Tamba, the Tame Tiger

CHAPTER II TAMBA’S FUNNY TRICK

Bang! Crack! Crash! went the thunder, and the cage of Tamba, the tame tiger, as it slid along the slippery, muddy road, and struck a tree, made much the same noise, only not so loud.

Tamba himself, inside the iron-barred cage, was feeling much better than when he had had the sliver in his paw. His foot was almost well now, and he could step on it, though he limped a little.

“When my cage goes to smash I’ll slip out and run away,” thought Tamba. “I’m going to have lots of fun when I get back to my jungle.”

Over and over rolled the cage, for the horses had broken loose from it and were running away. Many other of the circus animal cages were being broken in the storm.

Tamba’s cage struck one tree, bounced away from that and hit another. Then it came to a stop, and Tamba, who had been rolling about inside, being sometimes on his head and sometimes on his feet, and again turning somersaults—Tamba, at last, found himself quiet.

“Now is my chance to get away!” thought the tame tiger, who wanted to be wild again and live in a jungle. “Now I’ll get out of my cage!”

He surely thought the big wagon with the iron bars on two sides—the cage in which he traveled—had been broken so he could get out. But when he tried, he found that this was not so. The tiger’s cage was broken a bit, here and there, but it was so strong that it had held together, and when Tamba tried to force his way out he could not. He was still a circus tiger, much as he wanted to go to the jungle.

“Oh, this is too bad!” growled Tamba to himself, as he tried to break out, first through one side of the cage and then the other. “This is too bad! I thought, when the storm wrecked the circus, that I could get loose. Now I’ll have to wait for another time.”

But if Tamba had not got out of his cage when the great storm came, some of the circus animals had. Nero, the circus lion, got loose, and he had many adventures before he was caught again, as I have told you in the book before this one. But Tamba had to stay in his cage.

After a while, when the worst of the storm had passed, the circus men began going about, getting back on the road some of the cages, like that of Tamba, that had rolled downhill.

“Tamba’s all right,” said a trainer, as he saw the tame tiger. “He didn’t get loose, I’m glad to say. I want to teach him some new, funny tricks, now that his paw is well again.”

“No, Tamba didn’t get away,” remarked another man; “but Nero, the big lion, did. We’ll have to go out to hunt him.”

When morning came, and the circus was once more in order—except for the broken cages and the animals that had gotten away—Tamba felt, more than ever, that he would like to be back in his jungle.

“So Nero got away, did he?” thought the tame tiger, as he saw the lion’s broken cage, and noticed that Nero was no longer in it. “Well, I wish I were with him. Now he can go back to his jungle.”

But Nero did not do that, as those of you know who have read the book about him. I’ll just say, right here, that Nero had many adventures, but, as this book is about Tamba, I must tell about him, and the adventures the tame tiger had.

A few days after this, when the circus was traveling on again, though without Nero, who had not been caught, it came to a large city, where it was to stay nearly a week to give shows.

“And now will be a good chance for me to teach Tamba some new and funny tricks,” said the animal man who had charge of the tiger. “I want him to make the people laugh when they come to the circus. The boys and girls will like to see Tamba do some funny tricks.”

And the next day, his paw being again well, Tamba began to learn something new. When his trainer entered the cage, Tamba, much as he wanted to run away to the jungle, was glad to see the man. For the man was kind to the tiger, and patted him on the head, and gave him nice bits of meat to eat.

“Now, Tamba,” said the trainer, speaking in a kind voice, “you are going to learn something new. Sit up!” he cried, and he held a little stick in front of Tamba.

The tiger knew what this meant, as he had learned the trick some time before. When the trainer spoke that way he meant that Tamba was to sit up, just as your dog may do when you tell him to “beg.”

“That’s very good,” said the man, when Tamba had done as he was told. “Now that is the first part of a new trick. Next I am going to put a little cracker on your nose. It isn’t really a cracker, it is a dog biscuit, and it has some meat in it. As you like meat I think you’ll like the dog biscuit.”

As the man spoke he took from his pocket one of the square cakes called dog biscuit. I dare say you have often given them to your dog. The animal trainer broke off a bit of this biscuit and put it on Tamba’s nose. Tamba could smell that it was good to eat, and he quickly shook his head a little, jiggled the piece of biscuit to the floor of his cage, and the next minute the piece of biscuit was gone. Tamba had eaten it.

“Well, that’s what I want you to do,” said the man with a laugh, “but not just that way. This is to be one of your new, funny tricks, but you didn’t do it just right. I want you to hold the piece of biscuit on your nose until I call ‘Toss!’ Then I want you to flip it into the air and catch the piece of biscuit in your mouth. Now we’ll try it again.”

Tamba did the same thing he had done the first time, but the man was kind and patient, and, after many trials, Tamba at last understood what was wanted of him. He must hold the bit of dog biscuit on his nose until the man said he could eat it.

Then the tiger was to give his head a little jerk. This would snap the bit of biscuit into the air, and, if Tamba opened his mouth at the right time, the biscuit would fall into it. That would be the funny trick.

And, as I say, Tamba learned, after a while, how to do it just right. But it took nearly a week. At the end of that time his trainer could put a bit of dog biscuit on the tiger’s black nose. Then Tamba would sit up on his hind legs, very still and straight, looking at his master.

“Now!” the man would suddenly call, and Tamba would jerk his head, up the piece of biscuit would fly, and into his mouth it would go.

“That’s fine!” cried the man, after the second week, during which time Tamba had practiced very hard. “Now we are ready to do the new trick in the tent for the boys and girls.”

And when the trick was done the boys and girls laughed very much and clapped their hands. They liked to see Tamba do his tricks. Nor was this the only new one he learned. His master taught him several others.

Tamba would lie down and roll over when he was told; he would walk around on his hind legs, wearing a funny pointed cap; and he would turn a somersault, just as he had done the night his cage rolled downhill in the storm. All these tricks were much enjoyed by the boys and girls and by the men and women who came to the circus. Tamba was a very smart tiger. But, for all that, he never gave up the idea of running away when he got the chance, and going back to his jungle.

All this while Nero, the circus lion, had not returned. He had been away since the night of the storm, and Tum Tum, and his other friends, missed Nero.

And into his mouth it would go.

“But he is having a much better time than we are, just the same,” said Tamba, as he paced back and forth in his cage. “He is on the way back to the jungle!”

If he could have seen Nero just then he never would have said that. For the circus lion was in the kitchen of a country farmhouse watching a tramp eat ham, and—but there! This book is about Tamba, not about Nero, though I have to mention the lion once in a while.

About a week after Tamba had learned to do several new and funny tricks, there was a sudden noise at the entrance of the circus animal tent. It was after the afternoon show had ended, and not yet time for the evening performance.

“What’s the matter, Tum Tum?” asked Tamba, who could not see very well from his cage. “What has happened? Have some more of our animals gotten away?”

“I think not,” answered the big elephant, who could see the tent entrance. “I think they are bringing in a new lion. Maybe he is to take the place of Nero. We’ll soon know. Here they come with him.”

CHAPTER III TAMBA PLAYS A JOKE

Just as Tum Tum had said, a lion’s cage was being wheeled into the circus animal tent, and in the cage was a big, tawny, yellow animal, which Tamba knew, at once, was a lion.

But, to the surprise of the tame tiger and his friends, it was not a new lion at all, but Nero himself. There he was, looking almost the same as when he had disappeared the night of the big storm, the night when Tamba thought he could get away.

“Why, Nero!” exclaimed the tiger, as his friend’s new cage was wheeled in, “where in the world have you been?”

“Oh, almost everywhere, I guess,” answered Nero. “I’ve had a lot of adventures!”

“Ha! Then you’ll be put in a book,” said Tum Tum quickly. And, as those of you who have read the volume which comes just before this one know, Nero was put in a book.

“Yes, I had adventures enough for a book,” went on the big lion, who had been caught by some circus men in a farmer’s woodshed and brought back to the show. “I had a pretty good time, too, while I was away, though I didn’t get as much to eat as we do here in the circus. I guess I’m glad to be back, my friends!” and he curled up in his cage and got ready to go to sleep.

“Ho! Glad to get back, are you?” asked Tamba. “Well, I won’t say that if I get a chance to run away! I’ll stay, when I go!”

“That’s what you think now,” said Nero. “But really it isn’t as much fun as you’d think—running away isn’t.”

“Couldn’t you find your jungle?” asked Tamba.

“No,” answered Nero, “I couldn’t.”

“Well, I’ll find mine,” declared Tamba. “That’s why I want to run away—so I can get back to my jungle. And I’m going to do it, too!”

Of course all this talk went on in animal language, and none of the circus helpers or the trainers could understand it. If they could, they might have guarded Tamba more closely.

“Well, please don’t bother me now,” said Nero, as he curled his paws under his chin, just as your cat sometimes does when she goes to sleep. “I am going to have a nap after all my adventures and travels.”

“All right, go to sleep,” said Tum Tum. “We won’t bother you, Nero. Only, some day, I hope you’ll tell us more of your adventures.”

“I will,” promised Nero.

Tamba, the tame tiger, paced up and down in his cage after Nero had gone to sleep.

“I wish I had had his chances!” thought Tamba, as he looked over toward the sleeping Nero. “I wouldn’t have let them catch me! I’d have run on and on until I found my jungle, no matter how far away it was.”

And then Tamba began to think of the life in India and of the days when he, a little tiger cub, was hiding in the deep, dark, green jungle. He thought of how he had tumbled about in the leaves, playing with his brother and sister, and of his mother sitting in the mouth, or front door, of the cave and watching her striped babies.

They had learned how to walk, and how to jump and stick out their claws whenever they wanted to catch anything. Their father and mother had taught the little tiger cubs how to hunt in the jungle for the meat they had to eat. They could not go to the store and buy something when they were hungry. Tigers, and other wild animals, must hunt for what they eat.

Of course, after he had been caught and sent to the circus, Tamba no longer had to hunt for his food. It was brought to him by the circus men, and thrust into his cage. Nor did he have to hunt for water, the way the jungle animals have to go sniffing and snuffing about in the forest to find a pool or a spring. Tamba’s water was brought to his cage in a tin pail, and very glad he was to get it.

“But, for all that,” thought the tame tiger, as he paced up and down, “for all that I’d rather be loose and on my way back to the jungle instead of being cooped up here. Much as I like the things they give me to eat, I want to go home. And I’m going to get loose, too, and run away as Nero did. Only I won’t come back!”

The more Tamba thought of the green jungle, so far away in India, the more sad, unhappy and discontented the tame tiger became. He did not do his tricks as well as he used to do, and he was often cross in speaking to the other circus animals. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak at all, but only growl, or maybe grumble deep down in his throat, and that isn’t talking at all.

“I declare! I don’t know what’s the matter with Tamba,” said Tum Tum one day. “He doesn’t seem at all happy any more. Dido, do some of your funny dances and see if you can’t cheer up Tamba!”

So the dancing bear did some of his tricks, capering about in his cage, but Tamba would hardly look at him. Some boys, though, who had come to the circus, gathered in front of the bear’s cage and laughed and laughed at his funny antics. They liked Dido. The boys liked to look at Tamba, also, but they were a little afraid of the big, striped tiger.

One day, when the afternoon performance was over, and Tamba, Nero and the other animals who had done their tricks in the big tent were brought back to the smaller one, where they were kept between the times of the shows, Nero said:

“Now I am going to lie down and sleep, and please don’t any one wake me up. I’m tired, for I did a new trick to-day, and it was very hard, and I want to rest so I can do better in the show to-night. So everybody let me alone.”

“We will,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.

Now the lion is called the “King of Beasts,” and in the jungle he comes pretty near to being that, for all the other animals, except perhaps the elephant, are afraid of him.

So when a lion says he wants a thing done, it generally is done. Of course Nero could not have got out of his circus cage to make the other animals do what he wanted them to do, but most of them made up their minds that they wouldn’t bother him, even though they knew he couldn’t hurt them. Nero was still “King” in a way.

