Tone and mien alike were threatening. Red Hoss realized there was no time for extended preliminary remarks. From him the truth came trippingly on the tongue.

"Boss, man, I ain't aimin' to tell you no lies dis time. I comes clean."

"Come clean and come fast."

"A elephint set down on it."

"What!"

"I sez, suh, a elephint set down on it."

In moments of stress, when tempted beyond his powers of self-control, Mr. Farrell was accustomed to punctuate physically, as it were, the spoken word. What he said--all he said--before emotion choked him was: "Why--you--you--" What he did was this: His right arm crooked upward like a question mark; it straightened downward like an exclamation point; his fist made a period, or, as the term goes, a full stop on the point of Red Hoss Shackleford's jaw. What Red Hoss saw resembled this:

Only they were all printed flashingly in bright primary colors, reds and greens predominating.

As the last gay asterisk faded from before his blinking eyes Red Hoss found himself sitting down on a hard concrete sidewalk. Coincidentally other discoveries made themselves manifest to his understanding. One was that the truth which often is stranger than fiction may also on occasion be a more dangerous commodity to handle. Another was that abruptly he had severed all business connections with Mr. Lee Farrell's industry.

His resignation had been accepted on the spot, and the spot was the bulge of his left jaw.

Somewhat dazed, filled with an inarticulate but none the less sincere conviction that there was neither right nor justice left in a misshapen world, Red Hoss got up and went away from there. He deemed it the part of prudence to go utterly and swiftly away from there. It seemed probable that at any moment Mr. Farrell might emerge from his inner office, whither, as might be noted through an open window, he had retired to pour cold water on his bruised knuckles, and get violent again. The language he was using so indicated.

Presently Red Hoss, with one side of his face slightly swollen and a curious taste in his mouth, might have been seen boarding a Locust Street car southbound. He was on his way to Mechanicsville. In the back part of his brain lurked vaguely a project to seek out the man who owned those elephants and plead for some fashion of redress for painful injuries innocently sustained. Perhaps the show gentleman might incline a charitable ear upon hearing Red Hoss' story. Just how the sufferer would go about the formality of presenting himself to the consideration of the visiting dignitary he did not yet know. It was all nebulous and cloudy; a contingency to be shaped by circ.u.mstances as they might develop. Really sympathy was the balm Red Hoss craved most.

He quit the car when the car quit him--at the end of the line where the iron bridge across Island Creek marked the boundary between the munic.i.p.ality and its princ.i.p.al suburb. Even at this hour Mechanicsville's broadest highway abounded in fascinating sights and alluring zoological aromas. The carnival formally would not open till the afternoon, but by Powers Brothers' crews things already had been prepared against the coming of that time. In all available open s.p.a.ces, such as vacant lots ab.u.t.ting upon the sidewalks and the junctions of cross streets, booths and tents and canvas-walled arenas had been set up. Boys of a.s.sorted sizes and colors hung in expectant clumps about marquees and show fronts. Also a numerous a.s.semblage of adults of the resident leisure cla.s.s, a majority of these being members of Red Hoss'

own race, moved back and forth through the line of fairings, inspired by the prospect of seeing something interesting without having to pay for it.

Red Hoss forgot temporarily the more-or-less indefinite purpose which had brought him hither. He joined a cl.u.s.ter of watchful persons who hopefully had collected before the scrolled and ornamented wooden entrance of a tarpaulin structure larger than any of the rest. From beneath the red-and-gold portico of this edifice there issued a blocky man in a checkered suit, with a hard hat draped precariously over one ear and with a magnificent jewel gleaming out of the bosom of a collarless shirt. All things about this man stamped him as one having authority over the housed mysteries roundabout. Visibly he rayed that aura of proprietorship common to some monarchs and to practically all owners of traveling caravansaries. Seeing him, Red Hoss promptly detached himself from the group he had just joined, and advanced, having it in mind to seek speech with this superior-appearing personage. The white man beat him to it.

"Say, boy, that's right, keep a-coming," he called. His experienced eye appraised Red Hoss' muscular proportions. "Do you want a job?"

"Whut kinder job, boss?"

"Best job you ever had in your life," declared the white man. "You get fourteen a week and cakes. Get me? Fourteen dollars just as regular as Sat.u.r.day night comes, and your scoffing free--all the chow you can eat thrown in. Then you hear the band play absolutely free of charge, and you see the big show six times a day without having to pay for it, and you travel round and see the country. Don't that sound good to you? Oh, yes, there's one thing else!" He dangled a yet more alluring temptation.

