*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63029 ***

[Illustration: The buffalo was beginning to like it in the circus.]




                       _Kneetime Animal Stories_


                              SHAGGO, THE
                            MIGHTY BUFFALO

                          HIS MANY ADVENTURES


                                  BY
                            RICHARD BARNUM

          Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum, the
            Jolly Elephant,” “Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox,”
                  “Tamba, the Tame Tiger,” “Toto, the
                        Bustling Beaver,” etc.


                           _ILLUSTRATED BY_
                           WALTER S. ROGERS


                              PUBLISHERS
                            BARSE & HOPKINS
                  NEWARK, N. J.      NEW YORK, N. Y.




KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By Richard Barnum

_Large 12mo. Illustrated._


  SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG
  SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL
  MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY
  TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT
  DON, A RUNAWAY DOG
  DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR
  BLACKIE, A LOST CAT
  FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT
  TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY
  LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT
  CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO
  SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX
  NERO, THE CIRCUS LION
  TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER
  TOTO, THE BUSTLING BEAVER
  SHAGGO, THE MIGHTY BUFFALO


 BARSE & HOPKINS
 Newark, N. J.      New York, N. Y.


                            Copyright, 1921
                                  by
                            Barse & Hopkins


                     _Shaggo, the Mighty Buffalo_


                            MADE IN U.S.A.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                             PAGE
      I  SHAGGO’S QUEER BEHAVIOR        7
     II  SHAGGO’S BIG JUMP             17
    III  SHAGGO IN A HOLE              26
     IV  SHAGGO AND THE ANTELOPES      34
      V  SHAGGO IN A TRAP              45
     VI  SHAGGO ON A TRAIN             55
    VII  SHAGGO IN A CIRCUS            65
   VIII  SHAGGO AND TUM TUM            72
     IX  SHAGGO MEETS DON              82
      X  SHAGGO AND DIDO               92
     XI  SHAGGO GOES TO SLEEP         101
    XII  SHAGGO IS HAPPY              110




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


 The buffalo was beginning to like it in the circus      _Frontispiece_

 Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence                         21

 “Who in the world are you?” asked Shaggo                           39

 Shaggo, when he knew he was caught, tried to get away              57

 “Pleased to meet you,” roared Nero                                 77

 Crowds of boys and girls came to see the animals                   95

 Shaggo hit the fence with all his might                           115




SHAGGO, THE MIGHTY BUFFALO




CHAPTER I

SHAGGO’S QUEER BEHAVIOR


“Hey, Shaggo! come on with us.”

“Yes, trot along and let’s see who will get there first.”

Two big boy buffalo calves that had started to run over the dry, dusty
prairie, their hoofs sending up little showers of dirt, stopped in
front of another buffalo, much larger than either of them.

“Come on, Shaggo,” again called the buffalo who had first spoken, in
animal talk, of course. “We’ll have a lot of fun.”

“Where are you going?” asked Shaggo, and as he spoke, in a deep, rumbly
voice, he got up from the ground where he had been lying chewing his
cud, as a cow in the meadow chews hers. And when Shaggo stood up you
could see how very big he was.

Shaggo was a mighty buffalo. He was the largest and strongest of all
the Government herd in the big National Park, where these animals,
which once roamed the prairies in countless thousands, are now kept.
For there are not now many buffaloes; not nearly so many as there were
a few years ago. The Indian hunters and the white hunters killed them
for food, and to get the shaggy robes the buffaloes wore. These robes
were good to put over one in cold weather.

Then, too, the building of the railroads out West had scattered the
buffaloes, until it seemed they must all die or be driven away. Then
the Government fenced in great parks, called preserves, where the big,
shaggy animals, with heads and manes larger than any lion’s that ever
lived, could be at peace.

It was on one of these preserves, or ranges, in a National Park, that
Shaggo lived. Though he was not the oldest buffalo of the herd he was
easily the largest and strongest. He seemed to grow faster than the
others, and he could easily have been the leader of the herd if he had
wished. But he let another, an older bull act as the leader. Shaggo was
content to eat the sweet grass, drink the cool water, and wander around
in the forest or over the prairies which formed part of the park.

“Are you coming with us, Shaggo?” asked one of the two buffalo calves,
as they stopped near the mighty animal.

“Where are you going?” asked Shaggo.

“Over to the wallow,” was the answer. “It is hot, and the flies and
bugs are so bothersome that we’re going to roll around in the wallow
and get all muddy. Come along with us and we’ll have some fun.”

“Yes, do, please, Shaggo!” urged the other buffalo. “You’re so big you
can roll around and make new holes in the mud.”

“All right,” agreed Shaggo, “I’ll come. But the flies don’t bother me
very much.”

The two buffaloes who had invited this biggest, mighty member of the
herd to come with them, looked at each other in some surprise.

“All I’ve got to say,” finally said the smaller of the two buffaloes,
who was named Soako, “is that you must be very queer if you don’t mind
the biting flies.”

“Maybe Shaggo has already been to the wallow and covered himself with
mud,” remarked the other buffalo, who was named Poko, because he was
always playfully poking others with his short, black horns.

“No, Shaggo hasn’t been to the wallow this morning,” said Soako, with a
laugh; in animal fashion, as you can easily imagine. “If he had been,
he’d be all covered with dried mud, and there isn’t any on him.”

“Yes, you’re right, Soako,” replied Shaggo, giving the other buffalo
the name that suited him best, for Soako was always soaking himself in
water whenever he could find any. “I haven’t yet been to the mud hole,
but I’ll go along with you now. Though, to tell you the truth, the
flies don’t bother me very much.”

“I guess Shaggo’s hide and hair are so thick that it takes the flies
longer to bite through than it does with us,” said Soako, in a sort of
whisper to Poko, as the three friends moved off together.

“Maybe,” agreed Poko. “Anyhow, don’t you think Shaggo is rather queer?”
he went on, making sure that the mighty buffalo did not hear him. “He’s
been acting in a very funny way the last week, so I heard old Wuffo
say.”

“Now you speak of it, I do notice it,” said Soako. “And Wuffo ought to
know, as he’s our leader. Whatever he says is right.”

Wuffo was the oldest buffalo of the herd, and one of the strongest. He
had been leader for a number of years. When Shaggo grew up, and was
much the larger and stronger of the two and thus might easily have made
himself leader by fighting with Wuffo, Shaggo held himself back. He was
content to let Wuffo remain the head of the herd.

So the three buffalo friends, shifting away from the rest of the herd,
moved over the prairie end of the park toward the wallow. Soon they
trotted up a little hill and came within sight of a hollow place.

“Oh, look at the lovely mud!” cried Soako. “Let’s see who will be the
first in!”

“I can beat you!” bellowed Poko, and he gave a playful dig with his
horns in Shaggo’s ribs.

Instead of taking it good-naturedly, as most of the buffaloes would
have done, Shaggo grumbled:

“Here! What are you doing? Quit your fooling!”

“Oh, excuse me! I didn’t mean anything!” said Poko, for he knew better
than to get Shaggo “mad.” More than one member of the herd had felt the
strength of Shaggo’s mighty head, though the big buffalo had never done
any real harm. Whenever any one plagued him, he just butted them head
over heels, as a goat might do.

Down the slope ran Poko after Soako, and soon the two buffaloes were
wallowing around in the mud hole. “Wallow” is just the word that
tells what they did, and so the places where the buffaloes went on
the prairies to get away from mosquitoes, gnats and flies came to be
called “wallows.” You may read about them in stories of the old West.

Over and over, and around and around in the mud rolled Soako and Poko.
They sank themselves down in the deep wallow until only their nose tips
stuck out, so they could breathe. They covered themselves with mud. And
if their fathers or mothers could have seen them, instead of telling
them to come out, the older buffaloes would have gone into the mud
themselves.

For this was the only way the buffaloes had of getting rid of the
biting flies. The big, shaggy animals would cover themselves with a
coating of mud, and as long as this stayed on they were in comfort. The
flies and mosquitoes could not bite through the dried, caked mud.

“Come on, Shaggo!” cried Soako, tumbling about in the hole which was
kept wet by a nearby spring. “Hurry! The mud’s fine to-day!”

“Yes, you’re missing it!” added Poko, who was beside Soako.

“I think there’ll be enough mud left for me,” answered Shaggo easily,
and he went down the slope without any signs of hurrying. Once again
Soako and Poko looked at each other.

“He certainly is queer,” said Poko in a whisper.

“I should say so!” agreed Soako, pawing around on the bottom of the
wallow. “I remember when he was always the first in the mud. Now he
doesn’t care whether he’s last or not. I wonder what is the matter with
Shaggo that he acts so queerly?”

By this time the biggest buffalo of the herd was at the edge of the
wallow, and the other two could not talk about him without being
overheard. So they splashed about, and soon Shaggo was also covering
himself with mud to keep away the flies.

But though Shaggo rolled himself around in the black sticky mud as did
his friends, the mighty buffalo did not seem to be enjoying himself.
He did not play tricks and jokes as he had been wont to do. He did not
butt the others with his immense head, nor splash mud on them, nor roll
them over so that their noses went under. He just covered himself with
mud and then came out on the bank.

“You aren’t going to quit so soon, are you?” asked Poko.

“Let’s have a game of mud tag,” suggested Soako. “This is our best
chance. We have the wallow to ourselves now. Pretty soon Wuffo and
the other bulls will be coming here for their bath, and we’ll have to
skip out. Come on, Shaggo! I’ll be it for a game of tag! Look out! I’m
coming!”

Soako rushed up from the mud wallow and trotted toward Shaggo. But
the latter, instead of running away, as he often did, and keeping out
of Soako’s way, as he easily could have done (for Shaggo was the best
runner in the herd) just stood still and let Soako tag him.

“Now Shaggo is it!” bellowed Soako, running over to join Poko, who also
came up out of the cool wallow.

“I’m not going to play,” said Shaggo.

“Not going to play!” echoed Poko and Soako.

“No,” went on Shaggo. “I don’t feel like playing tag. Besides, it will
make the mud dry quicker and drop off, and then I’ll have to go into
the wallow again.”

“Well, that’s only fun!” said Soako, and again he and Poko looked at
each other. They said nothing, but they thought that Shaggo was acting
very strangely indeed. Not to play tag!

“Is there any other game you’d like to play?” asked Poko, as he nibbled
a bit of grass at the edge of the spring.

“No,” answered Shaggo, in a grumbling sort of voice. “All I want is to
be left alone. I’m going for a walk. It’s too hot to play tag.”

It was hot, there was no denying that. But then there was the cool
wallow to soak in when one was warm after running. And there was also
a shady forest which was farther up the National Park preserve. Soako
and Poko shook their heads. They could not understand Shaggo.

“Let him go,” whispered Poko, as the big animal started off by himself.

The two friends were just going back to the wallow when, all of a
sudden, along came running one of the smaller calves of the herd. He
seemed much excited.

“Oh, you ought to see ’em! You ought to see ’em!” he cried, in buffalo
talk, as was natural. “They’re fighting like anything.”

“Who are fighting?” asked Poko.

“Rumpo and Bumpo, the twins,” was the answer. “They’re knocking each
other all over the prairie. Come on, it’s lots of fun!”

Rumpo and Bumpo were twin buffalo brothers, and they often had what the
other buffaloes called “fights.” But they were only in fun, as dogs and
boys wrestle to grow stronger. Rumpo and Bumpo knocked each other all
over the soft grass of the prairie, but neither hurt the other. And it
was always fun to see them “fight,” as it was called. Most of the other
buffaloes would leave what they were doing at any time to see Rumpo and
Bumpo at their game of knocking each other around.

“Did you hear that, Shaggo?” called Poko, as he and Soako prepared to
follow the little calf buffalo over the prairie.

“Hear what?” asked the mighty buffalo, turning partly around.

“Rumpo and Bumpo are fighting again, in fun,” said Poko. “Come on!
Let’s go and see ’em!”

“I don’t think I care to,” answered Shaggo. “I’m going off by myself.”

This time the three buffaloes looked at one another.

“He certainly is queer!” declared Soako. “This is the first time I ever
knew him not to want to see Rumpo and Bumpo at play.”

“Well, come on,” said Poko, “or we’ll miss the fun!”

Then the three rushed off together toward that part of the Park from
which came the sound of heavy blows and loud bellowing. Rumpo and Bumpo
were having a great “fun fight.”

“Let them go,” said Shaggo to himself. “I’m tired of such nonsense! I
don’t like it here any more. I wonder what’s the matter with me! I’m
tired of everything! I feel very queer! I don’t know just what the
matter is, but I think something is going to happen!”




CHAPTER II

SHAGGO’S BIG JUMP


Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, wandered up to the top of a little hill.
Down below him was the mud wallow, and he was still covered with the
cool slime from its depths――slime that would keep away the bugs and
mosquitoes for some time.

“At least I don’t have to worry about them,” thought the great, shaggy
buffalo――the mightiest of all the herd. He looked across the prairie,
which formed part of the government preserve, and could see a crowd
of other shaggy animals like himself. In the midst of this throng he
noticed two figures moving nimbly about.

