“Get the cage up on the wagon,” said one of the men, “and we’ll take this buffalo to the train and ship him off. Then no one will know that we have one of the Government animals.”
Shaggo did not understand this talk, of course. But he saw a lot of men coming toward him and he began to trample around in the cage.
“Look out! He’ll get loose!” shouted one of the men, as he sprang away. “I don’t want him to horn me!”
“Oh, he won’t get out!” another man said. “I made that cage good and strong on purpose. It will hold a grizzly bear or a buffalo.”
And, surely enough, Shaggo could not get out, try as he might. He did not care so much about hurting the men as he did about getting loose, but he could do neither. The cage shook and rattled, but it held firm, and a little later the men hoisted it up on a wagon, pulling and hauling it by ropes.
“Now we’re ready to go to the train,” cried the man who seemed to be the leader.
Horses were hitched to the wagon. At first one of them shied when he caught sight of Shaggo and smelled the wild, buffalo odor. But Shaggo was not afraid of horses. He had often seen them in the big, National Park. And not all horses are afraid of buffaloes. It is only horses that never have seen the big, shaggy creatures that show signs of fear.
It was a new adventure for Shaggo to be given a ride instead of walking or running on his own legs. Never before, in all his life, had he ridden on a wagon. But he was soon to have a stranger ride than this.
Off over the prairie went the big wagon, with the buffalo on it in a cage. The sun grew hot and the men threw a piece of tent cloth over the cage to shade Shaggo, and the buffalo was glad of this.