OF WILD ANIMALS 121 



what she would do in the morning when we would attempt to 

 remove her. 



Soon after dawn a force of keepers arrived. Chaining the 

 elephant's front feet together so that she could not step more 

 than a foot, we loosed the chains from the two posts and ordered 

 her to come to an "about face," and go out. Instead of doing 

 that she determinedly advanced toward the right, and came 

 within reach of twelve handsome glazed cases of live reptiles 

 that stood on a long table. Frantically the men tried to drive 

 her back. For answer she put her two front feet on the top 

 bar of the steel guard rail and smashed ten feet of it to the floor. 

 Then she began to butt those glass snake cages off their table, 

 one by one. 



"Boom!" "Bang!" "Crash!" they went on the floor, one 

 after another. Soon fourteen banded rattlesnakes of junior 

 size were wriggling over the floor. "Smash" went more cases. 

 The Reptile House was in a great uproar. Soon the big wall 

 cases would be reached, and then — I would be obliged to shoot 

 her dead, to avoid a general delivery of poisonous serpents, and 

 big pythons from twenty to twenty-two feet long. The room 

 resounded with our shouts, and the angry trumpeting of Alice. 



At last, by vigorous work with the elephant hooks, Alice 

 was turned and headed out of the building. A foot at a time 

 she passed out, then headed toward the bear dens. Midway, 

 we steered her in among some young maple trees, and soon had 

 her front legs chained to one of them. Alice tried to push it 

 over, and came near to doing so. 



Then we quickly tied her hind legs together, — and she was 

 all ours. Seeing that all was clear for a fall, we joyously pushed 

 Alice off her feet. She went over, and fell prone upon her side. 

 In three minutes all her feet were securely anchored to trees, and 

 we sat down upon her prostrate body. 



At that crowning indignity Alice was the maddest elephant 

 in the world for that day. We gave her food, and the use of 

 her trunk, and left her there twenty-four hours, to think it over. 



