“Leave him alone,” he cried. “I know him; I can manage him! Please do not interfere. He is an old friend of mine.” They saw that the bull was already still: he had recognized the boy’s voice! They kept his furious attendant back, and looked on in anxious hope while Clare went up to the animal. “Nimrod!” he whispered, laying a hand on one of the creature’s horns, and his cheek against his neck. Nimrod stood like a bull in bronze. “I’m going to get your horns out, Nimrod,” murmured Clare, and laid hold of the other with a firm grasp. “You must let me do as I like, you know, Nimrod!” His voice evidently soothed the bull. By the horns Clare turned his head now one way, now another, Nimrod not once resisting push or pull. In a moment more he would have them clear, for one of them was already free. Holding on to the latter, Clare turned to the bystanders. “You mustn’t touch him,” he said, “or I won’t answer for him. And you mustn’t let either of those men there”--for the second of Nimrod’s attendants had by this time come up--“interfere with him or me. They let him go because they couldn’t manage him. He can’t bear them; and if he were to break loose from them again, it might be quite another affair! Then he might distrust me!” The menagerie men turned, and looking saw that the man with the pitchfork had revenge in his heart. They gave him to understand that he must mind what he was about, or it would be the worse for him. The man scowled and said nothing. Clare gently released the other horn, but kept his hold of the first, moving the creature’s head by it, this way and that. A moment more and he turned his face to the company, which had scattered a little. When the inflamed eyes of Nimrod came into view, they scattered wider. Clare still made the bull feel his hand on his horn, and kept speaking to him gently and lovingly. Nimrod eyed his enemies, for such plainly he counted them, as if he wished he were a lion that he might eat as well as kill them. At the same time he seemed to regard them with triumph, saying in his big heart, “Ha! ha! you did not know what a friend I had! Here he is, come in the nick of time! I thought he would!” Clare proceeded to untie the ropes from the ring in his nose. The man with the pitchfork interfered. [Illustration: CLARE PROCEEDS TO UNTIE THE ROPES FROM THE RING IN THE BULL’S NOSE.] “That wonnot do!” he said, and laid his hand on Clare’s arm. “Would you send him ramping over the country, and never a hold to have on him?” “It wasn’t much good when you had a hold on him--was it now?” returned the boy. “Where do you want to take him?” “That’s my business,” answered the man sulkily. “I fancy you’ll find it’s mine!” returned Clare. “But there he is! Take him.” The man hesitated. “Then leave me to manage him,” said Clare. A murmur of approbation arose. The caravan people felt he knew what he was saying. They believed he had power with the bull.