nd at all. Down
by the Richland House a strange white man wearing a hand-colored
mustache and a tiger-claw watch charm hailed Red Hoss. This person
desired to be carried entirely out of town, to the south yards of the P.
T. & A. Railroad, where Powers Brothers' Carnival Company was detraining
from its cars with intent to pitch camp in the suburb of Mechanicsville
hard by and furnish the chief attractions for a three days' street fair
to be given under the auspices of the Mechanicsville lodge of Knights of
Damon.

After they had quit the paved streets, Red Hoss drove a bumpy course
diagonally across many switch spurs, and obeying instructions from his
fare brought safely up alongside a red-painted sleeping car which formed
the head end of the show train where it stood on a siding. But starting
back he decided to skirt alongside the track, where he hoped the going
might be easier. As he backed round and started off, directly in front
of him he made out through the encompassing mists the dim flare of a
gasoline torch, and he heard a voice uplifted in pleading:

"Come on, Lena! Come on, Baby Doll! Come on out of that, you Queenie!"

Seemingly an unseen white man was urging certain of his lady friends to
quit some mysterious inner retreat and join him where he stood; all of
which, as Red Hoss figured it, was none of his affair. Had he known more
he might have moved more slowly; indeed might have stopped moving
altogether. But--I ask you--how was Red Hoss to know that the chief bull
handler for Powers Brothers was engaged in superintending the unloading
of his large living charges from their traveling accommodations in the
bull car?

There were three of these bulls, all of them being of the gentler sex.
Perhaps it might be well to explain here that the word "bull," in the
language of the white tops, means elephant. To a showman all cow
elephants are bulls just as in a mid-Victorian day, more refined than
this one, all authentic bulls were, to cultured people, cows.

Obeying the insistent request of their master, forth now and down a
wooden runway filed the members of Powers Brothers' World Famous Troupe
of Ponderous Pachydermic Performers. First came Lena, then Baby Doll and
last of all the mighty Queenie; and in this order they lumberingly
proceeded, upon huge but silent feet, to follow him alongside the
cindered right of way, feeling their way through the fog.

Now it is a fact well established in natural history--and