Sawdust & Spangles Part 5

So vividly did this oft-repeated picture impress me that it is as clearly before me now as it was forty years ago. Sometimes, when an elephant was not available, the wagons would be literally pulled apart, and when the break came the horses would fall sprawling into the mire, only their heads visible above the surface of the mud.

But the poor horses were not the only sufferers from bad roads. The men came in for their share. Very distinctly do I remember the night when we were about to cross a slough. Some of us were dozing in our saddles, others sleeping soundly on the tops of the wagons which carried the tents. Suddenly the shout was heard from the man in the lead, "Help, there, boys! I'm going down in the quicksands! Throw out a line, lively!"

We knew the voice. It belonged to Hickey, the wagon boss, who was a favorite with the men. Instantly the fellows tumbled from the wagons and rushed forward. The torches showed Hickey sunk to his armpits. A man of ready wit and action threw a rope and the sinking man caught it and pa.s.sed the noose over his head and under his arms, knotting it so that it could not slip and cut him in two. By that time a team of horses had been hitched to the other end of the rope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEN THE SHOUT WOULD GO DOWN THE LINE FOR ROMEO."]

"All right! Easy, now!" came the order from Hickey, and the team was carefully started. Watching those horses strain on the rope made me hold my breath in expectation that the poor fellow would be actually drawn in two. But, finally, the grip of the mire loosened and he was hauled out to safety.

AN UNEXPECTED MIDNIGHT BATH

Perhaps the most disheartening of all bad-road experiences is that of losing the way--a thing which happened with perverse frequency. Just imagine yourself a member of such a caravan. You have slept four hours out of sixteen and are crawling along in the face of a drenching, blinding rainstorm--soaked, hungry and dazed. The caravan has halted a dozen times in the forepart of the night to pull out wagons and repair breakdowns. But it halts again, and the word "lost" is pa.s.sed back along the line of wagons. This means retracing the route back to the forks of the road miles in the rear. Many an old circus man has wished himself dead on hearing the word "lost" under these conditions.

After one of these disheartening experiences, when we were obliged to "right about face" and drive the poor, jaded horses back over the same road along which they had made their useless but painful pilgrimage, I clambered up to the top of the tent wagon, stretched out on the jolting, shaking heap of canvas, and was soon oblivious to fatigue and discouragement. My next conscious impression was that of a sudden cras.h.i.+ng of timbers, the squealing of frightened horses and the sensation of falling. Then I felt myself plunging into the icy waters of a little stream into which the heavy show wagon and all its contents had been precipitated by the breaking of a bridge. It seems almost miraculous that I should have escaped falling under the ma.s.s of tents on which I had been sleeping, but in some way I was thrown to one side and contrived to reach the sh.o.r.e in safety.

It is usual, in arranging the season's route, for a circus to make all the "big jumps" on Sundays; and it not infrequently happens that from three hundred to five hundred miles are covered between Sat.u.r.day and Monday. This arrangement is very convenient in many ways. It may take you out of a country that is overrun with opposition shows into one where you may have the whole field to yourself, or it may take you to a part of the country where the climate has forced the harvests and therefore placed more money in circulation than usual.

As a general thing circus employes are not in love with Sunday runs for, commodious as their cars are, they are not exactly fitted up to enable all occupants to loll lazily around and enjoy a luxurious ride.

If the day happens to be rainy, most of them lie in their beds and content themselves with reading, with an occasional chat, argument or light lunch, and in this way endeavor to pa.s.s the time as best they can. If, however, the day happens to be a fine one, then at daybreak comes a mighty exodus from the sleeping cars. Cozy nooks are singled out and made comfortable by pressing into service all available shawls, rugs, etc. Those physically strong enough to brave the exposure make for the tops of stock and box cars where, lolling at ease, they discuss sundry topics of interest and revel in the ride through the country.

Others select places underneath the chariots and cages which are loaded on the flat cars, and thus, sheltered from the sun, spend a delightful time. Once, at least, during the day, a stop of a couple of hours is made to enable the horses and animals to be fed and watered, and advantage is taken of this interval by the performers and other attaches to stretch themselves and also to cater to their own personal wants. Both comic and serious accidents are frequently the result of carelessness during these runs, as the following examples prove:

In one long run between Springfield, Mo., and Mattoon, Ill., one of our men was standing erect on the top of a car, when a telegraph wire caught him under his chin and cut his head completely off, as though done by the surgeon's knife. On that same trip my watchman, Nelse, had the misfortune to have his straw hat blow off his head. The hat rolled gently along the top of the flat car and finally rolled off and fell on the side track. Immediately the watchman jumped to the ground, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the hat, and leaped unhurt on the last car, although the train was making nearly twenty miles an hour. Probably the hat cost him originally fifty cents.