“That’s Rumpo and Bumpo butting each other,” said Shaggo to himself.
“Well, I hope they get some fun out of it. I don’t care for it any
more, though.”

Time was when Shaggo would have been among the first to rush up to see
two buffaloes ramming each other with their immense heads with their
heavy shock of hair. In fact, Shaggo would have shouldered his way
through the throng to a place well up in front. But now he did not
care to look on, even from a distance.

“I wonder what is the matter with me?” mused Shaggo. “I wonder what is
going to happen? I don’t like it here any more, though I used to think
it was the finest place in the world.”

Shaggo looked over as much of the range as he could see. It was so
large, however, that he could not see it all at once. There were woods
and prairies――flat lands and low lands and hills, wallows and “salt
licks.” These last were places where salt cropped up out of the ground,
and at certain seasons buffaloes, deer, elks and antelopes came to
these places to lick the ground with their tongues to get the taste of
salt. Salt is good for some wild animals, such as buffaloes. You may
have seen, on a farm, how the cows and sheep are sometimes given salt.
Often a lump of rock salt is put in the manger of a horse, for a little
salt is good for horses also.

As Shaggo looked over the buffalo preserve and saw the sun shining on a
part of the fence that was all around it, a new thought came into his
head. He sniffed the air, pawed the ground, sending up a little cloud
of dry dust, and then he said to himself:

“I know what the matter is! This place is too small for me! It isn’t
large enough! I’m tired of being fenced in!”

For there was a wire fence, many miles long, all around the Park. The
fence had to be there to keep the buffaloes from wandering away, and to
keep out bad white men and Indians, who might have come in to take away
or to shoot the buffaloes. Of course the men could have crawled under,
jumped over, or have cut the fence, but the wire being there told these
men that the Government wanted them to stay out, and the men knew the
Government would punish them if they did any harm to the herd of big
animals.

“Yes, this place isn’t large enough,” decided the mighty buffalo.
“I have heard stories, told by Wuffo, of his grandfather and their
friends. They never had to stay cooped up in a park with a fence all
around it. They could run and roam as they pleased. I don’t see why
I can’t! I’m going to! That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to run
away!”

However, it was one thing for a buffalo to make up his mind he was
going to run away from the Government Park, but it was quite another
thing to do it. All around the range, or National Park, was this
strong, high fence of wire. The men who put it up knew they must needs
make it extra strong on account of the big buffaloes, who are stronger
and larger than any bull of the farm pasture.

Shaggo knew about the fence. More than once, in the dark, he had bumped
against it, and more than once, on the sly, he and some other buffalo
calves had tried to break through it.

“But it can’t be broken,” said Shaggo, after he had tried several
times, with his companions.

“No,” agreed Poko, “I don’t believe it can. Anyhow, who wants to break
it? This place suits me.”

“And me, too,” said Soako and the others.

It had suited Shaggo, too, until this past week, when, somehow or
other, he had become discontented.

“And so I’m going to run away,” he decided. “I’ll get over or through
the fence, somehow, and see what’s on the other side.”

Shaggo, like many of the other buffaloes, had never been outside the
fence. Shaggo had been born inside, and had never been allowed to go
out.

“But I’m going now,” he told himself, as he walked down the hill and
over toward the others of the herd. By this time the “fun fight”
between Rumpo and Bumpo was over. Bumpo had won, having knocked down
Rumpo more times than Rumpo had knocked him down.

[Illustration: Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence.]

“Oh, Shaggo, you should have seen it!” bellowed Poko, as he ran up
alongside of the big buffalo.

“Yes, you surely missed it!” echoed Soako. “It was a great fun fight.”

“I guess I didn’t miss much,” replied Shaggo. “I had a good time off by
myself.”

“Humph! That’s the first time I ever knew anybody could have a good
time alone, unless he was eating or rolling in the mud,” said Poko in a
low voice to Soako.

“That’s right,” agreed the other. “Shaggo’s getting more and more
queer.”

And if these two buffalo friends could have known what Shaggo had
made up his mind to do――that is, run away――they would have been more
surprised than ever.

Once Shaggo had found out what made him discontented――that the Park was
not big enough for him――he began to look about for a way of getting out
of it. For several days he wandered around with the rest of the herd,
eating the grass here and there, drinking from the different springs,
going to the shade of the trees when the sun was too hot, or rolling in
the mud when the flies bit too hard.

And, all this while, Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence. But he
found none, and he was beginning to be discouraged.

“I wonder if I’ll get out?” he said to himself.

One day Shaggo separated himself from the rest of the herd. He could do
this easily, as, of late, he had not been very friendly, and the others
had come to let him alone.

“Shaggo is a bit cross and grouchy,” said Wuffo. “Just let him alone
until that spell wears off. Then he’ll be his same jolly old self
again.”

So when Shaggo wandered off alone, no one paid any attention to him.
Shaggo went up on top of a hill. From there he looked down and saw the
shiny wire fence that kept him from leaving the preserve.

A new idea came into Shaggo’s head. He looked at the fence and at a
thick clump of bushes and small trees that grew on the other side. The
fence was quite a distance below him.

“I believe I can do it!” cried Shaggo aloud to himself. He was quite
excited. “I believe if I took a run and gave a jump, I could leap down
from the top of this hill, over the fence and so down into the soft
bushes. It wouldn’t hurt me much, and I would be over the fence. Then
I’d be out! I’d be free and could roam where I pleased! That’s what
I’ll do! I’ll give a big jump down from this hill, over the fence and
get away!”

The more Shaggo thought of this idea the better he liked it. He looked
behind him. There was the rest of the herd calmly eating, chewing cud
or wallowing in the mud. Rumpo and Bumpo were again at their butting
fun fight game.

“None of that for me!” said Shaggo. “I’m going to run away, jump the
fence, and see the world. Good-bye, my buffalo friends!” he said,
though he was so far away the others could not hear him.

Shaggo did not have anything to pack to take away with him. He carried
his hump, or pack, on his big shoulders. Once more looking back toward
his friends and companions, Shaggo shook his head and pawed the dirt,
stamping his hoofs on the top of the hill.

“Here I go!” he said at last. He walked back a little way, and then
broke into a run. As he neared the edge of the hill Shaggo gave a big
jump, and launched himself outward and downward.

He held his legs stiff under him as he felt himself sailing through the
air.

“I’m going to clear the fence! This time I shall jump over it and land
on the other side!” thought Shaggo, as he leaped through the air. “At
last I am free! I am jumping away!”




CHAPTER III

SHAGGO IN A HOLE


Down, down, down through the air sailed Shaggo, the mighty buffalo,
after he had leaped from the cliff over the strong wire fence. He
looked toward the ground, to make sure he would not land on the fence
itself.

“For if I did that,” thought Shaggo, “my legs would get all tangled up,
and then I could never run away and find a big place in which to roam.
No, indeed! I don’t want anything like that to happen.”

So he was glad when he saw that he was going to land on the other side
of the fence. Once more he looked down. The earth seemed rushing up to
meet him, but of course he was only falling down to land on it.

“I’m going to fall into that clump of bushes, just as I thought I
should,” said the buffalo to himself.

A moment later he had crashed into the midst of a tangle of green
leaves and branches. Into the midst of the bushes fell the mighty
Shaggo. Down through them he went, breaking twigs and limbs of small
trees, for Shaggo was very heavy.

And in another instant Shaggo fell with a loud thud and a thump. He
fell on one side, landing on one of his front shoulders, and at once a
terrible pain shot all through his body. It was a much worse pain than
he had ever before felt, even when Wuffo, the oldest buffalo of all
the herd, had once butted Shaggo head over heels when Shaggo had done
something wrong. And it was a much worse pain than any Shaggo had felt
when Poko had shoved him with the short, black horns that all buffaloes
wear.

“Dear me, this is terrible!” thought Shaggo to himself, in the way
buffaloes have of thinking. “I wonder what I have fallen on.”

But he suddenly lost all power of thinking, for his senses seemed to
leave him, and all he knew was that he had fallen into a place that was
very, very dark and lonesome.

The fact was that Shaggo had fallen so hard that, for a while, he was
knocked senseless. If you have ever tumbled downstairs and have bumped
your head very hard, you perhaps know how it feels to lose your senses.
You seem to go to sleep before it is bedtime. Well, this is what
happened to Shaggo. He didn’t know what happened after he had jumped
and felt that sharp pain in his shoulder, except that it grew very
dark.

It was a real darkness, too, besides the dark that came when Shaggo
closed his eyes. The mighty buffalo was so strong that even his heavy
fall did not make him senseless very long. In a little while he opened
his eyes again. He could still feel the pain in his shoulder, but what
surprised him more than anything else was the darkness that was all
about him.

“This is very queer,” said Shaggo to himself. “When I started to run
away from our buffalo range it was daylight. That could not have been
so very long ago, yet it is now as dark as night. I wonder if I could
have been here all that while. Guess I’ll move about and see what the
matter is.”

Shaggo shook himself, thereby rousing himself and getting wider awake
from his queer sleep. He managed to scramble to his feet, but no sooner
had he done so than the pain in his shoulder grew sharper.

“Why――why!” exclaimed Shaggo, “I can hardly move. Ouch! Oh my, this is
terrible! I hope my leg isn’t broken!”

Shaggo knew what it was for a buffalo to have a broken leg. They hardly
ever lived to get over it, and he did not want anything like that to
happen.

So Shaggo moved each one of his four legs very carefully to see if any
of them was broken. But though his front left leg was very painful up
near his shoulder, it did not seem to be broken. But, oh, how it hurt
to move it!

“And yet I have to move it if I’m ever going to get out of this place,”
thought Shaggo. “Where am I, anyhow? It’s very dark, and yet I’m sure
it isn’t night. It doesn’t smell like night.”

Buffaloes, and other animals, are not like boys and girls. Animals can
tell many things by merely smelling, where we have to see things to
know what they are. And Shaggo could tell when it was daylight or night
by smelling. And though now, to his eyesight, it was dark all around
him, somehow or other he felt sure it was not the darkness of night.

“And if it isn’t night, then I must be in some sort of cave or hole,”
thought the mighty buffalo.

He knew what caves were, for on the buffalo range in the National Park
were some of these holes in the ground, where the big animals went in
to stay during the cold winter.

“Well, I’d better try to get out of here,” thought Shaggo. He wished
he might have some of his buffalo friends to whom to talk, but that
was out of the question. And Shaggo did not wish them the bad luck of
wanting them to be with him in his trouble. Yet, all the same, he
would have been glad to have seen even Rumpo and Bumpo now at their
game of bumping one another. But Shaggo, in a fit of temper, had run
off by himself, and now he must get out of his trouble as best he could.

“And I surely am in trouble,” thought poor Shaggo. “Oh, wow! What a
pain!”

He moved about a little in the darkness, and then he had to stand
still, for his leg hurt him so much. But Shaggo knew he could not stay
in the place into which he had fallen. The more he thought about it the
more he felt sure he had fallen into a pit.

“But I must see what sort of a place it is into which I have fallen,”
thought the mighty buffalo. His eyes were getting used to the darkness
now, and he could see a little. He noticed that he was down in a sort
of big hole. The bottom and sides were of earth, and Shaggo dug his
hoofs in as he had done on the soft prairie.

Slowly Shaggo walked around the pit. In most places the sides were too
steep for him to climb up. They were like the sides of a well, straight
up and down. But in one place there was a slope like that of a hill,
only it was a very steep hill.

“Now if there were only some rocks, like steps, in this hill I might
get up,” thought Shaggo. “I wonder if I could dig some steps with my
horns. I’ll try it.”

There was a little more light on this side of the cave, and Shaggo
could see to try to get up. He lowered his shaggy head, and with his
short, strong horns, dug out a little of the soft earth, hoping to make
some steps for himself. But as he moved his head from side to side, to
use his horns, the pain in his hurt shoulder was so sharp that again he
cried:

“Ouch!”

“This will never do!” said Shaggo to himself, as he stopped trying to
dig the steps. “I’ll never be able to get out this way. I must find
another path.”

He backed away from the spot where he had been trying to dig and again
slowly wandered about the hole. It was a much larger place than he had
at first thought, and as he slowly moved toward one end he saw that the
light was stronger.

“Maybe that’s a place where I can get out,” cried poor Shaggo. “I hope
it is! I’m not having very much fun so far!”

His shoulder was so painful that he could not run, as he wanted to.
But he managed to get nearer the place of the light, and then, to his
surprise, he saw an easy slope of earth leading up into what seemed to
be a large cave.

“Maybe this is the cave where a lot of us buffaloes stayed last
winter,” thought Shaggo. “If it is I’m all right――though I would still
be back on the range. No, I don’t see how this could be that cave――that
was inside the wire fence, and I surely jumped outside. Besides, I
don’t smell any buffalo smell, as I would if any of my friends had been
in this cave. It must be another.”