But that day Tamba was cross. Or perhaps I might say he felt as though he wanted to “cut up.” He wanted to play some tricks, make some excitement. He wanted to do something!

I dare say you have seen your dog or cat act the same way. For days at a time they may be very quiet, eating and sleeping and doing only the things they do every day. And then, all at once, they will begin to race about and “cut up.” Your dog may run away with your cap, and, no matter how many times you call him, he’ll just caper about and bark, or perhaps pretend to come near you and then run off again. And your cat may dig her claws into the carpet, jump up on the window sill and knock down a plant or a flower vase, and do all sorts of things like that.

Well, this is just the way Tamba felt that day. He wanted to do something, and when he saw Nero sleeping so quietly in his cage the tame tiger made up his mind to play a trick on the lion.

“It isn’t fair that he should sleep so nicely when I have to stay awake!” grumbled Tamba. “He can dream of the good times he had when he ran away and had adventures, and all I can think of is how much I want to go back to my jungle! It isn’t fair! I’m going to make Nero wake up! I’ll play a trick on him!”

Of course this wasn’t right for Tamba to do, but circus tigers don’t always do right any more than boys, girls, or other animals.

Tamba’s cage was next to that of Nero, and close beside it, instead of being at one end. The cages were left that way when they were brought in from the larger performing tent, after the animals had done their tricks. So it happened that Tamba could look out through the bars of his cage in between the bars where Nero was kept. And Tamba could stick his paws out through the bars, but he could not quite reach over to the sleeping lion.

“If I could reach him,” said Tamba to himself, “I’d tickle him and wake him up. I wouldn’t let him sleep!”

But Tamba’s paws were not quite long enough to reach through the bars of the two cages. Again and again the tiger tried it, but he could not manage.

Then Tamba sat down on his haunches and looked at the sleeping Nero. At last a tricky idea came to Tamba.

“Ha!” exclaimed the tiger. “If I can’t reach him with my paws I can reach him with my tail! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll reach in between the bars with my long, slender tail, and I’ll tickle Nero on the nose!”

Tamba sort of laughed to himself as he thought of this trick. And he had no sooner thought of it than he began to try it. He turned about, so his back was toward Nero. Standing thus, Tamba’s long, slender tail easily reached into Nero’s cage. Nearer and nearer the tip of Tamba’s tail came to the big black nose of the sleeping lion.

Tamba looked sideways over his back to see where to put his tail. At last the fuzzy tip-end of it touched Nero’s nose and tickled it. The big lion twitched in his sleep, just as your cat does, if you lightly touch one of her ears.

“Ha! I’ve found a good way to play a trick on Nero!” laughed Tamba. “I’ll keep on tickling him!”

He waved his tail to and fro, Tamba did, and once again he let the tip of it touch Nero’s nose. The sleeping lion raised his paw, and brushed it over his face. He must have thought some bug was crawling on his nose.

“Oh, this is lots of fun!” thought Tamba. So it was, for him. But was it fun for Nero?

“Now for a good tickle!” thought Tamba, as, once again, he put his tail over toward the sleeping lion’s nose. And this time something was going to happen.

CHAPTER IV TAMBA IN A WRECK

Down on the black nose of the sleeping lion went the soft, fuzzy tip of Tamba’s tail. And Tamba tickled Nero so hard that the lion gave a big sneeze and awakened with a jump.

Then Nero threw himself against the bars of his cage until they shook where they were fastened into the wood, and the lion roared in his loudest voice:

“Where’s that fly? Where’s the tickling fly that wouldn’t let me sleep? If I catch that fly I’ll tickle him!” and Nero roared so loudly that the ground seemed to tremble, as it always does near a lion when he roars. I have often felt it in the zoölogical park where I sometimes go to look at the lions and the tigers.

“Where’s that fly? Where’s that fly?” roared Nero. For you see he thought the tickling tip of Tamba’s tail was a fly on his nose.

“What’s the matter here? What’s the trouble?” cried one of the circus men, as he ran into the animal tent, having heard Nero roar.

“Are some of the lions or tigers trying to get loose?” asked another man.

“No, it seems to be Nero,” replied the first. “What’s the matter, old boy?” he asked, as he saw how angry Nero was. For the lion was lashing his tail from side to side and roaring:

“Where’s that fly? Where’s that fly?”

Of course the circus men didn’t know exactly what Nero was saying, but they could tell he was angry, and they were afraid, if he bounded against the bars of his cage much more, he might break some.

“I don’t see what makes Nero act that way,” said the man who had charge of the lion, and who had taught him to do tricks. “Once before he acted like this, but it was when a bee stung him on the nose.”

“Maybe that is what happened this time,” said the second man.

“I don’t see any bees flying around,” went on the lion’s keeper. Just then Tamba, seeing that he had awakened Nero, and had played all the tricks he wanted to, pulled his tail out from between the bars of the lion’s cage. And, just as he did so, the keeper saw him.

“Oh, ho! I know what the matter was,” the man said. “The tiger tickled the lion. Tamba tickled Nero with his tail through the bars of the cage. That’s what made Nero angry. Tamba, you’re a bad, mischievous tiger!” and he shook his finger at the striped animal. Tamba walked over to the corner of his cage and curled up.

“Well, I had some fun, anyhow!” he thought. “I waked Nero up all right!”

And so he had. And now Nero knew what had happened, for Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, had seen it all, and Tum Tum said:

“It wasn’t a fly on the end of your nose, Nero; it was the fuzzy tip of Tamba’s tail. I saw him tickle you!”

“Oh, you did, did you?” cried Nero, and this time he did not roar. “Why did you tickle me, Tamba?”

“Oh, I didn’t like to see you sleeping so nicely when I couldn’t sleep, because I’m thinking so much of the jungle,” answered the tiger. “Besides, it was only a joke. I wanted to see if I could make you think my tail was a fly on your nose. I did.”

“Yes, you surely did,” admitted Nero. “I felt the tickle, even in my sleep. But if it was only a joke, Tamba, I won’t be angry. I like a joke as well as any one,” and Nero laughed in his lionish way. “But, after this, I’m going to sleep in the far corner of my cage, where your tail won’t reach me. A joke is all right, but sleep is better. Now it will be my turn to play a joke on you, Tamba.”

“Yes,” said Dido, the dancing bear, “you want to look out for yourself, Tamba. A joke is a joke on both sides.”

“Oh, well, I don’t care,” said Tamba, but he was not as jolly about it as he might have been.

The circus men saw that something was wrong between Tamba and Nero, so they moved the cages farther apart, and then Nero and Tamba could not have reached each other if their tails had been twice as long. And then Nero went to sleep, and so did Tamba, waiting for the evening show to start. And as Tamba slept he dreamed of the Indian jungle, and wished he could go back there.

And soon something wonderful was going to happen to him.

That night in the big tent, which was bright with electric lights, Tamba did his tricks—catching a piece of dog biscuit off his nose, leaping through a paper hoop, and walking around on his hind legs. Nero also did his tricks, one of which was sitting up like a begging dog on a sort of stool like an overturned wash tub.

And Dido, the dancing bear, did his funny tricks on the wooden platform, which was strapped on the back of Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. So the boys and the girls, and the big folks, too, who went to the circus had lots of fun watching the animals.

But, all the while, Nero was watching for a chance to play a trick on Tamba. And at last he found a way. It was three or four days after Tamba had tickled Nero with the tail tip, and the circus had traveled on a railroad to a far-distant town.

In the animal tent the lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys and ponies had been given their dinners and were being watered. Tamba was taking a long drink from his tin of water, and wishing it could be turned into a jungle spring, when, all of a sudden:

Splash!

A lot of water spurted up into his face, and some, getting into his nose, made him sneeze. Then he looked and saw that a bone, off which all the meat had been gnawed, had come in through the bars of his cage and had fallen into his water-pan. It was the falling of the dry bone into the water that had made it splash up.

“Who did that? Who threw that bone at me?” growled Tamba. “Who made it splash water all over me?”

“Oh, I guess I did that,” said Nero with a loud, rumbling lionish laugh. “I wanted to see if I could toss it from my cage into yours, Tamba, and I did. So the water splashed on you, did it?”

“Yes, it did! You know it did!” growled Tamba. “It made me sneeze, too!”

“Oh, did it?” asked Nero. “Well, that was just a little joke of mine, my tiger friend. I wanted to see if I could tickle your nose the way you tickled mine with your tail. It was only a joke, splashing water on your nose. Only a joke! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Yes, it was only a joke!” said Tum Tum and all the other animals. “Only a joke, Tamba! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Of course the striped tiger had to laugh, too, for really he had not been hurt, and he must expect to have a joke played on him after he had played one on Nero.

“Well, I’ll gnaw this bone after I take a drink,” said Tamba, as he dried his nose on his paw. “Much obliged to you for tossing it into my cage, Nero.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome, I’m sure!” laughed the lion. “Oh, you did jump and sneeze in such a funny way, Tamba, when the water went up your nose!” and Nero laughed again, as he thought of it.

And “Ha! Ha! Ha!” echoed Tum Tum.

And so life went on for the circus animals, something a little different happening every day. Now and then Tamba played other tricks, and so did Nero, and the first crossness of Tamba seemed to wear off. He was still as anxious as ever to go to the jungle, but he did not see how he could get out of his cage. He watched carefully, every day, hoping that some time the man who came in to make him do his tricks would forget to fasten the door when he went out.

“If he only left it open once,” thought Tamba, “I could slip out and run away. Then I’d go back to the jungle.”

But the trainer never left the door open. Besides, it closed with a spring as soon as the man slipped out, and, quick as he was, Tamba could not have slipped out. However, he kept on the watch, always hoping that some day his chance would come.

And it did. I’ll tell you all about it pretty soon.

Sometimes, as I have told you, the circus went from town to town by the way of country roads, the horses pulling the big wagons with the tents on them and also the wagons in which the wild beasts were kept. It took eight or ten horses to pull some of the heavy wagons uphill.

At other times the wagons would all be put on big railroad cars, and an engine would haul them over the shiny rails. This was when it was too far, from one town to the next, for the horses to pull the wagons, or for the elephants and camels to walk. For when the circus traveled by country road these big animals—the camels and elephants—always walked.

And one night after a stormy day the circus wagons were loaded on the railroad cars for a long journey to the next city in which the show was to be given.

“Well, you haven’t gone to your jungle yet, I see, Tamba,” said Tum Tum to the tiger. The big elephant was moving about, pushing the heavy wagons to and fro.

“No, I haven’t gone yet,” sadly said the beautifully striped beast. “And, oh, how I wish I could get loose!”

On through the night rumbled the long train of circus cars. There was no moon, and the stars did not shine. The night was very dark after the storm.

Suddenly there were some loud whistles from the train engine.

Toot! Toot! Toot! it went, and that meant there was danger. The engineer had seen danger ahead, but not in time to stop his train. One of the circus trains had run off the track and could not go on. It had come to a halt, and another train that was running not far behind the first one crashed into it.

There was a terrible noise, a clanging of iron and a breaking of wood. The cars were smashed, and so were some of the animal cages.

“What is it? What’s the matter? roared Nero.

“We’re in a wreck!” trumpeted Tum Tum, the elephant, who was not quite so jolly, now. “The circus train is wrecked! I was in a wreck once before. It’s very bad! I hope none of our animal friends are hurt!”

But some were, I am sorry to say, and so were some of the circus men.

Tamba, the tame tiger, felt his cage slide off the flat car on which it had been fastened. The car was smashed and tossed to one side. Off slid the tiger’s cage, and then it fell down the railroad bank and into a ditch. Tamba’s cage broke open, and the tiger was cut and bruised, but he knew that he was free. He was no longer in the cage.

“At last I am out!” he cried. “Now I can run away to my jungle! Now I am free!”

Off slid the tiger cage.

CHAPTER V TAMBA IN A BARN

With the smashed circus cars, the broken animal cages, with some of the jungle beasts, including the elephants, cut and bruised, with shoutings, growlings, roarings and tootings going on, the scene at the circus train wreck was a terrible one. It was no wonder that Tamba, the tame tiger, wanted to run away from it all and get to a quiet place. And this he did.

