It was a three-months’ vacation for Michael, who, well treated but still a prisoner, spent it in a caged kennel1 in Mulcachy’s Animal Home. Mulcachy, one of Harris Collins’s brightest graduates, had emulated2 his master by setting up in business in Chicago, where he ran everything with the same rigid3 cleanliness, sanitation4, and scientific cruelty. Michael received nothing but the excellent food and the cleanliness; but, a solitary5 and brooding prisoner in his cage, he could not help but sense the atmosphere of pain and terror about him of the animals being broken for the delight of men.
Mulcachy had originated aphorisms6 of his own which he continually enunciated7, among which were:
“Take it from me, when an animal won’t give way to pain, it can’t be broke. Pain is the only school-teacher.”
“Just as you got to take the buck8 out of a broncho, you’ve got to take the bite out of a lion.”
“You can’t break animals with a feather duster. The thicker the skull9 the thicker the crowbar.”
“They’ll always beat you in argument. First thing is to club the argument out of them.”
“Heart-bonds between trainers and animals! Son, that’s dope for the newspaper interviewer. The only heart-bond I know is a stout10 stick with some iron on the end of it.”
“Sure you can make ’m eat outa your hand. But the thing to watch out for is that they don’t eat your hand. A blank cartridge11 in the nose just about that time is the best preventive I know.”
There were days when all the air was vexed12 with roars and squalls of ferocity and agony from the arena13, until the last animal in the cages was excited and ill at ease. In truth, since it was Mulcachy’s boast that he could break the best animal living, no end of the hardest cases fell to his hand. He had built a reputation for succeeding where others failed, and, endowed with fearlessness, callousness14, and cunning, he never let his reputation wane15. There was nothing he dared not tackle, and, when he gave up an animal, the last word was said. For it, remained nothing but to be a cage-animal, in solitary confinement16, pacing ever up and down, embittered17 with all the world of man and roaring its bitterness to the most delicious enthrillment of the pay-spectators.
During the three months spent by Michael in Mulcachy’s Animal Home, occurred two especially hard cases. Of course, the daily chant of ordinary pain of training went on all the time through the working hours, such as of “good” bears and lions and tigers that were made amenable18 under stress, and of elephants derricked and gaffed into making the head-stand or into the beating of a bass19 drum. But the two cases that were exceptional, put a mood of depression and fear into all the listening animals, such as humans might experience in an ante-room of hell, listening to the flailing20 and the flaying21 of their fellows who had preceded them into the torture-chamber.
The first was of the big Indian tiger. Free-born in the jungle, and free all his days, master, according to his nature and prowess, of all other living creatures including his fellow-tigers, he had come to grief in the end; and, from the trap to the cramped22 cage, by elephant-back and railroad and steamship24, ever in the cramped cage, he had journeyed across seas and continents to Mulcachy’s Animal Home. Prospective25 buyers had examined but not dared to purchase. But Mulcachy had been undeterred. His own fighting blood leapt hot at sight of the magnificent striped cat. It was a challenge of the brute26 in him to excel. And, two weeks of hell, for the great tiger and for all the other animals, were required to teach him his first lesson.
Ben Bolt he had been named, and he arrived indomitable and irreconcilable27, though almost paralysed from eight weeks of cramp23 in his narrow cage which had restricted all movement. Mulcachy should have undertaken the job immediately, but two weeks were lost by the fact that he had got married and honeymooned28 for that length of time. And in that time, in a large cage of concrete and iron, Ben Bolt had exercised and recovered the use of his muscles, and added to his hatred29 of the two-legged things, puny30 against him in themselves, who by trick and wile31 had so helplessly imprisoned32 him.
So, on this morning when hell yawned for him, he was ready and eager to meet all comers. They came, equipped with formulas, nooses33, and forked iron bars. Five of them tossed nooses in through the bars upon the floor of his cage. He snarled35 and struck at the curling ropes, and for ten minutes was a grand and impossible wild creature, lacking in nothing save the wit and the patience possessed37 by the miserable38 two-legged things. And then, impatient and careless of the inanimate ropes, he paused, snarling39 at the men, with one hind40 foot resting inside a noose34. The next moment, craftily41 lifted up about the girth of his leg by an iron fork, the noose tightened42 and the bite of it sank home into his flesh and pride. He leaped, he roared, he was a maniac43 of ferocity. Again and again, almost burning their palms, he tore the rope smoking through their hands. But ever they took in the slack and paid it out again, until, ere he was aware, a similar noose tightened on his foreleg. What he had done was nothing to what he now did. But he was stupid and impatient. The man-creatures were wise and patient, and a third leg and a fourth leg were finally noosed44, so that, with many men tailing on to the ropes, he was dragged ignominiously46 on his side to the bars, and, ignominiously, through the bars were hauled his four legs, his chiefest weapons of offence after his terribly fanged47 jaws48.