And it was, as Shaggo found a little later. The pit, into which he had
jumped through the bushes, was joined to a big cave under the mountain,
and by walking up a little hill of dirt, Shaggo was soon in the cave.
It was much larger than the pit, and lighter, too, and Shaggo was glad
of this.

“Now maybe I can find something to eat and drink,” thought the mighty
buffalo. “But, most of all, I want something to drink.”

So, making his way to the cave, Shaggo sniffed and smelled.

He wandered on and on in the big cave, which was getting lighter and
lighter. All of a sudden Shaggo stopped, lifted his head and sniffed
deeply.

“I smell water!” he bellowed aloud, he was so excited.

He started to run, but his shoulder hurt him so he had to slow down.
Then there came to his ears a musical gurgle.

“I hear water, too!” he said. “Now I can get a drink!”

He turned around a corner of rock and a moment later he saw a pool of
shining water in the cave.

“Oh, how good that looks!” cried Shaggo. “And how good it will taste!”

He made his way to the edge of the pool, but just as he was leaning
over to drink something very surprising happened. Up in the middle of
the pool shot a steaming hot column of water. It boiled, bubbled, and
hissed, and was so hot that Shaggo sprang back in alarm, uttering a
loud “wuff!”

“My! what’s this? What have I struck now?” thought the shaggy buffalo.




CHAPTER IV

SHAGGO AND THE ANTELOPES


Surprised by the hot, spouting column of water, just as he had been
about to take a drink, Shaggo leaped back in the cave. Then he stood
there, watching the water bubble and boil. It also steamed, for it was
very hot.

“This is very queer,” thought the mighty buffalo. “Hot water is all
right in a cold winter, maybe, but even then I’d have to let it cool
in the snow before I could drink it. But hot water in the summer is no
good at all. I wonder what makes this water so hot, and I wonder if it
will cool?”

Shaggo stood back, out of reach of the splashing, hot water, and looked
at it. Never before had he seen anything like that.

The column of hot, hissing water was shooting up from the middle of
what he had thought was a quiet pool. It shot up just as you may have
seen a fountain spurt in some city park, though of course Shaggo knew
nothing of cities or city parks. All his life he had lived on the
buffalo range, and though that was in what is called a National Park,
such as is the Yellowstone, Shaggo knew nothing of this.

“Well, there’s no use in trying to drink that hot water,” thought the
big buffalo. “If I wait a bit, though, it may cool. I guess I’ll do
that, for I’m very thirsty. If I had a drink of cool water I think my
shoulder would feel better.”

Shaggo moved back a little and lay down where he could watch the
spouting water. It was light in this part of the cave, and he could see
very well. For some time Shaggo lay there.

All at once, and as suddenly as it had begun, the water stopped
bubbling up, and the pool became quiet.

“Good!” exclaimed Shaggo to himself. “Now I can get a drink.”

When he got up his shoulder hurt him again, and he had to cry “ouch!”
several times before he managed to reach the edge of the pool, which
was in the middle of the rocky floor of the cave. Shaggo could tell by
sniffing that the water was cool now.

“And such a good drink as I’ll have!” he said to himself.

But just as he was about to put his nose down into the pool to drink,
again came that bursting, bubbling column of hot water, and Shaggo had
to leap quickly back for fear of being scalded.

“Oh, dear me! This is no good at all!” bellowed the shaggy buffalo,
shaking his big head and his hump that was covered with long, dark
brown hair. “This is a queer cave, where you can’t even get a drink of
cold water!”

Shaggo did not know what to do. The longer he waited the more he wanted
a drink, but he could not take that hot water.

“I’ll wait a little longer,” thought the runaway buffalo. “Maybe it
won’t happen again. It’s like somebody playing a trick on me. If Soako
or Poko were here I’d say they were doing it. But they are far away.
They didn’t jump over the wire fence as I did――and I almost wish, now,
that I hadn’t. I’m not having half as much fun as I thought I would.
The range was a better place for me than I thought.”

Once more Shaggo lay down near the hot, boiling spring. He waited until
the column of water stopped bubbling and then he tried, for the third
time, to get a drink. But when again it shot up, almost in his nose, he
gave a grunt and wuff and said:

“This settles it! I’m not going to fool away any more time here. I’m
going out of this cave and get a drink somewhere else! This is a crazy
sort of spring!”

Limping along, and shaking his big head, Shaggo turned to find a way
out of the cave. He knew that the place where the most light came in
was the place where he could get out, and he started for this. In a
little while he was outside, on the broad, rolling prairie. He looked
around him. Back in the distance he could see the wire-fenced buffalo
range, from which he had jumped in order to run away. He was so far off
now that he could not make out the forms of any of his animal friends.
Nor could they see him, he felt sure. To one side was a big tract of
woods, a dense forest, and in the other direction lay the prairies,
over which, years before, millions of buffaloes like Shaggo had roamed
as they pleased. Now there were only a few buffaloes left, and most of
them were in National Parks.

“Now to try for another place to get a drink,” said Shaggo to himself.
“I guess I’ll keep out of the woods for a while.”

Raising his big head, Shaggo sniffed the air. He was not quite sure,
but he thought that over toward the east, in the place where the bright
sun came up every morning, he could smell water.

“I’ll try that way,” said Shaggo to himself. He lumbered slowly along,
limping a little because of his hurt shoulder, and soon the smell of
water came stronger to his black nose.

All at once a voice that seemed to come from the ground on which Shaggo
walked cried:

“Hey there! Why don’t you look where you’re going? You almost put your
big foot in my house!”

“Your house? Where’s your house?” bellowed Shaggo. “I don’t see any.”

“No, because you’re up so high in the air,” went on the voice. “My
house is right down by your big hoofs, and if you don’t take care
you’ll tumble in the roof, and step on me!”

Shaggo looked down and saw a queer, light brown little animal sitting
near a hole in the ground.

“Who in the world are you?” asked Shaggo.

“I’m Yippi, the prairie dog,” was the answer. “Excuse me for speaking
so sharply to you, but if I hadn’t you’d have broken into my house.”

“I wouldn’t have done that on purpose,” said Shaggo. “I was so busy
sniffing for water that I didn’t see you. Is there a cool spring to
drink from around here? I found some water over in the cave, but it was
hot, and bubbled up under my nose.”

“Oh, that must have been one of those boiling geysers as they call
them,” explained Yippi. “I’ve heard my grandfather tell of them, but I
never saw one.”

“Well, I’ve seen one, and I don’t care for another,” went on Shaggo.
“Believe me, they’re no fun! Where can I get a cool drink?”

[Illustration: “Who in the world are you?” asked Shaggo.]

“You’re going in the right direction,” said Yippi, the prairie dog.
“Just follow your nose, and you’ll come to a fine spring. It’s a big
one where all we animal folk drink, but you have to take your turn.
Mine doesn’t come until after all the others are through, as I’m so
little, you see.”

“What do you mean――take your turn?” asked Shaggo. “When I’m thirsty I
take a drink――I don’t wait for any one.”

“Well, perhaps you can, as you’re so strong and big,” replied the
little prairie dog. “But I’m not sure. There are some other big
animals in this part of the country――bears, and antelopes with sharp
horns. They never bother me, though, for I run into my burrow and hide
whenever I hear any of them coming. Once a bear tried to dig me out
with his long claws.”

“What did you do?” asked Shaggo.

“Oh, I fooled him all right. While he was digging at my _front_ door,
I just slipped out at the _back_ and ran away. Ha! Ha! We prairie dogs
always have more than one hole door to our houses. But you’ll have to
excuse me. I must get some grass for dinner.”

“And I must get a drink,” said Shaggo. “Thank you for telling me about
the spring, and excuse me for almost stepping on you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” barked Yippi. Then the big buffalo turned away
and Yippi ran off to gather some grass and other things to eat.

As Shaggo walked on, going a bit slowly so his lame shoulder would not
hurt so much, the smell of water became more and more plain.

“And I surely hope it will not be a hot geyser spring this time,”
thought Shaggo. “I am so very thirsty!”

Over the rolling prairie, up little hills, and down in little valleys
walked the mighty buffalo. In about half an hour he came to the top of
a larger hill than any he had yet climbed. When he reached the top he
looked down the slope and saw, at the bottom, a shining pool of water.

“Oh, how good that looks!” thought Shaggo.

He hurried down the hill as fast as he could, and he kept sniffing the
air, to make sure there was no hot geyser that would spout up under his
nose. But the cool smell of the water did not change, and the mighty
buffalo began to take hope.

As he neared the water hole he could see around the edge the marks
of many animals in the mud. Some had paws and some had hoofs, like
himself. Suddenly, from under a bush near the water hole, a big,
fur-covered animal came out.

“Oh, so you’re going to get a drink, are you?” asked this animal.

“Yes, Mr. Bear, I am,” said Shaggo. “I hope you have no objection, but,
even if you have, I’m going to get a drink! My tongue is as dry as
dust.”

“Oh, get as many drinks as you please,” answered the bear. “I’ve had
mine, and now I’m going off to take a nap. But you want to look out for
the antelopes.”

“Who are they?” asked Shaggo.

“They are like deer, animals with sharp horns,” answered the bear. “It
is nearly time for them to come for their drink. Look out for them!”

“Pooh! I’m not afraid,” said Shaggo. “I guess I have as much right
to this water as they have, and I’d like to see them drive me away,
especially when I’m so thirsty!”

“Well, I’ve told you to look out――that’s all I can do,” said the bear,
as he walked slowly away.

Shaggo limped down to the pool. As he neared it he looked carefully
at it. He was afraid lest he might see some hot water spout up. He
was going to ask the bear if this was one of those geysers, but he
remembered the prairie dog had told him this was a good place to drink.
Besides, there were the marks of many other animals at the pool, and
they would not come if the water were hot.

“Now for a good drink!” said Shaggo.

The mighty buffalo dipped his muzzle deep into the pool as a thirsty
horse dips his nose into the watering trough. Long and deep drank
Shaggo, and then he lifted his head to get his breath. As he did so he
heard the rush of many feet, and, looking around, he saw rushing toward
him a herd of large animals, on whose heads were sharp horns.

“Here! Get away from our water hole! Let our drinking pool alone!”
cried some of the horned animals as they rushed toward Shaggo.

“Who are you?” asked the buffalo.

“The antelopes!” was the answer. “You have no right to drink until we
have finished. Come on, brothers!” cried the leader of the antelope
herd. “Let us drive this shaggy creature away!” And with his sharp
horns lowered this antelope, and several others, rushed straight at
Shaggo.




CHAPTER V

SHAGGO IN A TRAP


The mighty buffalo was no coward. There were some things of which
Shaggo was afraid, and one of them was the hot, bubbling, boiling,
geyser in the cave. But he was not afraid of animals like himself, not
even the big fierce grizzly bear. Shaggo felt that with his large,
heavy head and his horns, which were sharp and strong, if they were not
very long, he was a match for almost any other creature.

Of course Shaggo knew nothing of lions, tigers or elephants. Those
animals did not live in his part of the world and he had never seen a
circus. But of all the animals he knew, he was afraid of none.

So when Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, saw the herd of antelopes coming
at him, to drive him away from the drinking pool, he lowered his big,
bushy head, pawed the ground with his hoofs, stamped with one foot, and
bellowed loudly:

“Come on, all of you! I’m not afraid! I’m thirsty and I’m going to get
a drink. I would have taken a drink in peace, and gone off by myself
if you had let me alone, but if you want to fight I am ready!”

“Oh, you are, are you?” bleated the antelopes――several of them talking
in animal fashion at once. “Well, we’ll show you! This is our turn to
be at the drinking pool. You’d better run.”

But Shaggo did not run. He stood with his feet braced in the dirt, and
the rushing antelopes, with their sharp horns, came nearer and nearer.

Now one of them was so close to Shaggo that it seemed as if the buffalo
would be scratched by the horns. But the big buffalo swung a little to
one side, though his sore shoulder hurt him, and, with one sweep of his
great head, he knocked the first antelope head over heels, causing him
to roll in the dust.

“How do you like that?” bellowed Shaggo.

“Pooh! that’s only one. There are three dozen of us!” cried the next
antelope.

That animal, also, rushed at Shaggo, but once again the big buffalo
waited until the sharp-horned creature came close enough. Then with a
swing of his head, taking care not to let the antelope’s horns hurt
him, Shaggo sent this fellow rolling over and over away from the water
hole.

“Come on!” bellowed the buffalo. “I’m ready for you!”

He knocked down a third antelope, sending this one turning two
somersaults head over heels.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Shaggo. “This is like the game Rumpo and Bumpo used
to play! It’s lots of fun! It’s better than tag! Come on! Who’s going
to be the next?”

But now the rush of antelopes stopped. They were not used to being
knocked about in this way.

“Come on!” cried Shaggo, sort of laughing to himself. “I thought you
were going to drive me away from this water hole!”

“And so I am!” shouted another antelope, who had been at the rear of
the herd. “You can’t knock me down!”

