Peck's Bad Boy in an airship

by George W. Peck

She was up in the air about fifty feet, and Pa pointed out the place where the lion’s den was to the South about a mile, and told us to drag the air ship tail first across the veldt, to the other side of the den, and cut her loose; so we dragged the ship away around South of the den, taking us all the forenoon, and we could see the lions on the rocks sunning themselves and probably talking over in lion language what they would do to us if we got fresh, and every little while they would cough like a case of pneumonia, and it made my hair raise, but Pa was so cool he had to turn his collar up.

After a few hours we got the ship in the right place, about a quarter of a mile south of the den, and Pa got the cowboy ready with his lasso, and the German ready to yell murder in his language, and the negro ready to throw overboard for the lions to eat, and Pa said, “Turn her loose,” and we let go of the rope, and the ship sailed right straight for the den, and we all climbed upon a big rock to watch the proceedings. It was the most exciting moment of my life, except the time the fat woman in the circus sat down in Pa’s lap, and crushed him beyond recognition and they had to scrape him up with case knives.

There was Pa at the wheel, his eyes staring ahead at the lions, all of the lion family having come out of the den to see the air ship, and the dog lion, the head of the household waving his tail and making the air fairly tremble with his roaring.

Pretty soon the airship was right over the den, the lasso was thrown over the dog lion’s neck, and drawn tight, and he coughed and strangled like a negro being lynched, and then he turned tail and ran down into the den in the rocks, with all the other lions after him, dragging the ship back into the entrance of the den, and closing the hole completely, and we all rushed up and tied the rope to trees, so the gas bag was right over the hole, tight as a drum, and Pa got down off the frame, and as Mr. Hagenbach came up in a perspiration Pa said, “There’s your lions, about a dozen of them captured down in that hole; help yourselves,” and Pa sat down on the ground like a man who had conquered the world, and was waiting for the applause. Mr. Hagenbach said that was all right, so far as it had gone, but what he wanted was lions in cages, ready to ship to Germany, and not down in a hole in the ground that might be as deep as a copper mine, with no elevator to bring the lions to the surface. “Well,” said Pa, as he lit a cigar, “there’s a perfectly good dog Numidian lion, with a black mane, on the end of that lasso, and all you got to do is to pull him up, just as you would a muscalonge on a line, and when he comes to the surface after I have finished my cigar, I will hog tie him and have him ready for shipment quicker’n a wink,” and Pa yawned, as though capturing wild lions was as easy for him as catching mice in a trap.

“There’s Your Lions, About a Dozen Captured Down in That Hole; Help Yourselves,” Said Pa.

So the crowd all got hold of the lasso and began to pull up, and of all the snarling and howling you ever heard, that beat the band. The old lion seemed to catch on to everything coming up, and all the other lions roared until the rocks on which we stood fairly trembled like there was an earthquake, but the old dog kept coming and I felt as though something terrible was going to happen, and I began to get farther away. Pa knocked the ashes off his cigar and asked the cowboy how much more rope there was left, and was told about ten feet, so he told them to let up a minute until the driver drove the cage up to a point on the rock not far from where the lion would come out, and when the cage was ready and the door open, so the lion could see a goat tied in the cage eating hay, Pa said to the men to give a few more jerks, and, by Gosh, pretty soon the lion’s head and neck came out of the hole, and he was the maddest looking animal I ever saw, and the men looked scared.

The lion was bracing with his front feet, and using all kinds of language, but Pa was the coolest man in the bunch. “Now, let him rest a minute,” says Pa, “but hold the line taut,” and Pa took out a bag of tobacco and a piece of paper and rolled a cigarette, and lit it, and we all looked at Pa in admiration for his nerve.

After puffing his cigarette a little, and looking to see if the cage was entirely right, he ordered the men who were not pulling on the rope to line up in two lines from the hole to the cage, like the honorary pall bearers at a funeral, and told them not to move until the lion was in the cage, and when they were all in place, Pa said, “Now jerk his head plumb off,” and the crowd pulled and the lion came out of the hole mad and frothing at the mouth. Pa stepped one side and gave the lion a swift kick in the ham, and the king of beasts put his tail between his legs and started for the hearse cage, and Pa said, “Get in there, you measly cur dog,” and Pa followed him, kicking him every jump, until the big lion rushed into the cage and laid down, so completely conquered that he bellowed pitifully when the goat butted him off of the hay, and Pa closed the door and locked it and turned to Mr. Hagenbach and asked, “How many of these vermin do you want?” and he said, “Now that we were about it we had better get the whole bunch.” Pa said “all right, he was there after lions, and he wanted to get the limit,” so they signalled camp for some more cages, and Pa said we had better have lunch right there on the rock beside the airship in the shade, while he prepared to catch the rest of the lions.