He caught the second as it came, and toppled it over on the first. It joined in the game. While he held one back, the other ran in under the stream, and together they gained ground on him. When the third suddenly loped up and presented its great bulk to the bath, he began to shout for a bigger line, retreating as the bears worked in on him. He was glancing back over his shoulder anxiously for aid, when he saw a lion crouching in the passage behind him, dripping wet, but of a ferocious aspect. He lost his voice. He swung his pipe, gasping, at the newcomer and drove it back. He turned on the bears again and caught them as they came in a body. He stopped two of them, but he missed the third, and it rose with an angry growl seemingly right over him and he dropped his pipe and fled with a yell. At that moment a strong stream, from the deck above, came slantingly down through the hatch and checked the bear as it pursued him. XXIV During all this time, Chief Borden had been at the coaming of the open hatchway, watching the “Jiggers” from the main deck; and, when the electric lights had been turned on in the hold, he had been able to enjoy “Shine’s” combat with the wild animals, from a gallery seat. At first he had been merely an indifferent spectator, much preoccupied with affairs of state in the department; but when he saw the lion driven back among the cages like a doused cat, the shouts of laughter from the men around him set him smiling under his grey mustache. These men, under Keighley, were lowering the big line down into the hold to attack the fire; and they amused themselves by shouting encouragement to “Shine” as if they were following a bull fight. The situation was the funnier because “Shine” was unable to hear them--on account of the uproar around him--and unable to see them because he was in the light and they in darkness; and he whooped and danced about with his nozzle, unconscious that he was playing the clown for their amusement. “Give it to ’em,” they called. “Kick ’em in the slats. Ho-ho! This ’s more fun ’an a circus!” The chief--naturally a jovial man, with a bluff military manner--enjoyed it as much as anybody. But when the bear appeared, they all saw danger in the joke. “Here,” the chief cried. “He’ll never hold that brute. Get a bigger line down to him. There comes another. They’ll eat him up.” Keighley and his men ran back to bring up a three-inch line, and the chief remained laughing at the duel between “Shine” and the bears. He shouted, “Back out, you fool!” Moore and the fireman with him, who were just below where the chief stood, heard the order and obeyed it. By so doing they left “Shine” unprotected from an attack in the rear. When the third bear appeared, the excitement became frantic; and the whole company, from the chief down, pulled on the incoming hose and shouted and laughed together.