With horns lowered he rushed at Shaggo, but the big buffalo was now
entering into the spirit of the fight. This time he shook his head
a little harder and gave it a wider sweep as the antelope came near
him. He sent this animal flying through the air so that he landed some
distance away in a clump of bushes.

“There! How do you like that?” cried Shaggo.

“I don’t like it at all,” was the answer of this antelope as he
scrambled to his feet.

“Then let me alone!” cried Shaggo. “Come on now, it’s my turn to have
some fun!” With that he rushed straight at the antelopes as they had
rushed at him. Some of the mother antelopes, who had small calves with
them, grew alarmed.

“Oh, look out!” cried these mothers, as they scampered away, calling to
their children to follow. “Our little ones will be hurt!”

“Look out for Shaggo! Look out for Shaggo!” was the cry on all sides
now. “He’ll knock us all head over heels!”

“That’s what I will!” said the mighty buffalo. “Here I come!”

He ran faster, shaking his great head, and the sun glistened on his
black horns, which, if they were not as long as those of the antelopes,
were much thicker.

“Come on! Let’s run!” cried one antelope; and this seemed to be the
best thing for them. Those who had been knocked down had got up, and,
in another instant, the whole herd was running away over the prairie
faster than they had run up to the water hole.

“Hum! Well, that wasn’t so bad! One buffalo making a whole herd of
antelopes run away!” laughed Shaggo in his own fashion, as he stopped,
raised his head and looked after the running creatures. “I have had one
good adventure, anyhow! Oh, but I wish my shoulder did not hurt so
much!” he added, as he felt a twinge of pain.

For now, when the excitement of fighting the antelopes was over, the
buffalo felt the pain more than ever. He limped back to the water hole,
after making sure that the antelopes had gone far enough away as not to
bother him, and took a long drink.

“I guess I’ll eat something and then go to sleep,” decided Shaggo,
when he had taken all the water he needed. “Then I can roam wherever
I please. I am no longer fenced in. There is no one to order me
about――not even Wuffo!”

He began to feel very important, but another twinge of pain in his
shoulder made him remember that his adventures were not all happy ones.

Shaggo was so tired because of his adventures, and from the pain in
his shoulder, that he slept all night. It was bright morning when he
awakened, and the first thing he wanted was a drink.

“I’ll go to the water hole and then I’ll eat my breakfast,” he said to
himself. “After that I’ll roam where I please and see what adventures I
may meet with.”

When Shaggo reached the water hole he saw, in the soft mud at the bank,
the marks of many feet. Among them were those of the antelopes.

“They came back and got their drink after I went away,” laughed Shaggo
to himself. He also saw the tracks of a bear and those of a mountain
lion. The mountain lion is not like the lion you may have seen in a
circus――it is more like a wild cat or a panther.

“Well, I’m not afraid of either a bear or a mountain lion,” thought
Shaggo, as he took his drink. “Still, with my sore shoulder, I’d just
as soon not have to fight them now. I wish my shoulder would get
better!”

It did not pain Shaggo so much as at first, but it was stiff and ached
when he walked. It seemed to be swelling, too, as he could see when he
looked at the reflection of himself in the water pool, which was like a
looking glass.

Now began the wanderings of Shaggo. They took him into many places, and
he had many adventures, about which I will tell you. To some of the
places Shaggo went himself. To others he was taken by men, whether he
liked it or not. And it was when he had to do with men that most of the
buffalo’s adventures took place.

Shaggo wandered over the prairie and up into the forests. Now and then
he met animal friends, but he did not meet other buffaloes, for they
were all on ranges in National Parks, as he had been.

Once Shaggo met a grizzly bear, who growled out a welcome, as he
clawed at a rotten stump to get something to eat.

“Where are the rest of you?” asked the bear.

“Whom do you mean?” asked Shaggo.

“The other buffaloes,” went on the bear. “Where are the others of the
herd? You buffaloes always travel in crowds.”

“Oh, I am off by myself looking for adventures,” was Shaggo’s answer.

“Well, I wish you luck!” growled the bear, as he shuffled away.

On and on traveled Shaggo. Now and then he stopped to crop the rich
grass, or to drink at some small water hole. He did not again come to
one as large as that at which he had fought the antelopes.

And once Shaggo accidentally stepped into the hole house of a prairie
dog. It was an old hole, and no one lived in it, but Shaggo tripped and
fell, hurting his sore shoulder very much.

“Oh dear!” groaned the buffalo, and he felt so bad that he stretched
out on the grass and did not get up again for some time. But at last
the pain eased somewhat, and then the mighty buffalo wandered on,
looking for a place to sleep.

The next morning, on a distant hill, Shaggo saw some small figures,
like black dots moving about.

“I wonder if they can be buffaloes?” thought Shaggo. He watched them
carefully, and then he knew the black dots were men moving about, some
on horses. Shaggo was more or less acquainted with men. He had seen
them in the National Park, and once he had been very close to several
who had come to mend the broken wire. The men had not tried to hurt the
buffaloes, so Shaggo and his companions were not afraid of them.

“But maybe they are trying to get me inside the fence again,” thought
Shaggo. “I am not ready to go back to the preserve yet. I’m going to
run away farther.”

So he trotted down into a valley, where the men could not see him,
and traveled on. But the next day Shaggo saw the men again, and there
seemed to be more of them.

For a week or more Shaggo wandered on, now and then seeing the men
again. Sometimes they were near, and again far off. Then, one day,
something happened which was the beginning of many strange adventures
for the buffalo.

He had eaten his fill of sweet, green grass when he felt a longing for
some salt. Animals often have this desire. On the range, from which
he had run away, Shaggo knew of several places where there were “salt
licks.” There the ground was white with salt, and the animals could
lick it up with their tongues.

“I wish I could find such a place now,” thought Shaggo. “I’d like to
have some salt!”

To Shaggo, just then, salt would have been as good as a lollypop would
taste to you. So the buffalo hunted about on the prairie, and at last,
to his joy, he found a few grains of salt.

“It isn’t very much, but it’s better than nothing,” he said to himself
as he licked it up. Then, as he walked on, he found that the salt
seemed to extend in a long, thin line toward a little valley.

“Oh, maybe there’s a lot of salt there!” thought Shaggo. “I’ll follow
this thin line along, and get all I want!”

He licked up the salt as he slowly followed its line, never raising
his head to look about him. If he had, Shaggo would have seen, hidden
behind the bushes, several men.

“We’ve got him now!” whispered one of the men.

“Almost,” said another in a low voice. “I thought the salt would get
him!”

Shaggo kept on licking up the salt, moving forward until he saw, just
ahead of him, a pile of the white crystals. This salt was under what
seemed to be a shed, but as the buffalo had often gone into a shed on
the range he was not afraid of this one.

“At last I have found just what I want――a big salt lick,” thought
Shaggo to himself. “I surely am in luck to-day!”

He made a rush under the shed, where he could get a quantity of the
salt at once instead of only a few grains at a time. But no sooner had
he passed into the shed and begun to lick up the salt greedily, than
something happened.

There was a bang and a crash behind him! Shaggo raised his head and
turned quickly. The shed had been open on one side――the place where
the buffalo had entered. But now this side was closed. And, to his
surprise, Shaggo found himself shut up in a small house made of heavy
logs.

“We’ve got him!” cried the voices of men outside. “We have him now!”

Shaggo made a rush against the log door that had fallen shut behind
him. But with all his strength he was not able to knock it open. He was
hurled back, his shoulder hurting him dreadfully. And then, as more men
ran up, shouting, Shaggo knew what had happened.

“I’m caught in a trap!” bellowed the mighty buffalo.




CHAPTER VI

SHAGGO ON A TRAIN


The men who had been watching Shaggo from afar for many days had, at
last, caught the mighty buffalo in a trap. They had seen him wandering
about the prairies and in the forest, and had made up their minds to
try to catch him.

“But that must be a buffalo from one of the Government Parks,” one
of the men had said. “There are no wild buffaloes roaming about now.
They are all on preserves, and belong to the Government or to private
owners.”

“That doesn’t make any difference to us,” said the rest of the men.
“This buffalo is loose, and, if we can catch him, he’s ours.”

“But what can you do with him?” asked the man who had first objected.
“If the Government finds that you have him they’ll take him away from
you.”

“Nobody will find out,” declared the other men, who did not seem to
care how wrongfully they acted. “We’ll catch this lone, big buffalo in
a trap, and sell him to a circus or some zoo. Then we’ll get a lot of
money.”

“I’m not going to have anything to do with it,” said the first man.

But the bad men made up their minds they would catch Shaggo, and so
they laid their plans. They gradually came nearer and nearer to him,
and, to keep out of their way, Shaggo traveled in just the direction
the men wanted him to. They were slowly driving him toward a lonely
valley where they had set a trap.

“And to get him into the trap before he knows it, we’ll sprinkle some
salt along the way,” said one of the men. “Buffaloes like salt. He’ll
follow a salt trail and be in the trap before he knows it.”

And this is just what happened. Shaggo was so eager to get the salt
that he never noticed where he was going until he heard the trap door
slam shut behind him, and then he was caught.

“Now we’ve got him!” cried the men, as they rushed up.

Shaggo, when he knew that he was caught, tried to get away. His head
was big and strong and hard. He had often knocked down fence posts, and
butted over other buffaloes, just as he had knocked down the antelopes.
So now Shaggo thought he could knock a hole in the trap and get out. He
tried it, but the logs of which the trap was made were stronger than
the buffalo’s head. He only felt himself hurled back, making his sore
shoulder hurt worse than ever. After trying this two or three times
Shaggo gave up.

[Illustration: Shaggo, when he knew he was caught, tried to get away.]

“It’s of no use,” he sadly said to himself. “I’m caught. I may as well
make the best of it. I guess my adventures are over.”

But Shaggo was wrong about this――his adventures were just beginning.

The men who had built the trap gathered around to peer in through the
cracks at Shaggo.

“He’s a big fellow!” said one.

“The largest I’ve ever seen,” added another.

The men talked for a while around the log cage they had made to catch
Shaggo. He could see them through the cracks, as they could see him.
The buffalo did not care for the salt any more, though there was still
plenty of it on the ground inside the trap. Instead Shaggo began to
feel very thirsty.

“I could almost drink some of that hot water in the cave,” thought the
big buffalo to himself. “My, how thirsty I’m getting!”

And so, a little later when Shaggo suddenly saw one end of the trap
open and noticed, just beyond it, a pail of water, the buffalo rushed
forward to get a drink. He could smell the water and knew it was good.

“Ha! He’s doing just what we wanted him to,” said one of the men,
though of course Shaggo did not know what they were saying, as he only
understood animal talk.

“Yes, he’s going into the smaller cage. Now we can put him on a wagon
and ship him off to some circus. Then we’ll get our money,” went on
another man.

What they had done was this. They had made a cage of strong wood with
a single door to it. This cage had been placed near the trap, and a
pail of water was set inside the cage. Then the trap door was opened so
Shaggo could walk out into the cage to get a drink.

And the buffalo had done that. He did not know he was walking from
the trap into a traveling cage, but that is what he had done. All he
thought of was the drink, just as all he had thought of, before, had
been the salt.

So Shaggo walked into the cage and, while he was drinking, the door was
shut behind him.

“Now we can easily handle him,” said one of the men. “We shall have no
more trouble with this buffalo.”

Poor Shaggo looked about him. He was in a much smaller place than he
had ever been in before. The cage, which was made of strong branches of
trees, was just large enough for him to turn around, but not to run or
jump.

“I thought I was cramped, and had no room on the range in the Park,”
said Shaggo to himself, as he looked at the narrow cage. “But I had a
thousand times as much room there as I have here. I guess I was foolish
to jump over that fence. All I have gotten out of it, so far, is a
sprained shoulder and some salt. I could have got the salt by staying
at home. As for the sore shoulder, I don’t want that at all. It hurts
too much, and it seems to be growing bigger. I wonder why that is?”

But Shaggo had no time to wonder much about himself. He was too anxious
over what the men were going to do. He could easily see them through
the wooden bars of his cage, but he could not reach them with his hoofs
or his horns. Perhaps it is a good thing he could not, for he might
have tried to trample on them, or knock them down.

“Get the cage up on the wagon,” said one of the men, “and we’ll take
this buffalo to the train and ship him off. Then no one will know that
we have one of the Government animals.”

Shaggo did not understand this talk, of course. But he saw a lot of men
coming toward him and he began to trample around in the cage.

“Look out! He’ll get loose!” shouted one of the men, as he sprang away.
“I don’t want him to horn me!”

“Oh, he won’t get out!” another man said. “I made that cage good and
strong on purpose. It will hold a grizzly bear or a buffalo.”

And, surely enough, Shaggo could not get out, try as he might. He did
not care so much about hurting the men as he did about getting loose,
but he could do neither. The cage shook and rattled, but it held firm,
and a little later the men hoisted it up on a wagon, pulling and
hauling it by ropes.

“Now we’re ready to go to the train,” cried the man who seemed to be
the leader.

