Part 4

This brought great applause from the audience, and what pleased the people pleased Buster. He grinned and nodded his head, and strutted around with his head high in the air.

All the time he was receiving special favors and attention, Spot the Leopard and Ocelot the Jungle Cat were in their cages watching for an opportunity to get revenge on him. The pain they suffered from Buster’s hard blows was nothing to what they suffered in mind and spirit. They were nearly consumed with rage and envy.

Buster never passed near the cage without their snarling and spitting at him. They could do this in safety, for the iron bars were between them. Right down in their hearts, however, they were afraid of him.

Buster, who carried no spirit of ill-feeling against them, merely grinned when they spit at him. But one day he stopped in front of Spot’s cage, and said:

“Why don’t you forget and forgive, Spot? This carrying a grouch around with you all the time spoils your face. Let’s be friends.”

“Friends!” snarled Spot. “I may think of that after I’ve clawed off some of your hide!”

“Me too!” echoed Ocelot. “And I’d like to begin with your eyes.”

“And I’ll lap up his warm blood when you’ve killed him,” growled Timber the Wolf from his cage.

Buster, instead of being offended at these threats, sat back on his haunches and laughed. Then noticing the Old Lion watching them, his eyes blinking sleepily, he turned to him.

“What would you like to do to me, Old Lion?” he asked.

“Nothing, Buster, except to give you some good advice,” was the reply.

“That’s a friendly offer. I’ll listen to it.”

The Old Lion winked and blinked, stretched himself with a yawn, and then sat up looking for all the world like the noble king of the beasts.

“When your enemies threaten you, Buster,” he said slowly, “it is wise to listen to them so you may be prepared. Don’t let the pride of strength deceive you. The mouse gnawed through the net that the lion couldn’t break, and Cobra the Reptile put a whole jungle of animals to flight. That is all, Buster.”

“Thank you, Old Lion,” replied Buster. “I’ll remember what you said.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to me whether you remember it or not,” was the answer, as the Old Lion stretched out and went to sleep.

Buster did remember the advice for a few days, and then forgot it. He also ignored Spot and Ocelot, for they refused to make friends with him. Meanwhile, his progress as a trick bear increased, and he appeared nightly before big audiences with Chiquita.

One day the big tent was taken down, for the circus was to move to another town. There was such noise and confusion that every one was upset. Buster found his customary resting place filled with packing boxes and baggage. Somewhat put out by this he wandered around, and finally climbed on the top of a bundle of canvas away from the confusion.

It was a soft, comfortable bed, and Buster soon fell asleep. He snored and rolled around in his slumber until attendants came running up to find out what the trouble was. When they discovered him, they laughed and said:

“It’s only Buster taking his mid-day snooze with the high treble stops wide open.”

Buster hadn’t noticed that the pile of canvas was close to the two cages where Spot and Ocelot were kept. They had kept so quiet that he never suspected their nearness. But the Leopard and Jungle Cat had seen him, and were watching him with flashing eyes.

As he snored and rolled around in his sleep, they kept their eyes patiently and watchfully on him. Once a shaggy paw came close to Spot’s cage, and he stealthily put out a fore-arm to see if he could reach it. He fell short about an inch.

He withdrew his paw silently and resumed his watchful waiting. Ocelot on the other side was equally interested in one of Buster’s fore paws. It was within a few feet of his cage.

Buster rolled over and flung his legs out to their full length like an animal stretching. The result was just what the two vengeful enemies were waiting for. Spot reached through the bars of his cage and caught the hind leg of Buster with his sharp claws, and Ocelot attacked one of his fore-legs.

Buster was aroused from his sleep by sharp pains that seemed like a thousand needles sticking in him. When he attempted to spring to his feet he found himself a prisoner. Spot and Ocelot were tugging, tearing and biting with all their might as if they would pull him apart and haul him through the bars of their cages.

Taken at such a disadvantage, Buster for a moment was helpless. Then the pain became so severe that he brought all of his powerful muscles into play, and jerked with such force that both cages came tumbling over on top of him.

