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After they had quit the paved streets, Red Hoss drove a bumpy course diagonally across many switch spurs, and obeying instructions from his fare brought safely up alongside a red-painted sleeping car which formed the head end of the show train where it stood on a siding. But starting back he decided to skirt alongside the track, where he hoped the going might be easier. As he backed round and started off, directly in front of him he made out through the encompassing mists the dim flare of a gasoline torch, and he heard a voice uplifted in pleading:

“Come on, Lena! Come on, Baby Doll! Come on out of that, you Queenie!”

Seemingly an unseen white man was urging certain of his lady friends to quit some mysterious inner retreat and join him where he stood; all of which, as Red Hoss figured it, was none of his affair. Had he known more he might have moved more slowly; indeed might have stopped moving altogether. But–I ask you–how was Red Hoss to know that the chief bull handler for Powers Brothers was engaged in superintending the unloading of his large living charges from their traveling accommodations in the bull car?

There were three of these bulls, all of them being of the gentler sex. Perhaps it might be well to explain here that the word “bull,” in the language of the white tops, means elephant. To a showman all cow elephants are bulls just as in a mid-Victorian day, more refined than this one, all authentic bulls were, to cultured people, cows.

Obeying the insistent request of their master, forth now and down a wooden runway filed the members of Powers Brothers’ World Famous Troupe of Ponderous Pachydermic Performers. First came Lena, then Baby Doll and last of all the mighty Queenie; and in this order they lumberingly proceeded, upon huge but silent feet, to follow him alongside the cindered right of way, feeling their way through the fog.

Now it is a fact well established in natural history–and in this instance was to prove a lamentable one–that elephants, unlike lightning bugs, carry no tail lamps. Of a sudden Red Hoss was aware of a vast, indefinite, mouse-colored bulk looming directly in the path before him. He braked hard and tried to swing out, but he was too close upon the obstacle to avoid a collision.

With a loud metallic smack the bow of the swerving taxicab, coming up from the rear, treacherously smote the mastodonic Queenie right where her wrinkles were thickest. Her knees bent forward, and involuntarily she squatted. She squatted, as one might say, on all points south. Simultaneously there was an agonized squeal from Queenie and a crunching sound from behind and somewhat under her, and the tragic deed was done. The radiator of Red Hoss’ car looked something like a concertina which had seen hard usage and something like a folded-in crush hat, but very little, if any, like a radiator.

At seven o’clock next morning, when Mr. Farrell arrived at his establishment, his stricken gaze fastened upon a new car of his which had become to all intents and purposes practically two-thirds of a car. The remnant stood at the curbing, where his service car, having towed it in, had left it as though the night foreman had been unwilling to give so complete a ruin storage space within the garage. Alongside the wreckage was Red Hoss, endeavoring more or less unsuccessfully to make himself small and inconspicuous. Upon him menacingly advanced his employer.

“The second time in forty-eight hours for you, eh?” said Mr. Farrell. “Well, boy, you do work fast! Come on now, and give me the cold facts. How did the whole front end of this car come to get mashed off?”

Tone and mien alike were threatening. Red Hoss realized there was no time for extended preliminary remarks. From him the truth came trippingly on the tongue.

“Boss, man, I ain’t aimin’ to tell you no lies dis time. I comes clean.”