He crawled out of his cage, that had been broken when it slipped off the smashed car, and gave one last look at it in the darkness.

“Good-by, old cage!” said Tamba, softly, as he turned to run away. “I’ve been in you for the last time. I’m never coming back to the circus!”

Leaving the noise and confusion of the circus wreck behind him, Tamba slunk off into the tall grass that grew in the fields beside the railroad track. The accident had happened at a lonely place, and there were no houses near at hand.

“Ha! This is a little like the jungle where I used to live!” thought Tamba, as he slunk through the tall grass. “I can hide here until I see which way to go to get back home.”

And Tamba was right. The grass grew long, as it did in the jungle, but there were not so many trees and tangled vines as in India. Only at night it seemed a very quiet, restful place to the tiger who had been so shaken up in the wreck.

Tamba walked on and on through the darkness, not really knowing, and not much caring, which way he went. All he wanted to do was to get away and hide, and the tall grass was just the place for this.

In a little while Tamba came to a place where there was a small pool of water. It had leaked from a pipe that filled the tank where the railroad engines took their water. Tamba drank some, and then, finding a place where the grass was taller and thicker than any he had yet seen, he made himself a sort of nest and curled up in it.

“I can sleep here, and Nero, that big lion, can’t splash any water into my nose and make me sneeze,” thought Tamba, as he snuggled up.

At first he could not get to sleep. He had been too much frightened by the train wreck, though he was so far away now that he could not hear the din, which still kept up. But at last Tamba closed his eyes, and soon he was slumbering as peacefully as your cat sleeps before the fire.

It was daylight when Tamba awakened, and, for a moment, he did not remember where he was. He stretched out first one big paw after another and then he called:

“Well, Tum Tum, what sort of day is it going to be?”

Tamba used to do this in the circus tent, for the jolly elephant was so big that he could look over the tops of the cages and tell whether or not the sun was going to shine. Most animals awaken before the sun comes up—just as it begins to get daylight, in fact.

But Tum Tum did not answer Tamba this time. The jolly elephant was badly hurt in the railroad accident, but of course the tiger did not know this just yet. Tamba did know, however, that he had made a mistake.

“Oh, I forgot!” he said to himself. “Tum Tum isn’t here! I’m not in the circus any more. I’m free, and I can go to my jungle. I must start at once!”

Then Tamba arose, and stretched himself some more. He liked to feel the damp earth under his paws, and he liked the feeling of the dry grasses as they rubbed against his sides.

“Why, I feel hungry!” suddenly said the tiger. “I wonder where I can get anything to eat in this, the beginning of the jungle.” You see, Tamba still thought the jungle was close at hand, but, to tell you the truth, it was far away, over the sea, and Tamba could not get to it except in a ship.

The more Tamba thought about it the hungrier he became. He knew no men would come to him now with chunks of meat, as they had used to come in the circus.

“I must hunt meat for myself, the same as I did when I lived in the jungle with my father and mother,” thought the tiger. “Well, I did it once, and I can do it again. I wonder what kind of meat I can find?”

Tamba did not have to wonder very long, for he soon saw some big muskrats, and he made a meal off them.

Then Tamba looked about him, and began to think of what he would do to get to the deeper part of the jungle—the part where the trees grew. He wanted to be in the thick, dark woods. All wild animals love the quiet darkness when they are not after something to eat.

But it was now broad daylight, and Tamba knew he must be careful how he went about. Men could easily see him during the day. He remembered he had been told this in the jungle, years before, by his father. But in the jungle Tamba was not so easy to see as he was on this railroad meadow. The yellow and black stripes of a tiger’s skin are so like the patches of light and shadow that fall through the tangle of vines in a jungle, that often the hunters may be very close to one of the wild beasts and yet not see it. The tiger looks very much like the leaves and sunshine, mingled.

“But I guess if I slink along and keep well down in the tall grass no one will see me,” thought Tamba. “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll keep hiding as long as I can until I get to my jungle. Then I’ll be all right. I’ll be very glad to see my father and mother again, and my sister and brother. The circus animals were all very nice, but still I like my own folks best.”

So Tamba slunk along, going very softly through the tall grass. If you had been near the place you would probably have thought that it was only the wind blowing the reeds, so little noise did Tamba make. Tigers and such cat-like animals know how to go very softly.

All at once, as Tamba was slinking along, he heard the sound of men’s voices talking. He knew them at once, though of course he could not tell what they were saying. Besides the voices of the men, he heard queer clinking-clanking sounds and the rattle of chains. Tamba knew what the rattle of chains meant—it meant that elephants were near at hand, for the circus elephants wear clanking chains on their legs, being made fast by them to stakes driven into the ground.

“Ha! I had better look out,” thought Tamba. “Maybe those are the circus men after me.”

The tame tiger was partly right and partly wrong. The voices he heard were those of the circus men, and the chains clanking were those on the legs of elephants. The men were trying to clear away what was left of the circus wreck. Tamba had taken the wrong path, and had walked right back to where he had started from.

“This won’t do!” he said to himself. “I must get farther away and hide!”

He peered between the tall grasses and dimly saw where the circus men were working along the railroad tracks, lifting up some of the overturned cars and cages. The elephants were helping, for they were very strong.

“I’ll notice which way the sun is shining, and then I’ll know which way to go to keep away from the circus men,” thought Tamba. Then he turned straight about and ran off the other way.

On and on, over the big stretch of meadows and lonely land near the railroad went the tiger until he had placed many miles between himself and the scene of the wreck. In all this time Tamba did not see any men, or any living creatures except some muskrats, many of which lived in the swamp along the railroad. The muskrats were not glad to see Tamba, for the tiger caught a number of them for food, but it could not be helped.

No one saw Tamba sneaking along through the grass. If any one had seen him they would have hurried to tell the circus men, for a general alarm had been sent out, telling that some of the wild animals, including a big, striped tiger, had got loose after the wreck.

But no one saw Tamba, and he saw no one, at least for a while. On and on he went until night came again. Then he found another snug place in among the dried grass where he curled up to sleep.

“My jungle is farther away than I thought it was,” said Tamba to himself, as he awoke on the second morning of his freedom. “I must run along faster to get there more quickly.”

After he had eaten and taken some water, he started off once again, and then began a series of very strange adventures for the tame tiger.

Toward the close of the afternoon of the second day of his freedom Tamba stepped out of a little patch of woods, into which he had gone from the meadow, and there, in the light of the setting sun, the tiger saw a red, wooden building which he seemed to know.

“Why, there’s a barn!” said Tamba to himself. “There’s a barn. I’ll go in there and stay for the night. I wonder if there are any other animals in it.”

The reason Tamba knew this was a barn was because, when he had first joined the circus, he had been taken to a barn, and there was taught some tricks. The circus folk and the animals lived in a big barn instead of tents during the winter. So when Tamba saw this building he knew, at once, that it was a barn.

Now it happened that this was a barn belonging to a farmer, who also owned a house near by, but which Tamba could not see on account of the trees. So, making sure that no one was about, Tamba walked toward the barn, and, one of the doors being open, in walked the tiger.

He looked all around, as best he could, for it was not very light, and he sniffed and smelled the smell of animals.

“Maybe some of my friends are here,” thought Tamba. “I’ll slink around and see.”

So he walked softly and slinkingly to the middle of the barn floor, and peered about, and, right after that, a very strange thing happened.

CHAPTER VI TAMBA MEETS TINKLE

At first when he went into the barn through the door which was open, Tamba, the tame tiger, could not see very much. It was the same as when you go into a dark moving-picture theater from the bright sunshine outside.

But, in a little while, Tamba’s eyes could see better, and he noticed some piles of hay and straw in the barn. That made him feel more at home.

“This is just like the circus barn where I used to be before we started out with the tents,” thought Tamba to himself. “That is hay, which Tum Tum and the other elephants used to eat. I don’t like it myself. I like meat and milk. But I don’t see any elephants here.”

And for a very good reason, as you know. Farmers don’t keep elephants and other circus animals in their barns.

So Tamba looked about in the barn, and he sniffed and smelled with his black nose, hoping to smell something good to eat. But though there was an animal smell about the place (because there were cows and horses in the lower part of the barn) still Tamba did not want to eat any of them.

If he had been in the jungle he might have felt like eating a cow, or, what is very much the same thing, a water buffalo. But since he had been in the circus he had been used to eating the same kind of meat that you see in butcher shops. So, though the tiger was quite hungry, and though there were cows and hay in the farmer’s barn, Tamba did not see much chance of getting a meal.

“I’ll starve before I’ll eat hay,” he said. “It’s all right for elephants and horses and ponies, like the Shetland ponies we had in the circus, but hay is not good for tigers.”

So Tamba walked farther into the barn, looking about and sniffing about, and then, all at once, he heard some one whistle. Tamba knew what a whistle was, for often his own trainer or the trainer of Nero would go about the circus tent whistling. So, when Tamba, in the barn, heard some one coming along whistling a merry tune he at once thought to himself:

“Oh, perhaps that is one of the circus men coming to take me back to my cage in the tent! Well, I’m not going! I’m going to go back to my jungle, and not to the circus! I’ll just hide where they can’t find me!”

Now the big pile of hay in the barn seemed the best place in the world for Tamba to hide in, and, as the whistling sounds came nearer and nearer, the tiger crept softly across the barn floor, and soon was snuggling down in the hay.

“I remember once, when I lived in the jungle, I hid in a pile of dry grass just like this hay,” thought Tamba. “It was when I wanted to play a trick on my brother Bitie. I jumped out at him and scared him so he ran off with his tail between his legs. Maybe I can jump out and scare this circus man so he won’t want to take me back.”

You see Tamba thought surely it was a circus man coming into the barn whistling. But it wasn’t at all. It was the boy who worked on the farm. His father had sent him to the barn to gather the eggs which the chickens had laid, and this boy, whose name was Tom, nearly always went about his chores whistling.

“I hope I get a lot of eggs to-day,” said Tom, speaking aloud to himself, as he stopped whistling. “Maybe I can get a whole basket full. I’ll look in the hay for them. Hens like to lay their eggs in the hay. It’s a good place for them to hide.”

Now, if that farmer boy had only known it, there was something else hidden in the hay besides hens’ eggs. There was Tamba, the tame tiger. Tamba had worked himself down into a regular nest in the dried grass, and only his eyes peered out. They were very bright and shining eyes, and they watched every move of the farmer boy.

Tamba saw the basket which the boy carried in his hand so he might put the eggs in it, and, seeing this basket, the tame tiger thought to himself:

“Well, if he expects to take me back to the circus in that little basket he’s very much mistaken. Why, it wouldn’t hold two of my paws!”

And then Tamba took a second look, and he saw that the boy was not one of the circus keepers, as the tiger had at first supposed.

“But he whistles just like one,” thought Tamba. “I wonder what he wants.”

So the boy, not knowing anything about the tiger in the hay, walked right toward Tamba, hoping to gather eggs.

In another moment, just as the boy began poking his hand down in the loose hay, hoping to find a hen’s nest full of eggs there, Tamba made up his mind it was time for him to do something.

“I’ll give this fellow, whoever he is, a good scare!” said Tamba to himself. “I’ll teach him to come looking for me with a basket! Look out now, you whistling chap!” said Tamba to himself.

He dropped his basket.

Then he gave a loud growl—one of his very loudest—and he raised himself from his nest in the hay, and stuck his head out.

Now if you had gone hunting hens’ eggs in your father’s barn, and had, all of a sudden, seen a great, big, striped tiger jump out at you from the hay, giving a loud growl, I believe you would have done just what this boy did. And what he did was this.

He dropped his basket, gave one look at Tamba in the hay, and then uttered such a yell that his father and mother in the farmhouse, quite a distance off, heard him. And then that boy ran out of the barn as fast as he could run. That’s what this boy did, and I think you would have done the same.

