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f=Jungle Joe, pride of the circus; the story of a trick elephant (IA junglejoeprideof00hawk).pdf
y=1926
loc=Boston
pub=Q106389035
au=Clarence Hawkes
ill=Lewis Jesse Bridgman
ty=novel
sub=Pride of the Circus
sub2=The Story of a Trick Elephant
gen=children's
ia=junglejoeprideof00hawk
dl=ia
beg=sc
ch=rom
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{{ph|class=half|Jungle Joe, Pride of the Circus{{dhr}}{{asc|The Story of a Trick Elephant}}}}
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{{c|{{uc|Books by}}<br />{{larger|{{uc|[[Author:Clarence Hawkes|Clarence Hawkes]]}}}}{{rule|3em}}{{fine|''Cloth. Illustrated. Jackets in Colors''}}}}{{rule|3em}}
{{bc|
{{uc|[[Dapples of the Circus]]}}<br />
:{{sc|The Story of a Shetland Pony}}
{{uc|[[A Gentleman From France]]}}<br />
:{{sc|An Airedale Hero}}
{{uc|Jungle Joe: Pride of the Circus}}<br />
:{{sc|The Story of a Shetland Pony}}
}}
{{rule|3em}}
{{c|{{larger|{{uc|Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.}}}}<br />{{uc|Boston}}}}
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{{FreedImg
| file = Jungle Joe (1926) frontispiece.png
| caption = He sent the tiger thirty feet into the tree-tops.{{c|''[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 1#33|Page 33]].''}}
| width = 300px
}}
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{{c|
{{xxxx-larger|{{uc|Jungle Joe,<br />Pride}} ''of the'' {{uc|Circus}}}}<br />
{{uc|The Story of a Trick Elephant}}
{{dhr|3}}
{{larger|By {{uc|[[Author:Clarence Hawkes|Clarence Hawkes]]}}}}<br />{{smaller|''Author of "[[Dapples of the Circus]]," "[[A Gentleman From France]]," etc.''}}
{{dhr|2}}
{{smaller|{{asc|Illustrated by}}<br />{{uc|[[Author:L. J. Bridgman|L. J. Bridgman]]}}}}
{{dhr|2}}
{{FreedImg
| file = Jungle Joe (1926) title illustration.png
| width = 75px
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{{dhr|2}}
{{uc|Boston<br />{{larger|Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.}}}}
}}
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{{c|{{smaller block|{{sc|Copyright, 1926,<br />By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.}}{{rule|2em}}''All Rights Reserved''{{rule|2em}}{{sc|Jungle Joe}}{{dhr|10}}Printed in U. S. A.{{rule|1.5em}}{{bl|Norwood Press}}<br />{{uc|Berwick & Smith Co.}}<br />{{sc|Norwood, Mass.}}}}}}
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{{bc|{{ib|{{c|To<br />Every Boy or Girl Who Loves<br />the American Circus,<br />This Book is Dedicated<br />by}}One Whose Heart still Pounds at the Blare of the Circus Band, and Who Revels in the Odor of the Sawdust Ring, and the Dad, Sweet Smell of Crushed Grass, and the Push and Hustle of the Circus Crowd.}}}}
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{{c|{{uc|[[The Elephant (Belloc)|The Elephant]]}}}}
{{ppoem|class=poem|
When people call this beast to mind,
:They marvel more and more
At such a little tail behind,
:So large a trunk before.
}}
{{bc|{{right|{{sc|[[Author:Hilaire Belloc|Hilaire Belloc]].}}}}}}
—4
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{{c|{{larger|{{uc|Contents}}}}}}
{{TOC begin}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|{{asc|Chapter}}||{{asc|Page}}}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1||[[Jungle Joe/Introduction|Introduction. The Mighty Pachyderm]]|9}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|I.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 1|Baby Elephant]]|23}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|II.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 2|The Jungle Folk]]|34}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|III.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 3|The Great Drive]]|60}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IV.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 4|Breaking the Wild Elephant]]|76}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|V.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 5|The Trip to Singapore]]|96}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VI.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 6|The Jungle Folk Go Sailing]]|132}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VII.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 7|The Life of a Trick Elephant]]|153}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VIII.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 8|Joie Goes Mad]]|169}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IX.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 9|A Plunge in the Dark]]|184}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|X.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 10|Joie Wins Two Wagers]]|203}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XI.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 11|The Great Tiger-Hunt]]|224}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XII.|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 12|Ali and Joie Find a Home]]|240}}
{{TOC end}}
—6
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{{c|{{larger|{{uc|Illustrations}}}}}}
{{dhr}}
{{TOC begin}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe#frontis|He sent the tiger thirty feet into the tree-tops]] ([[Jungle Joe/Chapter 1#33|Page 33]])|''Frontispiece''}}
{{TOC row 2-1||{{asc|Facing page}}}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 3#img|They started in a mad stampede through the jungle]]|70}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 5#img|"Peace, brother, peace"]]|122}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 10#img|"Hello, Sahib, are you fishing for crocodiles?"]]|202}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 11#img|So Queenie charged straight through the party of camera men]]|230}}
{{TOC row 2-1|[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 12#img|The two grew into the hearts and affections of all the children]]|250}}
{{TOC end}}
—8
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Introduction}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Mighty Pachyderm|level=2}}
{{sc|It}} would be a safe guess that ninety-nine per cent. of the children in our United States love and worship the American Circus, and well they may, for it is an American institution, developed by that great American genius, Mr. [[Author:P. T. Barnum|P. T. Barnum]]./begin/
Even the kings and queens of Europe, who are supposed to see everything that is worth while, had never seen the American Circus until Mr. Barnum took his show across the Atlantic Ocean and exhibited in Europe.
One of the pleasant pictures of spring-time is that of an excited group of children, gathered about the latest circus
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poster. They stand with mouth agape, and eyes stretched wide open, while with their hands they gesticulate, trying vainly to express something of the mystery and wonder described upon the bill-board.
If the American circus is the delight of all the children and many of their elders as well, then the elephant is the very centre and circumference of the whole show. He is the chief figure in that great glittering pageant, the street parade. If the children feel strange thrills at the sound of the stirring circus bands, if they gaze in wonderment at the strange people in the parade, if their spinal columns feel delicious thrills of fear at the cages of wild animals, yet it is reserved for the elephants to register perfect ecstasy in the childish heart. The elephant is mighty, he steps with such stately tread, and there is such
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an air of mystery about his driver that he at onee strikes twelve in the ehildish mind. From the elephants, the parade gradually fades away to the vanishing point.
This being the case, is it not wise to preface this book with a short sketch of the elephant family, especially as there will be some important facts included in this introduction which will not be touched upon in the main portion of the story?
The elephant family has been in the past very important, and a very large family. There are about fourteen distinct species found in fossils and in prehistoric rocks. But now the family has dwindled to two species: the African and the Asiatic elephant.
Of these, the African is slightly the larger and much the more untamable. There are very few cases of African ele-
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phants fully domesticated. Jumbo, so long loved and admired by children, was the notable exception. The African elephant is usually rather taller and more rangy than the Asiatic, and his tusks are heavier. Also his ears are much larger, sometimes measuring three and a half feet in length by two and a half in width. Aside from these differences, the two living species of the elephant are quite alike. But the Asiatic elephant is the one we see in circuses and zoos.
There was another mighty elephant that lived upon the earth with primeval man, and is most interesting because of that fact. He was called the mammoth. A fine specimen of this mighty elephant was found a few years ago in Siberia frozen into a crevice in a glacier. He was so well preserved that the tissues of his flesh
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were all intact, and even his hair was well preserved.
This mighty elephant was two or three feet taller than the very largest elephants upon the earth to-day, and he probably weighed a half more. So that would make him thirteen or fourteen feet high and weighing perhaps ten tons. Truly a huge beast.
The other species most commonly found in fossils and about which we hear the most is the mastodon, that was even larger than the mammoth.
So, as you see, all the members of this family have been veritable giants.
The elephant is very long-lived, even in these days, living from seventy-five to one hundred and thirty years. No one knows how long his life might have been in the prehistoric ages.
{{nop}}
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He goes back to a very distant date in the history of man. Elephants were used in India in repelling the attacks of Alexander the Great.
Towers which contained thirty or forty bowmen were mounted upon the elephants' backs. But these great animals are rather timid in some ways, so they often bolted in battle and did their friends quite as much damage as they did their enemies.
Hannibal used elephants in his army which crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps mountains and so marched down into italy and attacked imperial Rome. The elephant, notwithstanding his size, is very sure-footed and a very good mountain-climber. This is because they formerly lived much farther north than they do now. So we see that the elephant was formerly domesticated and that he went
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into battle with his master. But, except in India, the art of capturing and training elephants seems to have been lost from about the time of the Christian Era till within the last century, when the elephant again became subservient to man.
The fact that the elephant once lived much farther north accounts in part for the theory that he was formerly covered with hair, but his living in the tropics has caused him to discard it as unnecessary.
This is probably why a baby elephant is born covered with a fine woolly hair, which he sheds when he is a few months old, and it never returns.
The female elephant gives birth to a baby elephant every three years after she is fifteen years old. This occurs until she is seventy-five, when she ceases to bear young. This would make the average
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female elephant the mother of from fifteen to twenty elephants.
The elephant does not gain his full size and weight until he is about twenty-five. When he is born, he is three feet high and weighs two hundred pounds. After that he grows an inch a month until he is five years old. Then the growth is slower.
The strangest of all the elephant's peculiar organs is his trunk, which one scientist says contains forty thousand muscles. Certain it is that he can use it in many ways. It is so powerful that he can lift hundreds of pounds of weight with it, and so delicate that he can pick up a pin from the floor. It is by means of the trunk that the elephant drinks. He can also suck in much more water than he wants for his immediate use and store it up in his water-stomach, which in a full{{peh}}
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grown elephant holds ten gallons. This makes him a good traveller in waste places where water is not plenty. If he has a mind to, he can draw the water from his stomach into his trunk at any time, and take a drink, or even squirt it over himself, thus taking a shower-bath. But he does not usually waste the extra water which he has stored up in that way.
The elephant's tusks are formed of dentine, a very valuable tooth-covering. They are merely greatly elongated upper teeth, which in some cases curve down and then up at an angle of forty-five degrees. These tusks, which form the ivory that man prizes so highly, in the case of the African elephant often weigh two hundred pounds.
The ivory in a large set of tusks is worth hundreds of dollars, and sometimes even
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one or two thousand dollars. So the tuskers, as they are called, which are the bulls with the largest tusks, are usually shot as soon as they are captured. This is for two reasons. First, they are more valuable for ivory than for show purposes, and second, they are often rather hard to break, being stubborn.
Quite frequently a male elephant becomes estranged from the herd. He lives by himself and shuns the rest of the elephants. After a time, he becomes very morose and is a dangerous animal for a hunter to meet. Such an elephant is called a rogue.
The elephant has probably always been tamed in India where he is a sacred animal. The white elephant, especially, is regarded with great veneration. Also the twenty-toed elephant brings a fabulous
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price among the Indian princes. The usual complement of toes for the elephant is eighteen.
There was one white elephant in India many centuries ago which was so highly prized that two rival kingdoms got to waging war over him, and this war lasted for five generations of kings and cost thousands of lives.
The most dangerous thing about the elephant is his liability to must. This is a strange disease to which he is subject, and which makes him mad while it lasts. But its coming can be detected if the elephant-keeper is careful, so trouble can always be avoided. In the cheek-bones of the elephant there are two small holes from which flows a slight secretion. When the elephant is about to be taken with must, this vent gives off a fluid and also
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a musty odor. The elephant-keeper should each day make an inspection of this vent with a straw. If he discovers the musty smell, he should at once take preventive measures.
If the elephant is immediately hobbled, and then chained up he can do no damage. Usually the attack will pass after a while. But occasionally an elephant becomes so violent that he has to be shot.
The elephant's memory is marvelous. A doctor once lanced the foot of an elephant, thus relieving him of great pain. Sixteen years passed and the man and the beast did not meet again. One day the elephant was parading in a certain city, when he stopped all of a sudden and going up to the sidewalk put out his trunk to salute the surgeon who had lanced his foot sixteen years before.
{{nop}}
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In Siam he is used in the lumber-yards and is a great lumber-piler.
The elephant has always furnished much sport for the princes in India, where he is used to hunt tigers. The men ride on the great beast's back and shoot the tiger from this vantage-ground.
A domesticated elephant is also often used in capturing wild elephants.
But all these stirring pictures of the elephant in tiger hunts, taking part in elephant-drives, and piling lumber are scenes of the Orient and far removed from our United States. Here we know the elephant as a show animal and the pride of the circus. True, he can when occasion requires put on a harness and draw a circus-wagon out of the mud when six horses have failed to start it, but he is usually seen marching along in the parade
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with stately tread, or quietly eating hay in the animal tent. If he is very clever, he will come into the circus ring and do tricks that are fairly marvelous. But in these he does not use as much reason as we often think. They are more the result of months of patient training on the part of the trainer and a fine memory on the part of the pachyderm.
So I think it is as the circus favorite that we shall still have to know the elephant, the great feature in the parade, and the giant of all the circus wonders.
In this book, however, the author will take the reader to the jungle and the plain where the elephant lives and where he is captured, and show how he is brought from the wild, and tamed and taught tricks, until he becomes the very central figure in the American Circus.
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{{ph|class=title-header|Jungle Joe}}
{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter I}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Baby Elephant|level=2}}
{{sc|Baby Elephant}} was born under a broad spreading blackwood-tree at the edge of the great jungle in the Malay Peninsula. So, you see, he was an Asiatic elephant.
Baby Elephant's mother had chosen his birthplace with great care and judgment. The wild mothers are always wise concerning their young. It was shady and cool under the blackwood-tree, and there was plenty of underbrush to shield them from curious eyes, not that they needed
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greatly to be shielded, for the scent of the elephant is enough to strike terror to the heart of almost any of the jungle-dwellers, but it was well to be on the safe side. At the time Baby Elephant was born, his mother was fifty years old, but, as you have already learned, this is not an extreme age for elephants.
Baby Elephant's life for the first few weeks was very simple. The great herd to which he belonged and of which his mother was leader, slept in the daytime and fed by night. So when the tropical sun beat down over the plains with scorching heat, the elephants would go into the cool deep jungle and lie down in the shade to sleep; but when the sun had disappeared and the mellow moonlight flooded the plains, they came forth to graze. Baby Elephant's mother usually left him
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in the jungle, hidden away in some secure spot when she went forth to feed. Baby Elephant's own meals were very easily obtained. He simply took his fill of elephant-milk at his mother's udders, just behind her forelegs, whenever he was hungry. While taking his meal, he had to curl his trunk up along his mother's side to keep it out of the way.
Baby Elephant himself was a perfectly formed elephant, even at birth. Just like his mother and the rest of the herd, only very small, for while he weighed only two hundred pounds his mother weighed over five tons.
Baby Elephant was a very playful, inquisitive jungle baby and his inquisitiveness often got him into trouble. When he was about a month old he attempted to chew his mother's ear one day when she was
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lying down, and when she poked him away with her trunk he did not take the hint but went back to this new game again and again. Finally his mother tired of the sport and gave him such a push with her trunk that he went sprawling.
About the only times Baby Elephant left the jungle during the first weeks of his life were when he went to the water-hole to drink. At first he did not seem to know how to drink, but he watched his mother put her trunk in the water and fill it and then squirt the water into her mouth, and so Baby Elephant soon learned the trick. The mother elephant would also squirt the water over her body, giving herself a fine shower-bath. She treated Baby Elephant in the same way, much to his disgust at first, but he soon learned to like the shower-bath.
{{nop}}
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Among the worst things that Baby Elephant had to endure during his first summer were the swarms of ffies and mosquitoes. He did not much mind them on his skin, but they stung his eyes and nearly made him blind. Each day when he went to the water-hole his mother used to plunge his head under the water. At first he did not understand what she was doing it for and was much grieved at being so treated, but he finally saw that it was to wash the flies and mosquitoes away from his eyes and to cleanse them.
Like all wilderness babies. Baby Elephant was taught strict obedience. This applied especially to his staying just where his mother had secreted him when she went to feed in the night. Usually he was very good in this particular. She could come back after many long hours
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and find him just where she had left him. But one night he transgressed his mother's command and came to grief.
He had usually slept while his mother was away but this night he was not sleepy and felt very curious and mischievous. There were many strange sounds in the jungle about him and he wondered what they meant. At first he tried to sleep, but sleep would not come to him, so finally he got up and began wandering around. Every few minutes he would return to the spot where his mother had left him, for he knew it was not right to leave it. But gradually he grew bolder and went farther into the jungle. Finally he went so far that he became lost, and then he wandered around and around trying to find his way back. Once he encountered a wild boar which rushed past him in the
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underbrush. At last, when it was beginning to grow light in the east and he had become very lonely and fearful, he encountered a strange figure in the jungle path ahead of him. It was that of a long, live cat with phosphorus eyes and gleaming teeth and lashing tail. While Baby Elephant still stood staring at her. Spotted Leopard leapt full upon his back and sank her sharp claws into his side. Baby Elephant gave one painful, frightened squeak, which was as near as he could come to trumpeting, and bolted through the underbrush, being barely able to run under the weight of the leopard, which was itself not full-grown, or it never would have molested a young elephant.
As good luck would have it. Baby Elephant's mother had been trailing him for
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an hour just previous to this catastrophe, and in answer to his agonized trumpet came crashing through the underbrush. The leopard saw her before Baby Elephant did, and made its escape, while the young elephant ran trembling to his mother. For several days after that mishap he fairly hugged his mother's side, and he never again wandered away from the hiding-place.
One other mishap he had during that first summer, but this was not very serious. His mother had been feeding near the water-hole and supposed that Baby Elephant was tagging after her, but instead he was exploring the water-hole. He waded around and around in several new places where his mother had never taken him, and finally became mired and caught in a sort of quicksand. Struggle as he
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would, he could not get out, so he lifted up his trunk and trumpeted pitifully. His mountainous mother, whose maternal love seemed just as tender notwithstanding her great bulk, came running to his assistance. She waded in and wrapping her trunk about him pulled him from the quicksand and brought him back to safety.
During the latter part of the summer when Baby Elephant's first set of teeth were forming, he learned to nibble at the tender shoots on sugar-cane and bamboo tops and also at the plantain. Bamboo, sugar-cane, plantain, and certain tree-roots form most of the diet of the full-grown elephant, and in time they became that of Baby Elephant.
