“If he goes in, I’ll slip out and hook the door; but, if he comes back, it won’t do to let him see me.”
This was the thought that stirred Tom Gordon, as he peered stealthily out of the crack made by the door. Could he have thought of any way by which to drive the tiger inside, he would have done so; but there was none. He could only wait and watch, and hope for a favorable issue of the undertaking.
It struck him as strange that the beast should stand so long with only his tail in the outer air. The lad fancied it had disappeared entirely; but at the moment he was about to slip forward, he detected the tuft agitating the chips and dirt about the entrance. He therefore held back and still watched and waited.
There! the brute must have taken another step farther, for no part of his appendage was visible. He was wholly within the shed.
It was now or never.
Tom left the door open a few inches, so that if he should find it necessary to retreat, he would meet with no trouble in re-entering his home. In that event, however, it wasn’t likely Tippo Sahib would meet with any trouble in following him.
The heart of the youth throbbed violently when he stepped out in the moonlight and comprehended the perilous nature of the business.
“If he comes out tail first,” was his thought, “I’ll have a chance to dodge him; but if he comes head first, I’ll be a goner.”
He was not idle while these imaginings were passing through his mind. Step by step, and on tiptoe, he stole forward, until he stood within a couple of paces of the fastening. Then it was that his courage almost deserted him, and the desire to turn about and make a dash for the door behind him was well-nigh irresistible.
But the thought of that magnificent hundred dollars restrained and nerved him to push on. Another step and he had but to lean forward with outstretched arm, seize the door, and snap it toward him. He was in the act of doing so, when he heard a guttural growl from within. Had this reached his ears when he was a few feet farther off, Tom would have turned and fled for life. He would have done so now but for his belief that it was too late. He could only save himself by shutting that door before the beast came through it.
Holding his breath, the lad seized the handle, and with a quick flirt drew the door toward him. The strong iron hook was slipped into the staple, and he had done all he could. Yielding then to the panic which had been struggling so long within him, he bounded upon the front porch, shot through the door, and closed and fastened it in a twinkling. Not even then did Tom feel safe, but bounded upstairs with so much haste and noise, that the wonder was he did not awaken his aunt and mother. They slept too soundly, however, to be disturbed.
He ran to the window of his bedroom, and looked out again, fearing that the royal prisoner had already freed himself and would proceed to punish the one that had taken such liberties with him. Strange to say, everything looked as if there was no tiger within a score of miles. The door of the woodshed was fastened as it had been many times; but no noise or disturbance, so far as the lad could judge, sounded from within the structure. The prisoner seemed to have accepted his misfortune philosophically, and, perhaps, had lain down to rest himself after his stirring experiences of the afternoon.
“I wonder if he can get out of there. It’s pretty strong, and there isn’t any back-door or window that he can use.”
The youth was so deeply interested in the question that he brought his chair beside the window and sat down to await results. It was not strange, perhaps, considering the lateness of the hour, that the sleep which he had long sought in vain now came to him. By and by his head began nodding, and, despite the cramped position, he slumbered soundly until awakened by the call of his mother.
As soon as Tom could collect his senses, he looked at the woodshed. So far as he saw, no change had taken place. Then he hurried downstairs and told the astounding tidings.
“Mercy!” gasped Aunt Cynthia, “I was just about going to the shed for some wood, you were so long coming down. Suppose I had!”
“It would have been all over with you,” replied Tom, hardly less startled than they; “I meant to stay awake all night, but forgot myself.”
“Perhaps he has got out,” suggested the mother; “I don’t understand why he has kept so quiet.”
While they were talking, a call came from the roadway again. When they looked out, four horsemen were seen.
“We find it impossible to locate that beast,” explained the one that had done the talking the night before; “I hardly suppose you have seen anything more of him.”
Before Mrs. Gordon or Aunt Cynthia could reply, Tom asked,—
“Did you say you would give a hundred dollars to any one that gets that tiger without hurting him?”
“We’ll be glad to do that, sonny, or if he will show us where he is so we can capture him.”
“Will you give a hundred dollars to have him in the woodshed there?”
“Indeed we will.”
“Very well; he’s there!”
CHAPTER V.
The men looked at Tom Gordon as if doubting his words.
“Are you in earnest?” asked one of them.
“Look for yourselves.”
The horseman was out of the saddle in a twinkling, and walked quickly to the woodshed, whose cracks were so numerous that it was easy to see every part of the interior. Placing his eyes at one of these openings, he peered through.
“By George, boys!” he exclaimed, turning about, “the youngster’s right; Tippo is in there.”
The others hastily dismounted, tied their horses, and joined him. All took a look before they were satisfied no mistake had been made.
The tiger was stretched out in one corner, and had been asleep, when he was awakened by the noise. He raised his head, opened his eyes and growled, but showed no special anger at being disturbed.
While the men were debating as to the best means of securing him, Jack Durrick, who had done most of the talking, explained to the ladies and Tom what must have puzzled them concerning the action of the beast.