Of all the Sunday runs I ever took, however, I recall one that was especially pleasant. It took place back in the seventies, and was a run of some three hundred miles across an Indian reservation between a town in Kansas and another in southern Texas. The day was beautiful, and as we bowled along the prairie I felt that the "stillness"--comparatively speaking--(so seldom enjoyed by circus people) was most refres.h.i.+ng. I don't suppose there ever was a country-bred boy who lived long enough to forget how, in his younger days, the Sabbath seemed, always, a day of stillness and quiet. The cessation of all business and the chiming of church bells produced an effect that could not fail of indelible impression; and that Sunday morning ride over the reservation brought back the scenes of childhood to many a rough and rugged circus man.

Towards noon we halted and erected cooking tents and stables. The horses and animals were looked after and a dinner was cooked by the attaches. After dinner they formed congenial knots and strolled around while the "hash slingers" washed the dishes and the men once more loaded up. We carried at that time an excellent troupe of Jubilee singers, and with the light heart and impressionable feelings of their race, they burst into song, alternating their quaint camp meeting songs with others in which the majority of the attaches could join. The band, too, caught the infection and produced their instruments and we enjoyed a vocal and instrumental feast. Just at dusk, when the stars were beginning to appear, before starting for the night's run, the "Jubes"

sang "Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee" to the full accompaniment of the band and with a refrain swelled by every one able to sing. I have, in the course of my travels, visited many grand concerts and operas, but their most solemn and sacred effects are dwarfed into absolute insignificance compared with that of this impromptu performance. The rolling prairie, the beautiful trees, the perfect weather, the joyous spirits of every one present, the melodious voices of the Jubilee singers, and the grand strains produced by thirty skilled musicians, combined to produce music such as man seldom hears--that, on account of its spontaneity, thrilled the hearts of all present, then seemed to go right up to heaven, and "die amid the stars."

"All aboard!" is shouted, and every one climbs into the car. The whistle sounds and off you go, past miles of beautiful scenery and occasional Indian villages. Everything is quiet and every one seems to be "drinking in" the beauty of the scene or sits lost in thought. No more singing or playing. All seem to be so solemnly impressed with that last grand hymn that the silence is unbroken. That Sunday run will always stay in my memory! With quiet "good-nights" one after another slipped off to bed to awake to another day's hurry and bustle.

V

THE PRAIRIE FIRE

One of the most terrible and impressive experiences of my entire career came to me very shortly after I had become well settled in the circus harness. Sleep was the dragon which pursued me then with a relentless and irresistible power. There was scarcely a moment when I was not under its spell, at least to some degree. It was like a vampire that took the zest and vitality out of my very life sources and I went about almost as one walking in a dream. This condition arose from the fact that under the best of weather luck, a showman's hours are very long.

But when roads were bad and journeys long, the poor wretch attached to the old wagon show had practically no sleep at all. After a stretch of hard traveling I was for weeks like a person drugged. My mind seemed in a state of miserable torpor, while my body went about in a mechanical way and did its work. The change from a regular life, which saw me snugly in the same bed at nearly the same hour every night of the year, to the painful excesses of a circus man's hours told on me very severely and I was long in becoming acclimated.

At the painful period of which I speak my main object in life was to sleep. For this I lived, and my idea of Paradise then was a consciousness that I was in the act of falling asleep in bed with clean sheets, and that I would not be awakened until the end of eternity unless I should chance to get my sleep out before then--and this possibility seemed deliciously remote.

While I suffered more keenly than the others from the tortures of longing for sleep, all the men who had anything whatever to do with the moving of the show were under the spell of this dragon. They, however, rallied more quickly than I, when dry roads and good weather fell to our lot for any length of time.

Well, weeks of terrible traveling, of getting lost, of fighting our way through the mire and floods, was followed by a fortnight of fair weather. My a.s.sociates had "caught up" in the matter of sleep, but I was still in a half torpid state and thought only of the blessed privilege of closing my eyes for an hour or two at a stretch.

But, one morning as we started north from the small Missouri town in which we had given a very successful performance, the scene was so novel and impressive that I held out for a few minutes against the demon that was pulling my eyelids together, and really aroused to the picturesque features of the scene.

We were winding our way to the northward, our caravan being fully a mile in length and stretched out like a long serpent. The elaborate and gilded chariots, the piebald Arabian horses, the drove of shambling camels and the huge swaying elephants gave a touch of genuine oriental picturesqueness to the scene strangely out of keeping with the wild western landscape and surroundings.

