“Here! Don’t you do that again, or I’ll scratch you!”

“I didn’t do anything, Tamba.”

“Yes, you did! You stuck your tail into my cage, and if you do it again I’ll step on it! Burr-r-r-r!”

Tamba, the tame tiger, looked out between the iron bars of the big circus-wagon cage where he lived and glared at Nero, the lion who was next door to him. Their cages were close together in the circus tent, and Nero, pacing up and down in his, had, accidentally, let his long, tufted tail slip between the bars of the cage where Tamba was.

“Take your tail out of my cage!” growled Tamba.

“Oh, certainly! Of course I will!” said Nero, and though he could roar very loudly at times, he now spoke in a very gentle voice indeed; that is, for a lion. Of course both Tamba and Nero were talking in animal language, just as your dog and cat talk to one another, by mewing and barking.

“My goodness!” rumbled Tum Tum, the jolly elephant of the circus, as he turned to speak to Chunky, the happy hippo, who was taking a bath in his tank of water near the camels. “My goodness! Tamba is very cross to-day. I wonder what the matter is with our tame tiger.”

“He isn’t very tame just now,” said Dido, the dancing bear, who did funny tricks on top of a wooden platform strapped to Tum Tum’s back. “I call him rather wild!”

“So he is; but don’t let him hear you say it,” whispered Tum Tum through his trunk. “It might make him all the crosser.”

“Here! What’s that you’re saying about me?” suddenly asked Tamba. He came over to the side of his cage nearest Tum Tum. “I heard you talking about me,” went on the tame tiger, who was beautifully striped with yellow and black. “I heard you, and I don’t like it!”

“Well, then you shouldn’t be so cross,” said Tum Tum. He was not at all afraid of Tamba, as some of the smaller circus animals—such as the monkeys and little Shetland ponies—were. “You spoke very unkindly to Nero just now,” went on Tum Tum. “And, really, if his tail did slip in between the bars of your cage, that didn’t hurt anything, did it?”

Tamba, the tame tiger, sort of hung his head. He was a bit ashamed of himself, as he had good reason to be.

“We ought to be kind to one another—we circus animals,” went on Tum Tum. “Here we are, a good way from our jungle homes, most of us. And though we like it here in the circus, still we can’t help but think, sometimes, of how we used to run about as we pleased in the woods and the fields. So we ought to be nice to each other here.”

“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Tamba. “I’m sorry I was cross to you, Nero. You can put your tail in my cage as much as you want.”

“I don’t want to!” growled the big lion. “My own cage is plenty good enough for me, thank you. I can switch my tail around in my own cage as much as I please.”

“Oh, don’t talk that way,” said Tum Tum. “Now that Tamba has said he is sorry, Nero, you ought to be nice, too.”

“Yes,” went on Tamba. “Come on, Nero. Put your tail in my cage. I won’t scratch it or step on it. I’m sorry I was cross. But really I am so homesick for my jungle, and my foot hurts me so, that I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“Your foot hurts you!” exclaimed the big lion in surprise. “Why, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry! Did some one shoot you in your paw as I was once shot in the jungle? I didn’t hear any gun go off, except the make-believe ones the funny clown shoots.”

“No, I am not shot in my foot,” answered Tamba. “But I ran a big sliver from the bottom of my cage in it, and it hurts like anything! I can hardly step on it.”

“Poor Tamba! No wonder you’re cross!” said the lion, in a purring sort of voice, for lions and tigers can purr just as your cat can, only much more loudly, of course. “How did you get the sliver in your paw?” Nero went on.

“Oh, I was jumping about in my cage, doing some of the new tricks my trainer is teaching me, and I jumped on the sharp piece of wood. I didn’t see the splinter sticking up, and now my paw is very sore,” replied Tamba.

“Well, lick it well with your red tongue,” advised Nero. “That’s what I did when the hunter man in my jungle shot the bullet into my paw. Perhaps your foot will get better soon.”

“Yes, I suppose it will,” admitted Tamba. “But then I want to go back to the jungle to live, and I can’t. I don’t like it in the circus any more. I want to go to the jungle.”

“Well, I don’t believe you’ll ever get there,” said Nero. “Here you are in the circus, and here you must stay.”

It was just after the afternoon performance in the circus tent, and the animals were resting or eating until it should be time for the evening entertainment. It was while they were waiting that Nero’s tail had slipped into Tamba’s cage and Tamba had become cross.

But now the striped tiger was sorry he had acted so. He curled up in the corner of his cage and began to lick his sore paw, as Nero had told him to do. That is the only way animals have of doctoring themselves—that and letting water run on the sore place. And there was no running water in Tamba’s cage just then.

“So our tame tiger wants to go back to his jungle, does he?” asked Tum Tum of Nero, when they saw that the striped animal had quieted down.

“Yes, I guess he is getting homesick,” said Nero in a low voice, so Tamba would not hear him. “But his jungle is far, far away.”

“Did Tamba live in the same jungle with you, Nero?” asked one of the monkeys who were jumping about in their cage.

