That meant for the horses to stop. Tamba had often heard the circus men call that to their horses when they wanted them to stop pulling the big cage wagons, and so the tiger understood.
“Now I wonder what will happen to me,” thought Tamba. He raised his head up from his snug nest in the hay and saw what he knew to be a barn, though it was not like the one near which he had met Squinty, the comical pig, nor like the one where he had frightened the boy Tom.
“But it’s a barn all right,” thought Tamba. “And there must be some of my tiger, elephant and lion friends near it, else there wouldn’t be that wild animal smell. I wonder if Tum Tum, Nero and Dido are here. Maybe they brought them here after the train wreck.”
Tamba did not know what to think, but what he wanted to do was to keep out of sight of any men who might be around, until he could think of what to do.
“For I’m not in my jungle, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself. “And how to get there I don’t know. But I’m not going back to the circus if I can help it.”
Tamba now felt some one pulling at the load of hay, as if about to unload it from the wagon. Then the tame tiger, giving a look over the side and seeing no one, slipped and slid down, and, noticing an open door in the barn, through it he ran and hid in a dark corner.
“There! Now maybe they can’t find me!” thought the tiger. “I’ll stay here until it’s dark, and then run out. But where am I?”
Tamba asked himself this question over and over again. Outside the barn he heard men talking and horses moving about, and with the wild animal smell came the sweet smell of new hay—the hay on which he had ridden to the city.
“The man must be taking the hay off the wagon,” thought Tamba. “I can’t ride on it again. Well, perhaps I shall not need to. But I should like to know where I am, and what all this means.”
For some time Tamba remained hidden in a dark corner of the barn, and then, suddenly, an animal came running in and Tamba knew at once what kind it was. For it was striped almost the same as was the tiger himself—with yellow and black—and it was a zebra.