The sudden upsetting of their cages startled Spot and Ocelot so that they jumped back in fright. Buster was immediately on his feet, rolling the cages around as if they had been made of jackstraws. With a lightning blow through the bars he struck Spot a whack that sent him reeling backward. Then before he could recover, Buster sprang around on the opposite side and knocked him back. For a moment it looked as if he would break through the cage and kill Spot.

When the attendants ran up, Buster was shaking Ocelot’s cage in a vain endeavor to get at him. The Jungle Cat was so frightened that he shivered and whined for mercy. Buster’s anger could not be quieted until Chiquita came up. She patted him, and led him away to bind up his wounds. The Leopard and Jungle Cat were glad to see him go. In trying to get revenge on Buster they had been punished nearly as much as he.

“I should have remembered the Old Lion’s advice,” Buster said to himself when Chiquita bound up his wounds. Then looking at her, he added: “But there’s some good in everything. I wouldn’t have such a tender nurse if I wasn’t wounded.” And he smiled with satisfaction.

Next will come the story of how Buster was caught in a railroad wreck.

STORY XI

BUSTER IN A RAILROAD WRECK

The circus was preparing to move into its winter quarters, and it was the confusion of packing that caused Buster to get mixed up with Spot and Ocelot in their cages. His injuries were very slight, and within a few days after Chiquita had bound them up his legs were as good as new.

He felt a little angry at the Leopard and Jungle Cat for attacking him when fast asleep, but Buster wasn’t the kind to nurse a grudge. When his wrath cooled a little he actually laughed at the occurrence. Strolling outside to where the cages were standing, he grinned at the Leopard.

“You got a good dig at me, Spot,” he said, “but with that last cuff I gave you I guess we can call it even. Head ache yet?”

Spot didn’t reply, but paced his narrow cage in restless dissatisfaction. Buster turned to the Jungle Cat.

“How about you, Ocelot! Got over your scare yet? I didn’t touch you, but you looked as scared as a rat in a trap when I shook your cage.”

Ocelot showed the same silent contempt and refused to reply other than with a low snarl. Buster turned to Old Lion.

“The only cheerful one I find in this group is you, Old Lion,” he added. “Spot and Ocelot don’t look happy, and Timber the Wolf acts as if he had an ingrowing pain in his stomach. How about you?”

“I’m always cheerful,” replied Old Lion. “That’s why I’ve grown bald and toothless, and lived to a good old age. Spot and Ocelot will die young if they don’t change their manners. So will you, Buster.”

“Why,” stammered Buster, “I do try to be cheerful. I didn’t know I was anything else.”

“That may be,” replied Old Lion, “but you’re too ready for a fight. Every battle you get in shortens your life by so many days.”

“I don’t fight unless I’m attacked,” was the quick reply.

“I didn’t know the animals attacked you the other night in the circus. You started the fight.”

“Yes, but not until after they had attacked Chiquita,” Buster said indignantly. “I had to protect her, for she was a friend of mine.”

“Are you going to fight to protect all your friends in this world?” asked Old Lion sleepily. “If you do, I predict you will die young. Now I must go to sleep, for we begin our long journey soon, and I do hate riding on a train. It rasps my nerves.”

Buster never knew how seriously to take the Old Lion’s words, but he was a companionable and harmless old fellow, and sometimes rambled on just to hear himself talk. He was getting so old that talking was the easiest thing to do, and between eating and sleeping that was about all he did. Sometimes he appeared in the circus as a fierce old lion, who had killed any number of keepers, but it was growing harder and harder for him to assume the pose. He wasn’t fierce looking at all, except when he roared, and that was such an exertion he seldom did it unless prodded by the attendants.

“How does it feel to ride on a train?” Buster asked when he saw that the Old Lion was going to drop off asleep right before him.

“How does it feel?” he drawled. “Why, it feels as if all the bones in your body were rattling, and when the train stops--and it’s stopping all the time when it isn’t going--you stand on your head and then on your tail, and if you’re lucky you don’t die of fright.”

“It must be a wonderful experience,” remarked Buster.

“It is, and you won’t enjoy it. I don’t know what trains were invented for unless it was to torture those who ride in them. But when we get there we’ll have a long rest.”

