Chauncey Depew was at the bottom of all the trouble; not the punctured senator from the state of New York, but his namesake, one of the handsomest double-striped royal Bengal tigers ever captured. Depew was the central figure in the group which Miller, the trainer of tigers, had worked so hard to educate, and it was his rebellion which made the teacher's labors of years come to naught. Late in the season, after months spent in giving the finishing touches to their education while they were with a small part of the show which was exhibited near Cleveland, the tigers were brought to Dreamland; a group of eight magnificent beasts, all jungle bred and each worthy of a place in any menagerie. Perhaps it was the discomfort of the journey in the small traveling cages, possibly the change in the surroundings and the nearness of the other animals excited them; but whatever the cause, there was trouble in the narrow runway at the back of the dens when they entered it to go to the exhibition cage for their first Coney Island appearance.
The sound of their snarling and growling, the reports of pistol shots and the cracking of training whips caused a sensation of uneasiness in the audience until the first tiger bounded through the door at the back of the cage, closely followed by a half-dozen others. Dangerous beasts they looked as they threw themselves against the stout bars, which rattled from the impact of their great bodies, and the front seats of the auditorium were quickly vacated by the audience. The noise in the runway continued, but the deep throaty growls which came from behind the dens were of a different quality from the snarling and yapping of the seven beasts in the exhibition cage, and when the last of the tigers appeared in the doorway the first arrivals made renewed efforts to escape through the bars.
"The first tiger bounded through the door."
It was Depew; not the good-natured-looking great cat whose "I-have-eaten-the-canary" expression and smug whiskers had suggested his name, but a jungle tiger who had "gone bad," as the animal trainers call it, and who stood for a moment in the doorway, wrathfully surveying his frantic companions and selecting a victim. Froth was dripping from his snarling lips, his small eyes were blazing like two points of flame, the hair on his neck and back stood up like bristles, and his great tail struck the door-casing resounding whacks, as he lashed it from side to side. Only a moment he stood there, and then the great striped body hurtled through the air as if shot from a catapult, and covering a good twenty feet in the spring it landed fair on Bombay, one of the largest tigers in the group. The aim was a true one and the sound of breaking bone mingled with a scream of pain from his victim, as Bombay sank under the weight of the blow, his cervical vertebræ crushed between Depew's powerful jaws.
The door had been closed behind Depew when he made his spring, and the other tigers were chasing madly about the great cage, looking for a chance to escape. There was no desire to fight left in them, but when they collided with each other they snapped and struck with the instinct of self-preservation, their sharp claws and teeth cutting gashes in the sleek striped coats. It was evident that all training had been forgotten, that fear of anything so puny as man had departed from the minds of the tigers, and a groan went up from the audience when the door was opened and quickly closed behind Miller, the trainer, who stood, whip and training rod in hand, in the cage with the maddened animals. He went about his work as quietly as if it were only an ordinary performance, his object being to return his pupils to their dens before further damage was done and to try to make them recognize that they were obeying him.
Depew was still crouched on the body of his victim, biting at the neck and growling ferociously, his tail lashing from side to side. Miller never took his eyes from him and kept between him and the door as he called the others by name and tried to regain control of them. One tiger after another was released, glad of the opportunity to escape, as the door to the runway was opened at Miller's signal, until only Depew, the body of Bombay and the trainer occupied the cage.
The other tigers had entered into a general free fight in the runway, but the noise of their bickering was unheeded in the excitement of the contest in the exhibition cage. Depew rose as Miller cracked his whip and approached him, and made a rush which the trainer met with his pronged training rod, driving it hard between the widely opened jaws while his whip rained blows upon the tiger's face. But he was only checked for a moment, and under his fiercer attack the trainer was forced to give ground. They were so close that the tiger could not spring, but he struck savagely with his great forepaws and tried again and again to pass the guard which Miller maintained with the training rod, using it as a fencer uses a foil. It was an unequal contest and the trainer realized that he was beaten; Depew would not be driven from the cage. The useless training whip was discarded and a savage rush from the tiger was met by a pistol shot in the face, blank cartridge, of course, but effective for a moment. Five more shots followed in quick succession and the trainer backed quickly toward the door, when his foot slipped, he was on his back, and Depew, quick to seize the advantage, stood over him.