"Thank you!" Señor Bogardi bowed. "For the comfort of the audience I will omit my act to-day. But I will subdue Princess later." There was a breath of relief from the crowd as the trainer prepared to leave the cage. Men who had fastened the door after him raised the iron bar that held it so he could emerge. The lion-tamer slipped from the cage through the outside door, which was about to be shut when Princess, with all her force, threw herself against the inner spring door. Whether it was insecurely fastened or whether she broke the fastenings, was not disclosed at the moment, but the door gave way and the enraged beast sprang into the smaller compartment and toward the outer door. "Quick!" cried the trainer. "Up with that bar! Fasten the door, or she'll be out among us!" The circus men raised the bar, but the cage was swaying so from the leapings of the lioness that they could not slip the iron in place. It almost dropped from their hands. Joe Strong saw the danger. He stood near the cage, the crowd having rushed back, men and women yelling with fright. Joe saw the outer door swing open. In another instant the lioness would be out. At that moment the men dropped the iron bar. "Quick! Something to fasten the door--to hold it!" cried the lion-tamer. Joe acted in a flash and not an instant too soon. He forced the strong hickory bar of his small trapeze into the places meant to receive the iron bar, and as the lioness, with a roar of rage, flung herself against the door, it did not give way, but held. Joe had prevented her escape. CHAPTER XIII A BAD BLOW "Quick now! With the iron bar!" cried Señor Bogardi. "That trapeze stick won't hold long!" But it held long enough. As the lioness, flung back into a corner of her cage by her impact against the steel door, gathered herself for another spring, the men slipped into place the iron bar, Joe pulling out his trapeze. "It's all right now--no more danger!" called Jim Tracy. "Take it easy, folks, she can't get out now!" This was true enough. The beast, after a fruitless effort to force a way out of the cage, retreated to a corner and lay down, snarling and growling. "I don't know what's gotten into Princess," said the trainer as he looked at her. "She never acted this way before." "It's a good thing she showed her temper before you got in the cage with her, and not afterward," remarked Joe, as he was about to pass on to the performance tent. "That's right," agreed Señor Bogardi. "And you did the right thing in the nick of time, my boy. Only for your trapeze bar she'd have been out among the crowd," and he looked at the men, women and children, who were now calming down. The small panic was soon over, and in order to quiet the lioness a big canvas was thrown over her cage, so she would not be annoyed by onlookers. "I guess she needs a rest," her trainer said. "I'll let her alone for a day or so, and she may get over this."