The young elephant early learned that his trunk was the most valuable member that he had. The end of the trunk is so
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fashioned that an elephant can reach down with the upper side and up with the lower side and use it as a hand. But the elephant is very careful of his trunk and when fighting holds it straight up. Most of his fighting he does with his tusks. Baby Elephant was the cause of a striking example of what a male elephant can do with his tusks when opportunity offers. Baby Elephant's mother and his sire were one day making their way through the jungle when they came upon a mighty Bengal tiger. The tiger had just killed a deer and was eating it directly in the pathway of the elephants. As the big bull elephant that was leading the little band approached, the tiger bared its fangs and snarled and refused to give way to the lord of the jungle. This so infuriated the elephant that he charged, head down, and
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caught the tiger fairly on his tusks. With a mighty upward movement of his head, he sent the tiger thirty feet into the tree-tops, and when this tiger came down, the fight had all gone out of him, and he slunk away in great haste.
Thus it was, sleeping in the jungle by day, and staying in hiding at night while the adult elephants fed on the plains, that Baby Elephant spent his first summer. But as the weeks passed and he grew larger and was weaned, he finally went with the herd when they fed at night, and this made him feel that he was really one of them. He had never quite outgrown his curiosity or his playfulness, however, for he was still a baby elephant.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter II}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Jungle Folk|level=2}}
{{sc|The}} jungle folk were a strange and varied company, ranging all the way from the black langur, the small monkey that swung, chattered, scolded, and swore in the tree-tops, to the great Bengal tiger that skulked in the underbrush and sought his meat wherever he could find it. The black langur was a noisy mischievous fellow, and his cry of "Wah! wah! wah!" followed by a "Hoo-oo, hoo-oo, hoo-oo!" was always ringing through the jungle. He tormented the birds and even followed after the great tiger, hooting and swearing at him from the tree-tops whenever he appeared in the jungle. But as all the jungle folk hated the tiger, no one cared.
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There are three sorts of tiger, all belonging to the same species, the game-killer, the cattle-killer, and the man-eater. The tiger most often seen in Baby Elephant's jungle was an enormous man-eater.
Baby Elephant, in time, learned to know all the jungle folk, some of whom he liked and some he hated, but he was curious about them all. His inquisitive trunk went poking about in many strange places and often got its owner into sad adventures. But, as Baby Elephant's hide was very thick, he could not be badly bitten, and as his bones were well covered with flesh, they did not break easily, and so he survived all his adventures. Besides, the fact that he was an elephant was in itself partial protection for him.
You have already heard of Baby Elephant's sorry adventure when he ran away
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from the spot where his mother had hidden him and was clawed by a young leopard. From that hour Baby Elephant hated all leopards, both spotted and black.
The leopard is a sleek and beautiful member of the cat family, about two-thirds the size of the American mountain lion. He is a great hunter, and is fond of lying upon an overhanging limb and falling like a thunderbolt upon his prey when it passes beneath. Woe to the black buck that comes within striking distance of this dread hunter!
Baby Elephant and his mother witnessed a thrilling battle one morning when Baby Elephant was about three months old. They had just come back from the plains where they had been feeding the night before and were lying in a dense portion of the jungle, sleeping with the
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rest of the herd, when they were aroused by a mighty commotion from Black Langur and his noisy company. Birds were also joining in the general alarm, so Baby Elephant's mother arose silently and stole away noiselessly through the jungle to see what it was all about. She did not intend that Baby Elephant should follow her, but he did. Presently they came to an open spot in the jungle which was quite free from trees, and there in the centre of this amphitheatre a terrible battle was going on. Baby Elephant's mother thrust her head out through the overhanging branches so she could see it and Baby Elephant himself watched from between her forelegs. The trees surrounding the battle-ground were fairly alive with monkeys, screaming and shouting and seemingly urging on the combatants.
{{nop}}
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Right in the middle of the amphitheatre Spotted Leopard and Baba-rusa, the wild boar, were engaged in deadly battle. This wild pig was quite different from the domestic pig. He was taller, rangier, and without any superfluous fat. His tusks were more fully developed, and his movements were like lightning. Altogether he is a desperate fighter and a match for any tiger. Spotted Leopard and Wild Boar were facing each other, sparring for position. The big cat would suddenly spring and seek to rake the boar across the face with deadly claws, but instead would meet Wild Boar's broad shoulder and perhaps get a rip in her side from his sharp tusks. Again and again the infuriated cat sprang but did little damage. Around and around Wild Boar she circled, trying to get behind him and jump upon his back, but
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he always faced her with his gleaming tusks. Faster and more furious the battle raged, while the monkeys screamed with delight. Twice the great cat got in a raking blow in Baba-rusa's face, but he slashed her in return each time. Finally the leopard became furious and sprang full upon Wild Boar's head. There was a wild squeal from the pig, and a yell of pain from the great cat, as the two combatants rolled upon the ground. Finally, with great agility, Wild Boar sprang to his feet and ripped the still prostrate leopard half the length of her belly. She struggled feebly for a few moments and then stretched out dead, while the badly lacerated boar limped away into the deep jungle, grunting with satisfaction.
Orang-outang, the monkey, whose name signifies "wild man" in the Malay lan-
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guage, also frequented Baby Elephant's jungle, although he is a native of Borneo, but he usually kept well to the swampy part down by the great river, for he lived in the water spruces which stood knee deep in the river. When Mrs. Wild Man was about to give birth to the young, the Orang-outangs built themselves a platform high up in the tree-tops. This was made by putting boughs across convenient crotches in the tree, and then covering the platform with fine twigs, making a comfortable nest. Here, the little Orang-outangs were born. Mr. Wild Man was a dangerous fellow. He had a broad back and chest like a prize-fighter; his arms, when spread out, measured ten feet, six inches, from finger-tip to finger-tip. They were so long that his hands hung down well below his knees. His legs were
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short and thick; his head was rather small, but his jaws were heavy and armed with very strong canine teeth. He was covered with coarse reddish-brown hair. The {{SIC|orang-outang|Orang-outang}} is so strong that he can bend the ordinary inch iron bars in a wild-animal cage like jackstraws. Baby Elephant saw the Orang-outangs frequently when he and his mother came down to the great river to drink.
There were other creatures that came occasionally to Baby Elephant's jungle, but they were more often seen upon the great plains. These creatures always walked upon their hind legs, and some of them even carried the dreadful thunder-stick which could speak to the jungle people in such a terrible voice that they would lie down at its command and die. Most of these Malays were armed with
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spears and bows, which were not so deadly as the thunder-stick. But occasionally a sahib or white man came among them and he always carried a thunder-stick. Even the natives were very cunning in setting traps for the jungle folk, but it was not until Sahib Anderson from the United States came with fifty natives to Baby Elephant's jungle to capture wild animals for the dealers at Singapore that the real troubles for the jungle folk began.
When Sahib Anderson and his fifty jungle-beaters finally descended upon the jungle where the elephant herd usually spent the day resting and sleeping, great consternation reigned among the jungle folk.
Baby Elephant's mother, the leader of the herd and always on the watch, was the first to discover their coming. She arose
-43
and stood listening for several minutes. Baby Elephant himself followed her example. He usually did most of the things he saw his mother do. He did not detect the faint, far-away sounds, but the old elephant did. Her command to the herd for a silent and noiseless retreat was not given by any audible sound.
Probably the command was communicated from elephant to elephant by signs, or perhaps it was telepathic, but I think the former was the case. But certain it was that the great herd of perhaps sixty head began moving silently through the thick jungle, all going in the same direction, although they could not see each other. The silence with which this movement can be executed is astonishing to even a hunter who is versed in the ways of the wild. The adult elephants were ten
-44
feet in height and weighed around five tons each, yet they went almost without the breaking of a twig. This was partly due to the fact that their large feet are well cushioned, and all sounds smothered under them.
Mr. William T. Hornaday tells of coming upon a large herd in India. He was within fifty yards of the herd before he was discovered by a female elephant, one of the outposts. This elephant stood perfectly still watching the hunter for several minutes, while he in turn watched her. Finally she turned and slowly walked away into the jungle. The hunter found to his great astonishment that while she had been watching him she had probably given the command to the herd to retreat, and all had disappeared without making an audible sound.
{{nop}}
-45
With the coming of Sahib Anderson, the elephant herd moved five miles down the bank of the great river to a still more dense portion of the jungle.
Baba-rusa, the wild boar, next discovered the coming of the jungle hunters, and led his herd of twenty-five members five miles up the river.
The leopards, both the spotted and the black, skulked away and hid in the deepest portions of the jungle where they were comparatively safe. The black bear also fled, but Black Langur held his ground, although he kept at a safe distance in the tree-tops. Yet he did not disguise his presence, but set up a great din from time to time, so that the forest fairly rang with his "Wah! wah! wah! Hoo-oo, hoo-oo!"
Finally it became apparent to the mon-
-46
keys that the hunters were pursuing Man-Eater, the great tiger, and followed him from one portion of the jungle to another. Ali hated the tiger, so this was well.
Soon Black Langur lost his fear of the men creatures and followed along in the tree-tops, watching the progress of the hunt. He also joined in it himself. He was too worthless for a native to waste a spear or a poisoned arrow upon, so he grinned down at them through the branches, his white-whiskered face screwed up into a diabolical grimace.
But Black Langur and his people were perfectly willing to follow along in the tree-tops and help the men rout out the tiger. So no matter where the tiger hid, these chattering, howling imps always spied him out and soon with their yell of
-47
"Wah! wah! wah! Hoo-oo, hoo-oo!" brought the hunters.
The truth was that the great man-eater had committed several terrible attacks upon a native village near by in open daylight. His ravages had become so bad that the Malays had besought Sahib Anderson to help them in the hunt. This he had consented to do. So all were after the great tiger. Several of the natives carried the deadly thunder-stick, although most were armed with spears or bows and arrows. But all were furious at the tiger and determined to get him at any cost.
Finally the great man-eater was driven from the jungle and took refuge upon a hillock on the plains. This particular hillock was thickly covered with small trees, so that he was well screened, and the jungle-beaters did not dare to go in
-48
after him. So the Sahib gave orders for the party to encamp in a circle around the hill. Very soon the men creatures started a circle of the red flower which they call fire.
The mighty tiger glaring at his pursuers from his stronghold saw the circle of the red flower dancing and leaping all about him, and a great fear filled him. For three days and nights they drove him deeper and deeper into his retreat. The men creatures constantly threw brands from the camp-fires into the unkindled circle where the great beast cowered.
Finally he was driven to his last hiding-place. He was gasping and choking with the smoke. His whiskers were singed off and he was tormented with thirst. At last the flames came so close that he made a break for freedom. But he had not taken
-49
two bounds when the thunder-stick of the Sahib spoke to him in terrible tones and he stretched out dead. His killing of men, women, and children was over, and the other animals also felt relieved.
Then the Sahib and the natives brought very heavy steel traps and set them in the favorite lair of his mate, and three days later she was caught. They let her stay in the traps for three days until she was very hungry, then brought a heavy cage and placed it close to her and threw a dead chicken in the farther end. The tigress dragged her traps into the cage. Then the hunters slipped up and secured her, and she was ready for her long trip to the American zoo or circus. As she was soon to have baby tigers, her capture was hailed with joy.
The next of the jungle folk to fall cap-
-50
tive at the hands of the Sahib was Orang-outang, or Wild Man.
This Wild Man was walking along by the great river very early one morning, looking for his breakfast, when he espied a generous bunch of plantains dangling from a bush. He had never noticed any plantains there before, but suspicion did not even enter his mind. All the jungle folk were entirely unsuspicious of traps. So Orang-outang reached out greedily with his long arm. He had not noticed that a small tree four or five inches in diameter had been bent down above the plantains. Even if he had, this probably would not have frightened him. He had never had any experience with the tricks of men.
He seized the fruit and pulled vigorously upon it, when snap, swish, up sprang
-51
the tree, and a treacherous copper-wire noose which had been hidden in the bush caught Mr. Wild Man around his middle and swung him aloft. He was left ten feet from the ground, dangling, thrashing, and howling with rage. Even this would not have been final had it not been for the peculiar way in which he had been caught. For as luck would have it, the noose pinioned one of his strong arms to his side when he swung up. Otherwise he would have climbed the noose to the tree above and been free in ten seconds. But here he was held powerless with his strong right arm pinned to his side.
His roars of rage soon brought Black Langur chattering in the tops of the trees near by.
Wild Man's rage was terrible, but all he could do was to roar and thrash.
-52
Finally, after half an hour, he wore out his great strength and the jungle folk thought him dead. A few hours later, the Sahib and his men took him down and put him in a small rattan cage.
The cage was made so small that Wild Man could not get a purchase on its bars, otherwise he would have torn it to bits, and he was a prisoner. He was then used as a decoy and his mate was caught in the same manner.
Some of the traps which Sahib Anderson and his Malay hunters used were very simple, but very effective. For who of the jungle folk has ever heard of birdlime? This is a very sticky substance, a sort of gum, from a tree. It is more sticky than mucilage and more adhesive than glue.
But it is very effective, if the poor jun-
-53
gle folk get into it. Even large animals are captured by its use.
Baby Elephant and his mother were feeding one day in the very heart of the jungle when Black Leopard came walking stealthily down one of the jungle trails. As Baby Elephant was with his mother he was not afraid. So he stood watching Black Leopard curiously as he came.
Presently the great cat began stepping very daintily. Then it gave vent to a series of spits and sprang into the air with a loud yowl, and it rolled over and over on the ground.
Baby Elephant was very curious about Black Leopard, and he instinctively knew that he was in trouble. But a very queer thing had happened to the leopard. When he had first begun to step daintily, it was
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because the leaves and dirt upon the ground were sticking to his paws. Now as he rolled over and over on the ground he was covered with leaves and small twigs.
The faster he spun, the worse his plight became. Presently he stopped and began licking his paws, but his tongue stuck to his paws, so that he could hardly pull it off. This made him frantic, and he began whirling about again. For hours he alternately licked himself and rolled and leapt. Finally he lay down utterly exhausted. So when the Sahib came by he could rope him without much difficulty and put him in a strong cage. Thus it was, one by one, that the jungle folk found their way into the Sahib's cages.
Strange and beautifully colored tropical birds were also caught with the fatal bird
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lime which was smeared upon their favorite roosts.
A bird would alight upon a harmless-looking branch only to find when he tried to fly away that his feet stuck to it. He would struggle and flap, and his cries soon brought others. These in turn alighted by his side and were also caught and held fast. There they stayed flapping miserably until the Sahib or some of his helpers took them away.
Black Langur had thought he was immune. No one could capture him.
Yet he guessed wrong. For soon a number of large-mouthed bottles appeared in the jungle. Each bottle held a rag which had been soaked with sugar. We know that monkeys are very fond of sugar, so soon a black imp would put his small hand into the mouth of the bottle for the
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sugar-soaked rag. When he had seized the rag he could not pull out his hand. He did not have sense enough to let go the rag, so there he stuck till the Sahib's men came for him. The bottle was securely tied to a tree.
Then the men would tickle a large nerve on the monkey's elbow, or as the children say, would touch his crazy-bone, and he would let go the rag and his hand would come out of the bottle. But he was then a prisoner.
And, strange to say, the monkey did not learn the secret of this simple trap.
But it was not until the Sahib made his mesh corrals and made drives of the jungles that he secured large numbers of the jungle folk.
These corrals were made of rattan, which was woven in and out at some point
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where the jungle was very dense. The rattans were woven in this manner until they had made a network perhaps fifty feet in diameter, with two wings extending out from it. It was much like a seine net in which fish are caught. When everything was in readiness, the jungle-beaters would form in a half—circle and beat the jungle for a mile, driving all before them. In this way they caught Black Buck and his mate, two beautiful plain antelopes. They also caught a baby tapir and its mother. This is a peculiar animal with a strange snout, something like the elephant's. It is dark above and light below, and the baby tapir had stripes on his sides.
Civet-cats and other small animals were caught. These were taken from the corrals in a very clever manner. A piece of bamboo was cut six feet long. This was
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hollow, and a long piece of doubled rattan was passed through it. The man held the two ends of the rattan in his right hand, and the end of the bamboo in his left. He let the loop upon the rattan stick through the end of the bamboo for a foot or so. Just enough to slip over the head of the civet-cat. It was then drawn tight over the small cat's neck and its head held against the end of the bamboo while it was lifted from the corral and put into a cage.
Thus it was that one by one the jungle folk saw their numbers diminish and their companions go away in Sahib Anderson's strong cages. But where they went or what became of them they did not know. All they knew was that they never saw them again.
Nearly all came under the Sahib's spell
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but the great elephant herd, and this mighty herd was composed of such giants that no one would have even dreamed that Sahib could capture them. But who can tell what a Sahib can do, when he has such strange powers with the thunder-stick! Although Baby Elephant and his mother and all the rest of the great herd of sixty elephants felt very secure, yet their turn was to come. The Sahib was making his plans. Soon he would reach out with his mighty arm, which seems so weak, yet is so terrible, and capture nearly all the herd. For elephants were no more to the Sahib than were the rest of the jungle folk. He was the master of them all. When he said, "Come," they came, even from the heart of the jungle. Yes, the power of the Sahib was terrible!
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter III}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Great Drive|level=2}}
{{sc|Sahib Anderson}} laid his plans for the famous elephant-drive with great care and skill. Full well he knew the hazard to both life and limb that the enterprise held. The Malays who helped him were not so well versed in the sport as he, but even if they had known the danger they would probably have taken the risk, for life is held of small worth in the Orient.
The Sahib's greatest difficulty was in getting the natives to work, for the average Malay is probably the laziest person in the whole world. This is especially true when his stomach is full. If he has just eaten he will say, "I have eaten! I am
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satisfied. Why should I work for to-morrow? I may die to-night. If Allah allows me to live through the night, I will work for to-morrow's food when to-morrow comes."
His needs are very few. Just a small patch of rice and the fish that swarm in the great rivers suffice for him. Even his fishing he does in the laziest manner, usually putting lime into the river and causing the fish to rise to the top of the water and die. Then he paddles about and picks them up at his leisure.
It was only by representing to the natives that elephant-driving was a great game, a wonderful sport, that the Sahib was finally enabled to get the desired hundred men. In this work he was much aided by Omar, a petty Malay prince, who drafted some of his own followers.
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Always conspicuous among the elephant-drivers was little Ali, the Prince's eighty-ear-old son. Vainly the Sahib protested that it was no sort of a place for a small boy. The Prince always shook his head. "He my shadow," he would exclaim laconically. "You cannot keep your shadow at home. He go where I go."
"But it is very dangerous work," persisted the Sahib. "The boy might get killed."