"And you wear a red coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on it and a cap with a plume in it."

"Sho' does sound good," said Red Hoss, warming. "Whut else I got to do, cunnel?"

"Oh, just odd jobs round this pitch here--this animal show."

"Hole on, please, boss! I don't have no truck wid elephints, does I?"

"Nope. The elephants are down the line in a separate outfit of their own. You work with this show--clean out the cages and little things like that. Don't get worried," he added quickly, interpreting aright a look of sudden concern upon Red Hoss' face. "You don't have to go inside the cages to clean 'em out. You stay outside and do it with a long-handled tool. I had a good man on this job, but he quit on me unexpectedly night before last."

The speaker failed to explain that the recent inc.u.mbent had quit thus abruptly as a result of having a forearm clawed by a lady leopard named Violet.

"'Bout how long is dis yere job liable to last?" inquired Red Hoss. "You see, cunnel, Ise 'spectin' to have some right important private business in dis town 'fore so very long."

"Then this is the very job you want. After we leave here to-morrow night we strike down across the state line and play three more stands, and then we wind up with a week in Memphis. We close up the season there and go into winter quarters, and you come on back home. What's your name?"

"My full ent.i.tled name is Roscoe Conklin' Shackleford, but 'count of my havin' a kinder brightish complexion dey mos' gin'rally calls me Red Hoss. I reckin mebbe dey's Injun blood flowin' in me."

"All right, Red Hoss, let it flow. You just come on with me and I'll show you what you'll have to do. My name is Powers--Captain Powers."

Proudly sensing that already he was an envied figure in the eyes of the group behind him, Red Hoss followed the commanding Powers back through a canvas-sided marquee into a circular two-poled tent. There were no seats. The middle s.p.a.ces were empty. Against the side walls were ranged four cages. One housed a pair of black bears of a rather weather-beaten and travel-worn aspect. Next to the bears, the lady leopard, Violet, through the bars contemplated s.p.a.ce, meanwhile wearing that air of intense boredom peculiar to most caged animals. A painted inscription above the front of the third cage identified its occupant as none other than The Educated Ostrich; the Bird That Thinks.

Red Hoss' conductor indicated these possessions with a lordly wave of his arm, then led the way to the fourth cage. It was the largest cage of all; it was painted a bright and pa.s.sionate red. It had gilded scrollings on it. Upon the ornamented facade which crossed its front from side to side a lettered legend ran. Red Hoss spelled out the p.r.o.nouncement:

Chieftain, King of Feline Acrobats! The Largest Black-maned Nubian Lion in Captivity! Danger!

The face of the cage was boarded halfway up, but above the top line of the planked cross panel Red Hoss could make out in the foreground of the dimmed interior a great tawny shape, and at the back, in one corner, an orderly clutter of objects painted a uniform circus blue. There was a barrel or two, an enormous wooden ball, a collapsible fold-up seesaw and other impedimenta of a trained-animal act. Red Hoss had heard that the lion was a n.o.ble brute--in short, was the king of beasts. He now was prepared to swear it had a n.o.ble smell. Beneath the cage a white man in overalls slumbered audibly upon a tarpaulin folded into a pallet.

"There's the man you take your orders from if you join us," explained Powers, flirting a thumb toward the sleeper. "Name of Riley, he is. But you draw your pay from me." With his arm he described a circle. "And here's the stock you help take care of. The only one you need to be careful about is that leopard over yonder. She gets a little peevish once in a while. Well, I would sort of keep an eye on the ostrich here alongside you too. The old bird's liable to cut loose when you ain't looking and kick the taste out of your mouth. You give them both their distances. But those bears behind you is just the same as a pair of puppies, and old Chieftain here--well, he looks pretty fierce and he acts sort of fierce too when he's called on for it, but it's just acting with him; he's trained to it. Off watch, he's just as gentle as an overgrown kitten. Riley handles him and works him, and all you've got to do when Riley is putting him through his stunts is to stand outside here and hand him things he wants in through the bars. Well, is it a go?

Going to take the job?"

"Boss," said Red Hoss, "you speaks late--I done already tooken it."

"Good!" said Powers. "That's the way I love to do business--short and sweet. You hang round for an hour or two and sort of get acquainted with things until Riley has his nap out. When he wakes up, if I ain't back by that time, you tell him you're the new helper, and he'll wise you up."

"Yas suh," said Red Hoss. "But say, boss, 'scuse me, but did I understand you to mention dat eatin' was in de contract?"

"Sure! Hungry already?"

"Well, suh, you see I mos' gin'rally starts de day off wid breakfust, an' to tell you de truth I ain't had nary grain of breakfust yit!"

