that Uncle Ben gave him on his twenty-first birthday.
If we had the time he would tell us his personal experiences with
every celebrity in the circus world. We haven't the time, and we've
got to work fast and cautious.

"Now Fisheye would balk and walk away on us if we offered him these
bears for nothing; he just wouldn't understand it. He dickers in
animals a little; trains 'em and has 'em doing things right away. He
likes 'em and they like old Fisheye. Why, he can take these little
bears and have 'em turning somersaults, dancing, and climbing to their
perches in no time. Then he sells 'em into some big act.

"Fisheye is our meat for this play, but don't sell out too quick."

Leaving the cubs to the further destruction of their cage, the
prospective salesmen wended their way through a maze of sidewalls,
poles, unplaced wagons, cages. On past the refreshment booth that was
setting up in the central area; past a score of elephants, swaying in
contentment over the morning hay; past camels, llamas, zebras, and
other luminaries, to the far end of the big tent where a group of
laborers were aiding two elephants to line up the last of the cages
and vans in a proper circle around the enclosure.

It was all confusing enough to the big Westerner, but the little man
knew where to go. He pressed forward to where a little, old, dried up
"razorback" was regaling two of the workmen with words of experience
if not wisdom.

"'En I told Shako," he declared with emphasis, "that he never could
win back old Mom's confidence, till he got a big armload of sugarcane
en doled hit out to her. En shore enough when we got to Little Rock
and Shako got holt of some sugarcane, he win that old elephant's
respect instanter. En that ain't all! When we got to Memphis en hit
into that big storm, why ole Mom--" But the audience died away to one
man as the midget's voice interrupted.

"Say, Fisheye, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Welborn. Meet
Mr. Welborn, Mr. Gleason. Mr. Welborn here dickers a little in native
animals and has a couple of the slickest, fattest, neatest bear cubs
I've seen in years. He's got too much business to give any time to
training them and I told him of your success with animals and he wants
to make a deal with you."

"What kind of a deal? And where's yer bars?" Fisheye was alert to the
business up to knowing the full import of the deal.

"They are out here in a coop--on a trailer. He brought them down out
of th