Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-07-15
LOOK FOR BADGER.


phant Tanner.
Bravery and cool courage ever ex-
acts admiration from the low to the
high, and contrarywise.
into burning building to save child,
The man who will deliberately walk
or jump overheard to rescue drown
ing man, is made of a material of
priceless worth, because heroic.
Badger is such one.
He hasn't any other name, and how
ne got that one is mystery yet un-
solved.
Badger is colored man, black as
cyclops from the forge, or Spaniard
Weyler's conscience. He is the keeper
of one of the, herds of elephants owned
by the Forepaugh-Sel Brothers Cir
Gus.
This Badger has a record for bray-
cry that would make a naval hero
look cross-eyed. He has proven that
he has no more fear of a rampant,
roaring, renegade elephant than you
have of the storm of yesterday.
1t takes man with a nerve of steel
and the muscle OF tiger to approach
an elephant-the most cruel and terri
Bile of living beasts, When angered. An
elephant can knock the life out of a
man with one blow of his trunk, and
human being once under those
round, terrible feet has about as much
chance as fly under a trip hammer.
Badger knows this well. But he is
an elephant keeper and so long as he
is that, so long as he is engaged in a
count of the terrific and ever present
danger, he flinches not, sinks not
when the time comes for action, and
duty points the way. One cannot
withhold admiration from one who,
with naught more than pointed stick
in his hand, will approach undaunted
the most invincible living engine of
destruction. A man who can do that
must have the courage of a hungry
vampire, and the famed GOODNESS of
the crocodile.
Badger, shiny-eyed, grinning, unob
streperous of aspect, Badger never fail
ed to come up to the mark. Many is
the time he has shown his unfaltering
nxy'- ha tiD1n 10 hoe fanaH
an angry, murderous elephant, tanned
him, driven him to his corner, chained
him, and beaten him into submission.
Pooling with a buzz saw or walking
up to the lannon's mouth is tame sport
compared to the work cut out for this
ebon-hued son of Africa.
Badger is not an American product.
He came here, and in an odd way,
from far away Australia with Sells
Brothers when returning from one of
their visits to the antipodes. While
there Badger joined the circus in the
to elephant keeper, from playing with
fire to fooling with doubled distilled
lightning, came about in a queer way
and is worth relating.
When the circus left Australia and
started for home, there was no more
use for Badger Just as good cooks,
and for less money, could be hired in
the States, and tickets from the far
away land of the Kangaroo cost a
pretty penny. So Badger along with
a dozen others, fascinated with circus
life, decided to gain passage as stow
Always. Once at sea, although there
were over two hundred circus people
aboard. 1t was discovered that more
meals were being served than there
were tickets purchased. So it was de-
cided to search the ship.
Down in the hold four of the ele-
plants had been stored-four elephants
that could not be counted on as well
as the others in stormy sea. They
were down there for keeps. When the
ships men came to search this part of
the vessel, these elephants set up such
a horrible uproar that the men were
frightened away. Every time they at
tempted to search that part Of the ship
blood-curdling trumpetings by the ele