They moved him to a new cage made for him since he came--a hard
rock floor, great bars of nearly two-inch steel that reached up nine
feet and then projected in for five. The Monarch wheeled once around,
then, rearing, raised his ponderous bulk, wrenched those bars,
unbreakable, and bent and turned them in their sockets with one heave
till the five-foot spears were pointed out, and then sprang to climb.
Nothing but pikes and blazing brands in a dozen ruthless hands could
hold him back. The keepers watched him night and day till a stronger
cage was made, impregnable with steel above and rocks below.
The Untamed One passed swiftly around, tried every bar, examined every
corner, sought for a crack in the rocky floor, and found at last the
place where was a six-inch timber beam--the only piece of wood in its
frame. It was sheathed in iron, but exposed for an inch its whole
length. One claw could reach the wood, and here he lay on his side and
raked--raked all day till a great pile of shavings was lying by it and
the beam sawn in two; but the cross-bolts remained, and when Monarch
put his vast shoulder to the place it yielded not a whit. That was his
last hope; now it was gone; and the huge Bear sank down in the cage
with his nose in his paws and sobbed--long, heavy sobs, animal sounds
indeed, but telling just as truly as in man of the broken spirit--the
hope and the life gone out.
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