Again the Prince shook his head. "He not get killed. No animal touch him. He got a charm. He swim in the river and the crocodile come up and smell him and no bite him. He all right."
The small boy fairly worshipped the Sahib. He was always standing by watching the white man whenever he was allowed to. He and his father Omar could
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both speak a little English which they had picked up from an Englishman who had hunted tigers in the vicinity the year before and lived with the Prince's family. So Sahib Anderson and the small boy got on famously.
Ali was filled with wonder at the power of the Sahib's thunder-stick. His compass, his maps, his watch, and his books all spelled magic to the eyes of the Malay youth. Ali was always asking questions, many of which made the Sahib laugh, and as he was in need of laughter at the time he was usually glad to see the lad.
The Sahib first had fifty of his drivers locate the great elephant herd which was led by Baby Elephant's mother. When they had done this, they took great care not to frighten them, but drove them around in a circle, so that they did not
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stray far from the locality. This driving they did by merely shouting and beating on tom-toms, but always keeping out of sight. If an elephant herd either sees or smells a man it will always stampede, and a stampeding herd of elephants is just a little short of a passing tornado; nearly everything in its path is broken down and trodden into bits.
So while the fifty drivers kept the elephants going around in a circle, the other fifty set to work to build the corral into which they were to be driven. This was most arduous work, as they had to cut a lot of trees fifteen inches through, and had only their parangs or great knives with which to cut them.
When the requisite number of trees had been cut, the Sahib selected a place in the jungle where it was very heavily timbered.
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and here he marked out a circle of seventy-five feet in diameter and then began setting five feet apart in this circle the trees which he had cut, taking care to include as many of the standing trees as possible.
The posts were set five feet deep and the dirt tamped very thoroughly about them. The Sahib also took great pains not to disturb the appearance of the jungle. When the trees had been set, each was braced with three smaller trees on the outside. Bamboo was then laced between the posts and they were securely lashed together with large ropes made of twisted rattan. Then leaves were woven all through the structure so as to make it look natural.
At the entrance a great drop-gate was made, and it was held aloft by rattan ropes. Two wings were then built run-
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ming from the entrance, being fifty feet apart at the farther end and converging at the gate.
When all was in readiness, several Malay priests dedicated the corral with an odd ceremony. They went several hundred yards into the jungle and advanced towards the corral singing a strange chant. When they arrived at the enclosure they entered and killed a cock and sprinkled his blood upon the ground inside. This was to insure the success of the drive.
When everything was in readiness, the Sahib posted the fifty men who had been at work upon the corral in trees forming a double avenue from the herd, which by this time was rather restless. This double avenue led from the herd towards the corral. These men were to guide the drive by their shouts to the fifty men who were
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doing the driving, as the drive was to be made in utter darkness. The jungle was as dense as thick standing trees and interlacing vines could make it. It was full of pitfalls and bog-holes.
Presently from the very depths of the jungle there floated out on the stillness the solemn hoot of a great owl. It was an eerie sound and a call of great import to the jungle-drivers, for it was the Sahib's signal to begin the drive. The call was taken up by the natives in the tree-tops, and it passed down the avenue of waiting men and along the half—circle that partly inclosed the restless elephant herd. Then from behind the herd and to the right and the left came strange sounds. They were made by the Malays beating on tom-toms and uttering wild, fantastic cries, but to Baby Elephant's mother, the leader and
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guardian of the herd, they were inexplicable, and they filled her with uneasiness.
The elephant's sense of smell and eyesight are not of the keenest, but his hearing is very keen and he dislikes noises of all sorts. So, when the sounds from behind became a pandemonium, the elephant herd moved slowly forward. Baby Elephant's mother leading the way and Baby Elephant keeping close to her side. Whenever the herd veered to the right or left from a straight line towards the corral, the sounds on that side were increased and the herd swung back to avoid the noise. Thus it was that the drive went forward, a few yards or rods at a time in the inky darkness. At times the natives had to cut their way through the jungle with their parangs or great knives, the
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tangle was so thick. Mosquitoes and flies that stung like hornets bit them at every step. Nettles and thorny vines and bushes tore their clothing, their hands, and their faces. Soon every man in the drive was bleeding from a dozen small wounds, and still the drive went forward.
Nor were the elephants and the Malay drivers the only dwellers in the jungle that night. Baba-rusa and his troop scurried away through the jungle at the oncoming of the great herd. Spotted Leopard slunk away to distant cover; while monkeys peered curiously down from their perches in the tree-tops above, and startled night-birds uttering their eerie calls whirred away in the darkness. And still the drive went on. Baby Elephant's mother and the rest of the elephant herd were all unconscious that they were being driven.
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They just knew that strange sounds and strange impulses were abroad in the night about them, and that they were moving steadily forward.
The herd had been in motion nearly half the night but had covered only a mile when the tragedy that Sahib Anderson had feared occurred. There are always small elephants on the outskirts of the herd who wander about as sentinels or outposts, looking for danger. At about two o'clock in the morning, one of these sentinels sighted one of the Malay drivers and gave the alarm in a shrill, wild trumpet. His call was taken up by the entire herd, and in ten seconds' time all were trumpeting, bellowing, and squeaking. But that was not all, for with one impulse, led by Baby Elephant's mother, they started in a mad stampede through the
-i
{{FreedImg
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| caption = They started in a mad stampede through the jungle.{{c|''[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 3#70|Page 70]].''}}
| width = 300px
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—
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jungle. Imagine, if you can, a herd of sixty elephants, each weighing from four to five tons, mad with fear, rushing blindly through the jungle. Small trees went down like ninepins. They cut a swath like that of a cyclone, and the solid earth shook with the thunder of their mighty feet. There were cries of fear and alarm from the Malay drivers, barely heard amid the thunder and trumpeting of the stampeding herd, which turned sharply in its tracks and rushed back along the way it had come, not only one mile but five.
When the thunder of the stampeding herd had died away in the distance. Sahib Anderson and his men lit torches and searched the trail of the elephant herd for their comrades.
One of the first whom they discovered
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was Prince Omar, the father of little Ali. He was lying at the foot of a great tree, with his life crushed out of him. Ali himself stood behind the tree looking wistfully down at his father, but there were no tears in his eyes and he showed no signs of sorrow.
The Sahib hurried to his side and caught the lad up in his arms. "You poor boy," he said. "How did it happen?"
"When the herd rush by, a great bull see Omar and Ali behind the tree. He pick up Omar in his trunk and beat him against the tree, and he sleep. Allah is good."
At these simple and beautiful words from the lad, tears filled the Sahib's eyes. "Where did you ever hear that, boy?" he asked.
"It is what the old priest said when my
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mother died," returned Ali. "He said Allah was always good."
"But didn't the bull try to hurt you, Ali?" inquired the Sahib.
"He look at me like he strike me with his trunk, but I say to him, 'Peace, brother, peace,' and he go away. For that was what the priest told me to say to the cobra."
"Well, I'll be blessed," was all the Sahib could say, but he remembered what Omar had said about the boy swimming in the river, and that the crocodiles would not eat him.
Farther on they found still another dead Malay and six wounded. So, the jungle-beaters went to the Sahib's camp and gave up the drive for that night. But the following night they were surrounding the herd again. All through this night they
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drove and were more successful, for they recovered three of the five lost miles. The following night they gained two more and on the third night, to the great joy of all, the mighty herd slowly approached the entrance of the wings that led to the corral. All unsuspecting. Baby Elephant's mother led her great herd down the converging wings and into the corral, while one after another the herd streamed after her. As they began to jam in the wings, the drivers increased the noise and the elephants behind shoved those ahead forward. In fifteen minutes from the time when Baby Elephant's mother entered the corral, fifty-two of the fifty-six elephants were inside and the ropes holding up the heavy gate loosed, and the gate fell with a mighty thud, spelling the doom of the elephant herd. Then the jubilant Malays
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ascended with the Sahib to the platform which had been erected at the top of the posts and looked down upon such a sight as they had never seen before. Fifty-six mountainous animals wedged together and helpless in an enclosure only seventy-five feet in diameter, where they had been trapped, through the great cunning of the Sahib and the courage of his men.
It was a time of great rejoicing for the natives, and they feasted and danced for a week before the Sahib could get them to do any more work. Such an elephant-drive had never been seen or even dreamed of in their country before, and they intended to make the most of it. It had cost them bloodshed and heart-breaking toil, and there was every reason why they should rejoice now.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter IV}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Breaking the Wild Elephant|level=2}}
{{sc|With}} the capture of the great herd, the real work of Sahib Anderson and his native helpers had just begun. Capturing the elephants had been hard and dangerous work, costing them two lives and six wounded men, but the breaking would take months. While it might not be so dangerous as the capture, yet it was full of thrills.
This will be realized when we consider the great size of these elephants and that they were furious at being taken in this way.
The very first thing that the Sahib and his men did was to cut some holes in the bamboo between the posts and coax out
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the little elephants, that is, those that had been born that year, as there was much danger that they would be crushed or trodden to death in the wild melee inside the corral.
The very first of these youngsters to escape from the corral was Baby Elephant, whose fortunes we have been following. He had been separated from his mother, wedged in at the very centre of the corral, and he was quite frantic at the loss of his mother and the great crowding and pushing. Never in all his life had he seen such confusion, and he did not know what it was all about. He did not seem at all afraid of the Sahib and his men. In fact, he was quite curious about them and went up to them freely.
Little Ali was delighted to have a young elephant where he could see it and put
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his hands on it, and the boy's heart went out at once to the small elephant, and to humor him, and because he felt sorry for the lad who had so recently lost his father, the Sahib told Ali that he could call Baby Elephant his own, so the Malay boy took the small elephant to his heart and the two became as good companions as a boy and a pony might have been.
The first thing that the men did was to try to feed the baby elephants. They secured some cows' milk, and then held Baby Elephant and put his trunk into the milk. At the same time. Sahib Anderson squirted milk into his mouth with a squirtgun. This gave Baby Elephant to understand that the milk came, when his trunk was first put into the milk and then into his own mouth.
Little by little they taught the small
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elephant to suck up the milk into his trunk and then to squirt it into his mouth. They finally coaxed out nine other baby elephants from the corral. But to Ali, Baby Elephant was the best of them all. He would play with him by the hour. In fact, all the baby elephants were very playful, inquisitive little chaps.
They poked about into everything in the camp with their inquiring trunks. Baby Elephant finally got so he would follow Ali about like a dog, and would go with him far from camp. This filled the boy with childish delight.
"He know me, he love me! He know I am his master," the boy would say excitedly to the Sahib, at which the white man would smile and encourage the play.
The mature elephants were allowed to remain in the corral for nearly a week
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without any food in order that they might be reduced in strength and fierceness so that they could be handled more easily. It was rather harsh treatment, but the training and the breaking of all wild animals is usually harsh. Few people realize the harsh lessons which go into the making of a trick animal, with the possible exception of a dog or a horse. Most of the large animals have to be coerced, and handled through fear.
Finally a small pen which would hold just one elephant was built up against the gate, and one by one the elephants were allowed to enter it, food having been placed to toll them inside. In this small stall the elephant could not turn about or even move. So while he ate ravenously of the bamboo tips which had been provided for him, the knee and the foot hob-
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bles were put on him. These were strong bands which went about the legs, with ropes running from the fore to the hind legs. If he started to run, he would tumble down. In fact he could not run with the hobbles on. He could just scuff along miserably. From this small pen, the elephants were led one at a time to the stocks which the men had been two weeks in building. This was a large enclosure with thirty or forty individual stalls.
The method of leading an elephant to the stocks was most interesting. Ropes were tied to his forelegs and his hind legs, and also to his trunk, and six men were put on each rope to hold on for dear life. For it might mean some of their lives if the elephant got away.
Even so, the Sahib's deadly thunder{{peh}}
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stick was always in readiness if the great beast got to killing the men and could not be controlled. Before they started with the first elephant, a double row of stakes was driven in the ground along the way the elephant should be led, and he went between the stakes. The ropes which the men held were passed over these stakes, in the same way a derrick is staked down by guy-ropes. So the men had to furnish only half the pull upon the elephant, and the stake did the rest.
This was the only way that the twenty-four men could hold the elephant, and even so, some of them got away. Arrived at the stocks, the elephant was guided to his particular stall and his head secured between two large posts whieh had been set in the ground for that purpose. A pole was later set up on either side of him, and
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one behind his hind legs and in front of his hind legs, so that he was quite secure.
The elephants were kept in the stocks for about two weeks before any effort was made to take them out or to break them. During this time they were fed those things that they best like, and petted very freely by the men. They were given to understand that good behavior on their part brought rewards, while disobedience or temper brought swift and terrible punishment. These great beasts are very clever, and quick to learn from object-lessons like these.
The first one of the elephants to be brought forth for breaking was Baby Elephant's mother. She was first hobbled with only the knee-hobbles. That would give her more chance to move about.
Ropes were fastened to both her legs
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and trunk, as they had been when she was guided to the stocks, but this time, the men did not pass the ropes over the stakes in the ground, but relied upon their strength to hold her. For a few minutes after the old elephant, one of the largest the Sahib had ever seen, came out of the stocks there was a most lively time. She rushed first this way and then that, trying to get at her trainers, and also to break away from the ropes.
Her strength was titanic, and the men stumbled and slid, and the rattan ropes slipped through their hands. Once she nearly trampled several men to death and they were obliged to take a turn around a near-by tree with the rope. Just as the training was going on most furiously and the old elephant was trumpeting and bellowing with rage, a terrified little figure
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appeared on the scene. It was Baby Elephant himself, and he was frantic at what was happening to his mother. He trumpeted and squeaked continuously, and constantly got in the way. Finally the Sahib had one of the men catch him and lead him away into the jungle and little Ali followed and tried to comfort the small elephant, but it was some time before he would be consoled.
Baby Elephant's mother was the very hardest of all the herd to break. She had been the leader of the herd for so long, and had so enjoyed her own way about everything, that she could not get it into her head that she in turn must submit and must be governed.
Half a dozen men always followed after her, beating her with rattans. It was rather cruel, and made her frantic, but this
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was a part of the training that should break her stubborn spirit. Finally when Sahib Anderson had become discouraged, and had thought he would have to resort to the thunder-stick, Baby Elephant's mother gave in. She announced her surrender by a pathetic bellow, and from that time on she was a changed creature, always trying to understand her breakers, and to do their bidding.
If an elephant still refused to continue to give in after many severe lessons, it was taken away into the jungle and shot. The Sahib knew if the elephant would not submit, it would always be a menace and never would be well trained. It was not deemed wise to let any of the elephants which had been captured go, as they did so much damage in the rice-fields.
So day after day and week after week
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the breaking of the elephant herd went on. Most of the tuskers, that is, the male elephants with heavy tusks, were shot. Their tusks were worth hundreds of dollars, more than the elephants were worth alive for show purposes, so this was the easiest way. But nearly all the female elephants and some of the small males were finally broken.
They were taught to go ahead, to stop, to turn to the right and left, and to back, as well as to kneel down. This was so that men could get upon their backs, or so a howdah or any other load could be placed upon them.
Finally, after eight months of the most arduous work that the men had ever experienced, the herd was all broken, and the Sahib began making preparations for the trip to Singapore, where he would ship all
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his captives either to Germany or to America.
As the preparations went forward, a great sense of sadness came over little Ali. He had come fairly to worship the Sahib. He followed his every movement and listened breathlessly for his every word. To the small brown boy, the white man was as a god. Finally Ali was allowed to sleep at the Sahib's camp as the time for departure drew near.
One evening about a week before the time set for the journey, Ali very much surprised and distressed the Sahib by a strange announcement. He went up to the white man and put his small hand on his with the greatest confidence and said simply, "When the Sahib go, Ali will go. Ali has no father. Ali's father is dead. Sahib will be Ali's father. Ali will
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go with Sahib to America. He be Ali's father."
The words were so simple and so trustful and the boy had such an assurance that the Sahib was speechless for several seconds. Then he drew the boy close to him and said kindly, "I would like to take you, Ali, if I could. You are a good boy and I like you much. But I can't. You see America is different from this country. You would be lonesome. You would not be happy."
"I not be lonesome where the Sahib is," said Ali. "I would be happy. I cannot be happy again where he is not. I have no father. You are my father."
Vainly the Sahib tried to think of some way out of the difficulty but there seemed to be none. At last he was obliged to tell Ali firmly that he could not go with him.
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At these words from his god all the joy and life seemed to go out of the little brown boy. Do what Sahib Anderson would to cheer him up, he could not rally his spirits. Finally in sheer desperation, because he really felt some responsibility for Ali, because his father had been killed in his service, the Sahib hit upon a novel plan. It would cost him a lot of money, but he was a generous man and he dearly loved children, so he determined to make this sacrifice. He would give Ali Baby Elephant for his very own. The small elephant would be worth several hundred dollars in the United States, but he could not bear to see the boy who had been his boon companion so broken-hearted.
When the Sahib finally made the proposition to Ali, he was delighted with the way in which the boy regained his spirits.
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The loss of Baby Elephant had weighed almost as much upon his young mind as had the loss of the Sahib. So he thanked the white man with tears in his eyes.
The evening before the great cavalcade started Sahib Anderson said good-bye to both Ali and Baby Elephant and sent one of his men with them to the Malay village near by, where Ali was to live with his uncle. This seemed to be a fine arrangement, but they had not consulted Baby Elephant himself.
He had very strong ideas as to whom he belonged and where his place was in the world. He went along all right and seemed well satisfied to stay with Ali in the Malay village. All through the evening Ali petted and played with him and fed him sugar-cane tips and other dainties that he liked. Finally he tied him with a
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rattan rope and fastened the rope to a strong stake, near the bamboo hut where he was to sleep himself. He said goodnight to Baby Elephant about eight o'clock and went to his own bed, thinking what a fine time he would have on the morrow playing with his chum.
But about midnight Baby Elephant, having been sleeping rather restlessly, awoke and suddenly realized that he was alone. His mother by whose side he had always slept was not there. He had been so taken up playing with Ali that he had not thought of it before. But now it grew upon him with alarming rapidity and finally settled into a sense of panic and fear.
At first he went up and down the length of his rope several times, then he began straining at it. Finally he put all his
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strength against it and it did not give. Then he became very angry, and pulled still more desperately. After finding that it did no good to strain suddenly on the rope, he settled down for business and braced his sturdy little legs and laid his full weight against the rope. For five minutes he strained, bending lower and lower to the ground. Finally the stake pulled up so suddenly that he went over on his head. But this was nothing, for he picked himself up hurriedly and without even looking towards the hut where Ali slept, he started at his shambling pace towards the Sahib's camp. He knew the way back as well as a dog would have known it tie arrived at the camp about an hour after daylight. Here he found that all were gone. The Sahib's cavalcade had started two hours before to avoid the
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heat. But Baby Elephant was not dismayed, for he soon found the tracks of the elephant herd, and he shuffled away after them determined to find his mother if he had to run his legs off.