And then a puny man-creature, Mulcachy himself, dared openly and brazenly49 to enter the cage and approach him. He sprang to be at him, or, rather, strove so to spring, but was withstrained by his four legs through the bars which he could not draw back and get under him. And Mulcachy knelt beside him, dared kneel beside him, and helped the fifth noose over his head and round his neck. Then his head was drawn50 to the bars as helplessly as his legs had been drawn through. Next, Mulcachy laid hands on him, on his head, on his ears, on his very nose within an inch of his fangs51; and he could do nothing but snarl36 and roar and pant for breath as the noose shut off his breathing.
Quivering, not with fear but with rage, Ben Bolt perforce endured the buckling52 around his throat of a thick, broad collar of leather to which was attached a very stout and a very long trailing rope. After that, when Mulcachy had left the cage, one by one the five nooses were artfully manipulated off his legs and his neck. Again, after this prodigious53 indignity54, he was free—within his cage. He went up into the air. With returning breath he roared his rage. He struck at the trailing rope that offended his nerves, clawed at the trap of the collar that encased his neck, fell, rolled over, offended his body-nerves more and more by entangling55 contacts with the rope, and for half an hour exhausted56 himself in the futile57 battle with the inanimate thing. Thus tigers are broken.
At the last, wearied, even with sensations of sickness from the nervous strain put upon himself by his own anger, he lay down in the middle of the floor, lashing58 his tail, hating with his eyes, and accepting the clinging thing about his neck which he had learned he could not get rid of.
To his amazement60, if such a thing be possible in the mental processes of a tiger, the rear door to his cage was thrown open and left open. He regarded the aperture61 with belligerent62 suspicion. No one and no threatening danger appeared in the doorway63. But his suspicion grew. Always, among these man-animals, occurred what he did not know and could not comprehend. His preference was to remain where he was, but from behind, through the bars of the cage, came shouts and yells, the lash59 of whips, and the painful thrusts of the long iron forks. Dragging the rope behind him, with no thought of escape, but in the hope that he would get at his tormentors, he leaped into the rear passage that ran behind the circle of permanent cages. The passage way was deserted64 and dark, but ahead he saw light. With great leaps and roars, he rushed in that direction, arousing a pandemonium65 of roars and screams from the animals in the cages.
He bounded through the light, and into the light, dazzled by the brightness of it, and crouched66 down, with long, lashing tail, to orient himself to the situation. But it was only another and larger cage that he was in, a very large cage, a big, bright performing-arena that was all cage. Save for himself, the arena was deserted, although, overhead, suspended from the roof-bars, were block-and-tackle and seven strong iron chairs that drew his instant suspicion and caused him to roar at them.
For half an hour he roamed the arena, which was the greatest area of restricted freedom he had known in the ten weeks of his captivity68. Then, a hooked iron rod, thrust through the bars, caught and drew the bight of his trailing rope into the hands of the men outside. Immediately ten of them had hold of it, and he would have charged up to the bars at them had not, at that moment, Mulcachy entered the arena through a door on the opposite side. No bars stood between Ben Bolt and this creature, and Ben Bolt charged him. Even as he charged he was aware of suspicion in that the small, fragile man-creature before him did not flee or crouch67 down, but stood awaiting him.
Ben Bolt never reached him. First, with an access of caution, he craftily ceased from his charge, and, crouching69, with lashing tail, studied the man who seemed so easily his. Mulcachy was equipped with a long-lashed70 whip and a sharp-pronged fork of iron.
In his belt, loaded with blank cartridges71, was a revolver.
Bellying72 closer to the ground, Ben Bolt advanced upon him, creeping slowly like a cat stalking a mouse. When he came to his next pause, which was within certain leaping distance, he crouched lower, gathered himself for the leap, then turned his head to regard the men at his back outside the cage. The trailing rope in their hands, to his neck, he had forgotten.
“Now you might as well be good, old man,” Mulcachy addressed him in soft, caressing74 tones, taking a step toward him and holding in advance the iron fork.
This merely incensed75 the huge, magnificent creature. He rumbled76 a low, tense growl77, flattened
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading
