CHAPTER XVII.—CARL SHOWS HIS BRAVERY.
“A mad dog!”
“He is going to bite the young juggler!”
Shriek after shriek arose on the air and several of the boys and girls fled from the scene.
It was truly a thrilling moment, and a youth with less nerve than Carl Ross would have been paralyzed with terror.
But in knocking around during the past few years of his life the boy juggler and magician had more than once been thrown into a position of peril, and he realized that to lose his nerve would perhaps cost him his life.
As the mad beast leaped for his throat Carl dodged to one side and caught the animal by the left hind leg.
He whirled the body in the air and flung it with great force against a neighboring tree.
The shock was such that for the moment the enraged beast was stunned. It lay panting upon the grass, its glassy eyes rolling frightfully.
“Get into the house, all of you!” cried Leo, and picked up a wee bit of a girl that was standing near. She was too young to realize her peril, and gazed at him in wonder.