All of a sudden, the mighty buffalo was awakened from his sleep by a great crash. It was like a hundred thunder storms made into one. At the same time Shaggo felt himself tossed up and around and shaken from side to side. Then he felt himself sliding out of the car door, while, all about him, he heard wild shouts and a great racket.
CHAPTER VII
SHAGGO IN A CIRCUS
Shaggo was at first so shaken up and tumbled about, and his shoulder hurt him so much from having been hit against the side of his cage, that the buffalo did not know what had happened. But he saw that he was no longer in the darkness of the box car into which he had been placed for his train ride. He could look out and up through the wooden bars, and he could see the stars shining above him, just as he had seen them in the National Park.
“But I can’t be back at the Park, where Rumpo and Bumpo are always butting one another and playing jokes,” thought Shaggo. “I don’t believe I am back there. Never did we have such noises there as I hear all about me. It’s enough to make one deaf!”
Well might Shaggo say that, for on all sides was the hissing of the steam engines, the blowing of whistles, the crackle of flames and the shouting of men. Though Shaggo did not know it, the train on which he had been riding in the box car had been in collision with another train. There was a wreck. Shaggo’s car was broken open and his cage had slid out. That was what had happened. It was the first railroad wreck in which Shaggo had ever found himself, and no wonder he did not know what it was.
“All I can say is that I don’t care very much for this, whatever it is,” said the buffalo to himself.
Pretty soon some men came running along the track toward Shaggo, who was standing in his cage looking out at the stars.
“Well, thank goodness, the buffalo didn’t get loose!” said one of the men.