Tom, because if he had started
off somewheres else to drop down on the sand, the menagerie would 'a'
come along, too, and might 'a' kept us hunting a safe place till I got
tuckered out and fell.

And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out the clothes, and
trying to divide them up so there would be some for all, but there was a
misunderstanding about it somewheres, on account of some of them trying
to hog more than their share; so there was another insurrection, and you
never see anything like it in the world. There must 'a' been fifty of
them, all mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping and biting
and tearing, legs and tails in the air, and you couldn't tell which was
which, and the sand and fur a-flying. And when they got done, some was
dead and some was limping off crippled, and the rest was setting around
on the battlefield, some of them licking their sore places and the others
looking up at us and seemed to be kind of inviting us to come down and
have some fun, but which we didn't want any.

As for the clothes, they warn't any, any more. Every last rag of them was
inside of the animals; and not agreeing with them very well, I don't
reckon, for there was considerable many brass buttons on them, and there
was knives in the pockets, too, and smoking tobacco, and nails and chalk
and marbles and fishhooks and things. But I wasn't caring. All that was
bothering me was, that all we had now was the professor's clothes, a big
enough assortment, but not suitable to go into company with, if we came
across any, because the britches was as long as tunnels, and the coats
and things according. Still, there was everything a tailor needed, and
Jim was a kind of jack legged tailor, and he allowed he could soon trim a
suit or two down for us that would answer.

CHAPTER IX. TOM DISCOURSES ON THE DESERT

STILL, we thought we would drop down there a minute, but on another
errand. Most of the professor's cargo of food was put up in cans, in the
new way that somebody had just invented; the rest was fresh. When you
fetch Missouri beefsteak to the Great Sahara, you want to be particular
and stay up in the coolish weather. So we reckoned we would drop down
into the lion market and see how we could make out there.

We hauled in the ladder and dropped down till we was just above the reach
of the animals, then we let down a rope with a slip-knot in it and hauled
up a dead lion, a small tender one, then yanked up