Up rushed a fellow, white with rage and running, bang into the middle of the spectators, and shook the knot of them asunder. It was one of the two men from whom Nimrod had broken. He had a pitchfork in his hands which he proceeded to level. Clare flung his weight against him, threw up his fork, shoved him aside, and got close to the maddened animal. It was his past come again! How often had he not interfered to protect Nimrod—and his would-be masters also! With instinctive, unconscious authority, he held up his hand to the little crowd.
“Leave him alone,” he cried. “I know him; I can manage him! Please do not interfere. He is an old friend of mine.”
They saw that the bull was already still: he had recognized the boy’s voice! They kept his furious attendant back, and looked on in anxious hope while Clare went up to the animal.
“Nimrod!” he whispered, laying a hand on one of the creature’s horns, and his cheek against his neck.
Nimrod stood like a bull in bronze.
“I’m going to get your horns out, Nimrod,” murmured Clare, and laid hold of the other with a firm grasp. “You must let me do as I like, you know, Nimrod!”
His voice evidently soothed the bull.
By the horns Clare turned his head now one way, now another, Nimrod not once resisting push or pull. In a moment more he would have them clear, for one of them was already free. Holding on to the latter, Clare turned to the bystanders.
“You mustn’t touch him,” he said, “or I won’t answer for him. And you mustn’t let either of those men there”—for the second of Nimrod’s attendants had by this time come up—“interfere with him or me. They let him go because they couldn’t manage him. He can’t bear them; and if he were to break loose from them again, it might be quite another affair! Then he might distrust me!”
The menagerie men turned, and looking saw that the man with the pitchfork had revenge in his heart. They gave him to understand that he must mind what he was about, or it would be the worse for him. The man scowled and said nothing.