Durrick, it should be stated, figured on the stupendous posters as “Professor De La Cordova, Successor of the Renowned Van Amberg, and Fully his Equal in his Amazing Power and Control over the Wild Beasts of the Forest and Jungle.” In this case, it must be added, the professor possessed fair claim to this distinction. He displayed great skill in the management of wild animals. No one could handle Tippo Sahib as did he. Had he been near the cage when Sam Harper angered him, he never would have permitted the beast to escape.
He said Tippo was frightened and nervous through his suddenly acquired freedom. He suffered pain from the jab in his eye, and was made more restless and fidgety by the excitement and his strange surroundings. The slight wound received by him renewed his anger; but, when he withdrew from the immediate vicinity, he undoubtedly made a raid on some farmer’s live-stock, and had devoured a calf, pig, or sheep. He had eaten his fill, and thereupon became so docile as to be comparatively harmless, provided he was treated with consideration.
His return to the scene of his most stirring experience was one of those whims which his species sometimes show. Tired from his flight and filled to satiety, he had lain down to rest in the woodshed, so satisfied with his quarters that he offered no objection when Tom Gordon slipped up and fastened the door. So powerful and active an animal, had he chosen, could have broken out of the place in a twinkling; but he was content to stay where he was until fully rested.
“I assure you,” added the professor, “you wouldn’t have kept him much longer; when he awoke, hungry and thirsty, he would have placed himself on the outside before you could say Jack Robinson, and then there would have been trouble.”
The actions of the professor proved his faith in his own words. He coolly unhooked the door, gently pushed it back, and stepped within the structure. Tippo Sahib uttered a growl, and Tom and his friends shrank farther away. The men, however, one of whom carried a coil of rope, held their places.
Prof
essor De La Cordova displayed admirable coolness and tact. He was not rough in manner, but acted like one who felt himself master of the situation. His course, indeed, suggested to Tom that there was much truth in Jim Travers’s declaration about the power of the human eye over the denizens of the jungle. Standing erect, the man remained motionless for a full minute, during which he kept his gaze fixed on the tiger, staring into those orbs as if he would “look him through.”
Tippo Sahib was uneasy for a brief while, and then succumbed to that mysterious hypnotic influence which, in some cases, is equally potent with persons. He became humble, meek, and, if the term can be allowed, penitent.
Fully understanding his condition, the professor reached his hand behind him, without removing his gaze from the beast.
“The rope!” he said in a low voice.
The next moment, to the amazement of Tom and his relatives, he stepped gently forward, and fastened the rope around the unresisting neck of Tippo Sahib, who was led outside like a thoroughly subdued dog. Tom gave him plenty of room, and closely watched proceedings. While doing so, he observed a slight scratch on the hip of the beast, barely sufficient to break the skin; that was the path of the bullet fired by the lad the day previous.
Other ropes were fastened about the tiger, who took it all as a matter of course, and calmly followed when his guards moved in the direction of the horses. These resented the approach of the huge cat, so the professor and one of his men walked some distance behind the others, who took care of the animals.
Before their departure, Professor De La Cordova told Tom to call at the hotel between six and seven that evening, and he would be paid the hundred dollars with the thanks of Mr. Jones and all connected with the menagerie and circus.
“I wonder if they mean to cheat me out of it?” said the boy that afternoon, when he looked at the clock and saw it was nearly time to start.
“I hardly think so,” replied his mother.
“Why didn’t they give the money before they took the tiger away?”
“Probably they hadn’t so much with them,” suggested Aunt Cynthia, who plainly felt some misgiving over matters; “most likely the money has to be paid by some officer connected with the show.”
“And he may say he never gave his men the right to make such an offer,” remarked Tom.
“That may be,” said the mother, thinking it wise to prepare her son for a probable disappointment; “the circus is to exhibit at Boorman’s tonight. That is twenty miles off, and all may have gone thither. If those men choose to disregard their word, I see no help for it.”
“It will be awful mean in them,” declared the boy, who had become quite nervous; “I’ll never catch any more tigers for them.”
Tom loitered on his way to Briggsville, striving not to reach there before the time named; but despite the effort, he was in town fully a quarter of an hour too early.
A surprise awaited him. The news of the recapture of the runaway tiger had preceded him; and, as was natural, the story was exaggerated to an absurd degree. Jim Travers had told the wondering people that he saw Tom capture Sipo Tahib, as he called him, by jumping on his back and bending his forepaws over his neck. (Peter Parley’s History, which Jim read at school, contained a picture of the naturalist Chatterton thus navigating an alligator, and Jim couldn’t see why a tiger should not be handled the same way. He preferred, however, that some other boy should be the one to make the experiment.)
So it was that Tom found himself the hero of the hour. The boys and all his acquaintances gathered round him, and he had to tell the story over and over, until he became tired. When Jim Travers was reminded that Tom’s modest account did not agree with his flamboyant yarn, he said he feared he had got things a little mixed, but that was the way he or Tom would have conducted the recapture had the chance been given them.
