[CHAPTER I.]
"ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH."
Strange, how a few harmless ingredients, thrown together and mixed, will set the trouble pot a-boiling.
Saltpeter is an innocent and useful product, and so is charcoal and sulphur; but seventy-five per cent. of the first, fifteen per cent. of the second, and ten per cent. of the third, when properly mixed, will make gunpowder—an explosive that has slain millions, made kingdoms over into republics, and changed the map of the world again and again.
So, on this beautiful morning, with the banks of the Wabash River for a setting, fate was juggling with a few trifling elements for the purpose of combining them and manufacturing trouble.
The Big Consolidated Shows were pitching their tents near that part of the river, and two of the ingredients that helped form the dangerous mixture were connected with the "tented aggregation."
One was the big elephant, Rajah, who had a tremendous thirst and was wabbling along toward the river for a drink; the other was a Chinese boy, dipping a couple of pails of water from the stream for the steam calliope. The third element—the one having no connection with the show—was a German youth with a weakness for bursting into song.
The elephant, dryer than the desert of Sahara, was making big and rapid tracks for the brightly gleaming water, the Chinaman was leisurely filling his pails, and the German was strolling along the bank, dusty from a long tramp and with a stick over his shoulder from which swung a bundle bound up in a knotted handkerchief.
If the German had known how to sing he would not have attracted the attention of the Chinaman; and if the Chinaman had not looked and grunted his disgust, the German would not have become hostile; and if Rajah, the elephant, had not possessed such a playful disposition, the German and the Chinaman would probably have separated with no more than a few mongrel words of personal opinion. But fate was working overtime that day, and had an eye for weird combinations.
"Ach, der moon vas shining pright upon der Vabash,
From der fieldts dere comes some shmells oof new-mown hay,
Droo der candlelight der sycamores vas gleaming,
On der panks oof der Vabash, righdt avay!"