The
arena and the surrounding prairie were dreaming in a flood of mellow
autumn light. It was a day on which the sun scarce cast a shadow, yet
everything sent back his rays clearly, softened and sweetened, like the
answer of an echo. It was a day for great deeds, such as were enacted
before us; steel-strung frame pitted against steel-strung frame;
bottomless endurance against its equal. And never were such jumpings,
such prancings, such wild wavings of legs beheld by human eyes before.
You cannot beat it into people's heads that the horned critters are the
lords of brute creation; yet it is the fact. A bull chased a lion all
around the ring in the arena in Mexico, finally killing him with one
blow. In Italy they shut a buck deer and a tiger in a cage. There was
a brief skirmish, and the tiger slunk to the corner of the cage,
howling.
Splendid was the exhibition of strength and agility we looked upon,
but, alas! its poetry was ripped up the back by the cutaway coat, the
plug hat, and the unrelated effect of those long, bare red legs
twinkling beneath.
Indirectly it was the plug hat that ended the battle. At first, if
Jimmy-hit-the-bottle felt any emotion, whether joy, resentment, terror,
or anything man can feel, his face did not show it. One of the
strangest features of the show was that immaculately calm face suddenly
appearing through the dust-clouds, unconscious of storm and stress.
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