“Well, friends, here I am back!” cried the little pony. “I have been giving the boys and girls a ride, and now I’ve come back to have something to eat. Has anything happened while I was out, hitched to the basket cart, giving rides to the boys and girls? Has anything happened?”
“Yes,” answered the old horse, near whose stall Tamba was hiding in the straw, “something strange has happened. A big striped animal, who calls himself a tiger, came into our barn.”
“A tiger!” cried the little pony. “Why, I’d like to see him. I know something about tigers.”
“Oh, do you?” asked Tamba himself, sticking his head out of the straw, as he had stuck it out of the hay at Tom. But the pony was not frightened. “So you know something about tigers, do you?” went on Tamba. “Well, what is your name, if I may ask? Mine is Tamba.”
“Oh, ho! I know that very well!” neighed the pony. “You don’t know me, Tamba, but I have often seen you in the circus. I am Tinkle, the trick pony. I was in the circus a short time myself, but there were so many of us little Shetland ponies that I don’t suppose you remember me. But there were only a few tigers in the show, and I remember you very well. Didn’t you used to jump through a paper hoop as one of your tricks?”
“Yes,” answered Tamba, “I did. And, now that you speak of it, I believe I remember you. You used to pull, around the ring, a little cart with a funny clown in it, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Tinkle, “I did. Well, Tamba, I’m glad to see you again. But what brings you so far from the circus, and why are you hiding here?”
“That,” said Tamba, “is a long story. I’ll tell it to you!”
But, all of a sudden, one of the cows at the far end of the stable mooed out:
“Quick, Tamba! Here comes the man to milk us! Hide in the straw so he won’t see you!”
Tamba did not need to be told twice what to do. As soon as he heard the kind words of the cow the tame tiger ran softly on his padded feet and snuggled down again in the straw. And the man came in, milked the cows, and went out with the foaming pails without knowing anything about the circus tiger hiding in the lower part of the barn. He thought the tiger had gone away.
“Now it’s all right――he’s gone and you may come out,” said the cow to Tamba, and the tiger, shaking the straw from his striped black and yellow fur, walked out to talk some more to Tinkle, the trick pony.