“Pant,” said Johnny the next evening, as they sat upon the beach in the moonlight, with the tom, tom, tom of the circus drum sounding from the distance, “there’s one thing that puzzles me about this crimson flash.”

“Let’s hear.” There was a smile lurking about the corners of Pant’s mouth.

“That big yellow cat last night was scared stiff, just frozen in his tracks by the crimson flash,” said Johnny. “They tell me that all the big cats act that way, except one.”

“Uh!” grunted Pant. “The black panther.”

“He leaps right at it, wants to eat someone up every time it’s flashed on his cage. How’s that?” asked Johnny.

Pant smiled, as he drank in a deep breath of cool, night air. “That, Johnny, is a rather long story, a story I’ve never told. But, because you’ve been a good pal, because, though I’ve doubtless seemed mighty queer at times, you’ve never asked a leading question, I’ve a strong notion to tell it to you.”

Johnny waited in silence. The tom tom of the drum ceased. By that he knew that Gwen, Queen of the circus, was just entering the ring for her part. He had intended to see that act again, but if Pant spoke—

“I think I will,” mused Pant. “You see,” he went on, “ever since I was a small child I have had a great interest in cats. Even before I could walk, so they tell me, I would turn up missing, and they’d find me at last creeping through the grass in the meadows, following an old tomato colored cat that was hunting for moles.

“As I grew older I came to know that a cat could see in the dark, and that he did most of his hunting at night. These things interested me. Night after night I would slip from my bed, steal out into the night and follow the cats in their nightly wanderings. I guess I learned things about cats that no one else knows; some of their secrets, I mean. I’ve never told them, and I’m not going to tell them to you. Knowledge is of very little use to people unless they go to the places where it can be applied, and very few are willing to go all that way.

“When I was thrown out into the world to shift for myself I still wanted to know more about cats. Little by little I came to know that house cats were but the pygmies among cats; that there were large, fierce, dangerous cats—wild cats, mountain lions, tigers, and the like. It was just when my curiosity about these big cats was at its height that I happened to wander 

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