other. The keeper of the herd was within the tent, superintending the staking out of the picket line, and leaving the two big beasts in the care of an assistant until he should call for them. But a second later he was outside the tent and in action. The chained bulls had lost their heads.
As usual, the most innocent thing in the world had caused it, simply the bucking of a hippodrome, or race horse, as he had passed on the way to the stable tents. But that had been enough, and neck and neck the two elephants had started across the lot. A collision with a wagon, and the assistant, clinging until this moment to a bull-hook fastened in an elephantine ear, ceased to trouble or impede their flight. Over went the wagon; on went the bulls. Another wagon blocked their path, and with a side-swipe they capsized it, then swerving slightly in their course they straddled, quite by accident, the rear of a heavy pole wagon with their connecting chains, and began to twist madly in their efforts to free themselves and travel onward to more destruction. But just then a new element entered, the keeper of the bulls.
“Pick it up there!” he shouted. “Sandow! Morgan! Pick it up—pick it up!”
It was the command to push, and without realizing that they were yielding their freedom the elephants strained forward. A poler hurried into position at the tongue of the wagon to guide it, while from the rear came in ever-increasing forcefulness:
“That’s right—pick it up! Pick it up there—let’s go now—pick it up! Morgan—Sandow! Shake a leg there—pick it up!”
The elephants picked it up. With the poler guiding the way, they took that wagon on a half-trot across the circus lot and back again, around the big top and up to the midway, and finally for a trip of a few blocks down the street and return, the keeper still commanding them, still prodding them with his bull-hook, still obsessed with the desire that they pick it up. At last, panting and wabbly, the two recalcitrant elephants brought the wagon back into the exact position where it had rested at the time of their collision and were allowed to slow their pace. A bull-hook caught in a fanlike ear.
“Now you two come over here and straighten up this damage!” commanded the keeper, and meekly the twain obeyed, to set their trunks under the sides of the wagons they had capsized and unprotestingly raised them into position again. Five minutes later they were in place at the picket line, peaceful and calm, their fright effaced, ready for the bugle call of parade.