Horses were hitched to the wagon. At first one of them shied when he
caught sight of Shaggo and smelled the wild, buffalo odor. But Shaggo
was not afraid of horses. He had often seen them in the big, National
Park. And not all horses are afraid of buffaloes. It is only horses
that never have seen the big, shaggy creatures that show signs of fear.

It was a new adventure for Shaggo to be given a ride instead of walking
or running on his own legs. Never before, in all his life, had he
ridden on a wagon. But he was soon to have a stranger ride than this.

Off over the prairie went the big wagon, with the buffalo on it in a
cage. The sun grew hot and the men threw a piece of tent cloth over
the cage to shade Shaggo, and the buffalo was glad of this.

The men were not cruel to him, for they gave him grass and hay, and
also water to drink on the journey. But for all that the buffalo
wished himself out of the cage. The jolting of the wagon made his sore
shoulder ache more and more.

Toward evening, after the piece of canvas had been taken off, Shaggo
caught sight, through the bars of his cage, of several buildings.

“We’ll stay here to-night,” said one of the men. “Then go on to the
railroad in the morning.”

In the morning the wagon started off once more. In about two hours
Shaggo saw a lot of black smoke.

“Oh, the prairies must be on fire!” thought the buffalo. He had heard
Wuffo tell of prairie fires. But the men did not seem to be alarmed.

“There’s the smoke from the train!” called one of the men. “Drive fast
or we’ll miss it!”

The horses galloped, and soon the wagon, with Shaggo on it in the
cage, drew up beside a train. The mighty buffalo, strong as he was,
felt frightened at the strange sights, sounds, and smells. Black smoke
poured from a snorting monster that Shaggo, later, came to know was a
steam locomotive. Then there was the rumbling of big cars that looked
like boxes on wheels. Then came a loud shriek, such as ten or twenty
prairie wolves might have given if they all howled at once.

Shaggo, in the cage, was soon loaded into a box car, and the door was
pulled shut.

“It’s as dark as it was in the hole where I landed after I jumped the
fence!” thought the caged buffalo. “I wonder what will happen next? I
don’t like it here!”

For some time nothing happened, except that there was a constant
rumbling and roaring as the train puffed over the prairies. Shaggo
could see nothing, and no one seemed to be in the car with him. After
a while, however, the door was opened and a man came in to give the
buffalo some hay and water. Then the door was shut again and it was
once more dark. Shaggo did not enjoy his first train ride.

All of a sudden, the mighty buffalo was awakened from his sleep by a
great crash. It was like a hundred thunder storms made into one. At the
same time Shaggo felt himself tossed up and around and shaken from side
to side. Then he felt himself sliding out of the car door, while, all
about him, he heard wild shouts and a great racket.




CHAPTER VII

SHAGGO IN A CIRCUS


Shaggo was at first so shaken up and tumbled about, and his shoulder
hurt him so much from having been hit against the side of his cage,
that the buffalo did not know what had happened. But he saw that he was
no longer in the darkness of the box car into which he had been placed
for his train ride. He could look out and up through the wooden bars,
and he could see the stars shining above him, just as he had seen them
in the National Park.

“But I can’t be back at the Park, where Rumpo and Bumpo are always
butting one another and playing jokes,” thought Shaggo. “I don’t
believe I am back there. Never did we have such noises there as I hear
all about me. It’s enough to make one deaf!”

Well might Shaggo say that, for on all sides was the hissing of the
steam engines, the blowing of whistles, the crackle of flames and the
shouting of men. Though Shaggo did not know it, the train on which
he had been riding in the box car had been in collision with another
train. There was a wreck. Shaggo’s car was broken open and his cage
had slid out. That was what had happened. It was the first railroad
wreck in which Shaggo had ever found himself, and no wonder he did not
know what it was.

“All I can say is that I don’t care very much for this, whatever it
is,” said the buffalo to himself.

Pretty soon some men came running along the track toward Shaggo, who
was standing in his cage looking out at the stars.

“Well, thank goodness, the buffalo didn’t get loose!” said one of the
men.

“That’s right,” chimed in another. “If he’d gotten loose there would be
a lot of trouble.”

By this time Shaggo was getting used to the sight and smell of men,
though of course he did not know what they were saying. He no longer
tried to break out of his cage when they came near him. But had he
known that he was in a railroad wreck the buffalo might have tried
to escape. For, as was found out afterward, one part of the cage was
broken, and, had Shaggo tried, he could have slipped out. But he did
not know, and so he stayed inside the bars until, after a while,
another train was made up to take the place of the wrecked one, and
Shaggo was put on board that. Then, once again, off he started, just
where to he did not know.

All he knew was that he did not at all like it in the dark, even
though, now and then, men came in to give him hay and water.

Sometimes these men talked to Shaggo, and when daylight came, and the
door of his car was left open, letting in light and air, one of the men
stayed some little time, looking at the buffalo.

“My, but you’re a big fellow! The circus will be glad to get you,” he
said.

Shaggo was so lonesome, by this time, that he moved over toward the
side of the cage where the man stood, and put out his tongue. Perhaps
Shaggo hoped to get a bit of salt. But the man had none. However, the
man reached his hand in through the bars of the cage and patted the
shaggy animal on the back. By accident he touched the animal’s sore
shoulder.

Shaggo jumped back and let out a loud bellow, a sound such as a bull
makes in a farmer’s pasture.

At last, after several days’ travel, during which he was never let out
of the car, following the railroad wreck, Shaggo noticed that the train
was standing still. Then his car was sent back and forth, in little
jerks at a time, until finally it gave a big bump, shaking Shaggo up
rather badly, and then it was still.

“Well, I wonder what’s going to happen now,” thought the great buffalo.
“I hope they let me out of this cage, or trap, or whatever they call
it. I want to run around and get some green grass and some salt, and
I want to drink at the water pool. I wonder if I can run any more? My
shoulder seems very much larger, and it is stiff. It doesn’t hurt me as
much as when I first fell on it, after my big jump, but I wonder if I
can run with it this way?”

He tried to get a look at his shoulder, but it was still dark in his
car. Suddenly, however, the door was opened. The flood of sunlight
almost blinded Shaggo for a moment, and then he saw some men come in.
They had ropes and boards.

“What is going to happen?” thought Shaggo.

The men talked among themselves.

“So that’s the buffalo, is it?” asked one.

“Yes, that’s the one the boss bought somewhere out West,” said another
man. “We haven’t any buffaloes in our circus, and the boss thought it
would be good to have one. Say, look at his hump, would you! Isn’t it
big?”

“He has two humps!” said another man.

They approached nearer the cage, opened the other door of the car and
looked closely at Shaggo.

“No, that swelling on his shoulder isn’t a hump,” said the first man.
“Maybe he got hurt in the train wreck. I heard he was in one. We’ll
have our animal doctor take a look at him.”

Shaggo sniffed at the men as they stood near his cage. He seemed to
know they would not hurt him, and so he did not stamp around, bellow or
try to break out as they put ropes around his cage and pulled it toward
the door of the freight car. After a while the cage was slid down some
planks, as barrels are rolled into a cellar, and then the cage was
hoisted up on a wagon.

It was a much larger wagon than the one Shaggo had ridden on after he
had been caught in the trap. And it was a much nicer wagon, too, for
it was painted red, yellow, and green, though of course the buffalo
did not know much about such colors. The green of the grass, the
whiteness of salt and the blueness of the water he drank were about all
the colors Shaggo knew. True he had seen the beautiful colors of the
sunset, but I doubt if he really paid much attention to them. And, in a
way, the wagon was almost the colors of sunset. It was a circus wagon
on which Shaggo was now riding.

Over the buffalo’s cage was thrown a heavy piece of canvas――a part of
one of the tents――and then Shaggo was drawn through the city streets.
He did not know he was in a city, for he had never seen one before, but
there he was. And after a long, rumbling ride the buffalo came to rest.
The cover was taken off his cage, and for the first time in his life
Shaggo found himself inside a circus barn.

It was not a circus tent, for the show was in what is called its
“winter quarters.” It is no time for a circus to travel about, giving
performances in a tent, when weather is cold. Cold is not good for many
circus animals, so in winter they are kept in warm barns. And it was in
one of these barns that Shaggo now found himself.

“Hello,” called a man to the driver of the wagon. “Did you get the new
buffalo?”

“Yes, he’s here,” was the answer.

“Let’s get him into a wagon cage,” went on the first man. “The circus
will soon start out on the road. This is the first buffalo we’ve ever
had. Let’s get a look at him.”

A crowd of men gathered around Shaggo to look at him. Some put their
hands in and stroked his shaggy coat of hair.

“Look out for that swelled shoulder of his,” warned one of the circus
men. “I guess he got a bump in the train wreck, and he’s sore. We’ll
have to doctor him up a bit.”

“All right. But let’s get him into one of the regular cages now, where
he’ll have more room,” suggested another. “Later on, when he’s tamed a
bit, we may be able to let him be out in the open, like the camels and
elephants.”

Shaggo did not understand this talk. All he knew was that he was tired,
hungry and thirsty. The wagon, on which his cage rested, was backed
up to another wagon, which was really a cage on wheels. In this cage
hay and water were put, and the two doors were opened. Shaggo looked
around a bit, and, seeing something to eat and something to drink in
the larger cage, into it he walked. The iron-barred door clanged shut
on him, but Shaggo paid little attention to this. He took a long drink,
and then began to eat some hay.

“We’ll leave him alone for a while,” said the men, and they walked off.

Shaggo was so hungry that all he did for a time was to eat. He put his
black nose down in the pile of hay and took a large mouthful. While he
was chewing this he saw something long and thin suddenly thrust itself
in between the bars of his cage. All at once Shaggo was much excited.

“A snake! A snake!” cried Shaggo in animal talk. “Oh, what a big
rattlesnake! Here, get out of my cage!” he rumbled.




CHAPTER VIII

SHAGGO AND TUM TUM


Shaggo knew what rattlesnakes were, for sometimes, in the hot summers,
they were seen in the National Park on the buffalo range.

He had heard his father and mother, as well as Wuffo, the old bull
leader of the herd, speak of rattlesnakes, and tell what great pain
followed if a buffalo were bitten on the leg or the nose by one. So
when Shaggo saw the long, snaky thing stuck into his cage, near the
bunch of hay, the buffalo cried:

“Get out of here!”

“Easy now! Easy!” answered a voice, which was almost as rumbly as his
own, and not at all like the hissing talk of a snake. “I am not going
to hurt you.”

“I don’t know whether you are or not,” answered Shaggo, shrinking back
into a corner of his cage. “But I was always told to keep away from
rattlesnakes; and, though you haven’t rattled yet, I’m sure you’re one
of those crawling serpents.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the other voice. “That’s where you’re fooled.
Though I’m sorry that I frightened you. Look up and you’ll soon see
that I am not a snake. Though I must admit my long trunk does twist
like one.”

Shaggo looked up and to one side. He saw a great, gray-colored animal,
much larger than himself, standing near his cage. And it was this
animal that had thrust in between the bars, something that the buffalo
had taken for a snake. Then he saw it was not――that it was part of the
great animal.

“Well, I see you’re not a snake,” said the buffalo; “but, if it’s all
the same to you, please take your tail out of my hay.”

“This isn’t my tail,” went on the big creature. “My tail is on the
other end. This is my trunk that you see.”

“Your trunk!” cried Shaggo. “What do you do with a trunk?”

“It is really only my nose, made extra long so I can pick up things
with it and feed myself,” was the answer.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Shaggo, who was beginning to feel friendly toward
this new, big circus animal. “Do you mean to tell me you can pick up
things with your nose?”

“Of course I can!” was the answer. “Do you want to see me? If you don’t
mind I’ll take a little of your hay. It is fresher than mine.”

“Help yourself,” replied Shaggo.

The long thing, which Shaggo had thought was a snake, was once more
thrust in between the bars of his cage. And then, to his surprise, the
buffalo saw that on the end of the long object was something like a
finger and thumb. This picked up a wisp of hay, more hay was encircled
in a coil of the trunk, and then the fodder was lifted up and stuffed
down a large, red mouth.

“There, Shaggo, as I heard the circus men call you, do you believe I
can pick up things with my nose?” asked the big animal.

“Yes,” answered the buffalo, “I do. But I never would have believed
it if I had not seen it. Who are you, if you please, and what are you
called?”

“I am Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,” was the answer. “I have been in the
circus for some time, and I am glad that you have come to live with
us. I suppose you are a new kind of sacred cow, for those are the only
animals I ever saw with humps on their backs, except the camels, and I
know you aren’t a camel. You’re too good-looking to be a camel, though
the camels are friends of mine,” went on the jolly elephant, who never
spoke a bad word against any of his circus companions.

“No, I am not a camel, nor am I a sacred cow,” said Shaggo. “I did not
know there were any animals other than myself who had humps.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tum Tum. “Look over there and you can see the camels.”

Shaggo looked, as Tum Tum pointed with his trunk, and saw some rather
ugly animals chewing hay. Some had two humps and some had one.