“Well, I guess he won’t come back right away,” thought Tamba. “But there may be others like him. If I stay here I may have to scare a whole lot of them. I guess I’ll find a new hiding place.”

So Tamba came out from his nest in the hay and began moving about in the barn, looking for a new place in which to snuggle, and perhaps find something to eat. And the first thing he knew he stepped right into a hen’s nest of eggs. Right down among the eggs Tamba put his paw.

Of course he broke some of the eggs, but he took up his paw so quickly again that not many of the shells were cracked. And, as his paw was covered with the sticky whites and yellows of the eggs, Tamba began licking it with his tongue to make it clean.

“Hum! These eggs taste as good as the ones I used to get in the jungle,” said the tiger to himself. “Guess I’ll eat them. I’m hungry, and they’ll be almost as good as meat.”

So Tamba carefully cracked the egg shells and sucked out the whites and yellows. He ate a whole dozen of eggs before he finished, and then he felt better.

“Now I’ll go and find a new place to hide,” he said to himself.

He found a stairway leading from the upper part of the barn, where the hay was stored, to the lower part, where were the stables of the cows and horses. Down the stairs softly went Tamba, and no sooner was he down there than he felt right at home. For it smelled just like that part of the circus where the horses were kept. And, as a matter of fact, there were a number of horses in the barn, and quite a few cows.

At first the horses were afraid of the tiger, and pulled at the straps which held them fast in their stalls. But Tamba, speaking in animal talk, said:

“I am a tame tiger. I won’t hurt any of you. I only want to hide here so the circus men won’t find me. I am on my way back to the jungle. I have run away from the circus.”

When Tamba spoke thus kindly the horses were no longer afraid. One of them said Tamba might hide in a pile of straw near his stall, and this the tiger was glad to do. He stretched out, and got ready to go to sleep.

Now I must tell you a little about the farmer boy. When he saw the tiger rear up at him out of the hay, and ran away, screaming with fear, he did not know what to do. All he could yell was:

“The tiger! The tiger! A big striped tiger is in our barn!”

The boy’s father and mother heard him shouting and yelling, and they ran out of the house to see what the matter was. They saw that Tom was very much frightened indeed.

“What is it?” they asked.

“Oh,” Tom answered, “I went to get some eggs out of the hay, and I found a tiger there! He had great big eyes, big teeth and a big mouth!”

“Oh, Tom! Really?” asked his mother.

“Really and truly!” he answered. “You can go and look for yourself!”

“No, I don’t believe I want to,” said Tom’s mother. “But do you really think he did see a tiger?” she asked her husband.

“Well, I don’t know,” he slowly answered. “I read in the paper something about a circus train having been wrecked, and maybe a tiger or an elephant got loose and is roaming about.”

“It’s a tiger—not an elephant—and he’s in our barn,” said Tom. “Come and see, Dad! But you’d better bring your gun!”

“Yes,” agreed the farmer, “I think I had. And I’ll call some of the men to help hunt the tiger, too!”

But, as it happened, by the time the farmer had called some neighbors in to help him and they had gotten their guns, Tamba had left the upper part of the barn, where the hay was, and had gone downstairs among the horses and cows. And as the farmer and his friends did not know this, and as none of the horses or cows called out to tell the men, they didn’t know where Tamba was.

They looked in the hay, where the boy had seen him, but Tamba was gone. The men even found the place where Tamba had eaten the eggs, but the jungle circus beast was not in sight. He was well hidden downstairs in the straw near the stall of the kind horse.

So the men hunted in vain, and some of them thought the tiger had gone back to the circus, while others thought he had run off to the woods, perhaps. At any rate, they did not find him in the barn, though he was there all the while they were searching. A wild animal sometimes knows better how to hide than you boys and girls do when you are playing games.

And now I must tell you something that happened to Tamba, as he still hid in the lower part of the barn. He was snugly curled up in the straw when suddenly there was a patter of little hoofs on the floor, and a small pony trotted into his small stall, which was near that of the big horse, next to which Tamba was hiding.

“Well, friends, here I am back!” cried the little pony. “I have been giving the boys and girls a ride, and now I’ve come back to have something to eat. Has anything happened while I was out, hitched to the basket cart, giving rides to the boys and girls? Has anything happened?”

“Yes,” answered the old horse, near whose stall Tamba was hiding in the straw, “something strange has happened. A big striped animal, who calls himself a tiger, came into our barn.”

“A tiger!” cried the little pony. “Why, I’d like to see him. I know something about tigers.”

“Oh, do you?” asked Tamba himself, sticking his head out of the straw, as he had stuck it out of the hay at Tom. But the pony was not frightened. “So you know something about tigers, do you?” went on Tamba. “Well, what is your name, if I may ask? Mine is Tamba.”

“Oh, ho! I know that very well!” neighed the pony. “You don’t know me, Tamba, but I have often seen you in the circus. I am Tinkle, the trick pony. I was in the circus a short time myself, but there were so many of us little Shetland ponies that I don’t suppose you remember me. But there were only a few tigers in the show, and I remember you very well. Didn’t you used to jump through a paper hoop as one of your tricks?”

“Yes,” answered Tamba, “I did. And, now that you speak of it, I believe I remember you. You used to pull, around the ring, a little cart with a funny clown in it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Tinkle, “I did. Well, Tamba, I’m glad to see you again. But what brings you so far from the circus, and why are you hiding here?”

“That,” said Tamba, “is a long story. I’ll tell it to you!”

But, all of a sudden, one of the cows at the far end of the stable mooed out:

“Quick, Tamba! Here comes the man to milk us! Hide in the straw so he won’t see you!”

CHAPTER VII TAMBA AND SQUINTY

Tamba did not need to be told twice what to do. As soon as he heard the kind words of the cow the tame tiger ran softly on his padded feet and snuggled down again in the straw. And the man came in, milked the cows, and went out with the foaming pails without knowing anything about the circus tiger hiding in the lower part of the barn. He thought the tiger had gone away.

“Now it’s all right—he’s gone and you may come out,” said the cow to Tamba, and the tiger, shaking the straw from his striped black and yellow fur, walked out to talk some more to Tinkle, the trick pony.

“You were going to tell us how it was you left the circus, Tamba,” said Tinkle. “Make a good, long story of it. I like stories.”

“I haven’t time to make it too long,” said Tamba, “for I must be on my way. I want to get back to my jungle. At first I thought the long grass near the railroad was the place I wanted. But I see it is not the jungle where I used to live. So I must travel on a long way, and the sooner I start the quicker I’ll be there. But I’ll tell you how I got loose from the circus.”

So Tamba told Tinkle the story I have told you—how the circus was wrecked in the railroad accident, and how the cage burst open, letting the tame tiger loose.

“And now I’m here,” finished Tamba. “But tell me, Tinkle, how did you come to leave the circus?”

“Well, I had many adventures,” said the trick pony. “I used to live on a stockfarm, something like this, only there were more horses on it. I was taken away to live with a nice boy, who taught me many tricks, and then a bad man, with a big moving wagon, came along one day and stole me away. He sold me to the circus, and it was there I saw you, Tamba. I know Tum Tum, too, and Dido, the dancing bear!”

“Yes, they are all friends of mine,” said Tamba. “At least they were before I left. Now, I suppose, I’ll never see them again, for I am going to the jungle. But you haven’t yet told me, Tinkle, how you came to leave the circus.”

“Oh, it’s all written down in a book,” answered the trick pony.

“Oh, a book!” exclaimed Tamba. “I’ve heard Tum Tum and Dido speak of being in books, but I didn’t know what they meant. And I haven’t time to learn now, so suppose you tell me.”

“Well, there’s a book all about me and my adventures,” said Tinkle, the trick pony. “But, as long as you can’t read it, I’ll just tell you that, one day, when I was in the circus doing my tricks, George, the boy who used to own me before I was stolen away, came to the show. There he and his sister saw me and they knew me again, and I was taken out of the circus and given back to my little master. I’ve lived with him ever since. We often come to this farm in the summer, and I have just been giving him and his sister and some of the other children a ride in the pony cart. George is very nice to me, and gives me lumps of sugar.”

“I hope he isn’t the boy whom I scared in the hay,” said Tamba. “I would not want to scare any friend of yours, Tinkle.”

“Oh, well, if you only scared him, and didn’t scratch him, I guess it will be all right,” said the trick pony. “But I don’t believe it was George you frightened, as he was out driving me. It must have been Tom, or one of the other boys.” And so it was, as Tinkle learned later.

“And so you are going to the jungle, are you?” asked Tinkle of Tamba, when they had talked a while longer.

“Yes, I want to get back to my old home,” answered the tiger. “I don’t like it in the circus. But, still, there was one thing I liked in it, and that was the good meals I had. I’m very hungry right now.”

“Oh, excuse me!” exclaimed Tinkle. “I should have thought of that before. I’m so sorry! Won’t you have some of my hay or oats?”

“Yes, and give him some of our bran,” added the cow who had told about the man coming in to milk.

“Oh, thank you, very much, Tinkle. And you too, my cow friend,” replied the tiger gratefully. “But I can’t eat hay, bran, or oats. We tigers must have meat. I don’t suppose you eat any of that?”

“No,” said Tinkle, “we don’t. It’s too bad! I don’t know how we can give you anything to eat. It’s no fun to be hungry, either.”

“I know how we can feed your tiger friend,” said one of the big farm horses.

“How?” eagerly asked Tinkle. He felt just as you would feel if some friend came to visit you and you couldn’t give him anything to eat. “How can I feed Tamba on the meat that he likes?” asked Tinkle.

“I’ll tell you,” went on the horse. “You know the big dog who drives the sheep to and from the meadow?”

“Oh, yes, I know our sheep-dog very well,” said Tinkle. “He is a friend of mine.”

“Well, he has company,” went on the horse. “A dog named Don has come to see him and spend the day. I came in just now from plowing one of the fields, and I saw the farmer’s wife put a big plate of meat and bones out near the dog kennel. She said it would do for our dog and his friend, Don.”

“Yes, but if the meat is for the dogs they’ll eat it all up, and there won’t be any for Tamba,” said Tinkle.

“Oh, but wait a minute!” neighed the horse. “I didn’t finish. Don and our dog went off to the woods. I heard them say they would be gone for a long time, and maybe they would find something to eat there. So if they don’t come back to eat the bones and meat Tamba can have it.”

“Yes,” said Tinkle, “I suppose he can. I hope Don doesn’t come back.”

“I hope so, too,” said Tamba. “I’m getting hungrier every minute.”

“I’ll go out and look,” said Tinkle. “It will soon be dark, and if the plate of meat is still by the dog kennel, you can sneak out and get it, Tamba, and no one will see you. I’ll go and look.”

Tinkle, the trick pony, was not kept tied in a stall as were the other horses. He could roam about as he liked, and so he trotted out of the barn to where the farm dog had his house, or kennel. There, surely enough, was a big plate of meat and some large bones, large enough, even, for a lion or a tiger.

“It’s all right,” said Tinkle, when he came trotting back. “The meat is there, Tamba, and I didn’t see anything of Carlo, our dog, nor his friend, Don. Now if they don’t come back until dark, why, you can go out and have a good meal.”

“I will, thank you,” returned Tamba, and he wished, with all his heart, that Don and the other dog would not come back.

“Of course I don’t want to see them hungry,” thought Tamba, “but they may get something to eat in the woods, and perhaps I couldn’t do that. There may be no muskrats there.”

Everything came out all right. The twilight faded, and it became dark. Then Tamba, who remained hidden in the stable, crept softly out to the plate of meat and bones that had been left for the dogs. He ate up everything and gnawed the bones, and then he got a drink of water from the horse trough and felt much better.

“And now, Tinkle, I will bid you and your kind friends good-by and be on my way to get back to the jungle,” said Tamba, after he had eaten.

“Oh, are you going to run away?” asked the trick pony. “You’ll be just like Don, the dog, then. He ran away, too.”