On every hand the prairies were carpeted with wild flowers in the greatest variety and profusion. Their fragrance even reached me as I stretched out at full length on the top of a lumbering chariot. The almost endless vista of prairie, the serpent caravan, the gay colors and the fragrance of the flowers all combined to refresh and impress me, and to give me more cheer and courage than hours of sleep. The pleasant picture haunted me after I closed my eyes and mixed in my dreams after I dozed off into a half conscious slumber.

Later the lurch of the wagon aroused me, and I started up with a sense of unaccountable alarm. The first object which met my eyes was a jackrabbit, sitting on his haunches not more than two rods from the trail we were following. Knowing the habitual timidity of these creatures the boldness of this one surprised me greatly. He sat there with his ears c.o.c.ked straight up, his nose working nervously and his heart pounding so heavily that its pulsations shook his gray sides. Not until the wagon had pa.s.sed did the rabbit stir. Then he dropped upon all fours and vanished in a gray streak traveling in a line parallel with the course of the caravan and keeping only a few rods from our trail. While I was still pondering over the strange conduct of the animal I saw a "rattler" emerge from the gra.s.s into the beaten trail only a few feet in front of the "off leader" of our four-horse team.

Naturally I expected to see the snake coil and strike the horse, but he did nothing of the kind--simply avoided the horse's hoofs and then slipped away into the gra.s.s beyond. What was the meaning of the strange spell which seemed suddenly to have taken possession of the wild animals and reptiles of the plain through which we were traveling?

There was no escape from the conclusion that some peculiar influence had seized upon them, blunting their ordinary sense of fear and precaution. Had I been more accustomed to prairie life I would probably have realized at once the nature of the trouble; like all of the men on the wagon with me I was a rank tenderfoot.

In the course of the next ten minutes several flocks of birds pa.s.sed over us, flying low but very rapidly. The gra.s.s on both sides of the trail seemed suddenly to swarm with animal life.

Before I had arrived at any conclusions regarding the peculiar actions of the prairie creatures the captive animals in the darkened cages began to show signs of unusual restlessness. The lions and tigers began a strange moaning unlike their ordinary roars and growls. From the monkey cages came plaintive, half-human cries. These sounds were taken up by all the animals big and little. The elephants trumpeted, the camels screamed, and every animal took part in the weird chorus, which rapidly increased in volume. Then the air seemed to take on a hazy appearance, particularly in the direction from which we had come.

Finally the truth dawned upon me--the prairie was on fire! By turning backward and straining my eyes I fancied I could make out a cloud of smoke far in the rear of the caravan. In a few moments this dim vision became clear and tangible. I told my fears to the driver, who laughed at me for my pains. Then I caught sight of a man on horseback on the crest of rise in the prairie. He was riding towards us as fast as his horse could carry him. Pa.s.sing us like a whirlwind, he shouted: "Whip up, man! The prairie's on fire! Move for the river straight ahead!" In a second he was gone, shouting the same word to every startled driver he pa.s.sed. His approach had been noted by the boss, who was at the head of the entire procession. That grand marshal of the day, for that was substantially his position, came riding back to meet the courier.

Instantly, on learning the tidings, he wheeled about and rode like the wind for the chariot in the lead, drawn by six splendid horses white as milk.

Sharp orders emphasized by a liberal sprinkling of profanity were sufficient to impress the driver of the magnificent leaders with the awful gravity of the situation and with the fact that he must set the pace for the remainder of the caravan. It might be thought that the greatest drag on the speed of the terrified procession would have been the camels and elephants. So thought the boss, but no sooner did the driver of the elephants get into position on the back of old Romeo and give that knowing creature an idea of what was expected, than he saw his mistake.

The way in which both the elephants and camels swung themselves over the ground was a revelation to all who saw them. Which was the more pitiful and terrifying, the trumpeting of the elephants or the squealing of the camels, was difficult to tell.

As the awful scroll of the fire rolled closer upon us the ungainly bodies of the camels and elephants swayed from one side to the other until they seemed fairly to vibrate.

"Where is the river? Are we nearing the stream? Can we make the water?"

These were the questions in the mind of every person in that long wagon train. Sometimes they were yelled from one driver to another, but the only answer was to lay the lash harder on the backs of the poor horses pulling the heavy wagons and chariots--leaping and straining like so many modern fire department animals responding to an alarm. It was a genuine chariot race--in which the stake was life and the fine death by flames. Nearly every vehicle was drawn by either four or six horses, and the scene was one of the grandest and most terrible that human eye ever looked upon.