About an hour after Baby Elephant left the Malay village, Ali awoke and crept carefully outside the hut to see that Baby Elephant was all right. At first, when he saw he was missing he thought he must be dreaming and rubbed his eyes and looked again. But it was true, for he finally found the stake-hole. His chum was gone.
Little Ali did not cry out. Instead he went silently into the hut and got his sandals and his clothes, and dressing hurriedly outside he started at a dog-trot towards the Sahib's camp. He knew full well that Baby Elephant had gone back
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home, so he followed like a brown shadow. The rhythmic spat of his sandals kept time to his impatient thoughts. He would find Baby Elephant or drop by the way.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter V}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Trip to Singapore|level=2}}
{{sc|It}} was a rather imposing cavalcade which Sahib Anderson finally assembled for the trip to Singapore. Most of these wild animals had been kept in his animalhouses close to the Malay village near the Sahib's camp, the elephants alone being kept at camp.
All the bullock teams for twenty miles around had been pressed into service. They were not very much to look at, consisting of rude carts drawn by slow-moving bullocks, but this was the only mode of conveyance in that country, so the Sahib had to make the best of it.
The large wooden cages which were finally loaded upon the bullock-carts con-
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tained the female tigress, the mate of terrible Man-Eater, Orang-outang, Wild Man and his mate, Spotted and Black Leopard and their mates, Baba-rusa and his mate, Black Buck and his mate. Baby Tapir and his mother, and a score of smaller animals; not to mention six cages of tropical birds. This showing of about twenty bullock-carts was preceded by the elephants, forty in number. There were twenty female elephants, many of them having baby elephants, and ten young bulls.
Sahib Anderson's wild-animal procession was almost a circus street-parade in itself. Never had such a procession of wild animals been taken out of the Malay Jungle by one man at one time. So the excitement among the natives ran high.
Nearly two hundred Malay helpers
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were required to manage the cavalcade, and that added to the imposing line.
Each elephant had a driver, either walking by his side, or riding complacently upon the elephant's head, while each bullock-cart had a driver, and some of them two. Then there were camp-attendants and cooks, for this great company would consume much food on the journey. It was two hundred miles to Singapore, and most of the journey was to be made on foot.
As the strange procession finally got under way, nearly all the Malay inhabitants for twenty miles around had assembled to see them off.
There was silence among all the wild animals, save in the cages of Black Langur and the tropical birds. The monkeys chattered, screamed, and swore, and every
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now and then uttered their characteristic cry of "Wah, wah, wah! Hoo, hoo, hoo!" while the wild tropical birds voiced strange cries of alarm, or sang hysterically.
The tigress and the leopards looked on indifferently, gazing at the scene with their yellow, gleaming eyes, and yawning as though it made them tired. Finally they stretched and yawned some more, and then went to sleep. But Black Langur was very wide-awake. Nothing by the roadside escaped him. He screamed and chattered at each new scene, but at last even he settled down to the monotony of the long, hard march.
The cavalcade travelled rather slowly, about three miles an hour, the elephants at the head setting the pace.
When little Ali arrived at the Sahib's camp, to his great astonishment he found
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it deserted. He had not thought that his friend the Sahib would break camp so early. But he was not dismayed. The way that they had gone was very apparent to his jungletrained eyes. This Malay boy was as good a tracker as there was in the whole Malay Peninsula, and it was as easy for him to follow a trail like that of the caravan as it would have been for a hound, so he took the trail and scuffed along after the Sahib's wild-animal procession. He did not know just what he would do when he caught up with them, but he must find the Sahib. The white man must listen to him, for the loss of Baby Elephant was not the only thing that troubled the small brown boy.
While he had been sleeping the evening before, he had heard his uncle. Prince Bahi, and another Malay talking over a
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despicable and cruel plan to sell Baby Elephant when the Sahib should be out of the country. Baby Elephants like this one were quite valuable, and the greedy uncle wanted what money he could get from the sale of this one. Not only had little Ali faced the probability of losing his beloved small elephant, if he stayed with his cruel uncle, but he had also heard them talking of killing him if he objected to the selling of the elephant. So not only was he in danger of losing his pet, but also his life. Ali knew that the Sahib was a good man with a kind heart. If he really understood all his troubles, he would surely help. He was a great man, was the Sahib. He would know how to straighten things out. Then the thought would come to Ali that perhaps the Sahib would not listen to him; perhaps he would
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send him back. At this thought the boy's heart would almost stand still with fear.
Such were his thoughts as Ali scuffed after the wild animal cavalcade. He knew full well that they would travel five or six hours and then stop in the middle of the day and then resume the trip in the middle of the afternoon.
But Ali had not appreciated how long the way would be, or how fast the procession would move. He arrived at their noon camp an hour or two after they had left. So he resolutely scuffed on after them.
That evening he still followed wearily until ten o'clock, when to his great joy, he came in sight of the camp. Even then he did not dare to show himself, or make his presence known. Perhaps the Sahib would send him back if he appeared too
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soon. His plan was to follow day after day and then appear, when it was too late to send him back.
That night at about midnight, when the elephants were all peacefully sleeping and the bullocks chewing their cuds, and the camp sentry sleeping also, just as Ali had known he would be, a quiet little figure stole cautiously towards the camp, keeping in the shadows, and moving as silently as a shadow itself. It made its way from tree to bush till it reached the outskirts of the camp, and then slipped noiselessly into the shadows caused by the long line of carts and the large cages containing the wild animals and the birds. After some time, the line of ruminating bullocks was reached, and then the long line of elephants, each secured by a stake. Carefully the figure crept from elephant to elephant
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until at last it came to the head of the long line where Baby Elephant and his mother was secured.
The old elephant was sleeping soundly, but Baby Elephant himself was quite wide-awake. Perhaps he was thinking of his young master and wondering what had become of him. Certain it was that he greeted him with squeaks of delight, and fondled his hands and face with his expressive trunk.
As for Ali himself, he was overjoyed to find his chum, and to know that he had found his way safely to the Sahib's camp, although he had never doubted that he would.
Ali did not dare talk aloud to Babv Elephant, so he whispered in his great ear, telling him all his boyish sorrows, and they were real sorrows, fraught with very grave
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danger to the boy. And Baby Elephant was as sympathetic and loving as a small elephant could possibly have been. He squeaked and nuzzled with his trunk, and rubbed against Ali, until the little brown boy was greatly comforted.
Finally Ali had to take a heart-breaking farewell of his, chum, but this was not until he had buried his face upon Baby Elephant's shoulder and poured out his grief in great sobs.
Then the elephants began waking one by one and shaking their great ears, and Ali knew that it would soon be daylight, so he crept away as silently as he had come.
That morning when Sahib Anderson made his round of the camp, he pulled Baby Elephant's big ear playfully and asked him where Ali was. But he little dreamed of the tale that the small ele-
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phant could tell if he had the power of speech.
After breakfast, the bullock-teams were again yoked up, and Baby Elephant and his mother swung into the wagon-trail and the long day's march again began.
The roads were little more than wagon-trails, with the two tracks made by the wheels barely showing. Often the way was rough, and the going very hard.
To little Ali trudging a mile or two behind the animal cavalcade, the way seemed endless. Those in the procession joked and chatted by the way, and that helped the tedium, but Ali was all alone. Besides he had to provide for his food and look out for water while he travelled.
He subsisted largely upon fruit and berries, but occasionally he stopped at a Malay hut to beg some rice, or rice-cakes,
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and other plain food, or perhaps some dry fish if he was lucky. But he often went hungry, aside from the fruit.
The Malay villagers looked askance at him. So at the end of the second day when forty miles in all had been covered Ali was footsore, stiff, and weary-hearted. But he did not give up, for his only salvation was in "carrying on." If he lost the Sahib and the animal caravan, he lost everything.
So again that night he crept into camp and poured his grief into the large, sympathetic ear of Baby Elephant and was much comforted.
The following morning when Sahib Anderson made the round of his camp to inspect the animals, he again stopped at Baby Elephant and his mother to pay his respects to Baby Elephant, as he was very
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fond of him. The small elephant also liked the Sahib, as did all the animals. He had even partly subdued the hatred of Orang-outang, or Wild Man, simply by talking to him in a gentle, kind manner. When one of the magpies had first seen Wild Man, she had gone up to the bars of her cage and chattered at the Sahib for ten minutes, even screaming and scolding at the top of her voice. Of course the Sahib knew not a word of her conversation, but he felt perfectly sure that she was telling him what a terrible fellow Orang-outang was, and advising the Sahib to get rid of him. He also talked to the infuriated bird, just as he did to all the animals, so that she was finally pacified.
In the same manner he now stroked Baby Elephant's ears, and pulled his trunk and talked to him. All this pleased
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the small elephant greatly, so that he squeaked with delight.
"Well, well, little chap," said the Sahib, "I wonder where your small master is, and what he is doing this fine morning. I guess he misses you. We should like to see him, wouldn't we, little chap?"
If Baby Elephant could have talked English, he might have told a strange tale, for he of all the large company knew that Ali had been in camp the night before. Even at that very moment the Malay lad was hiding in a bamboo thicket not a mile away, watching from the top of a bamboo for the starting of the cavalcade.
Finally he saw the long snake-like caravan take the road, and he climbed wearily down the tree and pattered after them, for the long day's hike over the sun-baked trail.
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Little Ali had several problems to meet. He dared not go too near the caravan for fear that Sahib would discover him and send him back home, and he dared not lag too far behind, for fear that he would lose the way. He knew only in a general fashion where they were going. He had been over the trail but once before and was not sure of it.
Then there was another dark danger coming up swiftly upon his trail from behind, but he knew it not.
His grasping uncle. Prince Bahi, had been furious when he had discovered the flight of the boy and the elephant, for he supposed they had gone together. He suspected that it was a trick of the Sahib's to get back the elephant and also to get the boy. So he followed on the trail of the wild-animal caravan, determined to
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secure both boy and elephant. He did not want Ali, but he did want the baby elephant, which he knew was valuable.
All through the day little Ali trotted after the Sahib's wild-animal procession. At noon, when they halted, he halted. His feet were by this time blistered, and he was sore and lame in every joint. The hot tropical sun beat down upon him, but he kept doggedly on. All that he loved in the whole world was ahead in the caravan, Baby Elephant and the Sahib. He did not even know whether the Sahib would let him stay or not when he should finally make his presence known, but he must trust to luck. He would say, "Peace, brother," to the Sahib. Perhaps that would help.
He did not intend to make himself known until just before they reached the
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port from where the animals were to be shipped to Singapore. He knew just how it was to be done, for he had heard the Sahib talk the trip over with his men.
On the fourth morning of little Ali's desperate pursuit of the caravan, just at dawn, the Malay boy was about to crawl out of the bamboo thicket by the side of the road where he had spent the night, and reconnoitre the camp, when he heard voices coming down the road. As he was ever on the watch, and suspicious of every sound, he drew quickly back and peered anxiously out of the thicket.
His precaution was well taken, for presently his sinister uncle. Prince Bahi, and another Malay came running along the road. They seemed in a great hurry and were much excited, as well as very angry.
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Ali could only catch a word or two, but he felt sure that he was the object of their wrath, and that they were bound for the camp to have it out with Sahib Anderson. Would he give up Baby Elephant? At the thought the Malay boy's heart went sick. If he lost the small elephant, he would not care to live any longer, now that he had lost the Sahib.
Fifteen minutes later a heated interview took place between the white man and the infuriated Malay.
Bahi came straight to the point, as was his custom.
"You bad man. Sahib Anderson," he said. "You get Ali to run away, and take small elephant back to your camp with him."
"You are mistaken, Bahi," said the Sahib, for he knew what children these
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Malays were, and he did not believe in getting angry with them.
"You are mistaken. I have not persuaded Ali to run away. On the contrary, I told him to stay with you and be a good boy."
"Where is he?" asked Bahi pointedly.
"I don't know," returned the Sahib. "If he is missing, I wish I did know. If you do not believe me, you may search my camp."
With this permission the two suspicious Malays went hurriedly through the camp. Finally they returned to the Sahib, exultant, yet partly defeated.
"Small elephant is here and you have hidden Ali. You saw us coming," said Prince Bahi.
At this direct accusation, the Sahib's temper began to rise. He turned his eyes,
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which were of a steely blue, full upon the two brown men.
"Bahi," he said, "the Sahib never lies, and he never cheats. He leaves that to his brown brother.
"Ali is not here, and I have not seen him since I broke camp. The baby elephant came to us the night after we left camp. I think he broke away for he was dragging a rope."
"The Sahib lies," said Bahi doggedly, "I will take the small elephant and then the boy will come home when he gets ready."
"You will do nothing of the kind. The elephant belongs to Ali, and he alone can claim him. I shall keep him until I see Ali. Now you get out of my camp."
For a few minutes the dark men hesitated, but finally the Sahib turned upon
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them with such fury that they left the camp in great haste, vowing vengeance upon the white man and all his outfit.
All that day little Ali trailed the animal caravan, but he went parallel to the trail, half a mile to one side. He did not know what had become of his uncle, but he felt sure that if he fell into his clutches his uncle would bring him back home, and great punishment would be his.
By the fifth night they had reached a point where the trail ran parallel to the sea, with only half a mile between them and salt water.
Sahib Anderson found that the Malay village where he was camped was in a great terror, for a mighty cave-tiger had been killing the villagers for weeks, and the natives hardly dared venture out-of-doors at night.
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They besought the Sahib to stop and hunt the tiger, but he could not halt his march, as his animals would suffer. So, all unconscious of his great danger, little Ali lay down to sleep on that fifth night of his long, hard journey, almost in the very heart of the lair of the great man-eating tiger. But he was a child of nature and had perfect trust. He had talked much with the old priest, and that good man had instilled into him the idea that all God's creatures are good and harmless, so he did not fear.
He lay awake for several minutes listening to the soft sighing of the wind in the bamboo thicket, and to the far cries of night-birds, but finally the fatigue of the long, hard day's march overcame him and he slept soundly.
After a while there came into his sleep
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a strange sense of a great danger which was creeping steadily upon him. In his dream he seemed to feel this danger rather than see it and that made it even more terrible.
He could feel it creeping, creeping, creeping, foot by foot, yet he could see nothing. Finally this sense became so strong that he awoke with a half—smothered cry upon his lips. With his awakening, the sense that the danger was hidden gave place to a very real sense that the danger was very close at hand, and that he would immediately discover it. He looked this way and that with his narrow Malay eyes. It was rather dark in his thicket, so he could not see well until his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. But presently he thought he made out a long, lithe, sinuous figure about thirty
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feet away creeping slowly towards him. Like a flash, the thought of tigers rushed through his mind.
Then that which he had thought the shape of a tiger came out into a patch of moonlight, about twenty-five feet away, and he was certain.
It was a tiger and the king of all tigers. Ali could plainly see the mighty shoulder, with the tense muscles under the beautiful coat, the great head, the slowly lashing tail, and worst of all, the phosphorescent eyes, that gleamed like two great coals. The mighty beast had one forepaw advanced and partly raised. Whether he was about to spring or not, Ali could not tell.
Ali's first thought as the king of tigers came so plainly into view within springing distance of him was one of great fear.
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It seemed to him that his blood froze in his veins, and his heart stood still. Then of a sudden, he remembered the old priest, and his wonderful words about wild animals.
"Ali," he had said one day, "never forget that all the wild beasts are your brothers. If you ever meet them face to face, and are seemingly threatened with great danger, just know in your heart that they are your brothers. If they seem ferocious, remember that they are harmless.
"If they show great ferocity towards you, see them as gentle and harmless in your own mind. The mind of man has perfect control over wild beasts, if he only knew it. He can melt away their ferocity with loving thoughts just as the sunshine melts the snow.
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"If your wild brother would kill you, say to him, 'Peace, brother, peace.{{' "}} So as the mighty tiger stood in the half moonlight glaring with eyes of burning fire at little Ali, he began saying slowly to himself, "Peace, brother, peace." Then, as the tiger seemed to make no further move to advance, "he said it aloud, but it was almost a whisper because of his fear.
"Peace, brother, peace."
At the sound the tiger uttered an angry growl, deep like distant thunder.
But Ali repeated the command.
"Peace, brother, peace."
Again the tiger growled, though not so loud as before, but to Ali's great consternation, he began creeping slowly forward, and with each stealthy step he would stop and look intently at the half-reclining boy.
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Each time he stopped Ali would say, "Peace, brother, peace."
Presently Ali noted that the lashing of the tail had ceased, and the eyes did not seem to glow so fiercely.
When about ten feet away, the great beast lay gently down upon his belly and watched the boy intently for at least five minutes.
It seemed to Ali that these five minutes were at least a day, or a year, but he never let go of his thought that the great tiger was his brother, and would not hurt him, and at regular intervals he would say softly with caressing tones:
"Peace, brother, peace."
At last, to Ali's great astonishment, the mighty beast slowly arose, stretched himself deliberately, and turning, made his way cautiously out of the thicket. But
-i
{{FreedImg
| file = Jungle Joe (1926) 2.png
| caption = "Peace, brother, peace."—''[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 5#122|Page 122]].''
| width = 300px
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—
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he stopped each step to look back over his shoulder at the boy, as though he were fascinated by him.
Finally he disappeared altogether and Ali gave a great sigh of relief. But the strain had been terrific, so the homeless, sorrowing lad buried his face in his hands and sobbed softly to himself.
He did not dare cry aloud, for fear the tiger would hear him and return.
Notwithstanding the fact that the great man-eating tiger probably still prowled in the thicket near by, yet little Ali went peacefully to sleep after his encounter, feeling sure that the great beast would not hurt him.
The tiger understood what he had said. It was as the old priest had said. They were brothers.
But at about daybreak he was awakened
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by the most blood-curdling yells that he had ever heard. Not even from his father when the bull elephant had killed him.
These cries were so horrible, so expressive of terror and agony that the terrified boy simply threw himself upon the earth, and covered his ears with his hands, sobbing with uncontrollable fright.
There he lay trembling and sobbing, for at least five minutes. Then he cautiously uncovered his ears, fearing to hear the dreadful sounds again. But it was as still as death; in fact the stillness taken together with the fearful sounds that he had just heard did suggest death to the fearful imagination of Ali.