“Where?” asked Buster.

“Where we’re going, and when you get there you wonder why you came, and where you are. Now do you understand?”

Buster laughed good-naturedly, for his quizzing was making the Old Lion irritable. He wanted to sleep and Buster strolled away, leaving him to enjoy his nap.

The next day the animals were taken aboard the train. Some of the harmless ones were led there and tied to posts in box cars, and others like Ocelot and Spot were lifted aboard in their stout cages. No chance could be taken with them.

Buster found himself in a small compartment of a baggage car, with Chiquita occupying a seat just forward of him. She trusted him so much that she liked to have him near her. But as he had never been on a railroad journey before he was fastened in the car by a chain.

“You might forget yourself, Buster, or get excited, and try to jump off when the train was moving,” she said to him, when chaining him up. “It isn’t because I don’t trust you. You understand that, don’t you?”

Buster nodded his head, as she patted him, and looked at the chain. It was not a very strong one, and he smiled at the thought of what he could do to it if he wanted to escape. He could snap it in two with one jerk of his powerful body.

The train started finally, and Buster was as interested and excited as a child on her first railroad journey. The jolting and rattling began almost at once. He recalled Old Lion’s words, and wondered if he was groaning in agony. Such rolling and jerking were enough to rattle Old Lion’s teeth loose. And Spot and Ocelot! How did they like the noise and confusion?

The train steamed along slowly at first, and then faster. Through a window in the baggage car Buster could see the houses and trees flashing past as if they were all running in the opposite direction. It was a funny sensation. Instead of being frightened by it, Buster enjoyed it.

“I never ran so fast in my life,” he said to himself. “Even Loup the Lynx couldn’t run as fast as this.”

He stopped and scowled. He never thought of Loup without growing angry. The Lynx had treated him in a cowardly, cruel way, and Buster somehow wanted to punish him for it. But there seemed little prospect of his ever meeting the Lynx again.

“Oh, well,” Buster sighed, “I can’t spoil my temper thinking of something that happened in the past.”

Still right down in his heart he had a great desire to go back to the woods where he had been born. Perhaps his mother was alive yet, and he would dearly like to see her again. How surprised she would be to find him grown up, fully as big as she, and far more powerful!

Suddenly in the midst of these thoughts there came a grinding shriek outside, and the most fearful of explosions. Buster raised his head to listen, and then he was thrown against the opposite side of the baggage car with such force that the chain snapped. Everything began to break and fall down upon him, the whole roof of the car collapsing.

Stunned by the fall, and unable to understand what had happened, Buster lay there a moment in silence. Everything was quiet after that awful noise, but wild shrieks of Ocelot, Spot and other animals soon filled the air. Then came the deafening hiss of steam, and shouts and cries of men.

What had happened! Buster was curious to know what all this noise meant, and finding himself loose, with no roof over him, he climbed out of the wreck. It was dark outside, but there were many lights flashing around.

Buster walked down the track where a group of men were at work. They paid no attention to him, and he sat down to wait. Chiquita would come along soon to claim him. But he waited and waited, and nobody paid any attention to him. Finally, he got up and wandered off in the fields, and before he stopped he was lost and couldn’t find his way back again.

“I think I’ll sleep here until morning,” he said, seeking a good resting place under a tree. “Then I’ll find my way back to the train.”

But it wasn’t the train he found. It was the little girl who had given him candy that day he danced for pennies.

STORY XII

BUSTER MEETS THE LITTLE GIRL AGAIN

When Buster woke the next morning the sun was just peeping above the trees. He had slept so soundly that he couldn’t recall right away all that had happened the previous night. He opened his eyes, and was surprised when he found that nothing around him was familiar.

He grunted and rose to his feet, blinking at the sun. Then it all returned to him. He remembered the jolt and crash, and the splintering of the roof of his car. He rubbed his head to see if the bruise still hurt him, and winced when it pained him.

“I wonder what happened to the Old Lion,” he said, grinning. “He must have lost all his teeth last night.”

Then he thought of Chiquita. If she was in the wreck, too, she may have lost something more than her teeth. Suppose she had lost her life! This thought grieved Buster.

