name's Waite. I know you're with the circus at El Santo. Do you want to sell the beast?"

"We're broke, hungry, and sick," answered Tom. "There's a chance the boss might sell you Hannibal."

"We air seek, varry seek," put in the East Indian. Hannibal playfully squirted a torrent of water into the air. He had not enjoyed such a plunge in months. Occasionally he would stop in his play to wink solemnly.

Waite had little difficulty in drawing out their simple story. The enterprise had invaded Mexico by way of Laredo, knowing little as to the simplicity and small means of the native patrons it sought. At El Santo, a small village near the new bridge, the proprietor's resources gave out. The acrobats, unaccustomed to semi-tropical ways of living, were ill. The so-called menagerie, consisting - besides the venerable Asiatic elephant Hannibal of a boa constrictor, a few monkeys, and a dozen trick and draft horses, was on the verge of starvation.

Tom Ord and Mahama, the East Indian, were in charge of Hannibal and all his performances. Tom, who had joined the circus in Kansas through love of adventure, was painfully gaining the knowledge that back of tinsel and glitter is always a reality of hard, grinding facts. His one joy on the dreary southward journey had been Hannibal, as clever and amiable a veteran of the ring as ever lived.

"See here!" exclaimed Waite. "You say that Hannibal will obey orders and is good-tempered. I'm tied up on this bridge work, and have a heap of big timber to move right away. We can't have a walking crane here for a month, and I can't wait.

"Now" He stopped and began to figure busily with his pencil. "Yes, that's all right. My camp's up on the

high land, and there's plenty of room in it for Hannibal and you and your friend from India. If you two can make him move timbers as he did that beam, I'll buy him outright, — that's what I was figuring about, — and put you and him to work to-morrow morning-fair wages, American food, and medicine, a square deal all round. How does that strike you? Will your boss sell? Get the elephant," nodding at happy Hannibal, "and let's find out."

With Waite, thought was comrade of action, and two hours later Hannibal, Tom and Mahama passed under his control while the wreck of the Imperial Americano Circus and Menagerie, provided with needed money, moved for the nearest railway connections with the United States.

The Del Norte is not an imposing stream, but its bottoms are treacherous and the flood-times wild. Hence there were many arguments at Monterey between dark-skinned Mexican planters and lanky, gray-ėyed American contractors and builders, ending in the order for a broad and durable bridge at the lower ford.

Waite, four years graduated from college and two years a resident of Mexico, was given charge of the construction work. He sank caissons of steel filled with concrete through the quicksands and shifting silts of the Del Norte. Then he was ready for his superstructure, part wood and part steel. The parts of this were at hand, but not a walking crane to move them. That very day word had been brought to him from Monterey that the crane could not reach him for a month yet. The flood period was dangerously near, and to wait thirty days for a crane meant peril. He had derricks, but a crane would save much in time and labor.

The terror of the native Mexican workmen the morning following Hannibal's arrival was pitiful to behold. They fled

in every direction.

direction. Manuel, their foreman, approached Waite, his teeth chattering.

"Señor," he gasped, making an effort to use his best English, "dis debbil, dis, dis- what shall I say - ees it to be wid us?"

"Manuel," replied Waite, "you and your men go to your regular work. You have the plans for the day. Hannibal is no devil; you'll see later he's a good angel. Let him alone; he'll not harm you."

Tremblingly and with many sighs the peons returned to their duties. As for Hannibal, his stomach full, his two beloved masters by his side, he rolled his small eyes over the busy scene and waited for orders.

They came fast in Waite's snappy way. To his great delight, he found that Mahama had done timber work in Bombay with elephant teams, and knew just about what was expected of him.

Tom also grasped the situation quickly, and said to Waite: "Every couple of hours, I'll take Hannibal down to the pool. An elephant can't work well when he's hot.

As for Hannibal, Tom, and Mahama, they bent to the great task before them. Crossbeams, stringers, uprights were scattered in every direction. The orders for Hannibal were to get them in place at the derricks, from which they could be readily advanced to the piers.

Tom shouting to him from one side, Mahama guiding him from another, the animal lumbered to his duties with evident joy. In his way he signified that he preferred this work to that of the circus. The sweep of fresh air was upon him, the water pool was invitingly near, the incessant chatter of the jungle birds possibly brought back memories of his youth, when he had been free in the wastes of the Himalayan

foothills. And some other recollections, something strangely disturbing, returned to him.

It was about noon of the first day's work that Hannibal, returning from the pool with Tom, suddenly stopped. He jerked his massive head toward the line of mountains in the west, drew in a long whiff of air, waved his trunk fan-fashion, and softly whistled.

"What is it, old boy?" asked Tom.

Hannibal gave no heed. He was smelling the air driven in by an easy wind from the caves, ledges and forests on the mountain side. His little eyes had stopped their customary twinkling and grew unusually sharp and bright. His trunk now curled, and his great muscles grew tense, as if he were preparing for an attack. Something in that wind spoke of days long gone by, carried the challenge of foes not seen in years, called to battle like a bugle.

Suddenly Hannibal screamed, not a scream of fear or cowardice, but of terrible defiance. The peons at the noontime meal slid to their knees and crossed themselves. The wild birds ceased their chattering. Far away cattle trembled, bolted, and ran.

Then Mahama shouted at Hannibal in his native tongue and sharply prodded him with a little goad.

The elephant began to tremble, his muscles relaxed, and he was soon the obedient animal again. But as he ambled back to the bridge, he would now and then look anxiously at the Cordillera. Something had called to him from the peaks. Mahama talked to Waite about it.

"Eez strange things ober dere?" pointing to the range. "De beast smell someting not heez friend. He get mad. Ven he cry like dat, mooch trouble coming."

"Jaguars and all kinds of wildcats are over there," ex

plained Waite. “The jaguar is like the lion of your country, only worse. Perhaps Hannibal smelled one.

"Dat's eet. De day is varm, de leon get hot skin, and de air blow ober it. Dat Hannibal smell. He no like leon and

leon no like him.

Ooch! Hannibal no 'fraid."

Through the afternoon and the succeeding fortnight Hannibal performed his duties faithfully, but daily he scented the wind to see if that call from the jungle might come back to him, and daily the winds, which had shifted their direction, brought him no message. Mahama made for him a rough harness, and he not only lifted immense burdens, but hauled them. The peons came to admire him, and when they saw how gently he would wind his trunk about Tom, Mahama, or even Waite, and set them back, they developed great faith in his amiability and powers.

The flooring of the bridge was down and the side braces well set when one morning there came riding out of the west a Mexican sugarcane planter, whose horse bolted when it saw Hannibal, and had to be led away, while its rider came ahead on foot and asked Tom for Waite. To Waite he explained that for two days past a jaguar from the mountains had been ravaging his flocks and young herds. He was unprovided with suitable weapons to hunt the beast, but had tracking dogs. Would the American lend him a rifle for the chase?

Waite was only too glad to give the planter two excellent guns and explain how they should be used. The planter said that the jaguar raided the domestic animals only when extremely hungry, and therefore more than usually savage. He had heard from the native Indians that wild-animal feeding had been scarce on the range that year, and that the pumas and jaguars had been hunting in the lowlands.