He was not sure from what direction the sounds had come, so thinking to get out of the thicket as soon as possible, he crept cautiously towards the road. But
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he had not gone a hundred feet when a fearful sight met his eyes; for, coming suddenly into an opening in the cover, he saw the mighty tiger crouching over a man. The face of the man was turned up towards him, and he saw, to his great horror, that it was that of his Uncle Bahi.
At the sight of the boy the tiger uttered a thunderous growl and bared his fangs in an angry snarl.
This was enough for little Ali. He and the tiger might be brothers as the priest had said, but the tiger did not understand that he and Uncle Bahi were brothers also. So Ali fled towards Sahib Anderson's camp, his terror growing with each rod that he covered.
He would throw off all disguises and throw himself upon the mercy of the Sahib.
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Fifteen minutes later, he burst into Sahib Anderson's tent and with a wild cry of terror and despair, threw himself at the Sahib's feet, clasping the man's knees and sobbing incoherently.
The Sahib at once concluded that Uncle Bahi was after Ali and lifted him up to comfort him.
"There, there, sonny, don't cry. I won't let him hurt you. Perhaps I won't let you go back."
For several minutes all Ali could do was to sob incoherently, but he finally sobbed out his story so that the Sahib understood.
"I was in bamboo thicket asleep," he explained, "oh, oh, and great tiger came to eat me, and I said, 'Peace, brother, peace,' and at last he went away.
"But this morning, I wake up and such
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yell!" Here Ali stopped and put his hands over his ears, and it was some time before the Sahib could get him to take them away. But he finally continued:
"I woke up hearing such yells. Some one die; some one dead. Then by and by, I go towards the road and I see tiger eating Uncle Bahi. Oh! oh!"
The Sahib thought Ali must have dreamed it all, but he comforted the boy and finally sent several of his men heavily armed to the spot while he attended to Ali who was still suffering from the great shock. In half an hour's time the men returned with the body of Ali's cruel uncle.
At the sight, a sudden sense of loneliness and fear came over Ali and he threw himself into the lap of the white man.
"Oh, Sahib, oh, Sahib, please, please
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take me to your United States. Take Baby Elephant and me. I will work so hard. I can work in your great circus. I will tend the animals. I will be your slave always."
At the sight of the faithful little brown boy, clinging to his knees, the tender heart of this man of iron was deeply stirred.
"All right, Ali," he said. "It shall be as you say. You and Baby Elephant shall go back to the United States with me, and be Americans."
Ali was so overcome that he could only sob for joy.
Thus, it came about that when the wild-animal procession started on its last day's march, the sixth day, little Ali rode upon the head of Baby Elephant's mother, while the small elephant trotted by her side; and a happier boy and small elephant could
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not have been found in all the Malay Peninsula, for they were going across the great ocean with the Sahib to become Americans.
Little Adi never forgot that day's ride upon the head of Baby Elephant's mother, from which vantage-point he would look down upon the passers-by, and also see the surrounding country. All the natives that they passed grinned up at him and he grinned back.
Late in the afternoon of the sixth day of their march, they reached the little seaport town of Yahmi, upon the straits of Malacca.
Here they said good-bye to all the bullocks and their drivers, who went back to their homes, while the Sahib the next day loaded the jungle folk upon a small tramp steamer bound for Singapore.
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If the ride upon the head of the large elephant had been a treat the day before, Ali's sail down the straits of Malacca was a trip in fairy—land.
The sparkling, shimmering water, alive with tropical fish, the blue sky, and the countless islands among which their ship continually wound her way, were a never-ending source of surprise and delight. These islands were very heavily timbered with great spreading trees, and adorned with giant ferns and with a wealth of clinging vines which ran all over the trees, made the scene one of great beauty. The islands were swarming with monkeys and tropical birds of beautiful plumage, so the scene was indeed beyond words to describe.
Little Ali sat upon the upper deck beside his beloved Sahib taking it all in as the ship steamed down the straits.
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Finally they wound their way around a nearly complete circle, in what seemed to be a muddy river, and came to anchor at the docks, at the very back-door of Singapore, and the long trip to that city had ended.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VI}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Jungle Folk Go Sailing|level=2}}
{{sc|Little Ali}}, Sahib Anderson, and all the jungle folk spent two weeks in Singapore, getting ready for their long sea voyage. To Ali, who had never in his life seen anything more civilized than the small seaport town where they had shipped for Singapore, this strange city, with its many people and its diversified life, was a never-ending source of delight.
They had entered the city at the back-door, so all they saw at first was the Malay huts upon their bamboo piles. But as they went on farther into the city the wonders grew on every hand.
First, there were the great Chinese stores, both wholesale and retail, and then
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the English and German blocks containing their great business houses. Some of these buildings would have done credit to London or New York, but to little Ali they were simply astounding.
The Sahib knew several rich Chinese merchants, and he visited some of the finest residences in Singapore. The white man always insisted that Ali go with him wherever he went. So this very willing brown shadow followed gladly.
Many of the Chinese merchants had wonderful gardens at the back of their houses, and to wander through one of these small parks was like being in fairyland.
At last all the preparations had been made, and all the jungle folk loaded into a great tramp freighter bound for Hamburg, London, and New York.
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On that never-to-be-forgotten day when they steamed out of the harbor at Singapore and into the Indian Ocean, Ali's heart beat so fast that he thought it would stifle him.
The great adventure of his life had begun. He had started upon that marvelous trip to the United States with his beloved Sahib. He was going home with the Sahib, to live with him and to be a real American.
If the sail down the Straits of Malacca had been entrancing, the trip through the Indian Ocean was still more so. First, there were countless islands, even more luxuriant, and more beautiful than those of the straits had been. Islands where monkeys chattered in the tree-tops, and strange beautifully plumed birds chirped and twittered. There were seas as calm
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and motionless as glass, and seas that ran great billowing waves, which washed their decks. There were days when not a breath stirred, and the sky was like brass. Then there were other days when the typhoons swept through their rigging like a veritable hurricane.
Finally they did experience a real hurricane, and little Ali never forgot that thrilling experience. For three days the sky had been like brass, and the water a strange unearthly yellow green, probably a reflection from the sky. This gave everything such a queer appearance that both the animals and birds as well as the sailors were uneasy.
"What makes the sky and the water look so queer, Sahib?" asked Ali who was standing by the side of his beloved Sahib watching this strange effect.
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"I don't know, son," replied the white man. "I am afraid we are making up for something in the shape of a big storm. You can never tell what you will meet with in the Indian Ocean."
On the third day of this strange sea and sky there suddenly appeared in the south a great waterspout, with long streamers shooting up towards the sun from it. At the sight the captain gave hurry orders for the ship's crew to make everything as snug as possible.
On came the great water-funnel straight towards the ship. It looked like an infuriated monster. Ali hoped that it would pass to one side of the ship, but it did not. It hit her almost midship, and she rolled over on her side so badly that it seemed for a moment as though she could never right, but most of the waterspout
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passed directly over the ship, so she did not get the full force.
But even as it was, the experience was bad enough, for it left tons of water in the ship, the lower deck being covered three feet deep, while the lower cabin was six feet deep.
All the steam pumps were set at work at once, while the men sought to calm the affrighted animals, most of which were frantic, thinking that the end of all things had arrived.
This was especially true of the elephants, and they trumpeted and shrieked. Every elephant-driver or keeper stood at the head of his beast and talked to him constantly. There is nothing like the sound of a quiet voice to calm the fears of the elephant. The Sahib himself stood by Baby Elephant's mother and talked to
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her, and as she was the leader of the herd, all took their cue from her. When they noted that she became quiet, they followed suit, but all were restless and very fearful as long as the storm lasted. This is a part of what instinct does for animals.
This mighty waterspout that had nearly swamped the ship was but the beginning of the storm. For in two minutes after it had passed, a perfect hurricane was shrieking in the rigging, and blowing into the sea everything that was not secure. The wind howled and whistled so that the men could not hear their orders six feet away, and went by signs. This mighty wind whipped up such a sea that each passing wave washed over the lower deck, while the air was so full of spume, of foam and froth, that one could catch whole handfuls of it like soap-bubbles.
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Every hour the desperately struggling sailors hoped that the storm would abate. It was of such fury that it did not seem as though it could last, but the storm did last all night. So all that night the unfortunate ship drove blindly through the darkness. They knew not what danger was ahead. It might be a terrible collision with another ship which would send both to the bottom. There were a score of things that might happen which would spell disaster.
But at last the day dawned, and the wind began to abate, and gradually the sea and sky returned to their normal condition. The strange brassy color in the sea and sky disappeared, and instead was the ordinary blue.
The crew were nearly dead with fatigue, and after breakfast, half of the men went
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to their bunks for sleep, while the rest busied themselves repairing the damage that the storm had done to the ship. But it was two days before things were again quite normal.
Ali and the Sahib spent much of their time together upon the hurricane deck, and here it was that the white man began the small brown boy's education.
He first taught him to count and to figure small sums, and to his astonishment he found Ali very bright.
Then he taught him the stars. He first showed him the North Star, to which the "Pointers," two stars forming one side of the Big Dipper, were guides. He also showed him the Little Dipper, and the Sword of Orion, and the Southern Cross. Then he taught him a little geography, and other information which he would
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need to know when he came into the United States.
In all these talks the wonder and admiration of the small brown boy for the tall, muscular white man grew. The Sahib was Ali's god. He worshipped with no uncertain worship, and he also loved him as he had never loved any of his own family. Thus it will be seen that the two grew to be better comrades with each passing day.
It was not until they had nearly reached Port Said, however, that the wildest mishap of the voyage occurred; one that nearly cost the lives of Baby Elephant and his mother. Sahib Anderson had brought ten Malays with him to take care of the animals, most of whom were very clever and good-natured. But there were two in the number who were veritable mischief{{peh}}
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makers, never suited with anything, and they were always inciting the other men to mutiny. The white man was very sorry that he had ever brought these two men along, but he had to keep them now that they were started on the long journey. Their native names were so unpronounceable that, as they were twins, the Sahib had nicknamed them Tobias and Cochunko.
Finally they got so insolent, and made so much trouble with the other men, that the Sahib thrashed each of them before the rest of the natives. They took their punishment sullenly, and were seen plotting together later on in the day, but no one even dreamed of the mischief that they had in mind.
That night, at about midnight, when there were few on watch, they came to
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the elephant quarters and tolled Baby Elephant to the rail on the lower deck. As the natives often took him about the ship, and as he was always following Ali about, his mother did not protest. But when the two scamps got the baby elephant where they wanted him, they deliberately lifted him to the top of the rail and dropped him overboard. He landed upon the water, which fortunately was very calm, with a great splash, and at once set up a pitiful trumpeting.
Although most of the people on the ship were asleep, as also were the animals, yet there were two who heard the small elephant's cry for help. The first of these was little Ali.
He sprang from his bunk, clad only in his cotton shirt, and ran at top speed to the lower deck. There he could distin-
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guish that the trumpeting of his pet came from alongside. So he quickly scrambled upon the rail, and plainly made out his friend, struggling in the water.
A white boy would have called for help and clung securely to the rail, but not Ali. His love for the small elephant was too great for that, besides he could swim like a fish. So he steadied himself for a moment, and as that side of the ship dipped down upon the swell he dove head first into the sea. If Baby Elephant was going to drown he would drown with him.
Just before he struck, he placed the palms of his hands together that they might cut the water, and keep it from knocking the breath out of him.
Down, down he went. The pressure on his ear-drums was terrible.
It seemed to Ali that he would never
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be able to come up. The water seemed to be pressing the air all out of his lungs. He thought they would burst. Finally he began to rise, and presently he popped up above the water like a cork.
To his great joy, as he rose upon the crest of a wave, he saw Baby Elephant about fifty feet away and struck out for him, and in a minute or two had gained his side. With some difficulty he got his arm over the elephant's neck and headed him towards the ship.
But at this point there was a new complication. The other pair of ears on the ship to hear the small elephant's cry for help was that of his mother. She was securely fastened in her stanchion. But mother love makes the great animals very strong so she pulled and thrashed. Finally she lay back and put her full weight upon
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the two posts. The weaker gave way, and she came bellowing straight to the rail. Here with an agility seemingly impossible she cleared the rail and splashed into the sea.
Just at this point in the exciting scene Sahib Anderson appeared on deck, clad only in his pajamas. His masterful mind at once brought order out of chaos.
The ship was stopped and a boat lowered. By the aid of Ali, Baby Elephant was coaxed alongside, and quickly hauled aboard; then they turned their attention to the old elephant.
To haul the small elephant aboard was one thing, but to handle his mother, with her great weight, was quite another.
She was first coaxed alongside, and secured to the side of the ship by a harness of ropes. Then the mechanics of the ship
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under the supervision of the Sahib set to work to rig up a windlass and several pulleys. When everything was in readiness, twenty of the best men upon the ship were placed at the ropes, and by dint of ten minutes of hard hauling the old elephant was pulled aboard.
But the old pachyderm had no sooner set her great feet upon the deck than an astonishing thing happened, for without saying as much as by your leave she seized Tobias with her trunk, and with a mighty motion flung him high in the air and far out over the waves, and before any of the men could interfere she had seized Cochunko by the waist, and done the same thing to him.
"Shoot her; get a gun and shoot her!" cried the captain. "She will throw us all overboard."
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"Wait a minute," said Sahib Anderson. "I am not sure but that these two villains have had just what was coming to them. Lower a boat and rescue them."
Finally, when the two culprits were hauled aboard, badly scared and nearly drowned, after much cross-questioning by the Sahib, they admitted their guilt in throwing Baby Elephant overboard. So every one aboard the ship said that it had served them just right, and Baby Elephant and his mother were great heroes for the rest of the voyage.
One day when they were in the Mediterranean, and Ali and the Sahib were having one of their long talks, the boy opened up a new subject. "Sahib," he said, "Baby Elephant wants a new name. He is too big to be called just 'Baby.' I want to make him a new name."
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"Fine, Ali," said the Sahib. "What are you thinking of calling him?"
Ali thought deeply for a long time, and then he said, "The Englishman who lived with my father he talk much about Mr. Chamberlain. He said he was a big man. He called him Joe. Sometimes when he do something big he call him Joie. I think I call Baby Elephant after him."
"That would be a good idea," said the Sahib, "but it seems to me we ought to bring in the jungle some way. You know he is a child of the jungle, and he ought to have it in his name."
"I think of that, too," said Ali, and he again lapsed into deep thought.
Then a beautiful smile overspread his brown face and he clapped his hands together.
"I know. Sahib, I will call him Jungle
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Joe, and when he is very good I will call him Joie."
Thus it was that Baby Elephant became Jungle Joe, and also when he was very good, Joie.
Ali saw many things at Hamburg and London that interested him, but he did not enjoy them to the full, for his mind was so set upon America. He wanted to save his greatest thrill for that country, for he was to be an American and live in the United States.
Just two weeks to a day after they left London, the freighter sailed through Hell Gate, and then up the Harlem River.
Ali and the Sahib were on the hurricane deck observing everything.
The white man was pointing out all the objects of interest to the small brown boy.
"Oh, Sahib, see that great woman with
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the lamp in her hand. Look at her, Sahib, look at her!"
"That is the Goddess of Liberty. She is guarding our dear country. She is holding her torch high that people of all the earth may see the way into our beautiful country."
Ali gazed at the goddess for several seconds, and then his attention wandered in another direction.
"Oh, Sahib, what is that high tower? It is almost as high as the sky!"
"That is not a tower at all, Ali, that is a building. Some time I will take you to the very top."
But the craft in the river, and the wonderful sights ashore were multiplied so rapidly that Ali was held speechless, and could only gasp.
Finally, a tugboat came out and warped
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the freighter into her slip, and the long voyage of the jungle folk was over. They had come to anchor in the port of New York.
But the most excited person in all the ship, and in all New York for that matter, was little Ali, for he, too, was going to be an American, and was to grow up with his beloved Sahib, the greatest and the best man in all the world. His cup was so full of joy that it could not have held another drop.
The Sahib aroused him from his dream by a sound slap on the shoulder.
"Well, here we are, boy, safe at home again. This is God's country, son, and you are going to be very happy here. You and I together."
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Life of a Trick Elephant|level=2}}
{{sc|Eight}} years have now passed since that eventful day when the freighter bumped against her pier in the Harlem River, and the long voyage of the jungle folk came to an end. Many things have happened to them since then, but their lives on the whole have been pleasant, and they have received the very best of care. They all went at once into the great circus of Ringden Brothers, and followed the fortunes of that glittering show from coast to coast.
Ali, who was then a boy of eight years, is now a stalwart lad of sixteen, but rather smaller than an American hoy of that age. Yet he is well-formed and very
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hardy, as well he may be, living the strenuous life of the circus.
Baby Elephant, called Jungle Joe, and by his young master, Joie, has changed much more even than Ali. When he landed in New York he was thirty-nine inches high and weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds. He is now over seven feet tall and weighs between two and three tons, but he is still rated as one of the small elephants. But due to the very great patience of his young master, and his love for Joie, as well as Joie's love for him, he has developed into one of the cleverest trick elephants in the sawdust ring.
In the early days he was simply the baby elephant, remarkable for his small size, but he is now a wonder for intelligence and patience. But Ali is no more
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proud of him than when he was just the baby.
The boy still remembers with a glow of satisfaction how he always stood by the baby's side in the great menagerie tent answering in his broken English the many questions of the curious people, especially the queries of the children.
Perhaps some of my readers, who were of the circus age eight years ago, will remember the shy brown boy who stood by the side of the baby elephant, and gladly answered all questions concerning him.
The lad was so glad if the people appreciated his pet, although few knew that the baby elephant really belonged to the brown boy from the Malay Peninsula.
Most of the other jungle folk are still with the circus.
Some of the monkeys have died, for
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monkeys are not so very hardy. This is also true of the tropical birds, but such old friends as Orang-outang, the wild man, Baba-rusa, the wild boar, Man-Eater, the tiger, and the tapirs, both mother and baby, still enthrall the spectators, and fill them with wonder.
Ali draws a salary for himself, and also one for Joie, so he is well-fixed financially. This is due to the friendship of the Sahib, who is one of the big men of the circus, as well as one of its ruling spirits. Ali still remembers with a thrill the first few days with the great show. When they landed in New York the circus was showing in Madison Square Garden, and so Ali was at once flung headlong into the greatest crowd that the circus ever entertains.
Where all the seemingly endless crowds
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came from and where they went, he could not imagine. That is, he did not know until the Sahib had taken him all over New York and Brooklyn and shown him all the sights.
Finally the season in the Garden was finished, and the circus entrained for New England. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience seeing the men load the animals and the belongings of the circus.
