"Lion!" screamed the first. "Lion! Lion! Lion!" screamed all the others, whirling their scimitars until the confusion was terrible. "Let me catch him!" cried Tazzywaller, but Panapee clutched at his sleeve. "No, let me!" squealed Panapee, brushing past him. "I am chief chamberlain of Mudge!" "Perhaps it is the Cowardly Lion," puffed Mustafa, springing rapturously from his throne, and next minute they had all rolled, run or tumbled out of the tent, screaming in a way to curdle the blood of twenty lions. Under the largest palm tree in the sandy waste Mustafa was pleased to call his garden stood a very lumpy and peculiar-looking lion! Chapter 2 Magic at the Circus It was raining outside, it was hot and stuffy inside and it was the last day of the circus in Stumptown. All over the big tent people moved about restlessly on the hard seats, and grumbled when sudden splashes of rain came pelting through the tent top. Mothers were thinking anxiously of the wet journey home, young ladies were worrying about their spring bonnets, and even the boys and girls were only applauding half-heartedly as old Billy, the elephant, rang dinner bells in one ring and the Glicko sisters swung dizzily from trapezes in the other. The chief clown ran distractedly around both rings. He stood on his head, he walked on his hands, he leaped over the elephant, he pretended he was a balky donkey. But no one laughed. They didn't even smile at his oldest jokes. "This is too terrible," gulped the clown, stepping behind a pillar. "Not one real laugh the whole afternoon! What's the matter with these folks anyway?" He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, hastily powdered his nose and dashed out again. It was beginning to thunder now, and the animals in the outside tent set up a dreadful roaring. From looking bored, the people began to look frightened. Something must be done. The worried clown rushed into the center ring and sprang to the back of the big elephant. "Ladies and gentlemen!" shouted the clown, waving his arms to attract attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to perform one of the most astonishing and amazing feats ever executed--a trick that has astounded the crowned heads of Europe, Asia and Africa. Ladies and gentlemen--" People on the back rows, who were already pushing their way toward the exits, paused. A little girl in the twenty-five-cent seats cheered faintly. Thus encouraged, the clown turned a really marvelous somersault and landed on the tip of the elephant's trunk. "Will some small boy kindly step forward," begged the clown, glancing hurriedly along the front rows. "For this trick I need a small, active boy. Ah, there he is!" Urging the elephant to the very edge of the ring, the clown snatched a small, red-headed boy from a group of solemn-eyed orphans, who had been brought to the circus for a special treat. The crowd gasped with surprise, and the orphan tried to wriggle out of his coat, but the clown held on firmly.