CHAPTER VTAMBA 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 Iused 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 slumberingas 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 stripesof 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 ontheir 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 muskratswere 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 forthe 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.