They did it with such precision that nothing was ever lost or misplaced. This notwithstanding the fact that when all was loaded, three trains of over a hundred cars had been filled and made ready for the journey.
Ali himself could have gone in the regular train that carried the circus people, and slept in a regulation berth, but he preferred to go in a box-car with Joie and
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his mother, and two other large elephants. He said that Joie might be lonesome. They had always stuck together so far, and they would continue to do so to the very end. So the Sahib finally consented to the arrangement.
It was a strange and novel experience for the boy, just from the Malay plains and jungles, to sleep in the great car, which thundered along the rails to a music all its own.
At first, neither Ali nor Joie could sleep, and Ali would lie awake for hours talking to his pet, or listening to the humming wheels, the clicking of the rails, and the shrieking of the locomotive whistle. But gradually both Joie and Ali grew to love the life as they did nothing else in the world.
Few people realize, when they see the
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performances of clever trick animals, the great amount of patience that has gone into their training. In the case of lions and tigers, it takes from four to five months simply to get the upper hand of them. Just to get them so they will not attack the trainer on the slightest provocation.
So it was with Ali and Jungle Joe, or Joie, as Ali always called his friend. Nearly all of Ali's spare time for a year went into the training of Joie, before they gave their first performance. But the training of Joie was much easier than that of the ordinary elephant, because of the great love between the pachyderm and its master. Animals are very amenable to kindness, and if you can get an animal to love you it will do almost anything for you. And Joie had loved Ali ever since
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he had slipped through the corral after the great elephant-drive and had found Ali's open arms waiting for him.
So Ali worked almost entirely through love. He never punished Joie, or if he did, it was a very mild punishment, such as to pull his ear slightly, or slap him on the trunk. He knew full well that Joie would do anything that he was able to understand. So if he did not perform his trick rightly it was because he did not understand what was wanted.
The elephant is one of the cleverest animals, but he has not so much reasoning power as is usually thought. His stronghold is his memory and his ability to acquire tricks from object lessons. Also his adaptability is more because of the fact that he is patient, and never forgets.
Up to the time when Ali first went into
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the ring with Joie as a trick animal, his duties had been merely to stay with Joie in the menagerie tent and to feed him, and also to explain to the visitors as much as he knew about the animals which had come from the Malay peninsula. But when Ali became the handler of a performing elephant he arose in the estimation of all the circus people. This was especially true of his beloved Sahib, who had stuck by him all the years.
The first act put on by Ali and Joie was very simple. The elephant was bedecked with a beautiful purple-and-gold blanket, with a gorgeous howdah upon his back, and Ali was dressed to represent a Malay prince. In fact, he was featured upon the bill-boards as Prince Ali, the son of a Malay nobleman, and a person of great distinction in his own country.
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He and Joie simply came in dressed in their court dress and went slowly about the ring. Then at a word from Ali, Joie went twice about the ring at his best pace. Then he came to a sudden standstill before a great arm-chair. Here Joie sat down in the chair and proceeded to put on a pair of prodigious spectacles which made all the people laugh. He then took a bell from a table before him and rang it for school, for he was now a schoolmaster. At the sound, five trained dogs came running out and sat upon their haunches in a perfectly straight row. They were the pupils. Then Joie would squeak out a word from the book which Ali placed before him, and the different dogs would bark several times. When Joie indicated a special dog by pointing with his trunk, that one would bark.
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Finally, after this tomfoolery had gone on for a spell, school was dismissed, and a teeter was placed for Joie. This was a very strong platform resting across a large log. Very carefully the elephant would walk on the plank over the middle of the log, and finally balance the platform and slowly rock it up and down, causing the crowd to applaud.
Then there was a pedestal about ten feet high, and Joie would climb carefully to the top of the pedestal, where there was a platform about three feet square, and here the large animal would stand, with just room enough to place his feet. Then Ali would climb carefully up to Joie's side, and he would take the lad in his trunk and place him upon his back, and with Ali still upon his back he would climb cautiously down the pedestal. This was a
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hair-raising trick which always brought generous applause.
Many other tricks, such as drop-the-handkerchief, leap-frog, and tag, Ali taught Joie, some of them almost beyond belief.
So after this first day in the ring Joie and Ali were among the great people of the circus, and consequently given their due respect.
Sahib Anderson was delighted with this first performance and hugged Ali, to the great delight of the Malay boy, and patted Joie till he squeaked his approval in elephant language.
So after this Ali and Joie knew just what they would do each day.
Promptly when the signal for the parade sounded they must be ready to take their places in the parade. Then
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there was the long march through the sea of staring faces to the music of half a dozen blaring circus bands, and the shrieking of the calliopes.
At about half-past two, also, at a given signal, they went into the ring under the "big top" for the first performance. This took ten or fifteen minutes.
In the evening, just after supper, they took their places in the menagerie tent, and at eight-thirty they were in the tent again for the last show of the day.
When they came out of the great top for the last time in the evening they took their way slowly towards the depot. Ali took Joie at once to their car, and made him comfortable for the night. Then he could go back and see the rest of the show, or idle about, or sleep, as suited his whim.
It was a wild, exciting life, all thrill and
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crowds. A life of tense nerves and tense situations, for there were a dozen mishaps that could happen at any time to make things go wrong. Then there was the fear of the great sea of faces. At first this took away Ali's appetite so that he could neither eat nor sleep, but he gradually got used to it.
Then there was the continual travel. They were always on the move. No matter how much they liked a certain city, they must always move on. They had no home but the circus cars and the great tents.
This life was full of action, yet it did not pall upon them.
There was always something new to see, or some new problem to meet.
But finally Ali and Joie got used to it. They could sleep as well amid thun-
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dering car-wheels and shrieking locomotive whistles as they could have done in their native jungle. Gradually, also, the lure of the road grew upon them, so they were sorry each autumn when the circus went into winter-quarters.
Thus it was that Joie and Ali became the habitual dwellers in the Tented Town. The Tented Town which ever appeared and disappeared. They were citizens of the world, and all the people they met were their friends.
But even then their sleep was filled with excitement, with shouts, and cries of venders, and cracking whips, and blaring bands, and roaring lions, and trumpeting elephants. Thus the night dream was like the day-dream, a great glittering pageant of change, change, change.
Nothing was still. Nothing could rest,
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but all must travel, travel, travel, travel, to the sound of roaring car-wheels and the music of clicking rails, for this was the life of the circus.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VIII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Joie Goes Mad|level=2}}
{{sc|During}} the eighth summer of Ali's and Joie's connection with the great circus of Ringden Brothers, in the month of August, Ali was taken ill with the malarial fever. He was not sick enough to be in bed, nor did he give up his work, but he was sick enough to be very miserable most of the time.
Sahib Anderson urged him to take a few weeks off, but he would not hear of it. If Joie could not perform twice each day the circus would be ruined. The Sahib told him that some one else might possibly put Joie through his tricks, seeing he was so well-trained, but to this Ali would not listen.
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"You see, Sahib, he loves me and he will do anything for me. Some one else might be harsh with him. They might strike Joie, and I could not stand that. No, I am all right. I will feel better to-morrow. Joie and I will show as usual."
Although Ali had been used to a great heat in his native country, yet the heat in the United States seemed to take hold of him severely.
It was an extremely hot summer, and Ali's performances with Joie came at the very hottest hours in the day, at twothirty in the afternoon, and at eight-thirty in the evening.
At these times the great tent seemed dense with hot, steamy, sticky air. It seemed to Ali sometimes as he came into the ring that he could not draw another breath. He thought he would have to
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throw up his hands and cry out. But he always went through his part all right, and as for Joie, he was the idol of all the children, and the wonder of the adults.
As soon as their part was over, Ali always headed for a cool green field if he could find one, and there he stayed until it was time to head for the freight-yards.
In the box-car where he slept with Joie it was often stifling.
As has been said, the boy might have slept in a berth in one of the sleepers, in fact. Sahib Anderson urged this course most vehemently, but Ali was stubborn, and not his usual tractable self.
"No, Sahib, I can't leave Joie. We have always been together, and we always will be."
"But you will get sick, boy," said the Sahib anxiously.
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"Oh, no, Sahib, I am all right. I shall be better to-morrow."
But about the middle of August there came a day when Ali could not go into the tent for his and Joie's tricks. He was nearly heart-broken, and the Sahib comforted him as well as he could, and gave him an extra dose of quinine in the hope that it might break up his fever.
"I guess some one will have to take care of Joie," said the boy feebly that afternoon. "I must rest a little.
"Be sure. Sahib, and tell them to look out each day for the must. Joie doesn't seem to be quite right, himself."
The Sahib promised faithfully to see that Joie was all right, and Ali slept fitfully all the afternoon, but by night he had a high fever, and the Sahib insisted that he sleep with him that night in the
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regular sleeping-car, and for a wonder he consented.
But the attendant to whom Sahib Anderson gave the care of Joie was not on his job, for he neglected to examine the small hole in Joie's cheek-bone each day for signs of the "must," the most dreaded of all elephant ailments. So it happened that Joie, without any warning, went mad just after the first performance. He was a victim of the dreaded must.
At the time he had been placed in an old barn at the edge of the circus lot. As good luck would have it, the men had been quick enough to get a couple of ropes upon Joie before he became quite unmanageable.
But he was now thrashing about, bellowing and roaring, and threatening each minute to break away and rush across the
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circus lot, and possibly kill some one in his mad career.
Ali had been a little better that day and was sleeping in a small tent upon a cot where the Sahib had placed him. It was cool here and he could still hear the circus noises, which were music to his ears.
Presently a couple of men passed his tent. They were talking excitedly. Ali listened listlessly, but presently he caught words that brought him upright in bed with his eyes staring wildly.
"Joie has gone mad," said one of the men excitedly. "The must. They are going to shoot him. I am sorry for the boy. It will nearly kill him."
Ali sprang from the cot as though he had been made of steel springs.
His clothes were hanging upon a tent chair near by. Hastily he reached for
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something in his back trousers pocket, but it stuck in the pocket, and it seemed to him that he would never get it out. Finally it came out with a jerk, and he held in his trembling hand, a shiny twenty-two revolver. The Sahib had given it to him the year before, and it was one of his priceless possessions. But he had never before seen a time when he thought that he needed it.
So, dressed in nothing but his pajamas, and with the small revolver clutched in his hand, he ran wildly for the old barn where he knew that Joie was kept.
Each second he strained his ear for the dreaded sound. Would he be too late! He ran as he had never run before.
Ali strained every nerve in his brown body, and threw himself among the men panting and gasping.
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"Stop, stop!" he cried covering the men with his revolver. "I will kill any one who shoots Joie."
"Here, here, Ali, give me that revolver," cried Sahib Anderson, advancing upon the boy.
Quick as a flash Ali turned upon him.
"Go back. Sahib, go back! I love you more than all the rest of the men in the world, but I love Joie more. I will shoot. Go back. Sahib, go back!" cried the lad almost beside himself with his grief.
The Sahib was a brave man. He had faced all sorts of wild animals in his day. He had several times stared death in the face and not flinched. But at the sight of Ali's flashing eyes, and his tense figure, the white man drew back. There was no knowing what the boy might do in his frenzy of love for Joie.
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"All right, Ali," he said. "We will leave you with Joie, but I guess you don't know what a mad elephant is. Don't go within striking distance of him at present, or he will kill you."
"Joie won't kill me," said Ali confidently. "He knows me. He knows I love him."
"No, he doesn't," returned the Sahib. "He doesn't know anything just now. He will kill you just as quick as he would me. Look out, Ali."
Joie had advanced to the end of his rope, and made a vicious swipe at Ali with his trunk. It struck the boy a glancing blow upon the arm, and sent him reeling across the stable.
The Sahib sprang forward to snatch the revolver while Ali was still dazed, but Ali was up like a cat.
{{nop}}
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He still gripped the shining weapon and held it up defiantly at his beloved Sahib.
"If you take away my revolver you will shoot Joie. But I will shoot all of you first. Get back, Sahib! Get back, because I love you so."
Tears were streaming down Ali's brovm cheeks, so the Sahib decided to let him have his own way.
"All right, Ali, I will not try to take away your revolver again.
"You may go, men, and I will stay near by to help if Ali wants me."
"Thank you. Sahib. I shall be all right. You will be glad you trusted me. You will see."
Then Ali began a sort of soothing lowtoned talking to Joie. The white man thought he had never heard a human voice
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so caressing, so gentle, so soothing, so full of comfort.
"Oh, Joie, old pal, you are all right, Joie. Joie is a good boy. Nothing can get Joie. This is Ali, your friend, Joie. You know Ali, he will help you.
"Don't you remember Ali, Joie? He is your friend. Listen, Joie. The winds are sighing in the bamboo thicket, in the Malay land. Don't you remember, Joie? This is Ali, Joie, Ali, your friend."
For at least an hour Ali kept up this musical monotone. With his words and with soft phrases he sought to play upon the fevered imagination of the poor elephant, and finally it had its result. For the next time that Joie advanced to the end of his rope, instead of striking Ali, he put out his trunk inquisitively.
"Look out, Ali," cried the Sahib. "He
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is still mad. He may strike you any moment."
"No," said Ali decidedly. "He knows me. He will not strike me when he knows me. He is improving."
Then Joie went back to his old position, and Ali began all over again.
"Oh, Joie, old chap, this is Ali, your friend. Peace, Joie, peace.
"Nothing bad can get Joie. Ali will help Joie. Joie is all right. Peace, Joie, peace."
Over and over, again and again, Ali said the soothing words. The Sahib listened to him for four hours and then went away to supper.
"Perhaps he is calming down a bit, Ali," he said, before leaving, but you must be very careful. If he hurts you, I shall blame myself."
{{nop}}
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After supper the white man went back to the mad elephant and his beloved master, and found Ali still crooning softly to him.
To the Sahib it seemed that the voice of the boy was more like the sound of the winds and the waters than a human voice, and it was so soothing and restful that it made the Sahib sleepy to listen to it.
Until eleven that night Ali stayed by the side of Joie, and all the time he kept up his incessant low talking and crooning to the elephant, just as though he had been a sick baby.
Finally at eleven o'clock he went in beside Joie, and put his hand confidently upon his friend's trunk, and Joie squeaked with delight.
The tip of his trunk was moist, and he seemed perfectly normal.
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"Sahib," cried Ali, "come here quick, Joie is well."
The white man approached Joie rather cautiously, but was obliged to admit that he was much improved.
"He is well," said Ali. "I know it. The old priest said if we could get the wild creatures to know we loved them, and would help them we could do anything with them. That was how I stopped the mouth of the great tiger. But, oh. Sahib, I am so tired, I—I{{bar|2}}"
But Ali did not finish the sentence, for he fell forward into the strong arms of his friend in a dead swoon. It was several minutes before they could bring him to, and he was a very sick boy for two days.
One morning he sat up in his berth, and said to the Sahib, "I am well, Sahib,
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I am well, and so is Joie. I want my clothes."
The white man felt the boy's forehead. The fever had entirely left him. He was still weak, but apparently all right.
"Fine, Ali," said the Sahib. "You shall have your clothes. Yes, I think Joie is all right. I saw him this morning."
Three days later both Joie and Ali were back in the ring doing their part in the performance.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter IX}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|A Plunge in the Dark|level=2}}
{{sc|One}} of the great bugaboos of the circus man is a railroad wreck.
Nearly every night during the circus season, from one o'clock in the morning until about daylight, the circus trains are on the move.
These trains are always run as specials, and for that reason alone are more liable to accidents. Trains which are run upon regular schedule get to be a part of the system, and almost run themselves, but with specials it is different, for much traffic is often sidetracked to make way for them.
A man who had been twenty years with one of the largest and best-handled cir-
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cuses said that he had been in twenty-six railroad wrecks, and had come through safe and sound, although he had experienced many bad shake-ups and had had many close calls.
In the spring-time, when the heavy rains are falling, and streams and rivers are all swollen, this danger is the greatest. The spring freshets are sources of great annoyance to the circus man, for in moving the heavy wagons to and from the depot, mud is the driver's greatest obstacle. It is not an uncommon sight when one enters the great tent for the evening show to see all serene, and when one comes out, to find the circus grounds covered with pools of water. This spells mud, and all sorts of trouble for the circus people.
Many a night Ali had stood in the pouring rain watching Sahib Anderson's rain-
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soaked figure as he stood at a commanding position and superintended the hauling of the wagons from the muddy circus field.
As a last resort, when all the horses had failed, the elephants had their large harnesses put on them, and they would always quickly extricate the wagons, their strength being enormous.
But to Ali the wonderful thing about these wrestles with the mud was the masterly way in which the Sahib handled his men and teams.
He was always cheerful, laughing and joking, and seemingly everywhere at once.
Nothing escaped his keen eyes, and he always knew just how to get out of a hard place. The men all loved and admired the Sahib, whom they did not call by that name, but the Big Boss.
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There was a saying among the drivers to the effect that a thing the Big Boss could not do was impossible, but they had never yet seen him admit that a thing was impossible.
He would always laugh or smile when they told him that they were up against the impossible, and say cheerily, "There ain't no such animal in this circus. Go at it, boys; I am with you."
One rainy night in June during the tenth summer of Ali's connection with the circus, the city where Ringden's Great Circus was showing experienced a rainstorm which was almost a cloudburst.
Getting the heavy wagons off the circus lot was almost an impossibility. There were as many as six wagons stuck in the mud up to the hubs at once. So it was very late in the night when the circus was
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finally loaded, and the men were a tired, sweaty, and muddy lot as they clambered into their respective cars and washed up for the night's sleep.
It was two o'clock before the section bearing Ali and Joie finally pulled out. This meant that the train was an hour later all along the line than it had been expected by the railroad officials. Freights trains were waiting for the circus-trains upon many sidings.
The night was as dark as a stack of black cats, as old railroad men say. The engineers and firemen could see very little ahead of them.
It was just a case of rushing along through the darkness, depending wholly upon the roadbed and the good steel rails. This is really what the trainmen always depend upon, but they do also depend
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upon seeing dangers ahead when conditions are normal.
So on that black night the engineer of the section carrying Ali and Joie sat grimly at his post, with his hand upon the throttle, gazing with straining eyes at the shaft of light along the rails ahead. But this light did not penetrate a quarter as far into the gloom as usual.
Ali heard the cars bump over the switches, one after another, and then glide out upon the straight track. Gradually, the train gathered momentum, until it was finally rattling along at the usual rate, with the car-wheels singing their usual song of the singing rails, the lullaby that always put Ali to sleep nowadays. In fact he had gotten used to this lullaby of singing rails, and he could hardly sleep without it.
