girl of India had given Alec the jar twenty
years before. The spirit of a real rose-jar never dies; and something
of the girl's spirit was around it, too, as Alec talked softly. All
this was unreservedly good to Skag--thrilling as certain few books and
the top drawer that had been his mother's. . . . But something way
back of that, utterly his own deep heart-business, was connected with
the rose-jar. It was breathless like opening a telegram--its first
scent after days or weeks. If you find any meaning to the way Skag
expressed it, you are welcome:

"It makes you think of things you don't know--"

"But you will," Alec had once answered.

The more you knew, the more you favoured that old man of the circus
company,--little gold ring in his ear and such tales of India!

It was Alec who led Skag into the fancy way of dealing with animals,
but of course the boy was peculiar, inasmuch as he believed it all at
once. Skag never ceased to think of it until it was his; he actually
put it into practice. Alec might have told a dozen American trainers
and have gotten no more than a yawp for his pains. This is one of the
things Alec said:

"If you can get on top of the menagerie in your own insides,
Skagee--the tigers and apes, the serpents and monkeys, in your own
insides--you'll never get in bad with the Cloud Brothers wild animal
show."

There wasn't a day or night for years that Skag didn't think of that
saying. It was his secret theme. So far as he could see, it worked
out. Of course, he found out many things for himself--one of which was
that there is a smell about a man who is afraid, that the animals get
it and become afraid, too. Alec agreed to this, but added that there
is a smell about most men, when they are not afraid.

For hours they talked together about India--tiger hunts and the big
Grass Jungle country in the Bund el Khand, until Skag couldn't wait any
longer. He had to go to India. He told Alec, who wanted to go along,
but couldn't leave old Phedra.

"I've been with her too long," he said. "She's delicate, Skagee. I'm
young, but she couldn't stand it for me to go. Times are hard for her
on the road, and the little herd needs her as she needs me. . . ."

Skag understood that. In fact, he loved it well. It belonged to his
world--to be straight with the animals. Gradually as the distance
increased between them, the memory of old Alec began to smell as sweet
as the sandal-wood chest in S