“They are taller than I am, but they are not so strong,” said Shaggo.
“And they have no horns. I should not object to meeting them in a
fight.”

“Oh, my dear Shaggo! We never think of fighting!” laughed Tum Tum. “All
of us, here in the circus, are friends. You’ll soon get used to us.”

“Yes, I suppose I shall, after my sore shoulder stops hurting,” said
the buffalo.

“Is that where your shoulder is swelled?” asked Tum Tum. “I’m sorry. I
heard some of the circus men talking about it. At first I thought you
had two humps, like some of the camels.”

“No, there is something queer growing on my shoulder,” went on Shaggo.
“It hurts and I don’t like it. But perhaps I got that for running away.”

“Did you run away?” asked Tum Tum, and he took a little more of the
buffalo’s fresh hay. “I did once, but I was glad to run back. Tell me
about it, please.”

So in animal talk Shaggo told Tum Tum how the big jump had been made
over the fence and how the buffalo had hurt himself.

He turned to get a drink of water from the tub full in his cage when,
all of a sudden, he heard a loud, roaring sound.

“What’s that?” asked Shaggo of Tum Tum.

“Oh, that’s Nero, the circus lion,” was the answer. “He smells the meat
the men are bringing for his dinner, and he’s telling them how glad he
will be to get it.”

“Well, I don’t know who Nero is,” remarked Shaggo, “but he certainly
makes a lot of noise.”

“Who is talking about me?” roared the lion, whose cage was not far from
that of the buffalo.

“It’s a new circus animal,” answered Tum Tum. “Nero, allow me to
introduce you to Shaggo, the mighty buffalo.”

“Pleased to meet you,” roared Nero. “Were you ever in a book?”

“Did you say a _brook_?” asked Shaggo. “Yes, I have often waded in a
brook. It’s lots of fun, isn’t it?”

“No, I didn’t say _brook_!” roared Nero, who was not impolite. That was
his lion manner of speaking. “I said _book_. I don’t know how you spell
it, but it’s something that tells stories of animals.”

[Illustration: “Pleased to meet you,” roared Nero.]

Shaggo shook his head.

“No,” he answered, “I don’t believe I was ever in a book. Though Wuffo,
the leader of our herd, used to tell stories of the days when millions
of buffaloes wandered over the prairies.”

“He must have been in a book to know about stories,” said Nero. “I’m in
a book; and so is Tum Tum and several of us circus animals. Chunky, the
happy hippo, is in a book, too. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll eat.
Here comes the meat I was hoping for.” And Nero, the big circus lion,
growled and roared his thanks to the man who brought him some bones and
a chunk of meat.

“Well,” thought Shaggo, “I don’t know anything about this book
business, but if it will cure my aching shoulder the sooner I get in
a book the better. I say!” he suddenly called to Tum Tum. “Who’s that
funny animal with the long tail? It looks as if somebody got hold of
it, stretched it away out long and that it stayed that way. Who is he?”

“That’s Mappo, the merry monkey,” was the answer. “He’s in a book,
too,” went on the elephant, “and he has had many adventures.”

“Indeed I have,” said Mappo, with a laugh. “And let me tell you,
Shaggo, that nobody stretched out my tail. It was always long that way,
so I could swing by it from trees in the jungle. But now I only swing
from this trapeze in my cage, or hang by a bar in the big tent when I
do tricks, after the circus starts on the road. Watch me!”

As he spoke Mappo gave a jump across his cage, caught his tail on the
bar of a swinging trapeze, and swayed to and fro like the pendulum of a
clock.

“That’s quite a trick!” cried Shaggo. “I could never do that, though
once I did give a big jump.”

The buffalo was beginning to like it in the circus, and he told his new
friends so.

“Oh, the fun here in the winter barns is nothing to what will happen
when the circus starts out on the road and we show in a tent in a
different city every day,” said Tum Tum. “I’m just waiting for that
time to come!”

“So am I!” chattered Mappo, the merry monkey.

Sometimes Tum Tum, and again Nero or Mappo, would be taken out of the
barn where they had been stationed near Shaggo. Then, in an hour or so,
men would bring them back.

“Where have you been?” Shaggo would ask.

“To practise our tricks,” Tum Tum answered. “We are getting ready to
travel out on the road.”

In another week Shaggo noticed a busy time in the barn. Men began
touching up the wagons with paint, new wheels were put on some, and
then, one day, dozens of horses came in and were hitched to the cages
that could be drawn from place to place.

“Hurray! Now we are going to travel!” said Tum Tum.

Shaggo’s cage was drawn outside the barn, and for the first time in
many weeks the buffalo saw the shining sun and felt the warm summer
breezes blowing on him. His cage was rolled to one side, and the horses
went back into the barn to haul out others.

How it happened no one seemed to know, but, all of a sudden, Shaggo’s
cage, with him in it, began to roll down a hill. It went slowly at
first, but soon began to roll faster, and men cried:

“Oh look! The buffalo will be hurt! His cage will roll down on the
rocks and be smashed!”




CHAPTER IX

SHAGGO MEETS DON


Shaggo himself, in his circus cage, soon began to feel that something
was wrong. It was not that he minded rolling along in his strange
house on wheels, but this time he was not being drawn by horses as he
had been at first. He could look out through the bars and see that no
horses were hitched to his cage. They had been taken back into the
circus barn. And yet Shaggo’s cage was rolling along. It was rolling
downhill, and going faster and faster all the while.

“Stop it! Somebody stop the buffalo’s cage!” cried the circus men, and
several of them ran after it. But they were too far away, and Shaggo’s
cage might have gone down the hill and been broken open on the rocks
and trees at the bottom, only for what Tum Tum did.

The jolly elephant saw that something was wrong, and, in a way, Tum Tum
understood men’s talk. His trainer had taught him to stand on his head
and lie down, and whenever he heard these words Tum Tum knew what to
do. So, when the big, jolly elephant heard the men shouting he knew
something had happened. He looked toward the rolling cage, with the
buffalo in it. By this time Shaggo was beginning to feel frightened.

“If there’s a smash my sore shoulder will be hurt again! Ouch! I don’t
want that to happen!” thought Shaggo. Then he bellowed out:

“Somebody stop my cage from going to smash!”

“I’ll save you! I’ll stop your cage!” cried Tum Tum.

The big elephant ran down the little hill until he was in front of the
buffalo’s cage. Even if he was almost as large as a small house, Tum
Tum could run fast. It did not take him long to put himself in front of
the rolling cage. Then with his big head lowered, Tum Tum stood still,
and when the cage came along it bumped gently into the elephant and
came to a stop. Shaggo was not shaken up at all.

“Oh, look!” cried the circus men. “Tum Tum stopped the buffalo’s cage
from going to smash.”

“Yes, you can always depend on Tum Tum,” said the elephant’s keeper.
“He’s a smart beast.”

“Thank you, so much, Tum Tum,” said Shaggo, in animal talk, as he
looked out through the bars and saw what his new friend had done. “You
saved my lame shoulder from being bumped.”

“I’m glad I did,” replied the elephant. “Now keep still, Shaggo, and
I’ll push your cage back up the hill where you’ll be all right.”

Shaggo was a very strong and mighty buffalo, but as he looked at the
immense head and legs of the elephant while Tum Tum pushed the wagon
back up the hill, Shaggo thought:

“Here is one who is mightier than I.”

There were busy times for the next few days. The cage of Shaggo, as
well as the cages of the other animals, together with the tents, the
stoves, the band wagons, the steam calliope wagon and all the other
things that go to make up a circus were loaded on railroad cars, and
the circus started on its summer wanderings.

By this time Shaggo was getting used to traveling on a railroad, and
did not mind it much. In the same car with him was a cage in which a
handsome black and yellow striped animal paced up and down.

For some time this animal did not speak to Shaggo. He kept marching up
and down in his cage, and, now and then, he would rise up on his hind
legs and paw at the iron bars.

“Excuse me,” said Shaggo, after a while, “but are you trying to get
loose?”

“No. I know better than to try that,” was the answer. “I have been in
my cage so long I am used to it now. But at times I wish I might go
back to my jungle.”

“I have heard Tum Tum and Mappo speak of the jungle,” said Shaggo. “You
are neither an elephant nor a monkey. What are you?”

“I am a tame tiger, and my name is Tamba,” was the reply.

“I am glad to meet you,” said Shaggo, and he told his name. “I am a
buffalo.”

“Yes, I know you are,” said the tiger.

“You did? How?” asked Shaggo in surprise. “I am the only buffalo in the
circus, and――”

“Oh, but I have seen buffaloes in the jungle,” said Tamba. “They are
not exactly like you, and their horns are longer. We call them water
buffaloes, but they are near enough like you so that I knew who you
were. But you seem to have two humps; how is that?”

“That swelling on my shoulder is not a hump,” answered Shaggo. “It is
where I hurt myself when I leaped over the fence as I ran away from the
range.”

“Then you are a runaway!” exclaimed Tamba.

“Yes,” answered Shaggo, somewhat sadly, for his shoulder hurt him more
than ever. “I thought I was such a mighty buffalo that the preserve,
in the Park, was too small for me. I thought I was the strongest animal
in the world――until I saw Tum Tum. He would make two of me.”

“Yes, Tum Tum is the greatest of all animals,” said the tiger. “But,
with all that, he is kind and gentle, and the jolliest friend you could
ever have.”

“I can easily believe that,” rumbled Shaggo. “Well, I ran away, and now
I can not get back. I must make the best of it.”

“Oh, you’ll like it here in the circus,” said Tamba. “We have good
times after we get started, and it is fun to watch the people come and
see us. Besides we do tricks. Do you know any?”

“No,” Shaggo answered, “I don’t know any tricks.”

“And I don’t believe you are the kind of animal they would teach tricks
to,” said the tiger. “Never mind, you are good to look at, and very
odd, with your two humps. I shouldn’t be surprised but what they would
advertise you, and put you in a book.”

“I know a little of what it means to be in a book,” said Shaggo. “I
heard Tum Tum and Mappo speak of that. But what is ‘advertise’? That is
a word I never heard before.”

“It means put your name and your picture on the billboards and on the
posters that go up all over town when the circus is to show,” explained
the tiger. “I’m on the pictures, and so is Nero and Tum Tum, and also
Chunky, the happy hippo. He always has his picture taken with his mouth
wide open.”

“What for?” asked Shaggo.

“Oh, it’s the biggest part of him; and I suppose he is rather proud of
it,” answered Tamba. “It is my stripes that show best. You should see
some of my latest pictures.”

“I hope I may,” said Shaggo, politely.

“And I hope I shall see yours,” went on Tamba. “Not all circus animals
get their pictures on the posters, but I think you will. And now,
if you will excuse me, I think I’ll go to sleep. We may have a long
ride before our cages are taken off the train and put in the tents.
Good-night.”

“Good-night,” answered Shaggo, and then he saw the tame tiger curl up
and go to sleep. Shaggo also closed his eyes, but he did not sleep at
once.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have trouble with that shoulder before it gets
better,” thought the mighty buffalo, just before, at last, he finally
dropped off into a sleep.

When Shaggo awoke he found a great deal of excitement going on around
the circus train, which had come to a stop. There was the rumble of
heavy wagons and the tramping of horses, mingled with the shouting and
calling of men.

“What’s the matter?” asked Shaggo of Tamba.

“Oh,” answered the tiger, giving a yawn, “we have reached the first
city in which the circus is to give a performance. Now we shall be put
in a tent, and people will come to see us.”

“What’s a tent?” asked Shaggo, who had never seen one.

“It’s a sort of a white, cloth house,” the tiger answered. “You’ll like
it. This sort of life is much more fun than being cooped up in the
winter barns.”

Pretty soon the cages of Tamba and Shaggo and the rest were taken from
the railroad car and drawn to the circus grounds.

A large crowd of boys and a number of men came to the place where the
train stopped to see the circus unload, and, later, they watched the
big tent being put up. Of this Shaggo saw very little, for his cage
remained covered. At last, however, his wagon, and that of the other
animals, was wheeled inside the big, white cloth house, and Shaggo
found himself in a sort of ring of which many other cages formed a
part.

“Now the circus will soon start, after we have been in the parade,”
said Tamba.

“What’s a parade?” asked Shaggo.

“My! You don’t know anything about a circus, do you?” laughed Tamba. “A
parade is where the animals march, or are drawn, through the streets so
the people can see them――at least see some of them, and that makes them
want to come and see more. The elephants, camels and horses march, but
you will be kept in your cage, I think, as I am, and as Nero is also.”

A little later the cages were hauled out again and, for the first time
in his life, Shaggo took part in a circus parade. He looked out through
the bars of his cage and saw crowds of people lining the streets.
The bands played, the steam calliope tooted its queer music, and the
wagon-load of clowns made the children laugh.

Then, once more, back to the circus grounds the mighty buffalo was
taken, and a little later the circus performance started. Of the part
that went on in the main tent, where the acrobats did their tricks, the
clowns cut up funny capers and Tum Tum and Tamba went through their
acts, Shaggo saw nothing.

