er paid the slightest
attention to any occupants of cage or enclosure. He was quite unaware of
the hostility which he had aroused in the perverse and brooding heart of
Last Bull.

One crisp morning in late November, when all the grass in the Park had
been blackened by frost, and the pools were edged with silver rims of
ice, and mists were white and saffron about the scarce-risen sun, and
that autumn thrill was in the air which gives one such an appetite, Bong
chanced to be strolling past the front of Last Bull's range. He did not
see Last Bull, who was nothing to him. But, being just as hungry as he
ought to be on so stimulating a morning, he did see, and note with
interest, some bundles of fresh hay on the other side of the fence.

Now, Bong was no thief. But hay had always seemed to him a free largess,
like grass and water, and this looked like very good hay. So clear a
conscience had he on the subject that he never thought of glancing
around to see if any of the attendants were looking. Innocently he
lurched up to the fence, reached his lithe trunk through, gathered a
neat wisp of the hay, and stuffed it happily into his curious, narrow,
pointed mouth. Yes, he had not been mistaken. It was good hay. With
great satisfaction he reached in for another mouthful.

Last Bull, as it happened, was standing close by, but a little to one
side. He had been ignoring, so far, his morning ration. He was not
hungry. And, moreover, he rather disapproved of the hay because it had
the hostile man-smell strong upon it. Nevertheless, he recognized it
very clearly as his property, to be eaten when he should feel inclined
to eat it. His wrath, then, was only equalled by his amazement when he
saw the little elephant's presumptuous gray trunk reach in and coolly
help itself. For a moment he forgot to do anything whatever about it.
But when, a few seconds later, that long, curling trunk of Bong's
insinuated itself again and appropriated another bundle of the now
precious hay, the outraged owner bestirred himself. With a curt roar,
that was more of a cough or a grunt than a bellow, he lunged forward and
strove to pin the intruding trunk to the ground.

With startled alacrity Bong withdrew his trunk, but just in time to save
it from being mangled. For an instant he stood with the member held high
in air, bewildered by what seemed to him such a gratuitous attack. Then
his twinkling little eyes began to blaze, and he trumpeted shrilly with
a