fond of drawing apart from the little herd, and taking up his
solitary post on the knoll, where he would stand for an hour at a time
motionless except for the switching of his long tail, and staring
steadily westward as if he knew where the great past of his race had
lain. In that direction a dense grove of chestnuts, maples, and oaks
bounded the range, cutting off the view of the city roofs, the roar of
the city traffic. Beyond the city were mountains and wide waters which
he could not see; but beyond the waters and the mountains stretched the
green, illimitable plains--which perhaps (who knows?) in some faint
vision inherited from the ancestors whose myriads had possessed them,
his sombre eyes, in some strange way, _could_ see. Among the keepers and
attendants generally it was said, with anxious regret, that perhaps Last
Bull was "going bad." But the headkeeper, Payne, himself a son of the
plains, repudiated the idea. _He_ declared sympathetically that the
great bull was merely homesick, pining for the wind-swept levels of the
open country (God's country, Payne called it!) which his imprisoned
hoofs had never trodden.

Be this as it may, the fact could not be gainsaid that Last Bull was
growing more and more morose. The spectators, strolling along the wide
walk which skirted the front of his range, seemed to irritate him, and
sometimes, when a group had gathered to admire him, he would turn his
low-hung head and answer their staring eyes with a kind of heavy fury,
as if he burned to break forth upon them and seek vengeance for
incalculable wrongs. This smouldering indignation against humanity
extended equally, if not more violently, to all creatures who appeared
to him as servants or allies of humanity. The dogs whom he sometimes saw
passing, held in leash by their masters or mistresses, made him paw the
earth scornfully if he happened to be near the fence. The patient horses
who pulled the road-roller or the noisy lawn-mower made his eyes redden
savagely. And he hated with peculiar zest the roguish little trick
elephant, Bong, who would sometimes, his inquisitive trunk swinging from
side to side, go lurching lazily by with a load of squealing children on
his back.

Bong, who was a favored character, amiable and trustworthy, was allowed
the freedom of the Park in the early morning, before visitors began to
arrive who might be alarmed at seeing an elephant at large. He was
addicted to minding his own business, and nev