“But he ran back again, as I have heard my friend, Nero, the circus lion, say,” replied Tamba. “I am not exactly running away from you. I ran away from the circus, but I am only leaving you after paying you a visit. And I liked my visit very much. That meat, too, was very good. Thank you, Tinkle.”

“I only wish there had been more of it,” said the trick pony. “But, if you have to go, I suppose you must leave. I hope you’ll get safely to your jungle.”

But Tamba had many adventures ahead of him before that time. He said good-by to Tinkle and the farm animals, and then, looking out of the barn and peering through the darkness, to see that none of the farmer’s men were on the watch with their guns, Tamba slunk out into the night.

Once more he was on his way, traveling to find his jungle. On through the dark woods and over the fields went Tamba, taking care to keep away from houses where people might live who would see him and tell the circus men to come and get him. Tamba did not want to be caught.

So, for several days, Tamba traveled on. Often he was hungry and thirsty, but he managed to find things to eat once in a while, and now and again he came to springs of water or streams where he drank. So, though he did not have a very good time, he managed to live.

One evening, just as it was getting dark, Tamba sniffed the air and smelled a smell which told him he was near another stable and barn. It was not the one where Tinkle lived, though.

“I wonder if I can get anything to eat here,” thought Tamba.

Carefully and softly the tame tiger crept around the corner of the carriage house. Near by he saw what seemed to be a low building without any roof a little way ahead of him, and from this place came gruntings and squealings.

“Get over on your own side of the trough! You’re eating all my sour milk!” said one squealy voice.

“I am not, either, Squinty!” came the answer. “I want something to eat just as much as you do!”

“Ha! Something to eat!” thought Tamba who heard and understood this animal talk. “I wonder who those chaps are, and who Squinty is. And I wonder if they have enough for me to eat. I’m going to see!”

Up to the pen, which had no roof, went Tamba, and, rising on his two hind legs, he looked over the side and down in. There he saw a number of pigs who were drinking sour milk and bran from a trough.

One of the pigs, with a queer droop to one eye, looked up and saw Tamba peering in.

“Hello!” grunted this pig. “Who are you, and what’s the matter?”

“I’m Tamba, a tame tiger,” was the answer, “and the matter is that I’m hungry. Who are you?”

“Squinty, the comical pig!” was the grunting reply. “And you had better travel on! We have nothing here for tigers to eat!”

CHAPTER VIII TAMBA IN THE CITY

Tamba, the tame tiger, rearing up on his hind legs to look down into the pig pen, saw the funny look on the face of the animal who had spoken to him.

“What’s that you say?” asked Tamba in a growling voice.

“I said we didn’t have anything to give tigers,” went on the comical pig, and really he was comical, for his one eye had such a funny look as it drooped toward one ear. It seemed to be looking in two ways at once, and that is something you don’t often see in a pig.

“Well, it seems to me I smell something very good,” went on Tamba. “It smells like milk to me.” When he was a little tiger Tamba had liked milk very much, and now, even though he was older, he knew it would be good when he was hungry.

“Yes, you do smell milk,” went on Squinty. “But it is sour.”

“Sour or sweet, it makes no difference to me,” replied Tamba. “I am hungry enough to eat anything.”

“Well, I don’t want to be cross or impolite,” said Squinty, “but there is only enough sour milk for us pigs. We can’t give you any.”

“Ha! Well, I simply must have something to eat!” returned Tamba, and his voice was more growly now. “If I can’t get milk I must have meat. I remember once, in the jungle, eating a little pig who looked something like you. What’s to stop me taking a few bites off you, if you won’t give me any of your milk?”

“Oh, ho! So you think you can bite me, do you?” squealed Squinty. “Well, we’ll see about that!”

Now Squinty was a brave little animal, and he had seen more of the world than some of the other small pigs in the pen. In fact, Squinty had had a number of adventures, and those of you who have read my first book entitled, “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” know that Squinty was not much afraid of anything.

So no sooner did he hear Tamba talk that way, about taking bites, and so on, than Squinty ran to where there was a loose board in the pen, and out he popped.

“Ho! So you think because you’re a big, circus tiger that you can scare me, do you?” squealed Squinty. “Well, I’ll show you that I’m not a bit afraid!”

Now, as it happened, near the pen, where the farmer intended to use it the next day, was a pail of whitewash. It was like thick, white water, and the pail was full of it. Squinty gave one look at the pail of whitewash, and a glance at Tamba, who had taken his forepaws down off the edge of the pen, and was standing on all four feet looking at Squinty.

“There! Take that and see how you like it!” squealed Squinty, and with his strong nose, made for digging down under the ground after roots and things, Squinty upset the pail of whitewash and gave it a push toward Tamba.

The whitewash splashed out, and lots of it splattered on the tame tiger, so that he was splashed and speckled with spots of white as well as being marked with black and yellow stripes.

“Now how do you like yourself?” asked Squinty of Tamba, as he looked at the tame tiger in the moonlight, for the moon was just coming up. “If you try to bite me or any of my friends I’ll splash some more whitewash on you!”

“You can’t,” said Tamba. “There isn’t any more left in the pail. It’s empty; I can see for myself. I guess I got most of it on me.”

The whitewash splashed out and splattered on the tame tiger

“Well, if I can’t throw whitewash on you I’ll throw something else!” threatened Squinty. “You’ve got to leave us pigs alone!”

“Yes,” said Tamba, “I can see that I’d better. I didn’t know you were such a fierce chap, Squinty.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to be cross,” said the pig. “But when you talked of biting me, why, I just couldn’t help it. I’m sorry I spotted you with white like that.”

“It’s all my fault,” returned Tamba. “I shouldn’t have said anything about biting you. Being splashed with whitewash serves me right. But I am very hungry, and your sour milk smelled very good!”

“I’m afraid there isn’t much left now,” said Squinty. “The pigs were very hungry to-night. But if you’ll come over to the side of the pen, where I broke out to rush at you, I’ll see if there is anything else. Sometimes they throw kitchen table scraps into our trough, and there are bits of meat which we small pigs don’t eat. You may have that, if there is any. Tigers like meat, I’ve heard.”

“Yes,” said Tamba, “I like meat very much. It is about all I can eat, though I could manage to drink some milk—sour or sweet.”

“Come, we’ll go see what there is,” went on Squinty. “When I said we had nothing for tigers I didn’t think about the meat scraps.”

So Squinty led Tamba back to the side of the pen whence the little pig had pushed his way out. Then Squinty explained to the other pigs what had happened.

“Yes, here are some meat scraps,” said one of the pigs, when Squinty had told how hungry Tamba was. “It isn’t very much, though.”

“Even a little will keep me from starving,” said Tamba. “When I get to my jungle I’ll have all I want to eat, but just now it is pretty hard to find enough. In the circus I had plenty.”

“Oh, so you’re from the circus, are you?” asked Squinty. “I used to know some animals in a circus. There was Mappo, the merry monkey.”

“Yes, I have heard of him, too,” said Tamba. “But he isn’t with the show now. Ah, but this meat tastes good!”

The tame tiger was now chewing the scraps the pigs had brushed aside as they did not want them. Tamba did not feel so hungry now, but he did feel queer where the whitewash had splashed on him.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Squinty. “If you go down to the end of the meadow there is a pond, and you can wash off the white splashes. It’s warm enough to take a bath.”

“I’m not very fond of water,” said Tamba, “though I do take a bath now and then. I guess I can wash off the white stuff by dipping my paws in the water and rubbing them over my striped coat. I’ll do it.”

And that is what Tamba did after he had eaten up all the meat scraps there were in the pigs’ pen. Then he said good-by to Squinty and the others and started off again.

“I must get to my jungle,” said the tiger. “I have been away from the circus quite a while now, and, as yet, I have not come to the jungle.”

“But you have had lots of adventures,” said Squinty, the comical pig, for Tamba had told of some of the things that had happened to him. “You have had almost as many adventures as I, Tamba. I suppose you can call that an adventure, when I splashed the whitewash on you.”

“Yes,” agreed Tamba, “I think that, most certainly, was an adventure. I don’t want another like it, though.”

So Tamba traveled on again. He thought, if he went far enough, he must, some day or other, come to the jungle where he used to live. But he did not know which way to go, and, often as not, he went wrong. However, as Squinty said, the tame tiger was having many adventures.

He had a queer one the second night after he had met Squinty, and this is the way it happened. Tamba had been roaming along in the night, after having caught something to eat in the woods, and at last he came out on a road which stretched far and away in the moonlight.

“That is a long road to travel,” thought Tamba. “I think I will take a rest before I go down it any farther. I’ll hide somewhere and wait until morning.”

Tamba looked around for a place to hide, and saw a big pile of hay. He knew it was hay, since he had often seen it in the circus tent, and he remembered having hidden in the hay in the barn.

“But this hay isn’t in a barn,” said Tamba, as he looked at the pile. “It seems to be on a wagon, as my cage used to be.”

And that is just what it was. Tamba had come to a farm, and a little way down the road from the farmhouse was a wagon loaded with a great pile of hay. The farmer had loaded the hay on the wagon the evening before, so as to have it all ready to hitch his horses to and pull it into the city early in the morning. The farmer was going to sell the hay in the big city.

“Well, that hay will make a nice place for me to sleep,” thought Tamba. He gave a big jump, and landed on top of the load of hay. There were, as yet, no horses hitched to the wagon. That would be done in the morning.

Tamba pawed out a nice, cozy bed for himself on top of the load of hay, burrowed away down in, pulled some hay over him as a covering, and went to sleep.

How long he slept the tame tiger did not know. But when he suddenly awoke, he saw the sun shining, and he heard a rumble and roar all about him.

“What’s this? Where am I? What has happened?” thought Tamba.

He saw the hay all about him. He felt the jolting and sway of the wagon. The roaring sound became louder. Tamba looked out between the wisps of hay. He saw a strange sight.

“Why, I’m in a big city!” thought the tiger. “The load of hay has come to the city, and I came with it! Oh, dear, I am farther than ever from my jungle! What shall I do?”

CHAPTER IX TAMBA IN THE SUBWAY

Tamba, the tame tiger, had really come to the city on a load of hay. I know it sounds very strange to say that, but it really happened. I have often seen dogs riding along on a load of hay that had started to ride in the country, at the farmhouse where they lived, and had come all the way to the city. So if a dog can ride on a load of hay I don’t see why a tiger can’t, especially when he is a tame tiger.

Anyhow, that’s what Tamba did. He rode along on the load of hay until it reached the big, noisy city. But the funny part of it was that the man who drove the load of hay didn’t know he was giving a ride to a tiger. If he had known that I don’t believe he would have guided his horses along so easily, nor do I believe the horses themselves would have gone so quietly.

But there Tamba was, snugly curled up in a little nest on top of the load of hay, where no one could see him. He could look out and down at the city streets through which he was passing, and he saw many strange sights. But he was used to them, and he was not afraid of being in the city. For he remembered having seen a city like this many times before when he was in his cage and the circus parade had gone up and down the streets to show the animals, so that boys and girls would be all the more anxious to come to the performance.

“Well, I wonder what will happen to me now,” thought Tamba, as the hay wagon rumbled along the city streets. “I can’t stay here much longer. Some one will be sure to see me, and perhaps the man who owns this hay is taking it to the very circus where I used to live. If that happens they’ll get me back in a cage again, and I don’t want that to happen. I must be very careful!”

On and on went the load of hay, with Tamba hiding at the top, and, pretty soon, the man drove into a sort of big yard. There were trees, and grass, and some buildings. But what made Tamba sit up and sniff eagerly was the smell of wild animals. I dare say you have often noticed it yourself when you have gone to the circus. Even with your eyes shut you can tell as soon as you enter the wild animal tent.

“Dear me, this is very strange!” thought the tame tiger. “Can the man, with his load of hay, have brought me back to the very circus from which I ran away? It smells so, but I don’t see any of the big tents, nor yet the barn where I used to live in winter. Besides, this is summer, not winter. I wonder what it all means!”

The more Tamba thought about it and the stronger the wild animal smell came to him, the more the tame tiger was puzzled. The load of hay, in which he was hidden, rumbled along, down a little hill, and then Tamba heard the man call:

“Whoa!”

