“Well, yes, he did hurt me when he poked me with his stick,” answered the buffalo, “but that isn’t why I limp. Something is the matter with my shoulder, it has a big lump on it. See?” And he came close to the front bars of the cage.
Don, with his head on one side, looked at the buffalo’s second hump.
“I know what’s the matter with you,” barked Don.
“What?” asked the buffalo.
“You have rheumatism,” answered Don. “I know what that is. I had it myself once, when I slept out in the rain a couple of nights after I was so foolish as to run away. Yes, that’s what you have—rheumatism.”
“Hum! I wonder if I have?” said Shaggo, slowly. “I thought I got this for running away. I know the hurt began after I jumped over the fence.”
“Maybe that started it, the same as it started with me when I got wet,” returned the dog. “But what you have is rheumatism, you may depend on it.”
“Perhaps I have,” agreed Shaggo. “I wonder what I had better do about it?”
“Oh, I guess they’ll get a doctor for you,” went on Don. “The circus men are good to their animals. But I’ll have to be trotting along, or they’ll think I have run away again, and once is enough for me. Good-bye!”