“Oh, no,” answered the big lion. “I came from Africa, and there are no tigers there. Tamba came from India. I’ve never been there, but I think the Indian jungle is almost as far away as mine is in Africa. Tamba will never get there. He had much better stay in the circus and be as happy as he can.”

But Tamba did not think so, and, as he curled up in his cage, he looked at the iron bars and wondered if they would ever break so he could get out and run away.

“For that’s what I’m going to do if ever I get the chance!” thought Tamba. “I’m going to run back to my jungle!”

As he licked his sore paw, Tamba thought of his happy home in the Indian jungle. He had lived in a big stone cave, well hidden by trees, bushes and tangled vines. In the same cave were his father and mother and his brother and sister tigers. Tamba had been caught in a trap when a small tiger, and brought away from India in a ship. Then he had been put in a circus, where he had lived ever since.

Just before the time for the evening show some of the animal men, or trainers, came into the tent where the cages of Tamba, Nero and the other jungle beasts were standing.

“Something is the matter with Tamba,” said one of the keepers.

“What do you mean?” asked the man who took care of Nero. “Did Tamba try to bite you or scratch you?”

“No; but he isn’t acting right. He doesn’t do his tricks as well as he used to. I think something is the matter with one of his paws. I’m going to have a look to-morrow.”

Of course Tamba did not understand what the circus men were saying. He knew a little man-talk, such as: “Get up on your stool!” “Stand on your hind legs!” “Jump through the hoop!”

These were the things Tamba’s trainer said to him when he wanted the tame tiger to do his tricks. But, though Tamba did not know what the men were saying, he guessed that they were talking about him, for they stood in front of his cage and looked at him. One of the men—the one who put Tamba through his circus tricks—put out his hand and touched, gently enough, the sore paw of Tamba. The tiger sprang up and growled fiercely, though he did not try to claw his kind trainer.

“There! See what I told you!” said the man. “That paw is sore, and that’s what makes Tamba so cross. I’ll have to get the doctor to look at him.”

Tamba did not do his tricks at all well that evening in the circus tent, and no wonder. Every time he jumped on his sore paw, the one with the splinter in it, he felt a great pain. And when the time came for him to leap through a paper hoop, as some of the clowns leap when they are riding around the circus rings on the backs of horses, why, Tamba just wouldn’t do it! He turned away and curled up in the corner of his cage.

“Oh, how I wish I were back in my Indian jungle!” thought poor, sick, lonesome Tamba.

“Well, there’s no use trying to make that tiger do tricks to-night,” said the man who went in the cage with Tamba. “Something is wrong. I will look at his foot.”

And that night, after the show was over, the animal doctor came to the tiger’s cage. They tied Tamba with ropes, so he could not scratch or bite, and they pulled his paw—the sore one—outside the bars.

And then Tamba had an unhappy time. For suddenly he felt a very sharp pain in his paw. That was when the doctor cut out the splinter with a knife. Tamba howled and growled and whined. The pain was very bad, but pretty soon the men, who were as kind to him as they could be, put some salve on the sore place, took off the ropes and let Tamba curl up in the corner of his cage again.

“Oh, how my foot hurts!” thought Tamba. “It is worse than before! I don’t like this circus at all! I’m going to break out and run away the first chance I get! I’m going back to my jungle!”

Tamba did not know that now his paw would get well, since the splinter had been taken out.

Night came. The circus began to move on toward the next town, and Tamba was tossed about in his cage. He could not sleep very much. But in a few days his paw was much better. During the time he was recovering he did not have to do any tricks. All he had to do was to stay in his cage and eat and sleep and let the boys and girls, and the grown folk, too, look at him when they came to the circus.

But, all the while, Tamba was trying to think of a way to get loose and run back to his Indian jungle. And one night he thought he had his chance.

The circus was going along a country road, from one town to another, and, as it was hot, the wooden sides of the animal cages had been left up, so Tamba, Nero and the other jungle beasts could look out at the stars. They were the same stars, some of them, that shone over the jungle.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and a loud noise.

“We are going to have a thunder storm,” said Nero, as he paced up and down in his moving cage.

“It will be cooler after it, anyhow,” said Dido, the dancing bear. “It is very hot, now.”

The lightning grew brighter and the thunder louder as the circus went up and down hill to the next town. Then, suddenly, it began to rain very hard. The roads became muddy and slippery, and the horses, pulling the heavy circus wagons, had all they could do not to let them slip.

Suddenly there was a loud crash of thunder, right in the midst of the circus it seemed. The lions and the tigers roared and growled, and the elephants trumpeted, while men shouted and yelled. There was great excitement. What had happened was that a big tree, at the side of the road, had been struck by lightning. Some of the circus horses were so frightened that they started to run away, pulling the wild animal cages after them.

Tamba felt his cage rushing along very fast. His horses, too, were running away. Then, all at once, there was a great crash, and Tamba felt his cage turning over. Next it was upside down. The tiger was thrown on his back.

“Ha! Now is my chance to get away!” Tamba thought. “My cage will break open and I can get out! Now I can go back to my jungle!”