That meant for the horses to stop. Tamba had often heard the circus men call that to their horses when they wanted them to stop pulling the big cage wagons, and so the tiger understood.

“Now I wonder what will happen to me,” thought Tamba. He raised his head up from his snug nest in the hay and saw what he knew to be a barn, though it was not like the one near which he had met Squinty, the comical pig, nor like the one where he had frightened the boy Tom.

“But it’s a barn all right,” thought Tamba. “And there must be some of my tiger, elephant and lion friends near it, else there wouldn’t be that wild animal smell. I wonder if Tum Tum, Nero and Dido are here. Maybe they brought them here after the train wreck.”

Tamba did not know what to think, but what he wanted to do was to keep out of sight of any men who might be around, until he could think of what to do.

“For I’m not in my jungle, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself. “And how to get there I don’t know. But I’m not going back to the circus if I can help it.”

Tamba now felt some one pulling at the load of hay, as if about to unload it from the wagon. Then the tame tiger, giving a look over the side and seeing no one, slipped and slid down, and, noticing an open door in the barn, through it he ran and hid in a dark corner.

“There! Now maybe they can’t find me!” thought the tiger. “I’ll stay here until it’s dark, and then run out. But where am I?”

Tamba asked himself this question over and over again. Outside the barn he heard men talking and horses moving about, and with the wild animal smell came the sweet smell of new hay—the hay on which he had ridden to the city.

“The man must be taking the hay off the wagon,” thought Tamba. “I can’t ride on it again. Well, perhaps I shall not need to. But I should like to know where I am, and what all this means.”

For some time Tamba remained hidden in a dark corner of the barn, and then, suddenly, an animal came running in and Tamba knew at once what kind it was. For it was striped almost the same as was the tiger himself—with yellow and black—and it was a zebra.

“Oh, hello, my friend!” called Tamba, in animal talk, from the place where he was hidden. “Are you running away from the circus, too, Mr. Zebra?”

“Circus? Why, no. I never was in a circus, though I’ve heard about such things,” the zebra answered. “But how did you get out of your cage? I didn’t know any of the tigers were loose.”

“Oh, I got out some time ago, in a train wreck,” answered Tamba. “But what is the circus doing here, and have they had the parade yet?”

“Look here!” exclaimed the zebra, as he chewed some wisps of hay he picked up from the barn floor. “I guess we don’t either of us know what the other is talking about. This isn’t a circus. This is a zoölogical park, in a big city, and I am one of the animals. Only, as I am very tame, they let me run about the yard where the barn is. We have some lions and tigers here, but they are kept in cages. Are you one of the zoo tigers?”

“No,” answered Tamba. “I was a circus tiger. But I ran away, and I am going back to my jungle. So this is the zoo. Now I understand.”

What had happened was this. The farmer, on whose load of hay Tamba had hidden, gone to sleep, and been given a ride to the city, had brought the hay to the zoölogical park, to sell, as he often did. He had driven it right up to the barn to unload, and then it was that Tamba slipped off and hid before any one saw him. And the wild animal smell that Tamba noticed was the smell of the animals in the park. I suppose you have been to the zoölogical park near your own city, perhaps, and have noticed that smell. It is almost like a circus, so it is no wonder Tamba was puzzled.

“So this is the zoo, is it?” he asked the zebra. “Well, I don’t want to stay here, any more than I want to stay in a circus. But how can I get away?”

“Well, if you really belonged here, of course it wouldn’t be right for me to tell you how to get away,” said the zebra. “But as you are not one of the zoo animals, it will be all right for you to run off. You had better wait until it is dark, though, and then you can crawl out through the fence near the back of this barn. But you will be in the middle of a big city, and not in your jungle.”

“I know,” said Tamba, sadly. “But I’m used to cities. I have been in parades in them often enough. I’ll find my way out somehow, and then I’ll go to my jungle. But I wish I had something to eat. You haven’t a bone or a piece of meat, have you?”

“I am sorry to say I have not,” replied the zebra. “All I eat is hay and grains. But I can show you where to get a drink of water.”

“I shall like that,” said the tame tiger, “as I am very thirsty.”

So the zebra showed the tiger where, in the barn, was a tub of water out of which the horses who worked in the zoölogical park got their drinks. There Tamba quenched his thirst and felt better. Then he crawled back into the dark corner to hide. The zebra had to go away, but he promised to come back and let Tamba know when it was dark enough for the tiger to run out and start afresh on his journey to the jungle.

All that day Tamba remained hidden in the barn. He saw none of the other wild animals, and the zebra did not come back. Tamba was getting hungrier and hungrier, but he knew he dared not go out to look for anything to eat. If he had the park men would have seen him and chased after him, either catching him to put in one of their cages, or else sending him back to the circus. And Tamba did not want that.

After a while it became darker. Tamba sneaked out and got another drink, and then in a little while he heard the patter of the feet of his zebra friend on the floor of the barn.

“Are you there, Tamba?” asked the zebra, in animal talk.

“Yes,” answered the tiger.

“Well, it’s dark enough now for you to set out,” went on the zebra. “Cut across the park over the big field you’ll see as soon as you leave this barn. That way will take you to a street where there are not so many cars and wagons as on the street nearest this side. It is quieter.”

“That’s what I want—to be quiet,” said Tamba. “That’s why I want to go back to my jungle.”

Tamba took another drink of water, for he did not know when he would get any more, and then, having said good-by to his friend, the striped zebra, the tame tiger went softly out of the barn into the night. He saw the big field and, on the other side, a row of lights. At first they looked like the lights around the circus tents when a night-show is being given, but when Tamba looked a second time he knew they were street lights. He was still in the big city.

“Good-by!” called the zebra after him. “I hope you soon come to your jungle.”

“Thank you! I hope so myself,” said Tamba.

He ran across the big park field in the darkness. No one saw him, for few persons are in the park at night. Tamba sniffed the air, and he smelled water. There was such a strong smell of water that Tamba knew it must come from a big river or a lake.

“And it smells like salt water, too,” thought the tame tiger. “I remember that smell of salt water. I smelled it when they put me on a ship and brought me away from my jungle. Perhaps my jungle home is just across that salt water. I am going to see.”

What Tamba smelled was the salt water of a big river that flowed through the city down to the ocean. And beyond the ocean lay the jungle. This much Tamba had guessed.

“I am going toward that salt water,” said the tiger to himself. “This is the first time I have smelled it since I was on the ship. I believe, after all, I shall at last get to my jungle.”

But there were quite a few adventures for Tamba to have before he reached his old home.

On across the big field in the zoölogical park ran Tamba. He was coming nearer and nearer to the row of lights, nearer and nearer to the smell of salt water, and, also, nearer and nearer to a city street. It was this street that Tamba feared most. Once he was across that, he thought everything would be all right.

He came to a low, stone wall around the park. He looked and listened as well as he could. He did not see any one who he thought would try to catch him.

With a leap and a bound Tamba cleared the low, stone wall and found himself on the sidewalk of a street. Just at this place, and at this time, there did not happen to be any wagons, street cars or automobiles. Tamba was beginning to think everything was coming along finely, and that he would easily get to the salt water when, all of a sudden, he heard a woman scream. Then a man, who was with her, cried:

“What’s the matter? What is it?”

“A tiger! A tiger! Look, there’s a tiger loose in the street!”

“Why—why—so it is!” exclaimed the man, who, with the woman, had come walking along soon after Tamba leaped over the wall. “It’s a real, live tiger! It must have escaped from the zoo. I’ll drive it back!”

“Oh, don’t! He might bite or claw you!” cried the woman. “Get a policeman!”

“I will,” answered the man, and he began to call loudly.

“This is no place for me!” quickly thought Tamba. “I must run and hide again.”

Of course he did not know what the man and woman were saying, but he knew that they would want to catch him, or call some one to do it, and so Tamba knew he must hide.

He looked about for a good place to go. He did not want to jump back into the park. Up the street, a little way, he saw what he thought was the opening to a big cave. True, it was lighter than the entrance to the jungle cave where Tamba used to live, but perhaps it might do for a hiding place.

“I’ll go in there!” decided Tamba.

The tiger turned away from the man, who was still shouting for the police, and from the woman, who had covered her eyes with her hands, and then Tamba ran for what he thought was the doorway of a cave. At the entrance he could see that it stretched away out in a sort of dark tunnel.

“This is the place for me!” said Tamba to himself, and the next moment he was running down some stone steps. As he went down he heard a loud rumbling and roaring.

“Ha! There is going to be a thunder storm,” thought Tamba. “I came to this cave just in time!”

And, back in the street, where they had first seen the jungle beast, the man and woman cried:

“Oh, the tiger ran down into the subway! The tiger is in the subway!”

CHAPTER X TAMBA AT THE DOCK

Queer as it may seem, Tamba had done that very thing. He had run from the street into the opening of a subway station in a big city, thinking it was a cave. And if you have ever been in a city where the street cars run underground instead of on the surface, as wagons and automobiles do, or instead of up in the air, as the elevated trains run, then you will understand how it was that Tamba made his mistake. For it was a mistake to go down into the subway, thinking it was a cave.

The rumbling and roaring sound Tamba heard was a train coming along the subway, and, being underground, it made much more noise and racket than it would have done up on the surface. So it is no wonder the tame tiger thought it was a thunder storm.

Down the subway steps he ran. He saw a dark tunnel stretching out both ways from the station. It was light on the station platforms where the subway trains stopped, but beyond this place, at each side, the dark tunnel of the subway stretched out.

Tamba saw crowds of persons getting on and off the train, and as quick as a flash he hid behind a candy counter and newspaper stand, where it was partly dark. Tamba did not want any men to see him now, for since he had smelled the salt water he wished, more than ever, to get across it and back to his jungle.

“Well,” thought the tame tiger as he crouched in the darkness behind the candy stand, where the boy tending it, busy selling evening papers, did not notice him, “well, I don’t know what this all is, nor what it’s about, but I guess this isn’t the kind of cave I’m looking for. It isn’t a jungle cave at all. It’s much too light and too noisy. It’s as bad as the circus. I must get out of here if I can.”

But Tamba knew better than to rush out when so many people were coming and going. He wanted to wait until they had gone. But there were so many of them it seemed that they would never go. And pretty soon a policeman, and several excited men who did not wear blue suits with brass buttons ran down the subway steps.

“He came right down here!” said one excited man. “My wife and I were walking along the stone wall by the park when the tiger jumped over right in front of us. Then he ran down these subway steps.”

“Then he must be here yet,” said the policeman. “And if he is, we’ll catch him and send him back to the zoo. If he came out of one of the cages there he must be pretty tame, and he won’t hurt any one. Come on, now, everybody! We’ll have a tiger hunt in the subway!”

Of course Tamba did not know what all this talk meant, but he knew enough to guess that the policeman and the other men were trying to capture him. So Tamba wanted to get to a better place to hide than just behind a newspaper stand. And he was lucky enough to find it.

The lower part of the stand was hollow, like a big box. In it the newspaper boy kept his old papers, empty candy boxes and the like, and there was plenty of room for a tiger in there. There was a door to this underneath place, and the door happened to be open.

Tamba saw it, saw, too, that it was dark and quiet underneath the stand, and so he crawled in under there. A better place for a runaway tiger could not have been found. Tamba curled softly up among some bundles of old papers, and there he stayed while the hunt was going on.

Up and down the subway station platforms the policeman and the others looked for the tame tiger. But they never thought of looking beneath the hollow newspaper and candy stand, and there Tamba stayed as snugly as you please.

“Well,” said the policeman at last to the man whose wife had screamed so at the first sight of Tamba, “I guess you made a mistake, my friend. You didn’t see any tiger at all. You dreamed it.”

“I’m sure I didn’t dream,” said the man. “I wasn’t asleep. I saw that tiger come into this subway as plain as anything.”

