The tame tiger was now chewing the scraps the pigs had brushed aside as they did not want them. Tamba did not feel so hungry now, but he did feel queer where the whitewash had splashed on him.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Squinty. “If you go down to the end of the meadow there is a pond, and you can wash off the white splashes. It’s warm enough to take a bath.”
“I’m not very fond of water,” said Tamba, “though I do take a bath now and then. I guess I can wash off the white stuff by dipping my paws in the water and rubbing them over my striped coat. I’ll do it.”
And that is what Tamba did after he had eaten up all the meat scraps there were in the pigs’ pen. Then he said good-by to Squinty and the others and started off again.
“I must get to my jungle,” said the tiger. “I have been away from the circus quite a while now, and, as yet, I have not come to the jungle.”
“But you have had lots of adventures,” said Squinty, the comical pig, for Tamba had told of some of the things that had happened to him. “You have had almost as many adventures as I, Tamba. I suppose you can call that an adventure, when I splashed the whitewash on you.”
“Yes,” agreed Tamba, “I think that, most certainly, was an adventure. I don’t want another like it, though.”
So Tamba traveled on again. He thought, if he went far enough, he must, some day or other, come to the jungle where he used to live. But he did not know which way to go, and, often as not, he went wrong. However, as Squinty said, the tame tiger was having many adventures.
He had a queer one the second night after he had met Squinty, and this is the way it happened. Tamba had been roaming along in the night, after having caught something to eat in the woods, and at last he came out on a road which stretched far and away in the moonlight.
“That is a long road to travel,” thought Tamba. “I think I will take a rest before I go down it any farther. I’ll hide somewhere and wait until morning.”