“I must go back and find out,” he said. “She’ll miss me.”

He waddled away through the bushes until he came to a road that was unfamiliar to him. Which way did he go to reach the railroad? He started up it, but hadn’t gone far before he saw a man approaching, carrying a basket on his arm. Buster was less alarmed than the man apparently, for with a shriek of terror the latter dropped his basket and ran up the road so fast that he was soon out of sight.

“What a foolish thing to do,” laughed Buster. “He must have had an evil conscience or he wouldn’t be frightened like that.”

He waddled up to the basket the man had dropped. One sniff at its contents made his heart jump with joy. It was filled with nice fresh bread, rolls, and two blackberry pies.

Buster didn’t consider it stealing. The man had left the basket, and it belonged to any one who found it. He was very hungry, but bear-like or boy-like (I don’t know which to call it) he began with the blackberry pies instead of the bread. He ate them up rapidly, stuffing them in his mouth with both paws. When they were gone he looked through the basket for more.

The bread didn’t taste nearly so good after the pies, but Buster was still very hungry, and, not finding any more dessert, he began slowly munching the bread. If there had been soup, I suppose, he would have ended his meal with that.

After eating a dozen rolls, and one loaf of bread, he felt better. A noise up the street, accompanied by loud shouting, suddenly made him stop and listen. Perhaps the man who owned the basket was returning with help.

Buster decided that he wouldn’t wait until the men appeared, and taking a loaf of bread in each of his front paws he climbed over the fence and disappeared in the woods. Long before the men reached the spot he had made his way into the heart of a big swamp where he sat down and finished his meal.

He felt so much better by that time that he took a long drink from the brook, and then resumed his journey. He came out of the swamp on the opposite side, and seeing a hill climbed to the top. He hoped to get a view of the railroad from there.

But when he reached it he saw no signs of it. There was a small cluster of houses on his right, a swamp and woods behind him, and open country on his left, with here and there a farm house. Buster decided to keep away from the village.

The farm houses attracted him, for he could hear the crowing of a rooster off in that direction and the cackling of geese. There was the moo of a cow and the neighing of a horse from one barn-yard, and the barking of a dog from another.

“I won’t bother the dog,” Buster said, keeping away from that farm-yard. “They’re harmless, but very annoying.”

He waddled across a field and climbed a fence until he stood in the barn-yard of the nearest farm. After reaching the barn he poked his head in the open doorway. A boy was in there milking a cow. Buster watched the streams of milk, and a sudden desire to taste milk again made him forget all caution. He stepped across the threshold, a pleasant grin on his face, and a rollicking smile in his eyes.

But the boy didn’t see anything friendly in either the grin or the twinkling eyes. When he glanced up and caught sight of Buster, he sat on his milk stool as if paralyzed, and then recovering himself he let out a shrill cry and darted for the opposite door. He disappeared like a flash, leaving the milk pail behind him.

“How foolish of him!” said Buster. “I wouldn’t hurt him!”

He picked up the milk pail and held it to his lips. There was a gurgle, gurgle as the milk ran down his throat, and it never stopped until three whole quarts were emptied in his stomach.

“That makes me feel better,” he said, rubbing his fat stomach. “I’m so full now I can hardly walk. I’m sleepy, too.”

The hay-mow overhead attracted him. How pleasant it would be to rest and sleep there! He was going to climb up the ladder for this purpose when a great noise outside alarmed him. He peeked out, and saw a big crowd of men and boys armed with sticks, axes, pitchforks and shot-guns, running toward the barn.

Buster decided to leave, for he had no desire to meet the crowd. While his enemies came in the front door, Buster ran out of the back one, crossed an orchard, and reached a field beyond before he was discovered. He had a long start of them, but when they caught sight of him again they began to blaze away with their shot-guns.

Buster was an excellent runner, and he made good time. Ahead of him was a bigger house, with a wide lawn in front, and a garden in back. Buster wasn’t going to enter this place, but another crowd of men appeared in front of him. If he kept on he would run right into their arms.