The buffalo was kept in his cage, as were some of the other animals.
It was their part in the show to be looked at, and a great throng
gathered around Shaggo’s cage.

He stood and watched the people passing his cage. Once a man came along
carrying a cane. Shaggo was standing still in one corner, for his
shoulder hurt him.

“Hi there!” called the man sharply. “Move about there, Buffalo, and
let’s see what you look like!” As he said this the man poked Shaggo
with the cane. He prodded the buffalo on his sore shoulder, and Shaggo
let out a loud bellow of pain and jumped to one side.

“Ha! I made him step lively!” cried this unkind man.

A moment later a small, shaggy animal, with a pointed nose and bright
shining eyes, leaped at the man, showed his teeth and growled.

“Here! Let that buffalo alone!” Shaggo heard this new animal bark, and
saw the man leap back in fright and run out of the tent.

“Thank you for not letting him poke me again,” said Shaggo to this
shaggy animal. “Are you a wolf?”

“No, I am Don, and once I was a runaway dog,” was the answer. “I could
see that this man was hurting you, so I drove him away. If he comes
back I’ll nip him,” and Don growled again.

The man who had poked Shaggo with the cane, hurting the buffalo’s lame
shoulder, did not come back, however. I think he was rather afraid of
Don, who growled so fiercely. Don was a good and gentle dog, but he did
not like bad men.




CHAPTER X

SHAGGO AND DIDO


“Excuse me for thinking you were a wolf,” said Shaggo to Don. “But you
look just like some of the prairie wolves I used to see out West on the
big fields near our range.”

“That’s all right,” barked Don. He and Shaggo could visit, for there
were only a few keepers in the animal tent now. All the audience had
gone into the main tent to see the show, and Don and Shaggo could talk
animal talk as much as they pleased.

“I don’t mind being taken for a wolf,” went on Don. “In fact we dogs
once were wolves, and it was only after we became tame and lived around
the house that we were called dogs.”

“The only dogs I ever saw before,” said Shaggo, “were little prairie
dogs.”

“Hum! I never saw any of those that I remember,” Don said.

“Do you belong in this circus?” asked Shaggo.

“No,” barked Don in answer. “I live here in town. But I happened to
be down near the railroad when the circus train came in, and I just
slipped over here to see some of my friends. I know Tum Tum, Nero and
Tamba.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Shaggo, “for they are friends of mine.”

“Is Dido here?” asked Don.

“Who is Dido? Is he a monkey? I guess you mean Mappo, don’t you?”
inquired the buffalo.

“No, I mean Dido. He is a dancing bear, and he was with a circus at one
time. I have lost track of him lately, and I thought maybe he might be
here. I’ll take a look around.”

“And then come back and talk to me,” begged Shaggo. “Nero and Tamba are
in the big tent doing their tricks, and so is Tum Tum, so I’m lonesome.”

“I’ll be back,” promised Don.

He trotted away, making the rounds of the other cages. Shaggo could
hear him talking to some of the animals who remained, and, pretty soon,
Don came back again.

“I didn’t find Dido,” he said. “I guess he isn’t with this circus.
What’s the matter?” he asked, as he saw Shaggo limping around the cage.
“Did that bad man hurt you?”

“Well, yes, he did hurt me when he poked me with his stick,” answered
the buffalo, “but that isn’t why I limp. Something is the matter with
my shoulder, it has a big lump on it. See?” And he came close to the
front bars of the cage.

Don, with his head on one side, looked at the buffalo’s second hump.

“I know what’s the matter with you,” barked Don.

“What?” asked the buffalo.

“You have rheumatism,” answered Don. “I know what that is. I had it
myself once, when I slept out in the rain a couple of nights after I
was so foolish as to run away. Yes, that’s what you have――rheumatism.”

“Hum! I wonder if I have?” said Shaggo, slowly. “I thought I got this
for running away. I know the hurt began after I jumped over the fence.”

“Maybe that started it, the same as it started with me when I got wet,”
returned the dog. “But what you have is rheumatism, you may depend on
it.”

“Perhaps I have,” agreed Shaggo. “I wonder what I had better do about
it?”

“Oh, I guess they’ll get a doctor for you,” went on Don. “The circus
men are good to their animals. But I’ll have to be trotting along,
or they’ll think I have run away again, and once is enough for me.
Good-bye!”

[Illustration: Crowds of boys and girls came to see the animals.]

“Good-bye!” answered Shaggo, and he felt rather lonesome when Don had
left. However, Tamba, Nero, and Tum Tum soon came back to the animal
tent, after they had finished their tricks in the other big, white
cloth “house,” so Shaggo had some one to talk to.

There were many busy days after this for the circus with which the
mighty buffalo traveled. Each day the tent was set up in a new place,
and crowds of boys and girls, as well as men and women, came to see the
animals and watch the men and women actors in the performing tent.

“But I am not sure whether or not I am glad I ran away,” thought the
mighty buffalo from time to time, as he traveled about with the circus.
“In one way I’m having a good time, and in another way I am not. If my
shoulder would get well I think I could be happy here. But it is no fun
to be in pain all the while.”

One day, when he had become quite tame, and had made friends with
several of the circus men, Shaggo was taken out of his cage and led
around the animal tent by a rope.

“What’s going to happen, Shaggo?” asked Tamba, the tame tiger. “Are
they going to teach you tricks?”

“I don’t know,” answered the buffalo, as he limped around. And when
they saw this limp the circus men shook their heads.

“He will never do for us,” one said. “We do not want a limping buffalo
in the circus. He could never learn any tricks, and people do not care
to pay money to see a lame animal.”

“But what can we do with him?” asked another man.

“We can sell him to some zoological park,” was the answer. “There is a
city, not far from here, that is starting a new zoo. They have not very
many animals as yet, and they will be glad to buy this buffalo from
us, even if he does limp. People do not have to pay money to come to a
zoological park, and they are not so fussy about what they see. We’ll
sell Shaggo to the zoo. That will be the best place for him. He will
not have to travel around so much and his shoulder may get better.”

Of course Shaggo did not understand this talk, any more than the circus
men understood the talk of the animals. But after a few days, when
Shaggo had traveled on a little farther with the circus, a change came.

One afternoon several men came into the animal tent after the show was
over. They stood in front of the buffalo’s cage.

“This is Shaggo,” said one of the circus owners. “He is a good buffalo,
and the only thing the matter with him is that one of his shoulders is
swelled, and he limps. But for a zoo he will be all right.”

“Yes, I think he will,” said one of the visitors. “We’ll buy him.”

Later, somewhat to his surprise, Shaggo’s cage was wheeled out of the
tent, Tum Tum the elephant pushing it.

“What is going on?” asked the buffalo, for he had not understood the
men’s talk. “Is the circus going to move now, Tum Tum, before we have
given the night show?”

“No, I think not,” answered the jolly elephant. “All I know is that
my keeper told me to wheel out your cage. But I am not to wheel out
any of the others. Maybe they are taking you away, Shaggo, to cure the
rheumatism in your shoulder.”

“Maybe,” agreed Shaggo, and he hoped this would prove true.

Horses were hitched to his cage, and it was drawn through the darkness
to a place Shaggo had never been in before. He could not see where it
was, and he did not much care, as the ride made his sore shoulder ache.
He crouched down on some straw in the corner of his cage and went to
sleep.

It was morning when Shaggo awakened. The sun was shining and the big
buffalo looked about him in some surprise. At first he thought he was
back in the circus winter barn, for he saw that there was a wooden roof
over his head, and not the white cloth of the canvas tent. But, as he
looked about him and saw some strange animals, he knew he was in a new
place, and not in the circus any more.

As he arose slowly to his feet, trying not to groan because of the pain
in his shoulder, he heard a voice saying:

“I say, big fellow, if you don’t want that piece of carrot in your
cage, will you please kick it out to me?”

Shaggo looked up and saw, not far away, another cage, in which was a
black, shaggy animal, with long hair and very long claws.

“Yes, you may have this piece of carrot,” said Shaggo, and he kicked it
to the edge of his cage. “I don’t believe you can reach it, though.”

“Oh, yes I can,” growled the other animal in a jolly voice. And he
stretched out a hairy paw, with long claws, and pulled the carrot into
his cage.

“Who are you?” asked Shaggo.

“I am Dido,” was the answer.

“Oh, I’ve heard about you!” exclaimed the buffalo. “You are the dancing
bear!”




CHAPTER XI

SHAGGO GOES TO SLEEP


Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, felt as though he had met an old friend
when the bear in the next cage said that his name was Dido.

Shaggo wanted to talk, and to ask a lot of questions of the shaggy
bear, who was eating the carrot he had clawed from the buffalo’s cage.
But just as Shaggo crowded close to the bars of his cage, to ask how
Dido felt and how he liked it where he was, a great growling and
snarling arose at one end of the big building where the zoo animals
were kept.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Shaggo.

“Oh, it’s the keeper coming to feed us,” answered Dido. “I hope he
brings me some sweet buns. What would you like best, Mr. Buffalo? I
don’t believe I know your name,” said the bear.

“I am called Shaggo,” was the answer. “And, to tell you the truth, I do
not feel much like eating. I am not very hungry.”

“Then there must be something the matter with you!” exclaimed Dido, as
the growling, snarling and crying among the other zoo animals sounded
louder and louder. “I am always hungry. You’ve heard it said, I dare
say, ‘as hungry as a bear.’ Well, I guess I’m that bear,” laughed Dido,
showing his teeth, “for I’m always ready to eat.”

Shaggo looked out through the bars of his cage and saw a man coming
along with a big basket, and Shaggo could smell that the basket held
good things to eat. But, somehow or other, the buffalo, as he had said,
was not hungry. He felt rather ill, and as he twisted his eyes to get a
look at his shoulder, he saw that the lump on it was much larger.

“And it hurts worse, too,” said Shaggo to himself. “I haven’t felt
exactly well since I gave that big jump and sailed over the wire fence
away from the range. It surely must be a punishment on me for leaving
Bumpo, Rumpo and the other buffaloes.”

But by this time the man with the basket was in front of the bear’s
cage. He picked out some buns, the man did, and held them up for Dido
to see. Shaggo could also see them.

“Now then, Dido!” cried the zoo keeper, “here are some of the nice buns
you like. Let me see you dance and do some of your tricks before I give
you any. Dance for the boys and girls!”

Then Shaggo noticed that, following the man around as he fed the
animals were a number of boys and girls who had come to the zoo as a
sort of picnic. They were allowed to come in and see the animals eat.

“Dance for the boys and girls, Dido,” called the man.

Shaggo did not understand this talk, but the bear seemed to do so, for
he shuffled to the front of his cage.

“Hi there, Shaggo, watch me if you want to see some fun!” called Dido
to the buffalo in the next cage. “This is one of my tricks. I do it
nearly every day. Watch me and perhaps you can learn to dance.”

“No, I don’t believe I can,” replied Shaggo. He and Dido talked in
animal language, which, of course, neither the keeper nor the boys and
girls could understand. “My shoulder is too sore for me to dance,” went
on the buffalo.

But Dido was not troubled that way, and soon he was sliding about his
cage, doing a funny, shuffling dance, waving his head from side to
side, and holding out his paws like a begging dog. Around and around
his cage went the bear, while the boys and girls, gathered out in
front, laughed as they watched the funny antics of the trained bear.

“That’s good, Dido!” called the man. “Now then, turn a somersault, and
you shall have an extra bun!”

Dido must have known what the man said, for the bear suddenly got down
on all four legs, put his head between his front paws, kicked up with
his hind legs, and over he went! Dido turned as good a somersault as
any boy could do, and when he stood upright again, and held one paw out
through the bars of his cage, the boys and girls laughed harder than
ever.

“Well, you have earned your buns, Dido!” cried the man, and he tossed
half a dozen into the bear’s cage. Then Dido shuffled back into a
corner to be by himself while he ate. The children stood watching the
bear a little longer, and then some of them passed on to stand in front
of the cage where Shaggo was kept.

After the keeper had passed on, to feed the lions and tigers of the
zoo, Dido once more spoke to Shaggo.

“Here is an extra cinnamon bun I do not want,” said the kind bear. “Eat
it, Shaggo,” and with a toss of his paw Dido sent the bun spinning
through the bars of the buffalo’s cage. Shaggo sniffed at it and
nibbled one end.

“Say, what’s the matter with you?” asked Dido. “You don’t seem at all
like a lively chap, Shaggo.”

“I’m not,” answered the buffalo. “Something is wrong with me. It’s my
shoulder, I guess. See how swelled it is.”

“You have got a funny lump there,” said the bear. “What do you think it
is?”

“Well, Don, the runaway dog, and some of the animals in the circus said
it might be rheumatism,” answered Shaggo. “I was in the circus you
know, with Tum Tum, the elephant. It was Don at first, and afterward
Tum Tum, who told me about you. That’s how I knew your name.”

