“Are you going to fight to protect all your friends in this world?” asked Old Lion sleepily. “If you do, I predict you will die young. Now I must go to sleep, for we begin our long journey soon, and I do hate riding on a train. It rasps my nerves.”
Buster never knew how seriously to take the Old Lion’s words, but he was a companionable and harmless old fellow, and sometimes rambled on just to hear himself talk. He was getting so old that talking was the easiest thing to do, and between eating and sleeping that was about all he did. Sometimes he appeared in the circus as a fierce old lion, who had killed any number of keepers, but it was growing harder and harder for him to assume the pose. He wasn’t fierce looking at all, except when he roared, and that was such an exertion he seldom did it unless prodded by the attendants.
“How does it feel to ride on a train?” Buster asked when he saw that the Old Lion was going to drop off asleep right before him.
“How does it feel?” he drawled. “Why, it feels as if all the bones in your body were rattling, and when the train stops--and it’s stopping all the time when it isn’t going--you stand on your head and then on your tail, and if you’re lucky you don’t die of fright.”
“It must be a wonderful experience,” remarked Buster.
“It is, and you won’t enjoy it. I don’t know what trains were invented for unless it was to torture those who ride in them. But when we get there we’ll have a long rest.”
“Where we’re going, and when you get there you wonder why you came, and where you are. Now do you understand?”
Buster laughed good-naturedly, for his quizzing was making the Old Lion irritable. He wanted to sleep and Buster strolled away, leaving him to enjoy his nap.
The next day the animals were taken aboard the train. Some of the harmless ones were led there and tied to posts in box cars, and others like Ocelot and Spot were lifted aboard in their stout cages. No chance could be taken with them.
Buster found himself in a small compartment of a baggage car, with Chiquita occupying a seat just forward of him. She trusted him so much that she liked to have him near her. But as he had never been on a railroad journey before he was fastened in the car by a chain.