Buster darted to the right, crossed the lawn and reached the back of the house. There was no one around, and Buster hunted for a hiding place. There was an open window over his head on the second story of the house, and a low shed leading up to it.

Buster suddenly decided that was his best hiding place, and up the shed he climbed, scrambling to the roof and crawling across this to the open window. He looked inside, and seeing no one he entered.

He was breathing hard, for after eating so much, his exertions told on him. This noise must have awakened the little sleeper on the bed, for suddenly she rose up and startled Buster so that he nearly fell down in a faint. He supposed the room was empty, and here was a young person staring at him. He stared back, grinning foolishly. He felt very much like a boy who had been caught stealing.

Then to his surprise the girl clapped her hands, and said: “Oh, I believe you’re Buster! Yes, I know you are! And I’m so glad!”

Until then Buster hadn’t recognized the little person. Now he remembered her. It was the little girl who had offered him a stick of candy that day he danced for pennies on the street.

But what pleased Buster more than anything else was her joy. She wasn’t a bit afraid of him! She wasn’t going to run away and scream for help. She wouldn’t hand him over to the men pursuing him with shot-guns. What a relief to him this was! She was surely his friend, and would protect him just as Chiquita had done so many times. He grinned with pleasure, and waddled toward the bed.

How the little girl outwitted the men, and saved Buster from them, will be told in the next story.

STORY XIII

BUSTER AND THE LITTLE GIRL

Instead of showing fear when Buster approached the bed, the little girl held out a hand, and when he was near enough she took one of his shaggy paws and patted it. This seemed natural enough to Buster, for he could not understand why any one should be afraid of him, and Chiquita had done the same thing many times; but to most little girls perhaps it would seem like a brave and fearless thing. This little girl like Little Red Riding-Hood was not afraid of bears or wolves until they tried to eat her up.

“I’m glad to see you, Buster,” she said with quaint gravity. “But how did you ever get here?”

Buster grinned and turned his head toward the open window. The little girl followed his gaze, and instantly understood.

“Oh, you came through the window,” she added. “That makes it so much more interesting. Fairies and elves always come through open windows. Won’t you sit down?”

Buster was quite tired after his hard run, and was very glad to accept this invitation. The foot of the bed seemed a very inviting seat, and he sat on the white coverlet.

But almost immediately he sprang up in alarm. The springs creaked under his great weight, and for a moment it looked as if the whole bed would collapse. He jumped to his feet with a queer expression on his face. In fact, he wasn’t sure but this was some sort of a trap set for him.

But the little girl laughed merrily at the accident, and clapped both hands. He could not believe she was attempting to deceive him, and he grinned like a foolish boy who had discovered a bent pin in his chair.

“Oh, Buster,” she cried, “I guess this isn’t a _bear_-bed. You’re too heavy for it. Maybe the chair will hold you.”

Buster turned and looked at the chair. He seemed a little doubtful, but he wanted to be polite. He tried it carefully, but when it began to crack and groan under his weight he was wise enough not to go any further. He shook his head, and put the chair back in its place.

The little girl shrieked with laughter again. It was very amusing to her, and Buster, not wishing to offend her, grinned and nodded his head. He liked children, and this one was anxious to play with him. After a while she grew serious again, and looked around at every article in the room.

“I don’t know, Buster,” she said slowly, “but you’ll have to sit on the floor. I don’t think anything else is strong enough to hold you. It’s not very polite to ask visitors to sit on the floor, but what else can I do, unless you prefer to stand?”

Buster didn’t prefer to stand. He was very tired, and he didn’t mind the floor as a seat at all. In fact, it was more suitable to him than a bed or chair. So he squatted down on his haunches, and smiled. Even then his head towered above the little girl’s.

“Are you comfortable there?” she asked.

Buster nodded. “Then,” she added, “you must tell me where you came from, and how you escaped those cruel men. I want to hear the whole story. It’s better than a story from a book, and I love story books about bears. Did you ever hear the story of Goldy Locks or the Three Little Bears? No. Then I’ll tell you.”

But she didn’t have time. Just then there was a great commotion outside. Men were shouting and calling, dogs barking, and a great hullabaloo going on under the open window.