“Well, then he must have run up the steps on the other side,” said the policeman. “He could have done that before we got here. At any rate the tiger is gone, and we may as well go out and look for him somewhere else. He isn’t here!”

The excitement soon quieted down, the searchers went upstairs, and Tamba was left to himself in his hiding place beneath the newspaper and candy stand.

He could hear people walking up and down on the stone platform, and he could hear them talking. They were talking about him, as it happened, for the news of a tiger being loose somewhere in that part of the city had spread. But Tamba, of course, did not know what the men and women subway passengers were saying. He could hear the rumble and roar of the subway trains, and they sounded something like the trains on which the circus traveled from town to town. But Tamba did not come out of his hiding place to look at them. He stayed quietly in the cubby-hole under the stand.

But the man was asleep and did not see the tiger.

After a while, as the hours passed, it became quieter in the subway. There were fewer trains, and hardly any persons were traveling now. At last, along about three o’clock in the morning, no trains ran at all. The agent at the station went to sleep in his little booth, and the newspaper boy had gone home long ago. Tamba thrust his head out of his hiding place. He heard nothing and saw no one.

“Now is the time for me to run out and go to the salt water,” said the tiger to himself. “This time I shall surely get back to my jungle, I hope.”

Carefully and softly, Tamba crept along the subway platform. He passed out of the ticket gate, right in front of the man in the little booth, but the man was asleep and did not see the tiger.

Up the same steps down which he had run some hours before, Tamba now crept. He reached the open air and could see the stars glittering overhead. The night was clear and warm. Tamba liked it very much. Eagerly he sniffed the air and he smelled salt water. He turned his face toward the river and began to stalk slowly along. He wanted to cross the salt water and get home to his jungle.

And as Tamba slunk along he began to remember how hungry he was. Since leaving the circus he had not eaten very much.

“Oh, if I could have a nice, juicy piece of meat now, how good it would taste!” thought Tamba. But of course no meat stores were open at that hour, and, if there had been, Tamba could not have gotten any meat from them. If the tiger had strolled, no matter how quietly and politely, into a meat shop, men would have driven him away, or have caught him and shut him up in a cage.

“But I do want something to eat!” sadly thought the tiger.

Just then a smell came to his nose that made him lick his lips with his red tongue and made him sniff very hard with his black nose.

“I smell milk!” thought Tamba. “And it isn’t sour milk, either, like that which Squinty, the comical pig, was drinking. I smell fresh milk, and I wish I had some!”

When Tamba smelled anything good he knew how to find it, even if he could not see it. He just had to “follow his nose” until he came to it. All jungle animals, and even your dogs and cats, do that. So when Tamba smelled the milk he turned his nose toward it and walked along until he came to it. And where do you suppose it was?

Why, an early-morning milkman had left a big can of milk in front of a grocery store, and it was this milk—some of which had slopped out from the can—that Tamba had smelled.

“Well, here’s milk all right, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself, as he sniffed around the can in the doorway of the store. “But how can I get it out? I can’t scratch or bite through this tin can. And, oh, how hungry I am! A good, big drink of milk would make me feel much better!”

Tamba walked up and down in front of the can. It stood in the dark corner of a sheltered doorway of a store on a main street, but at that hour of the morning, after the milkman had passed, hardly any one was ever out.

“I must have some of that milk!” thought the hungry Tamba. He pawed and clawed at the can, hoping he could find some way of getting it open, when, all of a sudden, he knocked the can right over. It fell to the sidewalk with a clatter and a bang, and the cover came off.

Out gushed the white milk, and some of it spilled right into the big, deep cover of the can itself. That was enough for Tamba. Here he had the milk, in a dish all ready for him to lap it up with his red tongue, and that is just what he did!

“My, but that’s good!” thought the tiger, as he drank all the milk out of the can cover. “I am having better luck than at first. There is even enough milk for that pig Squinty, if he should happen to come along.”

But of course Squinty was far away. Tamba lapped up all the milk from the can cover, and then he saw where a little puddle had formed in a hole in the sidewalk. Tamba took that milk, too, and then he felt better.

“Now to go down to the salt water and find my jungle,” he said to himself, as he licked up the last drops of milk.

So Tamba started off down the city streets once more, and because every one was in bed and asleep no one saw him.

But there was a very much surprised store-keeper who, the next morning, went to take in the big can of milk. It was upset and spilled.

“Ha! Some bad boys must have done this!” thought the store-keeper. “I must tell the police!”

But wouldn’t he have opened wide his eyes in surprise if he had known a tiger had drunk the milk, and if he had seen Tamba doing it? Perhaps it is just as well he did not.

But Tamba never knew what a sad trick he had played on the store-keeper. The tame tiger slunk along, coming nearer and nearer to the smell of the salt water, and at last he came to the river itself. It really was a river of salt water, and ran down to the big ocean. But the river was not like those in the jungle. It had no banks of green vines, mud, and trees. Instead, all along the river were big houses built on piers with the water in between, and it was to one of these docks that Tamba slunk down in the darkness.

Tied at the docks were big ships which would soon steam down the river and cross the ocean. Tamba knew what ships were. He had come across the ocean in one when he was brought away from the jungle.

“I think I have found the place I want at last,” said Tamba to himself, as he walked slowly along a pier. “It is the place of the salt water where I landed when I first came to this country. Now I have only to go back the other way and I’ll be at my jungle. And how glad I shall be! Now I will find a good place to hide until morning, and then I’ll see what is best to do. I am tired now, but I had a good drink of milk and I can sleep.”

So Tamba found a quiet hiding place on the ship dock and went to sleep.

CHAPTER XI TAMBA ON THE SHIP

The sun was brightly shining when Tamba, the tame tiger, awakened in his bed at the dock. I call it a “bed” for he had snuggled down on a pile of bags between some boxes and bales, and this is as good a bed as ever a tiger asks for. Often they are glad enough to sleep on the bare boards of the circus cages, and even in their jungle caves they never have more than a pile of dried leaves or grass.

Tamba could look out through the cracks between the boxes and bales and see the yellow sunshine on the dock. The sunshine made yellow stripes, almost the color of Tamba’s tawny coat. He could feel the soft, warm wind blowing in on him, and he could also smell the salt water.

“I am in the right place at last,” thought Tamba. “But I must be careful. I do not want to be caught when I am so near my jungle.”

You see Tamba did not know just how far it was down the big salt river and across the big, salt ocean to his jungle home. All he knew was that the salt water here smelled just as the salt water had smelled when he was put on the ship, to be brought away from his home in India.

And there were ships at the dock. Tamba could see them, but he knew better than to run out now and get on board one. For, now that it was daylight, there were many men on the dock. They were driving their wagons and drays about, laden as they were with things to go on board the ships, and Tamba knew that if he ran out, in plain sight of these men, some of them would chase him, and, perhaps, catch him.

“So I’ll just stay hidden here until it gets dark again,” thought Tamba to himself. “Then I’ll go on one of those big floating houses, which Tum Tum says are called ships, and I’ll get back to my jungle. If I wait until night no one will see me, and then they can’t catch me to send me back to the circus.”

So Tamba curled up in his snug little nest among the boxes and barrels on the pier, and remained hidden. Of course if men had come to take away those particular boxes they would have found Tamba, but, as it happened, they did not, and so he was safe.

After a while, though, Tamba began to feel hungry. Milk for a tiger, even though it happened to be the full top of a can, is not enough. He must have meat, and meat was what Tamba wanted just then. He sniffed and smelled around among the boxes and bales which formed his nest, but no meat smell came to his nose. If one of the boxes had happened to have meat in it, perhaps Tamba might have clawed it open and gotten a meal. But, as it was, there was nothing for him to eat.

“Never mind,” he thought to himself; “perhaps to-night, when I get on the ship, I can find something good to eat.”

But Tamba was to have something before then. About noon the dock on the edge of the salty river, where many ships were tied, became a very busy place. Though Tamba did not know it, the ships were being loaded with things to be taken across the sea and sold.

The dock was crowded with wagons, horses, automobiles and men, all being driven or hurrying to and fro, to get the big ships ready to sail. For there were two ships in this dock, one on either side of the pier, and Tamba was in a place called a warehouse, in between the two vessels.

So, as I say, the dock and warehouse was a very busy place at noon. And as men must eat, as well as tigers, when the twelve o’clock whistles blew some of the drivers tied their horses wherever they happened to be, put nose-bags of oats on the horses’ necks, and then the men went to get their own dinners.

Now, as it happened, a wagon, with a load of meat on it, was stopped by its driver near Tamba’s place. The end of the wagon, which was filled with big pieces of beef, pork, and mutton, was near the hole among the boxes where the tiger was hiding. And of course Tamba could easily smell this meat. In fact, the smell of it awakened him from a little sleep into which he had fallen.

“Ha! What’s that?” asked the tiger of himself, as he opened his eyes. He sniffed harder. The meat smell became plainer. Then he looked up. Right over his head was the end of a big wagon, where the man driving it had backed it to get it out of the way while he fed his horses and went to get his own dinner. And on the end of the wagon was some nice, juicy meat, just the kind Tamba had been fed in the circus. Only there was more meat than Tamba had ever seen at one time before.

The meat, as I suppose you have guessed, was to be put on board one of the ships to feed the passengers and crew on its journey over the salty sea. Of course Tamba did not know that. All he knew was that he felt very hungry, and that here was meat.

“Well, it was very kind of some one to bring me so much meat,” thought the tiger to himself. “I’m sure I’m much obliged to them. And they left me to myself to eat it, too. They didn’t stay to stare and watch me, as the folks do in the circus. This is very nice.”

So Tamba rose up on his hind legs, and, hidden as he was in his snug nest, where no one saw him, and with the end of the meat wagon so easily within reach, the tame tiger made a good meal. Of course he chewed the ends off several nice pieces of meat that were meant to go on board the ship, but it did not completely spoil them, and, after all, the tame tiger was very hungry.

“My, but this tastes good!” thought the tiger, as he took bite after bite of juicy beef. “This is even better than the circus. I can have as much as I want, and there are no bones to hurt my teeth. Of course I like to gnaw a bone now and then, but when I am as hungry as I am now I want just plain chunks of meat.”

And Tamba had all he wanted. He just stood there and ate and ate from the back of the wagon, and then, licking his jaws to make them clean, he curled up in his nest again, and went to sleep once more.

And when the man came back, after having had his lunch, to take the oat-bags from the heads of his horses, he was in such a hurry to get his wagon unloaded, was this man, that he never noticed where Tamba had chewed the meat.

And it was not until some days later, when the butcher on the ship was cutting up the meat, that it was noticed that some of the pieces were chewed as if by some animal.

“I guess the dock rats did it,” said the ship butcher. And he never knew it was Tamba, any more than the grocer knew it was a tiger that had tipped over his can of milk.

After his good meal Tamba had a fine sleep, and it was quite dark when he awoke again. He peered out from between the boxes, barrels and bales, and he saw that there were no men, horses or drays at the dock. It was deserted and quiet. But, over at one side, Tamba could still see the ships, or “floating houses,” as he called them.

“Now if I can get on one of those ships I’ll soon be back at my jungle,” thought Tamba to himself. “But I wonder which one to go on?”

Carefully and quietly he slunk out of his hiding place. He walked along until he came to where a sort of bridge, which is called a gangplank, led up to the deck of the ship. Here Tamba smelled a smell that he very well knew. It was a tiger smell—the smell of a wild beast.

“Ha! If there have been wild jungle animals here, this is the very ship I want to go on,” thought Tamba. “This must have come from jungle-land. At no other place can I smell the wild animal smell. This is the ship for me! I’ll get on, hide away, and have a nice ride back to my jungle.”

So, seeing no one about, Tamba walked softly up the plank, and stepped softly to the deck of the big ship. And he managed to crawl down into a hole without any one seeing him. Down in a hole, among some boxes and barrels, just like those on the dock, Tamba hid himself.

“Now for my jungle!” he said to himself as he curled up.

