“What is going to happen?” thought Shaggo.
The men talked among themselves.
“So that’s the buffalo, is it?” asked one.
“Yes, that’s the one the boss bought somewhere out West,” said another man. “We haven’t any buffaloes in our circus, and the boss thought it would be good to have one. Say, look at his hump, would you! Isn’t it big?”
“He has two humps!” said another man.
They approached nearer the cage, opened the other door of the car and looked closely at Shaggo.
“No, that swelling on his shoulder isn’t a hump,” said the first man. “Maybe he got hurt in the train wreck. I heard he was in one. We’ll have our animal doctor take a look at him.”
Shaggo sniffed at the men as they stood near his cage. He seemed to know they would not hurt him, and so he did not stamp around, bellow or try to break out as they put ropes around his cage and pulled it toward the door of the freight car. After a while the cage was slid down some planks, as barrels are rolled into a cellar, and then the cage was hoisted up on a wagon.
It was a much larger wagon than the one Shaggo had ridden on after he had been caught in the trap. And it was a much nicer wagon, too, for it was painted red, yellow, and green, though of course the buffalo did not know much about such colors. The green of the grass, the whiteness of salt and the blueness of the water he drank were about all the colors Shaggo knew. True he had seen the beautiful colors of the sunset, but I doubt if he really paid much attention to them. And, in a way, the wagon was almost the colors of sunset. It was a circus wagon on which Shaggo was now riding.
Over the buffalo’s cage was thrown a heavy piece of canvas—a part of one of the tents—and then Shaggo was drawn through the city streets. He did not know he was in a city, for he had never seen one before, but there he was. And after a long, rumbling ride the buffalo came to rest. The cover was taken off his cage, and for the first time in his life Shaggo found himself inside a circus barn.