“Yes: he looks so pleasant, and——” “O, it’s well you didn’t. You think him a good-natured fellow, eh? That’s what we call a California Tiger. Watch me stir him up, if you think him a pleasant fellow.” He picked up an iron rod, thrust it into the cage, between the bars, and gave the creature, which had the honor to hail from California, an abrupt poke on the ribs. The result fairly startled me. The animal, which had appeared as docile as a kitten a moment before, now sprang up, uttered a growl as fierce as thunder only ten yards distant, displayed a mouthful of sharp white teeth an inch long, and fastened upon the iron rod with its savage jaws. At the same time its eyes glared like balls of fire, and seemed ready to dart out at me. Altogether, the savage creature looked as though it could bite a man’s leg off without noticing that there was a bone in it. “What if you had put your hand in?” said Major Kline. “It would have bit it off, I suppose,” I returned; “and I couldn’t well afford to lose it.” “Yes,” said Pete Ohmer, “he could snap your hand off in a second, and eat it up; and it would only give him an appetite to eat the rest of you.” I could not help congratulating myself on my narrow escape, and resolved never to trust my hand to an unknown animal, merely because I liked its gentle appearance. CHAPTER XXIX. FALLS CITY AND CAVE CITY. EARLY in May, I left Cincinnati and went to Louisville, Kentucky, one hundred and fifty miles down the river. I took passage on a splendid steamer—one of the finest on the Ohio or Mississippi. The fare was only two dollars, and each passenger was furnished with two excellent meals by the way, and a state-room berth when night came. It will naturally be thought that this was remarkably cheap; and so it was. But it was the result of competition. “Opposition” boats were at that time running between Cincinnati and Louisville, and the fare—usually four or five dollars—had crawled down to two. Certainly “Competition is the life of trade.”