“Are you the young man that caught the runaway tiger?” asked a pleasant looking gentleman, somewhat loudly dressed, as he laid his hand on the shoulder of Tom Gordon, while he was standing among a group of his friends on the porch of the hotel.
“I didn’t exactly capture him,” replied the blushing lad; “but I shut the door of the woodhouse, and he stayed there till the owners came and took him away.”
“It’s all the same; you deserve as much credit as if you had brought him here without help. I believe they promised you a hundred dollars reward, didn’t they?”
“Yes, sir; one of the men said if I would call here between six and seven he would give me the money; but I don’t see anything of him,” added Tom, looking around, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Professor De La Cordova. “Has he gone away”
“Yes; he is to appear in the show tonight at Boorman’s, and could not wait. But I am Mr. Jones, the proprietor, and if you will step inside with me, it won’t take us long to fix it. I was only waiting to make sure you were the right lad.”
Tom delightedly followed the gentleman into an inner room, where the door was closed and the transaction quickly completed.
Mr. Jones made some sympathetic inquiries of the youth, and when he learned of his mother’s moderate circumstances, expressed great pleasure that the reward had fallen to him. Then he handed him ten bright, crisp ten-dollar bills.
“That is quite a sum of money for a lad like you to have about him,” added Mr. Jones. “You must be careful not to lose it.”
“I am very thankful to you, and shall take good care of it,” replied Tom.
“Where are you going to carry it?”
“In my inside coat pocket; then I will button my coat over it.”
“That’s right; and don’t unbutton the coat till you reach your own home.”
The money was put away as Tom indicated, and, thanking his kind friend again, Tom bade him good-by and withdrew.
CHAPTER VI.
Tom Gordon could not be blamed for failing to note several suggestive occurrences during this memorable visit to Briggsville.
Seated on the porch of the hotel, while he was talking to the group of young persons and acquaintances, were two strangers, whose dilapidated dress, frowzy heads, and surly faces, showed they belonged to that pestiferous class of vagrants known as tramps. They sat apart, after taking a drink in the bar-room, and with scowling but interested looks listened to the chatter going on around them. It did not take them long to catch the drift of matters. They talked together in low tones, with furtive glances at the young hero, and kept their places, with a few muttered remarks that no one else could catch, while Tom was inside.
When the smiling lad reappeared, his friends besieged him with inquiries.
“Did he give you the money, Tom? How much is it?”
Being a sturdy boy, Tom naturally did not wish to appear too much elated over his good fortune.
“Yes,” he replied, with an assumption of indifference; “he paid me the hundred dollars like a gentleman, and I’ve got it in my pocket.”
“What are you going to do with so much money?” asked a mischievous acquaintance; “buy a farm, or go in partnership with Vanderbilt?”
“I’m going to give every cent of it to my mother,” replied Tom, with a compression of his fine lips and a flash of his eye.
“That’s right!” commented an elderly gentleman; “you couldn’t put it into safer hands, and I mean that for all of you youngsters.”
It was at this juncture that the two tramps rose to their feet, and slouched down the road in the direction of Tom Gordon’s home. In the flurry of the moment no one noticed their departure, which indeed might not have attracted attention at any time.
“You’ve got a loaded gun in your house?” was the inquiring remark of the same gentleman.
“Yes, sir; we always keep one. I fired at the tiger with it, but I didn’t hurt him much,” remarked Tom with a laugh.
“Well, tigers aren’t the only creatures you’ve got to look out for in these times. There are plenty of people that would break into your house and murder you and your mother and aunt fo
r the sake of that money.”
Tom blanched a little at these words, and one of the bystanders said,—
“I don’t think we have such people about here, Uncle Jed.”
“I hope not, but you can’t be too careful; I’ve been robbed myself when I hadn’t any more thought of it than that boy there.”
Had Tom Gordon been a few years older or younger he would have acted differently; that is to say he would have returned home without delay. But he did not wish to appear frightened by the words of the old gentleman; and, though he was eager to hurry home to his mother and aunt with the good news, he remained talking with his friends and trying to act as though he had forgotten about his great fortune, until the long summer day ended and twilight began closing in. Then when he started, he looked around to see whether any one was going in the same direction. He would have been glad of company, but it so happened that he set out alone in the gathering gloom to walk the mile that must be passed before he could reach his home.
“I wish Uncle Jed hadn’t said what he did,” he mused, when fairly beyond the town, “it makes me feel kind of pokerish; why didn’t I think to bring my gun along? If the folks he talks about would rob our house they would stop me on the road and take the money from me.”
He walked faster as the darkness increased, for the moon would not rise for some time to come, glanced often behind him, and essayed a timid whistle. He soon ceased this, however, for it only increased his uneasiness. Every minute or two he pressed one of his hands against his breast to make sure the precious package was there. Then he glanced back again in the gloom, and started when he fancied he saw a man following him. But it was only fancy, and he increased his pace, wondering why the mile seemed longer than he had ever known it before.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 152
