sed about all day, trying to figure out some way to get the
beggar back in his cage, and I got an earache listening to advice from
people who had never seen a lion, but who considered themselves experts.
At sunset Wallace still held the fort and the streets were blocked in
all directions, for the afternoon papers were out with extras with
scare-heads. The boards over the windows made the interior of the stable
so dark that no one could see into it, but the roars which came from it
gave the spectators all the thrills they were entitled to and caused a
stampede every few minutes. We tried to drive Wallace into the cage
with a stream of water from the fire plug, but he only shook his head
and growled at it, so we gave it up and waited for daylight. There were
about forty policemen and a crowd of reporters about the place all
night, and I was getting nervous for fear some fool would shoot the
lion, whose value was increasing every minute, so I kept awake and did
a heap of thinking.

[Illustration: _"Broncho was only a half-breed."_]

"I knew that Wallace would fight for his 'kill' as long as any of the
meat was left, so we rigged up a tackle to try and draw the carcass out.
We were all ready at daylight and the crowd was bigger than ever. Say,
if you want to count the idle people in New York just get up a free show
at any hour of the day or night and they will all come. There must have
been over a thousand loafing about the street all night. We were just
getting ready to make a try for the horse when the idlers outside gave a
cheer, and I saw an express wagon loaded with nets and ropes and all
sorts of animal catching stuff drive up. Tody Hamilton, Barnum's press
agent, had caught on to the possibilities of an advertisement, and sent
to the winter quarters at Bridgeport for some of their animal men to
come down and capture a loose lion. They supposed it was in Central
Park, and when they found it was in a stable the job looked easy to
them. One of them, a man named McDonald, had been with our English
show, and when he heard that it was Wallace they were to tackle his
enthusiasm seemed to melt. He told the others a few anecdotes of the
lion, and two of them went to find the Cockney, I guess, for we never
saw them again.

"We managed to throw a slip noose around the carcass from the stairs,
and when we passed the end of the rope out of the window there must have
been five hundred men pulling on it from the way that horse's