Jack did not know what to do. He had quite a sum saved up, but not enough to go to China with, and yet he desired to go and seek his parents. He disliked to do as Sam had suggested, and appeal to the professor, although he felt that it might be the best plan. If no news had been received from China, Jack made up his mind he would remain with the circus for another summer, but there was one difficulty in the way. The show had no winter season, and Jack would be out of a job until next spring. He would have to live in the meantime, and, unless he could get a place in some theatre, which was doubtful, all his savings might go to support him while the show was in winter quarters. It was a harder problem to solve than he had any idea of, and he decided he would talk with Sam about it. “That’s what I’ll do,” Jack decided one day after the afternoon performance had come to a close. “I’ll ask him what he would do.” Sam was not in the dressing-tent, and on inquiring where he was Jack was told that his friend was in the animal tent talking to one of the trainers. Thither the boy clown went. As he passed the roped-off enclosure where the elephants were chained to heavy stakes, Jack saw Bill Henyon, the trainer of the huge beasts, rather carefully regarding Ajax, the largest tusker in the herd. “Going to put him through some new tricks, Mr. Henyon?” asked Jack, for he had made friends with the elephant trainer. The man shook his head. “Something’s wrong with Ajax,” he said. “I don’t like the way he’s acting. He’s ugly with me, and he never was that way before. I’m afraid I’m going to have trouble. He acts to me as if he was going to have a mad spell.” “Do elephants get mad?” asked Jack. “Well, not in the way dogs do, but there comes a certain time when they get off their feed, or when they have distemper or something like that, and then they go off in a rage, destroying everything they come up against. When an elephant gets that way in the wild state they call him a ‘rogue,’ and even the best hunters steer clear of him. He’s a solitary brute, that kills for the love of killing.” “Do you think Ajax will get that way?” “I hope not, yet I don’t like the way he’s behaving. I think I’ll double shackle him.” Jack passed on, glad that it was not his duty to take charge of the big ungainly brutes. Mr. Henyon proceeded to fasten Ajax to the ground with heavy chains about the animal’s feet. “Now if you want to go off on a tantrum, you’ll have hard work getting away,” remarked the elephant man. Ajax looked at his keeper with his wicked little eyes, and, lifting up his trunk, gave a shrill trumpet. Nor was the animal trainer’s mind made any more easy as he noticed that Ajax was not doing his accustomed swaying motion, which all those big beasts, at least in captivity, seem to be always doing. Clearly something was wrong with Ajax.