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So the train thundered along in the darkness. It raced joyously over stretches of level track. It climbed laboriously up steep grades, the two heavy engines panting like human things at the great strain upon their powers. It rushed exultantly down long steep grades in the opposite direction. It thundered over long bridges and across short culverts. On, on, on, it sped through the darkness, and the man at the throttle still kept his hand upon the lever, and his eyes peering along the cylinder of light sweeping the rails from the headlight.
But little could he do save keep his hand upon the throttle, and his eyes and his mind upon the job. For the rest, they had to trust to the tracks, and to Providence.
The great danger this night was from
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washouts, and they could not guard against them.
The car in which Ali and Joie were riding was the last car in the section. Usually it had been in the middle of the train, but this night for some reason it was put on last.
The first section had crossed the long bridge over a well-known river in central New York State five minutes before the middle section had reached it. Even then all the section but the last car passed safely. An investigation of the wreck afterwards did not for a certainty determine just what was the cause of the accident, but just as the last car, the car carrying Ali and Joie, reached the middle of the bridge, it jumped the track and plunged from the bridge, falling forty feet into the raging water beneath, where it
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sank from sight in twenty feet of water, almost as though it had been a stone.
The commission said it might have been a broken coupling, or an imperfect rail, or a broken axle, but no one ever really knew. The only thing that was certain was that the car carrying Ali and Joie was lying in the mud at the bottom of the river in twenty feet of water.
As it was a very hot night, and Ali had been sleeping lightly when the car which carried himself, along with Joie and two other elephants, toppled upon the bridge and hurtled into the river, he was awake almost before it struck the water. When the car finally settled at a slant of perhaps thirty degrees, and the water came pouring in up to Ali's knees, he knew what had happened.
But he was a child of the jungle, inured
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to hardship and danger. Self-preservation was strong in him, just as it is in all people who live near to nature. In that respect they are always like the wild animals.
So Ali scrambled like a cat up the inclined floor of the car and felt for the hasp that fastened the door on the inside. With a jerk he pulled out the toggle that held it, and then with all his strength began to slide back the great door.
If he had opened the flood-gates of heaven the results would not have been worse. As Ali felt the waters surge in upon him, to overwhelm him, like the good swimmer that he was he took in a deep breath to fill his lungs to their capacity. Then he pushed again upon the door, and in another second he was outside in the open river.
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The current swept him about as though he had been a chip. It buffeted him this way and that. But with three or four strong strokes he came to the surface, and popped up out of the water like a cork.
Then the strong current seized him and bore him rapidly downstream. He did not try to breast it, but lay floating for at least a minute, trying to get his breath and his senses back, and to determine what to do. Then as he lay in the total darkness with this unknown river bearing him rapidly away from the bridge, a thought came to him that filled him with such dismay and grief as he had never felt before in his whole life. For a moment it paralyzed him so that he could not even think.
In his great haste to save his own life he had forgotten Joie. Faithful, loving
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Joie that had always stuck so faithfully by him.
Like a mean, selfish brute he had scrambled to safety and left his friend to drown. He felt sure that Joie would not push the door open and thus escape to freedom. If he had been outside, he would have been all right, but there he was like a rat in a trap. Oh, Joie, Joie, Joie! He must surely drown.
As the full significance of this thought came home to Ali, he wheeled about in the swift current and started to swim back upstream. But he made slow headway. Besides he did not know whether he had drifted straight downstream or not. He could not tell within a hundred feet when he had gotten back to where the car sank. Even if he could reach the exact spot, he probably could not find the car by diving.
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Oh, no, no, no! It was hopeless. He had forsaken Joie, and Joie was drowned. There was not a ghost of a chance that he could have escaped.
At this thought, Ali's strength gave way, and he lay upon the dark current, sobbing as though his heart would break.
He had been false. He had been a traitor. He had forsaken Joie.
He was so taken up with his grief that he did not mind where the current took him. He did not care. He might as well drown, too, if Joie was gone. Oh, why had he been so selfish and so thoughtless! Joie had always been so good to him. How he loved Joie! He and the Sahib were all he had in the whole world that he really cared about. Joie! Joie!
Then the current took the tortured body of poor Ali and whirled it about and
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about, and he only paddled feebly. Just enough to keep afloat.
Then he felt a sharp pain in his head. He saw stars. He felt sick and queer. Something had hit him on his head. It had nearly knocked his brains out. For a second he lay lifeless upon the dark rushing waters. Then he began slowly to sink. Good swimmer that he was, he knew full well what was about to happen. He had lost his nerve and his strength, and was going to the bottom. He was going to drown.
There is, deep-seated in all animals and in men, a sense of self-preservation, that in that last dreadful instant man instinctively turns to the great power over all, to God. This causes the animal to cry out in a last appealing cry for help, and the man to cry out as well; the man's cry
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is more in the form of a prayer. A cry for help from God.
So as the dark waters drew him down, Ali lifted up his voice in a wild cry that pierced the night like a bolt of lightning, yet he knew there was no one near to hear or to help. But the cry had hardly died upon his lips and his head had not yet disappeared beneath the water when a great bulky form rushed towards him in the water, and a strong subtle something that seemed very familiar was wound about his waist with a strong grip, and placed him gently upon a broad back. A back that no mere flood could submerge.
For a second Ali sat gasping and feeling frantically about him. Then the great arm that had saved him came feeling gently for his face and hands.
"Oh, Joie, Joie," sobbed the bewil-
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dered, yet delighted boy. "You have saved me. You have saved me."
Ali himself might swim helplessly about in the water because he did not know where the shore was, but not Joie. He struck out as straight for the nearest shore as though it had been full daylight, and five minutes later clambered upon the bank.
Ali did not try to guide Joie, because he knew that Joie was much wiser in the dark than he, so Joie presently headed directly into a deep woods which fringed the river.
Although it was as dark as dark could be in the forest, yet Joie did not seem to mind it. He went without running into anything, and almost without noise. He was a wild animal again, threading the Malay jungles, and Ali, perhaps he also was a Malay boy, back in the old jungle.
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After about ten minutes of travel, Joie found a spot that suited him and he stopped. It was a dense pine grove, with little underbrush. The air was fragrant with the pine needles. Ali took in a deep breath, and then slid from the back of Joie.
He found in feeling around that the ground was nearly dry because of the thick cover overhead. So he lay down upon the pine needles while Joie lay down beside him, and they slept the sleep of great exhaustion.
When Ali awoke the birds were singing in the tree-tops, and the rays of the morning sun were falling aslant through the branches. So he got up hastily, and gave Joie the sign to lift him upon his back. Then they headed towards the river.
To Ali's great astonishment, when they
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appeared upon the bank just below the bridge they discovered Sahib Anderson and two other men with a boat, dragging the river. For a moment Ali could not think what they were doing, but when the solemn import of their labors came home to him, he returned thanks to Allah for his marvelous escape.
Then a broad grin overspread his face; and he called, "Hello, Sahib, are you fishing for crocodiles?"
It was a joyous boat-party that came ashore and greeted Ali and Joie.
When the excitement of the glad meeting had passed, Ali told his story, and all petted Joie, and he was quite the hero of the occasion.
"Gracious," said Sahib Anderson, presently, looking at his watch. "I shall have to hire an engine and a freight-car
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to take you to our next stand, Ali. Your act is due at twothirty."
"How far is it?" asked Ali.
"Thirty miles," said the Sahib.
"We shall not need a freight-car," said Ali. "Joie and I can make it all right. Here, Joie, give me a lift."
So Joie again reached down with his strong trunk and lifted Ali to his broad back.
"Think you can make it, lad?" asked the Sahib doubtfully.
"Sure, Sahib. Don't you worry. Joie and I will be there." And he was as good as his word.
-i
{{FreedImg
| file = Jungle Joe (1926) 3.png
| caption = "Hello, Sahib, are you fishing for crocodiles?"{{c|''[[Jungle Joe/Chapter 9#201|Page 201]].''}}
| width = 300px
}}
—
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter X}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Joie Wins Two Wagers|level=2}}
{{sc|The}} most-hated word in the English language to the circus people is "mud." Although the advance agent always examines the circus lot with the greatest care before renting it, yet he cannot always tell whether certain soil will develop mud or not under heavy rain. So it occasionally happens that the circus finds itself literally "up to the hubs" in mud after the night show. Then there is nothing to do but to turn to, as only circus people know how, and drag the wagons by main strength to solid ground.
The last resort after the horses have failed is the elephants. These great creatures are very much at home in the
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mud, as they wallow in it in their wild state. Their great padded feet also do not sink in the mud as do the sharp hoofs of the horses, so the elephants can always do the trick after even six horses have failed.
Every circus carries several large elephant-harnesses, and the patient pachyderms are always ready to haul the heavy wagons to safety.
This is often very annoying to the teamsters, who are justly proud of their fine horses. So it happens that there is often much rivalry between the elephant-drivers and handlers and the teamsters, for the elephant partisans usually laugh at the teamsters when the beasts pull the wagons to safe ground.
Thus it happened that Sahib Anderson and one of the oldest teamsters got to
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"jollying" each other as to the relative merits of elephants and horses on a dead pull.
Finally the rivalry and the arguments became so heated that Mr. Anderson offered to bet the teamster five hundred dollars that little Joie, as he called him, could outpull four of the circus's best horses. The teamsters were wild at such a dare and quickly raised a purse of five hundred dollars to cover the five hundred that the Sahib had put up.
Thus it came about that Joie, who had no idea of the great stake at risk, and who only knew that his master Ali seemed much excited, was led out to a vacant lot near the circus ground, and the smallest of the elephant-harnesses put upon him. Four of the circus horses were waiting with their tails to his. They were as fine
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a lot of draft-horses as could well be imagined. Not too heavy, about twelve hundred each, but each horse was all muscle, and in the pink of condition.
Mr. Anderson was in great spirits and laughed and joked as they made ready for the test, but Ali was very anxious when he looked at the eager, restive horses, each ready to spring into the harness at the word. He was afraid they would pull Joie off his feet, and get the start before he realized what was wanted of him.
So Ali talked to Joie and tried to get into his mind what was wanted. He carefully adjusted the harness, and slapped Joie's cheeks, and tweaked his ears.
Then he stepped forward in front of Joie and beckoned him forward for a step. He repeated this process several times, each time putting his very soul into his
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voice in a heartfelt entreaty to Joie to pull. When he was sure that Joie fully understood they made ready for the test.
This was not Joie's first attempt at pulling, for he had often helped with the wagons, when they had been set, but he had never figured in any such contest as this before.
Finally everything was in readiness, and Sahib Anderson, who was acting as starter, cried, "Go!"
The two drivers of the four-horse team had been flicking the horses with their whips while the preparations had been going on, so that when the word was finally given they were fairly dancing in their harnesses.
At the word to pull, the two heavy whips descended upon the horses and they sprang like tigers into their collars.
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The well-trained draft-horses bent low to the ground and strained with all their strength upon their harnesses. The great muscles on their shoulders and hips could be seen to writhe under their skins, while the evener squeaked with the strain. Dirt and turf flew beneath the hoofs of the four frantically straining horses.
Joie and Ali were swept off then* feet by the suddenness of the attack. They had not expected such a whirlwind beginning. So Joie was slowly, inch by inch, drawn backward about two feet, or one-fifth of the entire pull which was ten feet. The supporters of the horses who had gathered to see the great pull shouted themselves hoarse, and Ali grew desperate.
Then a bright idea came to Sahib Anderson. "Shout 'whoa' to him, Ali, shout 'whoa.{{' "}}
{{nop}}
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"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joie, whoa, Joie!" cried Ali, dancing up and down before his bewildered friend.
The great breast-collar was cutting into Joie's chest so that he thought it would cut through his skin. He had hauled upon heavy wagons before, but never had a wagon acted like this one. Wagons had never tried to pull him backward.
Finally the desperately straining Joie got it into his head that Ali wanted him to whoa, so he braced his sturdy legs like four small trees and the backward swing of the four horses was stopped as suddenly as though they had come up against the rock of Gibraltar.
"That's the stuff, Ali. That's the trick!" shouted the Sahib. "Now hold them. Just let them pull their heads off; then we will show them."
{{nop}}
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The teamsters called to their horses, and again the heavy whips fell. The desperate horses bent to earth and strained to the last ounce of their strength, but they could not stir Joie another inch. The crowd who had favored the horses began to look serious, while the elephant-sympathizers went wild.
Sweat came out upon the flanks of the horses and they began to slip and to give back upon the traces, just as a team will when they realize they are up against a dead set.
"Now you have got 'em, Ali!" cried Mr. Anderson. "Tell Joie to go to it. We'll show them! We'll let them see what they are up against."
"Get up, Joie, get up!" cried Ali. Then he went in front of Joie and called to him in his most persuasive voice.
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"Joie, come to Ali. Oh, come, Joie, come to Ali!"
The straining elephant looked at him dumbly. Then the words seemed to penetrate to his hard-working mind, although the great strain seemed to make him partly deaf.
His master wanted him to come to him. How could he with such a load pulling on him? But Ali said "Come!" and Joie would come to the last ounce of his great strength, for he loved Ali more than all the rest of the world.
He began swaying slowly from side to side, first an inch or two and then three or four, his mighty frame feeling out the load with each sway. A quiver was seen to run through him, as though he called upon his full power. Then, very slightly at first, but as the seconds passed, more
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and more perceptibly, the elephant moved forward.
The teamsters shouted themselves hoarse and plied their whips but it was no use. Ali was calling, "Come, Joie!" and Joie would come if it killed him.
Then one of the horses slipped and the others began to lose heart. From that point Joie walked them slowly back, not only ten feet but twenty, while the elephant-supporters shouted and threw up their hats.
When the pull was over, the head teamster came to Ali and shook his hand, and slapped Joie's sides.
"I wouldn't have believed it," he said. "That elephant is some horse after all."
But the great surprise to Ali came when Mr. Anderson placed the fat pocketbook containing five hundred dollars in
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his hand. "You keep it, Ali," he said. "Joie and you have earned it."
{{dhr}}
The second wager won by Joie was gained in quite a different way from the first. Then it had been a test of mere strength, but this time it was endurance and fleetness. One would not naturally associate fleetness with any animal so ponderous as an elephant, but when one also takes into consideration the quality of endurance, that is a different question.
One winter when the circus was in its headquarters near Pasadena, California, Sahib Anderson and Ali were in the stables looking at the horses. They had come at the invitation of one Ben Abi, a Bedouin horseman of great renown. He had invited Ali and the Sahib to the
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stables to see his beautiful Arab mare, Black Araby.
As the three animal-admirers stood by the beautiful horse, the Sahib remarked casually, "Yes, she is a wonderful horse, the most beautiful one I ever saw. I doubt if there is a finer horse anywhere."
"She is not only that, but she is the fleetest animal in the whole world," said Ben Abi with feeling.
"Yes," returned Mr. Anderson. "She probably would be for a short distance, or half-a-day's run, but I am wondering if one of the smaller elephants would not beat her in a long run."
Ben Abi's eyes snapped, and he rubbed his hands together gleefully.
"No, Mr. Anderson, the animal does not live that can outrun Black Araby for a short distance or long. I will wager you
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five hundred dollars on Black Araby for fifty miles."
"Make it a hundred miles and I will take you."
"The bet is on," said Ben Abi simply. "We will start in the morning."
And that was how Joie got his special bath that afternoon instead of a week later. This was not a simple dousing with a bucket of water, or a sprinkling with a hose, but a real bath, such as all the elephants get every four months. Joie was first soaped with fifty pounds of the best soap; he was lathered until he looked like a mountain of soap-bubbles and cream. When that had dried, he was sandpapered, so as to get off all the grit and loose skin. Then he was oiled with fifty pounds of the best olive-oil. That was to put him in the very best nature, as Sahib Ander-
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son said. The Sahib understood a great many things.
Promptly at sunrise on the following morning the start was made. It was not very spectacular as a race, judging from the start. Ben Abi mounted upon his shining Black Araby, and dressed in his resplendent Bedouin riding-dress, cantered away at a fast pace, while Ali, mounted upon Joie, went at a steady pace of perhaps nine miles an hour. Ali was seated upon a blanket on Joie's back, the howdah having been discarded.
"You talk to him and sing to him and keep up his spirits. Just make him think it is a picnic all the way," said the Sahib. "If you can keep his mind off the fact that he is making a long journey he will keep up that pace all the way. Don't be discouraged if Ben Abi makes the first
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fifty miles five miles ahead of you. He probably will. But we will beat him on the last ten miles, or perhaps the last five.
"Good luck, boy. God keep you."
Thus Ali and Joie started on the first lap of the long, hard run for the purse of five hundred dollars.
The course was across a desert of perhaps twenty miles, along a little-used road, then over a mountain trail for ten miles, and up a valley on the farther side for twenty more, to the little town of Prago. This was the first leg, and the second was to return along the same course.
When Ali reached the outskirts of the town and turned into the desert trail he could barely see Ben Abi and Black Araby. They were probably three miles away, but Ali was not discouraged. This
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was not a race to the swift, but to the strong, the stout-hearted, to those who kept plodding and did not lose heart.
Once they were well upon the desert trail, Ali began talking to Joie. Now if there was anything in the world that Joie liked better than all else it was to have Ali talk to him, and pet him. So Ali talked and talked.
"Oh, Joie, old boy, the best old elephant in the world. We'll show that old Araby, ha, Joie! We'll show them, won't we, Joie?"
As he talked he slapped Joie's sides and tweaked his ears. Then Joie, at Ali's bidding, reached around with his trunk and took his master on his head. Here Ali could better converse with his friend.
When he had prattled away for half an hour, partly in English and partly in ele-
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phant talk, Ali began to sing. He sang in his native tongue, the folk-songs of the Malay land. He sang the song of the Malay mother to her sleeping babe, as she rocks it upon her knee. He sang the song of the Malay boatman as he rows upon the great river. . He sang of the Malay hunter as he goes away into the jungle. He sang of spirits good and bad, and of the stars and the moon and the winds in far-away Malay land. His voice was low and sweet, and it sounded more like the winds in the bamboo-tops, or like the murmuring waters of a great river than a human voice.
Somehow he and Joie were carried back to the Malay land. To the land of the plains and the great jungles, to the blue sky and the rice-fields. So for the time they were not Ali and Joie running a
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desperate race in California, but Ali, the prince, and Joie, the sacred elephant, going on a pleasant journey.
Thus it happened that Joie and Ali forgot the long miles and the hot sun and their thirst, for they were living in a dream, a wonderful dream of the past, and of the beautiful lazy life in Malay land.