Suddenly I saw the boss put his horse into its highest speed, leading on ahead of the six whites. Then he leaped from the saddle, struck a match to the gra.s.s, remounted and rode back a short distance. As each team approached he ordered: "Wait till the flames spread a little and then break through the line of the back fire I've started and form a circle."

The gra.s.s which he had fired was considerably shorter than the general growth of the prairies; then, the fire it made had not acquired the volume, intensity and sweep of that hurricane of flame from which we were fleeing. One after another of the teams reared, pitched and plunged, only to find that the back fire had gone under their feet leaving them inside a charred, blackened circle fringed with flame.

No sound I have ever heard approached in abject terror the awful symphony of roars, growls, screams, wails and screeches that went up from the maddened beasts in that caravan as the great sky-reaching cylinder of flame and smoke rolled down upon us and was met barely forty rods away by the rapidly spreading line of our own back fire.

Just as we were wondering if our next breath would be flame or air, the leaders of the white chariot horses leaped into the air like rockets.

Instantly the whole six stallions became absolutely crazed with fear and made a plunge directly for the oncoming storm of fire and smoke. On toward the furnace of fire they ran, the driver tugging with might and main on the reins.

"Jump!" yelled the boss. And jump the driver did. He was not a second too soon, for an instant later the white charioteers had disappeared under the great red and black barrel that was rolling upon us. Then came a moment which was a dizzy blank to most of us, I guess. The fearful strain of the long race, the moments of awful suspense after the charred ground had been reached--it was enough to have dethroned the reason of every man and woman in the charmed circle! Small wonder that a few fainted dead away and the rest of us were stunned into momentary confusion.

But we had scarcely recovered the use of our faculties when the wag of the circus broke the long strain of the flight and escape by the remark: "I reckon there's been more genuine praying done in circus circles in the last hour than since Noah let the elephants out of the Ark!" The truthfulness of the remark hit home to every one in the whole group. Probably there was not a choicer collection of "unbelievers" on the face of the civilized earth than our company contained--yet only a few moments before every man, woman and child had been praying for dear life--some fairly shouting their supplications, others kneeling quietly in the wagons, and still others mumbling their pet.i.tions as they helped to hold the horses in check or performed some other imperative duty.

But there was not a single individual in the whole wagon train who had not, under the awful pressure of the trial through which we pa.s.sed, put up some kind of a pet.i.tion to the Almighty for deliverance from the devouring flames.

One of the first things we did, when the burning ground became cool enough, after the tornado of fire had swept around our little oasis of burned ground and pa.s.sed on towards the river, was to go out and look for the remains of the chariot and the six white stallions. We had not far to go before we came to a heap of wheel tires and other ironwork from the big vehicle. A little beyond it were the blackened remains of the splendid horses which had dashed into an unnecessary death. These animals had been the pride of the show, and there was scarcely a man connected with the equestrian department of the circus who did not deeply lament the loss of the n.o.ble creatures. As for myself, I could hardly keep back the tears, for my fondness for the beautiful, intelligent horses amounted to a pa.s.sion.

Slowly we made our way to the river. On the other bank were gathered the inhabitants of the prairies who had been fortunate enough to reach this refuge. They had immediately extinguished the fires started on the far side of the river by the sparks which the wind carried across the stream. Some of them were almost raving with grief over the fate which they firmly believed had overtaken their relatives and friends, while others put their whole energies into caring for all who needed help--thus forgetting their own distress and afflictions in ministering to others.

A CHANCE MEETING WITH A GREAT MAN

After relating one of the most stirring and tragic episodes of my life as a showman, my thought turns instinctively to the other extreme--to an experience quite as typical of the wandering existence of the pioneer showman of the old wagon days. I refer to a chance meeting with one of the greatest men who helped to make the history of the United States, a splendid, picturesque giant of the pioneer type whose life was an unbroken romance. It may be asked, What has this kind of thing to do with circus life? I answer: Everything! Much of the success which I have achieved in this peculiar field of effort I owe to the contact with men of large capacity with whom I chanced to "fall in," as it were, while on the road. These meetings were as bread to my mind. They made the bright spots in my life, and, from the very beginning of my career, gave me the inspiration which helped me to see things in a larger way, to persevere in the face of all obstacles and to take advantage of every opportunity. Of the hundreds of experiences in this line, no other approached in romantic interest that which came to me very early in my southwestern tour.

I was then a young man and was traveling in Louisiana. I put up at a hotel in a rather small town, where hotels were as rare as other evidences of civilization. I had just gone to my room on the night succeeding my arrival when I was honored with a call from the landlord.

"Mr. Coup," he said, "there'll be another feller up to bunk with you in a few minutes. You'd better wait up and arrange with him about the side of the bed you are to sleep on. If he walks in and finds you sleepin'