CHAPTER XII TAMBA IN THE JUNGLE

Tamba, the tame tiger, had hidden himself away in the dark part of the ship called the “hold.” It was there that the cargo was stored—the place where boxes, barrels, and big wooden cases of things sent across the ocean were kept from the time the ship left one dock, until it came to another to unload.

So Tamba had gone softly up the gangplank in the soft darkness of the night from the pier, he had dropped to the deck of the ship, and had crawled down what is called a “hatchway” into a hold. And there he hid.

And I must tell you how it happened that Tamba smelled the wild animal odor on one ship, and not on another.

It was because this ship had, a week or so before, brought from India and Africa a cargo of wild animals for a circus. There had been lions and tigers and elephants and snakes on the ship, and even though they had been taken off when the ship reached New York, some of the smell remained. And it was this which Tamba smelled, and which made him feel sure that this was a jungle-ship, or one that would take him back to his Indian home.

All through the night Tamba slept in the hold of the ship, among the boxes and the barrels, as he had slept on the dock. When he awoke he could see a little sunshine streaming through a crack, and he knew another day had come.

Just then he felt a queer motion. It was as if the whole ship, and he himself in it, had been moved along. And that is just what was happening. The ship was moving away from the dock, getting ready for the voyage across the ocean. Tamba knew what the motion meant. He had felt it before on his first sea voyage, when he had been brought away from the jungle.

“Well, at last I’m on my way back to the jungle,” thought Tamba. “It’s lucky I found this ship.”

And, indeed, Tamba was lucky in more ways than one.

But, with all that, Tamba did not have a very good time on board the ship. In the first place he knew he had to stay in hiding, if he did not want to be seen, and, perhaps, shut up in a cage again, or, for all he knew, be sent back to the circus. The tame tiger could not go out on deck, as the passengers did, and breathe the fresh air and see the sunshine. Poor Tamba had to stay down in the dark hold, hiding among the boxes and barrels.

And another thing was that he was hungry. After the first day when the ship was at sea, the tiger began to want more meat. Even though he had taken a good meal from the pile of beef on the wagon, that could not last very long.

So, after the second night Tamba began to prowl about in the hold of the ship, looking for something to eat. He caught some big rats and ate them, and if the men who owned the ship had known that they would have been glad. For rats on ships do much damage, and eat some of the cargo. So Tamba ate the rats, but they were hardly enough. He wanted more.

Then, one day he got a meal very unexpectedly. One of the sailors, who, perhaps, was as hungry as Tamba, took a big piece of meat from the “galley,” as the kitchen on a ship is called. And the sailor, who had no right to take this meat, stole away to eat it all by himself, so the cook wouldn’t see him and scold him.

And, as it happened, the sailor picked out the same hold in which Tamba was hiding to come to eat his bit of meat which had been taken from the galley.

Now Tamba was very hungry just about that time, and when the sailor happened to sit down on a barrel, behind which Tamba was hiding, and began to eat the meat, the tame tiger smelled it. The tiger very much wanted some for himself.

Tamba peered out and saw the sailor sitting with the big chunk of cooked meat on the barrel beside him.

“That’s more than he needs,” thought Tamba, after the sailor had eaten a bit. “I’ll take the rest. I don’t believe he’ll mind.”

So Tamba reached up his paw, hooked his sharp claws into the meat, and pulled it down toward his hungry mouth. The sailor turned just in time to see his meat sliding off the barrel.

“Here! Come back with that!” he yelled. “Sure, the rats are getting very bold when they reach up and take your meat that way! Come back with it!”

The sailor leaned over the edge of the barrel, really thinking some bold rat had taken his meat, and then the sailor saw Tiger Tamba, with his glittering, green eyes, hiding down in the snug nest, chewing the meat.

“Oh, my! Oh, what do I see!” cried the frightened sailor. “Oh, ’tis a live tiger! Well, it serves me right for taking meat I’d no business to take! Oh, the tiger! The tiger!” and, shouting and yelling in fright, the sailor ran up on deck and never went down there again.

He did not dare tell the other sailors what he had seen, for then he would have had to tell about taking the meat, and he did not want to do this.

As no one but the frightened sailor knew that Tamba was on the ship, and this sailor was not quite sure himself, Tamba was not found out. The chunk of meat he took away from the sailor was rather large, and it saved Tamba from actually starving, though he was pretty hungry before the ship got across the ocean. But he managed to catch some big rats every day, and this helped out.

Aside from this, and the trick he played on the sailor, Tamba did not have many adventures on the ship. He had to keep pretty closely to the dark hold, not daring to come out.

Then one day the pitching and tossing came to an end. The ship reached the end of her voyage and was tied up at a dock, this time in far-off India. Tamba was very lucky that he had gotten on a vessel that took him right back to his own jungle-land, though he was still many miles from the place of the trees and tangled vines.

The night after the ship was tied up at the dock in India, Tamba watched his chance, and, when it was dark and quiet, he slipped up on deck from the dark hold, and looked about. He could see trees and houses, but there were not so many houses as in New York, and there were more trees. The air, too, had a different smell. It had more the smell of the jungle, and as Tamba sniffed it he said:

“My home can not be so very far away now. I will run down off this ship and find my jungle, and also my father and mother and my sister and brother. Then I shall be happy. No more circus for me!”

So down the same gangplank up which he had walked from the dock in New York, Tamba ran, and soon he was on the Indian wharf. There were boxes and barrels there, too, but Tamba did not stop to find a hiding place. He wanted to run off to the jungle as soon as he could.

The tiger was hungry, so he sniffed about until he found a place where the ship’s cook had thrown overboard, on the dock, some scraps of meat to some hungry dogs. The dogs had not eaten it all, and there was a little left for Tamba. Then, when he had found a drink of water at a fountain in a street near the dock, Tamba was ready to set off on his journey to find his former jungle home.

It was a warm, Indian night. There was no moon, and as there were not many lights near the dock, Tamba was not seen as he slunk off the ship and began to travel. He sniffed the warm, moist air, and it reminded him of his jungle home. He remembered it from the time when he had been a little, baby tiger.

Tamba ran and soon he was on the Indian wharf.

“Ah, that is good!” thought Tamba. “It was nice in the circus, and I had many good friends—Tum Tum, Dido, Chunky, the happy hippo, and Nero. And I met many good friends after I ran away—even Squinty was kind after he found I did not hurt him. But still I will like best to get back to my jungle.”

So Tamba traveled on through the dark night, getting farther and farther away from the city where the ship had docked. Strange as it may seem, Tamba had made the trip all the way across the ocean himself. It was a great thing for a tiger to do, I think.

Now he was in India, and that country has not so many large cities, nor were they as close together as in the United States, where Tamba had been in the circus. So, soon after leaving the dock, the tame tiger found himself out in the wild country. And it was not so far away to the jungle, though the jungle, where Tamba had formerly lived, was still many miles off.

“But at last I am free, I am not in the circus, and I am out in the hot country that I love,” thought Tamba, as he slunk along under the trees and bushes. “Now all that I have to do is to find the right jungle. I can eat and drink now when I please. I shall not have to take chunks of meat away from sailors, nor catch rats.”

In this Tamba was right. All about him, in the woods, were plenty of small animals on which he could feed. And there were pools of water here and there where he could drink. It was not like being cooped up in the hold of a ship, nor even like being in a circus cage. Tamba liked very much to be free so he could wander where he wished.

He traveled on and on for many nights, hiding in the day-time when he came to a city or village, but slinking along through the tall grass, or among the trees, when he came to the open country. He grew sleek and fat, for he had plenty to eat. Then, too, he met other tigers and some lions as well as a few elephants.

All these animals he asked where his former jungle cave was, but none of them could tell him. They did not know Tamba’s father or mother, nor had they ever seen his sister or brother.

For many miles Tamba roamed over India, looking for his old home. He began to think he would never find it, and he was getting lonesome and homesick when, one evening, he came to the edge of a deep wood. He crossed a field of tall dried grass to reach the trees. He was on the edge of a deep, dense jungle, and, somehow, as he sniffed the air, to make sure there were no hunters about, and no wild beasts that might do him harm—somehow, Tamba felt that he had been near this same jungle forest once before.

“But it was many years ago,” he thought. “I wonder if there is any one here who would know where my father and mother are.”

Slowly he crossed through the dried grass and reached the woods. In front of him he saw a cave, and, at the sight of it, Tamba’s heart began to beat faster. He had a strange feeling.

Out in front of the cave walked a big tiger—a man tiger. He paced slowly up and down, and, after a while, a tigress came out to keep him company. Tamba looked past the cave and saw, tumbling about in the dried leaves of the jungle, a boy and a girl tiger. Then he heard the tigress say:

“Well, our children are growing up. Soon they will go away from our jungle cave.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the larger man tiger, and Tamba thought the old tiger’s voice was sad.

“Yes, they will go away,” went on the tigress. “They will leave us as Tamba did!”

“Tamba!” thought the surprised circus tiger to himself. “She knows my name!”

“Oh, but Tamba did not go away,” said the old man tiger. “He was caught in a trap. Well do I remember that night! We have never seen him since.”

“No; and I don’t suppose we ever shall,” said the tigress, and she, too, spoke sadly. “I would give a great deal if I could only see my little Tamba again.”

At that Tamba could wait no longer. Trembling with eagerness he leaped through the grass, and landed in front of the cave, right between the other tigers.

“Ha! What is this? Who is this strange tiger?” asked the old one.

“Yes, who are you, and what do you want?” asked the tigress. “If you came to play with our boy and girl, there they are rolling in the grass. But you should not pounce in like that. It isn’t very nice and—”

“Mother! Don’t you know me?” cried Tamba, in tiger talk, of course. “Why, I’m your own little boy tiger who was trapped and taken away long ago! I have been in a circus ever since, until I ran away, got on a ship, and came back to my jungle. Here I am! Don’t you know me, Father?”

The old tiger opened wide his eyes and peered at the younger one.

“Why—why—it is Tamba!” he growled. “Look, Mother, our tiger cub has come back to us, almost full grown! Oh, what a fine tiger he is! Here!” he called to Tamba’s brother and sister. “Here is Tamba come back! Oh, how glad I am!”

“And so am I!” cried Tamba’s mother, as she purred and rubbed him with her paw. “Oh, to think of having you back again after all these years! I am so glad!”

“And I am glad to get back!” said Tamba. “I had a lot of adventures before I got here, though.”

“Oh, do tell us about them!” purred Tamba’s sister. “I love to hear adventure stories.”

“So do I,” said Tamba’s brother. “Tell us about the circus.”

“First, let him have something to eat,” suggested Tamba’s mother. “You are hungry, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Indeed I am,” said Tamba.

Then they brought him a big chunk of meat from the cave, and when he had eaten that and had taken a drink from the pool Tamba sat down and began his story.

“I have been in many places,” he said, “but, most of all, I like to be back in the jungle. I am never going away again!”

“And to think you found us again, after all these years!” said his mother.

“I think it is wonderful!” added his sister.

“Very clever, I call it,” said his father, sort of laughing.

“Oh, let Tamba tell his adventures,” begged his brother.

So Tamba told them, just as I have written them here in this book. He told about the circus, about how Squinty splashed whitewash on him, and everything; and, my! the other jungle tigers laughed at the funny pig’s trick.

It was late that night when Tamba had finished the story of his adventures, and then, having eaten some more, he was given a bed on the dried leaves in the cave, where he curled up with his father and mother and sister and brother.

“Tamba,” asked his sister softly, as she reached over in the darkness and touched him with her paw, “do you think I would like it in a circus?”

“No!” said Tamba. “You had better stay at home in the jungle. There is no place like it. I am glad to get back!”

And then he went to sleep.

THE END

STORIES FOR CHILDREN

(From four to nine years old)

THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

BY RICHARD BARNUM

In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and the reason is obvious for nothing entertains a child more than the antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as children adore and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met all of their favorites—Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, Tum Tum, etc.

Cloth, Large 12mo, Illustrated, Per vol. 60 cents

For sale at all bookstores or sent (postage paid) on receipt of price by the publishers.

BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers            28 West 23rd Street            New York