When the mountain ahead finally loomed up, Ben Abi and Black Araby were nowhere to be seen, but Ali did not care.
Singing and laughing, he and Joie mounted the steep trail and crossed the mountain and then sped along the valley trail.
As Sahib Anderson had prophesied, Ben Abi was far ahead at the end of the first lap, but Ali noted to his surprise that Black Araby was dripping with sweat,
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and seemed rather badly blown. Ben Abi saluted and cried, "Good-bye!" as he passed, thinking that he had surely won the race.
But Ali and Joie kept right on at their steady pace of nine miles an hour. They rested five minutes, and Ali gave Joie a rather stingy drink of water, and they were off for the return run.
When they reached the crest of the mountain, Ben Abi and Black Araby were three miles away at the foot. They had gained two miles and Ali was much elated. In the race across the desert they closed up the gap to within a hundred yards, so if they won it would be on the last five miles.
Ali noted as he turned off the desert trail that Black Araby was acting strangely. Ben Abi was having difficulty in keeping her in the road. She was zig-
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zagging this way and that. Finally as the surprised boy watched, the beautiful mare was seen to fall heavily. Ali saw Ben Abi kneeling by her side. As he and Joie came up a wild cry escaped from the lips of the Bedouin and he wrung his hands. "Oh, Black Araby," he cried, "Black Araby, I have killed you!"
Ali dismounted and went to them. "What is the matter, Ben Abi?" he asked, sympathy in his voice.
For answer the Bedouin pointed to a pool of blood beneath the beautiful Arab's mouth, which Ali had not noticed.
"She is dead, Ali. She is dead!" wailed the Bedouin. She had burst a bloodvessel.
Ali had heard much about the love of the Arab for his horse, but he was not prepared to see the Bedouin throw himself
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upon the ground beside his horse and bury his face in her mane and weep like a child.
The race was forgotten and Ali stood a helpless spectator of the Bedouin's grief.
Finally when it had passed Ali invited the Arab to get up beside him upon Joie's back, and together they rode into Pasadena, the vanquished upon the back of the victor's steed. A strange race, indeed.
The following day Sahib Anderson and Ali went to a stock farm near by and with the wager-money purchased Ben Abi the best mare they could find, but she was not another Black Araby, for that fleet steed had gone the way of all horses. She had been killed in her tracks by a great plodding pachyderm, but Joie, the victor, was footsore for a week.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter XI}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Great Tiger-hunt|level=2}}
{{sc|During}} the winter of the eleventh year of the sojourn of the jungle people with the great circus of Ringden Brothers, Queenie, the tigress that had been captured by Sahib Anderson and his men in the Malay jungle and that had come to America with the rest of the jungle people, "went bad." She killed her keeper, the man who had taken care of her all that time. She also so badly mauled his successor that the management of the circus decided to get rid of her.
Just across the city of Los Angeles from Pasadena is the great moving-picture headquarters at Hollywood. These wide-awake people are always on the look-
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out for novelties in moving-pictures, so the manager of the Imperial Co., when he heard that Queenie was to be disposed of, proposed to the manager of the circus that a great tiger-hunt be staged and that his company be allowed to make a movie of it.
He followed up the suggestion with a generous check, so the offer was accepted.
It was a strange array of people who marched on the appointed morning to the jungle that the moving-picture man had planted several years before upon a small river about twenty miles from the city. This jungle was as perfect as man's ingenuity could make it. It contained many of the trees and shrubs of the real Malay jungle, and a troop of monkeys had been let loose in the trees for the occasion.
At the head of this tiger-hunting ex-
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pedition went the great circus-wagon containing the tigress's cage. This was followed by Joie, with Ali and Sahib Anderson on his back. Also another larger elephant was taken along to help in beating the jungle, and for effect in making the moving-picture.
Mr. Anderson had on the hunting-togs of a rich English sportsman, while Ali was dressed like an Indian prince. The men upon the other elephant had picturesque oriental costumes. There were also ten Malays who had been brought along as jungle-beaters, dressed in the costume of their people and armed with spears and bows.
After them came the moving-picture people with their cameras, as well as half a dozen newspaper men, also armed with cameras.
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First the movie people got a picture of the two elephants and their drivers, and also the jungle-beaters.
When everything was in readiness, the wagon containing Queenie was driven to the desired position and the camera men, not without some fear, took their positions and the great beast was released. They got a fine picture of her making for the deep cover, and without showing the wagon from which she had just sprung.
Then they hurried farther along beside the jungle to some open spots and got more pictures of the tigress making her way cautiously through the jungle, with the jungle-beaters on foot and those upon the large elephant slowly pursuing her. Then the camera men went around to the farther end of the thick cover where Mr. Anderson and Ali were waiting upon the
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back of Joie. This was the point where Mr. Anderson was to shoot the tigress and the hunt was to end.
The camera men were all in position. Mr. Anderson and Ali were ready, and they could hear the shouts of the jungle-beaters.
Mr. Anderson was kneeling in the howdah, so as to give a fine picture, when the great tigress finally broke from cover and charged straight at them. This was fine, and the cameras clicked merrily. But here the unexpected happened, and what was to have been a splendid ending for the hunters was turned into a pandemonium, with every one fleeing for his life. For just as Sahib Anderson's finger pressed the trigger, Queenie threw up her head and turned sharply, so what was intended as a bullet through the head, which would
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have ended the tiger-hunt then and there, she received a glancing blow upon the shoulder, which did little except to infuriate her.
With a roar that fairly froze the blood of the camera men in their veins, the infuriated tigress charged straight for Joie.
Now while Joie was not gun-shy, and he was a very clever elephant and not easily frightened, yet this was too much for him, so with a wild trumpet of fear he bolted.
Mr. Anderson, who had been kneeling in the howdah so as to help out the picture, lost his balance and fell to the ground, striking upon his right shoulder, and putting his right arm out of commission. This made his rifle, which was the only heavy rifle in the party, useless.
So Queenie charged straight through
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the party of camera men and newspaper men, merely getting a fusillade of hastily fired revolver-bullets, which did little harm.
Most of the spectators did not wait to see what happened, but ran for their lives, some of the newspaper men even throwing away their cameras.
Twenty seconds later the tigress was disappearing into the jungle a score of rods away.
"Go after her, Ali! You and Joie keep her in sight," cried Mr. Anderson, who had gained his feet by this time, and had come up to Joie and Ali, who did not retreat very far, as Ali had gotten Joie under control after the first mad dash. "All right. You follow on as fast as you can. I will try to keep her in sight."
Luckily for Joie and Ali, the small {{hws|s=im|e=provised}}
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{{FreedImg
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{{hwe|s=im|e=provised}} jungle ended about fifty rods farther up the river, so the tigress was there obliged to come out into the open. She then followed along the small river for a couple of miles and then struck off across the fertile farming land through a forty-acre lot of asparagus. After that a prune-orchard was traversed. Then another asparagus-field, and this was followed by an orange-grove, and then another prune-orchard.
Some of the farm laborers gazed fearfully at the great tigress pursued by the elephant, while others fled precipitately. But the people in this country so near to Hollywood were used to strange sights, so most concluded that it was a moving-picture stunt.
Finally Queenie came to a desert, the same desert that Ali and Ben Abi had
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traversed on the great race, only this was much farther out from the city. Faint and far away to the northeast Ali could see a distant mountain. The tigress was quick to discover it also, and headed straight in that direction. Probably to her wild intelligence the distant mountain looked like a place of refuge from her pursuers.
No one joined in the chase. In fact, Ali and Joie and the tigress passed so quickly that there was no time to organize a hunt.
On, on, all through the afternoon they raced towards the mountain, the tigress leading the way and Joie and Ali following doggedly. All the tiger-hunting instincts of Joie's ancestors seemed to come to his help in this race. It did not deter Ali because he did not know just where
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he was going, or into what dreadful adventure the pursuit might lead him. The Sahib was Ali's general, and good soldiers always obey their generals. Besides, Ali did not doubt that the Sahib would soon organize a party and follow. He might even now be just behind them a few miles away. He had never failed him yet and he would not this time. He was a wonderful man.
Just as the long purple shadows of sunset were stretching across the Californian desert, the tigress reached the mountain towards which she had been bending her steps, closely followed by Ali and Joie.
Here she left the highway and struck into a canyon leading at right angles to the road. Joie and Ali followed, although the going was rough. For half an hour
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they followed the great cat along the canyon through the growing darkness. Finally the trail led down a steep declivity where Joie could barely keep his feet. But as the descent was only about forty feet Ali let him go.
They had covered about half the distance to the bottom when the treacherous shale gave way beneath the elephant's feet and he and Ali went plunging to the bottom. Ali could do nothing to save himself but cling to the howdah for dear life. It was all over in a second, and elephant and boy were piled up in a heap at the bottom of the incline.
Ali felt a queer, sick, faint sensation; the mountains about him faded, and all was dark. He did not know how long he lay there, but when he opened his eyes the stars were blinking above them and
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Joie was standing over him caressing his face with his trunk. But when Ali tried to rise, his right ankle hurt so that he could not, and his left arm was also nearly helpless.
For hours he lay there, alternately nursing his swollen ankle and his shoulder and looking at the stars.
Joie also had a bad limp showing that he, too, had been lamed by the fall.
Ali was tormented with fever and thirst. He could hear a little stream trickling among the rocks near by. Once Joie went to it and slaked his own thirst, but that did not help Ali.
Joie seemed much troubled that Ali did not arise, and caressed him with his trunk and squeaked his endearments in a most affectionate manner.
Thus the weary hours wore away until
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dawn came and the stars disappeared and the sun's rays fell into their chasm.
Where was the Sahib? Ali knew he would follow on and discover them as soon as he could.
Finally Ali remembered his revolver. Three shots in quick succession was the signal of distress the world over. So he sent the echoes ringing through the canyon. He repeated this signal every half-hour until noon.
All the rest of that day and through the following night Ali and Joie were marooned in the canyon.
About nine o'clock in the evening Ali fell into a fitful sleep during which he had a bad dream. In a way this dream was like the one he had had eleven years before in the bamboo thicket in Malay land; the time when the great tiger had crept
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upon him to kill him and eat him. Then, the danger had been on his own level, but now it was from above. He seemed to be able to look backward over his head and see the great cat creeping from boulder to boulder on the cliffs above. Finally it came to the edge and glared down upon him with fiery eyes. He tried to move or cry out, but could not stir a muscle. He thought the tigress was on their trail and was crouching at the top of the cliff to spring upon them. Ali's dream was partly real and partly true, for a great cat was creeping upon them, but it was not the tigress but a mountain lion.
Joie was very much awake and alert and saw the great beast crouching on the ledge ready for the spring and was ready for it. He caught the lion full upon his tusks and threw it high in air and then
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caught it by his trunk as it fell and brought it down upon the ground with a terrible thud.
His roar of rage awoke Ali who came to his assistanee with two shots from his revolver while the lion was still stunned. The shots, together with Joie's mauling, soon finished the lion. Joie was so infuriated because his trunk had been seratched that he would have stamped the lion into jelly but Ali would not let him, as he wished to keep the trophy.
The following noon, after Ali had begun to despair of their rescue, he heard three shots in quick succession and he joyously answered the signal in kind. Ten minutes later the Sahib, accompanied by a dozen cow-punchers, rode down the canyon and discovered Ali and Joie.
Joie and Ali had bagged a lion all un
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aided and were hailed as heroes, but it was not until a week later, when a great hunt was organized and a pack of hounds employed, that Queenie was finally brought to bay in a blind canyon and shot by the Sahib.
Thus ended the great tiger-hunt, the first and only tiger-hunt ever staged in California.
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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter XII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Ali and Joie Find a Home|level=2}}
{{sc|Ali}} and Mr. Anderson had been admiring the circus-wagons, which were as bright and shiny as new paint could make them. Ever since the great Ringden Brothers circus had gone into winter-quarters in November, the circus people who had not gone home had been working on the outfit.
All the wagons had been painted and the cages gilded, the harnesses mended and blacked, and the buckles polished. The camels and elephants had new trappings, and all the equestrian and aerial performers had new costumes. The clowns had been made gorgeous by colored suits; even the tenting had been over-
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hauled, and the stakes, chains, and seats looked after. The blacksmith-shop and the barber-shop had new equipment, while the dining-room had an entire new set of dishes. Circus people are always breaking dishes. Rarely does a circus man eat off a whole plate, or drink out of a perfect cup.
Ali and Mr. Anderson were now sitting upon some overturned nail-kegs on the south side of the big wagon-house, enjoying the March sunshine, and it was really warm, for this was California, and the roses were in full bloom.
"It won't be long before we'll be on the road," remarked Mr. Anderson after a long pause. "We usually get started about the last of March so as to get around to Madison Square late in April."
"That's so," said Ali. "I'll be glad
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to be at work again. It's a great life; full of excitement."
"Yes," returned Mr. Anderson; "there's excitement enough and hard work also. I've been thinking of late that this circus life is too hard for you, Ali. You know you have had malaria, and for the past two summers riding in the hot sleepers at night and working so hard in hot weather does not seem to agree with you."
Ali sighed. "Yes, Sahib," he said, "it is hard work, but I like it."
"I've been thinking," continued Mr. Anderson, "that if I could find just the right sort of a job for you and Joie it would be better than the circus life; I mean a position, with some animal park or zoo."
"Of course I would do just what you
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say, Sahib," returned Ali. "I am sure you know best. You know everything."
The man reached over and squeezed the boy's hand affectionately. "All right, sonny," he said, "we'll see."
All unknown to Ali and Mr. Anderson, just the right position for Joie and the boy was being prepared at that very moment in far-away New England, in the beautiful city of Springdale, close to a majestic river, celebrated in song and story. The city fathers were discussing the advisability of securing an elephant for the park. When all the arguments, pro and con, had been heard, the city voted unanimously for the elephant; and thereby Ali and Joie's destinies were changed.
When the morning papers of Springdale announced the decision, the excite-
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ment among the young people in that city was tremendous.
Beany and Stubby and Fatty, three of her wide-awake boys meeting on a street corner, gave vent to their excitement.
"Say, fellows," cried Beany, hailing his friends with a flourish of his hands, "ain't it great that the city has voted for the elephant?"
"You bet," chorused his chums.
"Fellows," said Fatty, "teacher says that we can each of us buy a part of the elephant. I'm goin' to put in a quarter. Would that buy one hair on him?"
For answer his chums broke into peals of laughter. "Hey, Fatty," cried Stubby, poking his friend in the ribs, "where was you brought up? Don't you know elephants ain't got hair?"
"Bet you a quarter," answered Stubby.
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"Don't be bettin' the quarter you are goin' to put into the elephant," warned Beany.
"I ain't. I got another. I bet you both of them."
"Aw, let's don't be wastin' our money bettin'," said cautious Stubby. "Elephants ain't got hair and there ain't no use bettin' about it. Fellows, the bakery on the corner is sellin' six stale cream-puffs for five cents to-day; a regular bargain. I've got a nickel. Let's have some." So the conversation about the elephant continued at the bakery, the boys arguing between bites at the cream-cakes, with the cream dripping from their chins.
Most of the children in Springdale were just as excited as these three boys. All sorts of plans for earning money were put into operation; concerts were given; lawn{{peh}}
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parties were held; and never in the history of the city had children been so willing to do errands. Their unusual industry resulted in a considerable sum of money.
A week later, Mr. Anderson, who was a native of Springdale and who had spent his boyhood in the same haunts that Beany and Stubby and Fatty now occupied, received a telegram from the city. He took it to Ali.
"Son," he said, "I've got just the place for you and Joie. It is in the beautiful city of Springdale where I was born and where I spent my boyhood. They have a wonderful park of beautiful forest land, in fact, they call it Woodland Park. It is an ideal place for you. I had better wire them our acceptance at once. They want to buy Joie, but you would not want to sell him, so we will arrange for a ten{{peh}}
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years' lease of yourself and Joie to the city of Springdale."
Thus it came about that Ali and Joie severed their relations with the great Ringden Brothers circus, and entrained for Springdale in far-away New England.
Such an outpouring of children had never been seen before in Springdale as that which welcomed Ali and Joie at the station when they arrived at the city of their adoption.
A monstrous parade had been planned, with members of the city government riding at the head and half a dozen youthful bands and drum-corps in the procession. The Boy Scouts were there, a thousand strong; and the Girl Scouts had five hundred in line; each of the city schools had its division. It was a wonderful day for the children of Springdale; and Joie and
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Ali rode at the very head of the procession. Joie's trappings were all new; his howdah had been gilded; and Ali looked very fine in the court dress of a Malay prince.
So while the bands blared, and the drum-corps thumped, and flags waved, and children shouted themselves hoarse, the parade wended its way to Woodland Park where Ali and Joie were to live. There was a convenient little cottage for Ali, and close to it a small barn that had been fitted up for Joie, and there was hay enough in the barn to last him for months.
Woodland Park was a beautiful place, stretching for five miles along the majestic river. There were boulevards for automobiles and foot-paths for pedestrians, winding in and out among the trees.
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Squirrels scampered along the pathways or chattered in the tree-tops, and birds were everywhere.
There was a large pasture for the bison, where six head grazed peacefully, and a high enclosure for the deer; there was a bird-house and a snake-house, and dens for lions, bears, and wolves; not to mention a large den, with a swimming-pool for the polar bear. So, it will be seen that Woodland Park was an Eldorado of beauty and wonder for the children of Springdale.
They had always liked the park, but now they had Joie and Ali they liked it better than ever. Every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon they would come to the park in droves, and Ali would put on his court dress and put on Joie's best howdah and take the children for rides up
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and down the boulevards under the friendly trees.
Joie and Ali were never more happy than when the howdah was swarming with laughing and screaming children, and Joie was pacing up and down with Ali walking at his side. Thus it was that the two grew into the hearts and affections of all the children of Springdale.
Every autumn when Ringden Brothers circus went into headquarters, Mr. Anderson would leave the show and come back to Springdale to be at home with his family. The winter evenings he and Ali spent before the open fire roasting chestnuts and popping corn, and talking over the old days of elephant-drives and tigerhunts in far-away Malay land. But, no matter upon what topic they talked, on these rare evenings, Ali was sure to steer
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the conversation back to Joie; to remind the Sahib of what a clever baby elephant Joie had been, and how wonderful he was now. But he was not an animal, Ali would insist when any one referred to him in that manner. "Joie is Folks; he knows as much as any of us. I have never forgotten, Sahib, what the old priest told me. It has saved my life several times, and it helps me always to understand the wild creatures. Joie is my brother."/last/
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{{c|{{asc|The end}}}}
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