truth.

“Listen, Johnny! When I came to myself I was weak, terribly weak from loss of blood; but the cat, the big black cat, he was raging in the cage, and the door was fastened tight.”

Pant paused. The animal tent was still. Suddenly a crimson flash gleamed. For an instant it turned the black cat blood red. The next moment, with a wild snarl, the beast flattened himself against the bars of his cage.

A keeper sprang out of the darkness.

“What’s that?” he demanded.

“What’s what?” drawled Pant.

“I thought I saw a flash.”

“He evidently thought something of the sort,” Pant replied, poking his thumb at the black cat.

“Well, you guys better move on. This ain’t no place for spinnin’ yarns.”

“That’s all right,” drawled Pant, “but let me tell you, friend; if anything ever happens to this circus, a fire, a cyclone, a train wreck, or anything like that, you get that cat. Get that black cat!”

“What d’you know about him?”

“Plenty that I don’t tell to strangers.”

Pant lifted the wall of the tent and stepped out into the moonlight, followed by Johnny.

“You didn’t finish,” suggested Johnny.

“There’s not much more to tell. You have to hand it to that doctor, though. When I didn’t come back in the morning, he tried to organize a party to search for me. No one would go. They were scared cold by the black cat. So he came alone. He found me there, too weak to move, and he carried me all the way back and put me in a bed I’d helped him to buy.

“The natives went for the black cat and brought him back to the village in triumph.

“When I was better a trader came to me and offered me the price of a tiger’s cub for the black cat. I laughed in his face, and told him I’d take the cat to the States myself. That’s what I did. I got five thousand dollars for him, and sent it all back to the doctor so he could buy beds, and absorbent cotton, and medicine for his hospital.”

“That was good of you,” said Johnny.

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