Then Tamba arose, and stretched himself some more. He liked to feel the damp earth under his paws, and he liked the feeling of the dry grasses as they rubbed against his sides.
“Why, I feel hungry!” suddenly said the tiger. “I wonder where I can get anything to eat in this, the beginning of the jungle.” You see, Tamba still thought the jungle was close at hand, but, to tell you the truth, it was far away, over the sea, and Tamba could not get to it except in a ship.
The more Tamba thought about it the hungrier he became. He knew no men would come to him now with chunks of meat, as they had used to come in the circus.
“I must hunt meat for myself, the same as I did when I lived in the jungle with my father and mother,” thought the tiger. “Well, I did it once, and I can do it again. I wonder what kind of meat I can find?”
Tamba did not have to wonder very long, for he soon saw some big muskrats, and he made a meal off them.
Then Tamba looked about him, and began to think of what he would do to get to the deeper part of the jungle—the part where the trees grew. He wanted to be in the thick, dark woods. All wild animals love the quiet darkness when they are not after something to eat.
But it was now broad daylight, and Tamba knew he must be careful how he went about. Men could easily see him during the day. He remembered he had been told this in the jungle, years before, by his father. But in the jungle Tamba was not so easy to see as he was on this railroad meadow. The yellow and black stripes of a tiger’s skin are so like the patches of light and shadow that fall through the tangle of vines in a jungle, that often the hunters may be very close to one of the wild beasts and yet not see it. The tiger looks very much like the leaves and sunshine, mingled.
“But I guess if I slink along and keep well down in the tall grass no one will see me,” thought Tamba. “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll keep hiding as long as I can until I get to my jungle. Then I’ll be all right. I’ll be very glad to see my father and mother again, and my sister and brother. The circus animals were all very nice, but still I like my own folks best.”
So Tamba slunk along, going very softly through the tall grass. If you had been near the place you would probably have thought that it was only the wind blowing the reeds, so little noise did Tamba make. Tigers and such cat-like animals know how to go very softly.
All at once, as Tamba was slinking along, he heard the sound of men’s voices talking. He knew them at once, though of course he could not tell what they were saying. Besides the voices of the men, he heard queer clinking-clanking sounds and the rattle of chains. Tamba knew what the rattle of chains meant—it meant that elephants were near at hand, for the circus elephants wear clanking chains on their legs, being made fast by them to stakes driven into the ground.