“Dear old Don and Tum Tum, that jolly elephant!” exclaimed Dido. “I
wish I could see them again. So they told you about me, did they? Well,
some of those circus animals know a lot, but I think they’re all wrong
about what’s the matter with you. I don’t believe that’s rheumatism you
have.”

“What is it then?” asked Shaggo. “I know it hurts a lot.”

“You’ve got indigestion, that’s what you’ve got!” declared the bear.
“You’ve got indigestion from not eating enough. Come, now, eat up your
hay, and then swallow that bun and you’ll feel better.”

“Well, perhaps I will,” agreed Shaggo. “I’ll try it, anyhow. Maybe it
is indigestion I have, but I’ve been thinking, all the while, that it
was rheumatism.”

So the mighty buffalo, who did not feel as strong as he used to feel
when he roamed the plains of the big Park, nibbled the bit of bun the
dancing bear had tossed him, and then ate some hay. But, instead of
feeling better, Shaggo seemed to feel worse. At last he was in such
pain that he stretched out in the corner of his cage and groaned.
Animals can groan when they are in trouble as well as persons can, and
when Shaggo groaned you could hear it a long way off.

“My goodness! what’s the matter, Shaggo?” asked Dido, waking up from a
little sleep. “Is that one of the tricks you learned in the circus?”

“I didn’t learn any tricks in the circus,” groaned Shaggo. “Maybe
that’s why they didn’t want me there. And I limped, too. I guess they
didn’t want a limping buffalo. But groaning is not a trick. I do it
because my shoulder lump hurts me so.”

“That’s too bad,” said Dido. “I wish I could do something for you.”

By this time Shaggo’s groans had been heard by some of the zoo keepers.
One of them came running into the building where Shaggo’s cage stood.
By this time it was early evening, and there were no visitors in the
zoological park.

“What’s the matter here?” asked the keeper. Of course Shaggo could
not answer and tell what ailed him, but the man knew something about
animals, and when he saw the buffalo crouched down in the corner of
the cage and noticed how much larger the lump on the animal’s shoulder
had become, the keeper said:

“We’ve got to have a doctor here. I’ll get one.”

A little later another man came in to look at Shaggo――three or four men
altogether, but only one was the doctor, and he had a queer smell about
him――a smell that Shaggo did not like. The other animals, too, sniffed
the air strongly. They did not like drugs or medicine.

“Take a look at the lump on that buffalo’s shoulder, doctor,” said one
of the zoo keepers.

“Hum! I can’t see it very well,” the doctor said. “Can’t you bring him
out here in the open?”

Shaggo did not pay much attention to what was going on, but, a little
later, he felt the prick of a stick which was being poked in his ribs,
and naturally, he moved away from it. He limped over to the front of
his cage to look at the men gathered there.

“Now I can see the lump better,” said the doctor. “It’s too bad. It
must be taken off. That’s the only way to cure that buffalo.”

“How can the lump be taken off?” asked the zoo keeper.

“You’ll have to get another doctor,” replied the first one. “You need
a doctor who knows more about animals than I do. There’s one in New
York, and I heard he was coming out this way. I’ll see if I can get
him.”

“I wish you would,” said the zoo keeper.

At last the celebrated animal doctor arrived. One evening Shaggo saw a
number of men enter the zoo and walk over to his cage. There was that
same, queer medicine smell.

“There’s the buffalo,” said the zoo keeper. “Can you cure that lump on
his shoulder, doc?”

“I think so,” answered a big, bearded man, who wore large shiny
glasses. “But first we must put the buffalo to sleep and bind him with
ropes so he will not kick when I try to cure him. Yes, we must put him
to sleep.”

Of course Shaggo did not know what all this talk meant, and he was
rather frightened when, a little later, a number of men poked long
poles through the bars of his cage. Some of the poles had ropes on
them, and though he tried to keep out of the way of these ropes, they
were soon cast about his legs, and poor Shaggo found himself all
tangled up.

“Dido! Dido! What are they doing to me?” bellowed Shaggo to his friend
the dancing bear.

“Don’t worry, Shaggo,” Dido answered. “They will not hurt you. The
keepers are trying to cure your indigestion, or whatever it is you
have. They will not hurt you.”

But Shaggo could not believe this, so he kicked and struggled, hurting
his sore shoulder all the more, until, at last, he was so tangled in
the ropes that he fell down on the bottom of his cage.

“Ah, now we have him!” said the doctor. “Now I’ll put him to sleep, and
cure him.”

Shaggo was now so tied with ropes that he could not move. He lay on
one side, and a moment later a cloth was put over his nose. There was
a strange, sweetish smell to the cloth. Shaggo tried not to breathe
the perfume from it, but he could not help himself. He began to feel
very strange. His breath came more and more slowly. Then he began to
feel as if he were once again sailing through the air as he did when he
jumped. He seemed to be floating on clouds or a feather bed. His eyes
closed――he could hear, as though from a far distance, the voice of Dido
saying:

“They won’t hurt you, Shaggo.”

Then Shaggo fell into a deep sleep.




CHAPTER XII

SHAGGO IS HAPPY


The sun was shining into Shaggo’s cage when he awakened. At first the
mighty buffalo did not remember all that had happened. He recalled a
queer smell, which came just after he was tied with the ropes. And he
remembered going to sleep. Now he was awake.

“But I feel so weak――as if I could not stand up,” said Shaggo to
himself. “It’s like the time I ate some poison weed in the big Park,
and was sick until I ate another kind of weed that Wuffo showed me,
and then I grew better. But I am weak in my legs now, as I was then. I
wonder if I can stand up?”

Shaggo tried, but he found that the ropes were still around his legs,
so, after one or two trials, he gave up and remained lying on his side
in his cage.

“I guess it isn’t time for me to get up yet,” thought the buffalo.
“Maybe, as Dido said, the men are trying to do me good, though tying my
legs with ropes is a queer way. But I guess――I guess――I――”

But Shaggo could say no more. His head fell over to one side and he
went to sleep again.

The next time he awakened he felt much better and stronger. There was a
queer feeling in his shoulder, too. It pained him some, but not as much
as at first, and, when he managed to get a look at it, he saw that the
lump was gone.

“Hurray!” cried Shaggo, in buffalo talk, of course. “That big lump
melted away while I slept! I wonder how it happened? Anyhow, I’m glad.
Now if those ropes were only off my legs――”

He kicked out a little with his hind feet. To his surprise his legs
were no longer tied. His front ones were also free. There was still a
queer smell in his nose, and on his shoulder was a white rag. Shaggo
tried to reach around and pull it off with his teeth, but could not.

Then he noticed on the floor of his cage, in front of him, a pail of
something that smelled very good. It was a mixture of hay, oats, wheat
and bran, stirred up in warm water and a little salt, and Shaggo felt
so hungry that he ate it all up.

“My, but that was good!” said the buffalo to himself. “I believe I can
stand up now. I feel much stronger.”

Shaggo managed to scramble to his feet. He was not as strong as he had
thought, for he swayed from side to side as a baby does when it is
learning to walk. But, after a while, when he had eaten a little hay
and taken some water, Shaggo began to feel his strength coming back to
him.

He took a few steps, but was soon glad enough to lie down again.

“I guess I’m cured of the rheumatism, or indigestion, or whatever
was the matter with me,” thought the mighty buffalo, “but I must go
easy. I can’t trot around my cage yet. I must wait until I am a little
stronger.”

Shaggo went to sleep again, and he must have slept all day and all
night, for when he awakened once more the sun was again shining in
his cage. He felt much stronger now, and when he walked about, his
shoulder, though a little stiff, did not pain nearly so much.

“Hello there, Shaggo!” called Dido, the dancing bear, from his cage.
“How are you feeling?”

“Well, a little queer and shaky,” answered the buffalo; “but I’m
getting better. Say, what happened to me, anyhow?”

“I think you had what they called an operation,” answered the bear.
“I don’t know much about such things, but they put you to sleep with
medicine, and when you were in dreamland they took that extra hump off
your shoulder.”

“I’m glad they did,” said Shaggo. “I feel ever so much better without
it. I begin to feel more like myself――more like when I was the
strongest buffalo on the range in the National Park.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” said Dido. “Maybe, now, they will teach you
to do tricks.”

“Maybe,” agreed Shaggo.

The doctor with the big beard and the shiny glasses came with the zoo
keepers to look at Shaggo in his cage.

“Ah, my operation was a success,” said the big doctor. “Now that
buffalo will be as good as new.”

And as the days went on and Shaggo became stronger and stronger and his
shoulder healed he did, indeed, become “as good as new.”

Once more his eyes shone brightly and he held his head up. He no longer
limped about the cage, but walked as well as any of the lions, tigers
or bears in the zoo.

Each day a keeper came to feed Shaggo, and, after a while, the man
put his hand in through the bars and rubbed Shaggo’s head. And Shaggo
felt so grateful to the men for curing his sore shoulder that the big
buffalo did not try to bite or kick or butt with his horns. He licked
the man’s hand with his tongue.

“Well, I guess you are getting tame, Shaggo,” said the keeper. “It was
a good thing we bought you from the circus, and it was a good thing the
doctor made you well. In a little while I will let you out in the yard
to run around. It is not good for a big animal like you to be shut in a
cage all the while.”

And you can imagine how glad Shaggo was when, one day, his cage was
opened and he was allowed to come out. Of course he was not permitted
to roam wherever he pleased, but there was a big yard in the zoo where
he could walk about and even run. And when he ran and found that his
shoulder did not hurt him, Shaggo felt like bellowing at the top of his
voice, he was so glad.

“Now I am myself again!” cried Shaggo.

And Shaggo did enjoy himself in the big yard of the zoological park.
Some camels and zebus, as well as other animals of the kind that eat
grass and hay, were also allowed to roam in this yard, and many people
came to watch them. Shaggo was much admired, especially his big head
and the mighty hump on his back――this was the real hump that belonged
there. The other hump――the sore one――had been taken off and Shaggo
limped no more.

One day some deer were put in the yard with Shaggo and the camels. The
deer had horns, and when Shaggo saw them he thought of the time he had
driven the herd of antelopes away from the water hole.

[Illustration: Shaggo hit the fence with all his might.]

“But we will not quarrel about who is to drink first here,” said one of
the deer. “There is water in the tank, enough for all of us.”

“No,” said Shaggo, “here we are a happy family, and we will not
quarrel.”

In time Shaggo grew to be very good friends with all the other animals
of the zoo, but, best of all, he liked the deer, for they had come from
the far West, the land of the prairies where he used to live, and they
could talk to him about that country.

One day White Tail, the largest of the deer in the zoo, was eating
grass near a wooden fence, and, in some manner, White Tail’s horns
became caught in a crack of the boards. At first the deer thought
he could pull himself loose, but the more he pulled and twisted the
tighter his horn seemed to be caught.

“Help! Help!” finally White Tail called to his animal friends. “I am
caught in the fence and can not get loose!”

Some of the other deer tried to pry him loose with their horns, but
they could not.

“Oh, if only Bundo, the big elephant were here, he could get me loose!”
cried White Tail. “With his strong head he could break the board that
is holding me fast.”

But Bundo was in another part of the zoo then, and no keepers were
near, or one of them would have helped the deer. Then Shaggo saw what
the matter was.

“Ho there!” cried the mighty buffalo. “Stand aside, everybody, and I’ll
get White Tail loose!”

“How can you?” asked Dido, the dancing bear.

“With my big, hard head I can ram that fence and break the board as
easily as anything,” the mighty buffalo answered. “I am not afraid of
hurting my shoulder now. Stand still, White Tail, and I’ll get you
loose.”

White Tail, the deer, stood still, his head held down where his horn
was caught in a crack in the fence. Shaggo backed off a little way, and
then, with his head lowered, he ran across the yard. Taking care not to
bump into White Tail, Shaggo hit the fence with all his might.

There was a crash, a splintering of wood, and the deer was set free. He
shook his head, and said:

“Thank you, Shaggo! You are, indeed, a mighty buffalo.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” said Shaggo. “I could have broken a much
thicker board than that, now my shoulder is well.”

The keepers came running up at the sound of the crash, and when they
saw what Shaggo had done to help the deer they were very glad. The
fence was mended, and fixed so no more animals would be caught in it.

“It is a good thing to have a big head,” said Dido to Shaggo, when they
went to sleep in their cages that night.

And so, for many years Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, lived in the zoo,
and hundreds of boys and girls came to look at him and admire him.
Sometimes he wished he might go back to the prairies, and see his old
friends, and watch Rumpo and Bumpo knock each other in somersaults.

“But it is very nice, here in the zoo,” said Shaggo. “And, who knows?
perhaps some day I may join the circus again and travel out West.
Then I would have some wonderful adventures to tell the rest of the
buffaloes.”

But the last I heard of him, Shaggo was still in the zoological park,
and I hope he lives there and is happy for many long years.


THE END




 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.





End of Project Gutenberg's Shaggo, the Mighty Buffalo, by Richard Barnum

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