"Got the breakfast habit, eh? Well, come on with me to the cook house and I'll see if there ain't something left over."

Despite the nature of his calling as a tamer of ferocious denizens of the tropic jungle, Mr. Riley, upon wakening, proved to be a person of a fairly amiable disposition. He made it snappy but not unduly burdensome as he initiated Red Hoss into the rudimentary phases of the new employment. As the forenoon wore on the conviction became fixed in Red Hoss' mind that for an overlord he had a white man who would be apt to listen to reason touching on any proposition promising personal profits with no personal risks.

Sharp upon this diagnosis of his new master's character, a magnificent idea, descending without warning like a bolt from the blue, struck Red Hoss on top of his head and bored in through his skull and took prompt root in his entranced and dazzled brain. It was a gorgeous conception; one which promised opulent returns for comparatively minor exertions. To carry it out, though, required cooperation, and in Riley he saw with a divining glance--or thought he saw--the hope of that cooperation.

In paving the way for confidential relations he put to Riley certain leading questions artfully disguised, and at the beginning seemingly artlessly presented. By the very nature of Riley's answers he was further a.s.sured of the safety of the ground on which he trod, whereupon Red Hoss cautiously broached the project, going on to amplify it in glowing colors the while Riley hearkened attentively.

It was a sheer pleasure to outline a proposition to a white gentleman who received it so agreeably. Fifteen minutes after the first tentative overtures had been thrown out feeler-wise, Red Hoss found that he and Riley were in complete accord on all salient points. Indeed they already were as partners jointly committed to a joint undertaking.

After the third and last afternoon performance, in which Red Hoss, wearing a proud mien and a somewhat spotty uniform coat, had acquitted himself in all regards creditably, Riley gave him a leave of absence of two hours, ostensibly for the purpose of quitting his boarding house and collecting his traveling wardrobe. As a matter of fact, these details really required but a few minutes, and it had been privily agreed between them that the rest of the time should be devoted by Red Hoss to setting in motion the actual preliminaries of their scheme.

This involved a personal call upon Mr. Moe Rosen, who conducted a hide, pelt, rag, junk, empty-bottle and old-iron emporium on lower Court Street, just off the Market Square. September's hurried twilight had descended upon the town when the scouting conspirator tapped for admission at the alley entrance to the back room of Mr. Rosen's establishment, where the owner sat amid a variegated a.s.sortment of choicer specimens culled from his collected wares. Mr. Rosen needed no sign above his door to inform the pa.s.sing public of the nature of his business. When the wind was right you could stand two blocks away and know it without being told. Here at Mr. Rosen's side door Red Hoss smacked his nostrils appreciatively. Even to one newly come from a wild-animal show, and even when smelled through a brick wall, Mr.

Rosen's place had a graphic and striking atmosphere which was all its own.

As one well acquainted with the undercurrents of community life, Red Hoss shared, with many others, the knowledge that Mr. Rosen, while ostensibly engaged in one industry, carried on another as a sort of clandestine by-product. Now this side line, though surrept.i.tiously conducted and perilous in certain of its aspects, was believed by the initiated to be really more lucrative than his legitimatized and avowed calling. Mr. Rosen was by way of being--by a roundabout way of being--what technically is known as a bootlegger. He bootlegged upon a larger scale than do most of those pursuing this precarious avocation.

It was stated in an earlier paragraph that national prohibition had not yet come to pa.s.s. But already local option held the adjoining commonwealth of Tennessee in a firm and arid grasp; wherefore Mr.

Rosen's private dealings largely had to do with discreet clients thirstily residing below the state line. It was common rumor in certain quarters that lately this traffic had suffered a most disastrous interruption. Tennessee revenue agents suddenly had evinced an unfriendly curiosity touching on vehicular movements from the Kentucky side.

A considerable chunk of Mr. Rosen's profits for the current year had been irretrievably swallowed up when a squad of these suspicious excis.e.m.e.n laid their detaining hands upon a sizable order of case stuff which--disguised and broadly labeled as crated household goods--was traveling southward by nightfall in a truck, heading toward a destination in a district which that truck was destined never to reach.

Bottle by bottle the aromatic contents of the packages had been poured into the wayside ditch to be sucked up by an unappreciative if porous soil. The truck itself had been confiscated. Its driver barely had escaped, to return homeward afoot across country bearing dire tidings to his employer, who was reported, upon hearing the lamentable news, literally to have scrambled the air with disconsolate flappings of his hands, meanwhile uttering shrill cries of grief.