Then one of the men rode back to the circus grounds to return with the cage in which the brute belonged.
While this was going on, Daniel Hawkins again came out, this time followed by his wife.
He tried to convince the circus men that he had captured the lion, but no one would believe him.
“I reckon the credit goes to this boy,” said Barton Reeve, the manager of the menagerie attached to the “Greatest Show on Earth.”
“No sech thing. He only got the ropes fer me.”
“If you were so brave, what made you run just now?”
“I—I—went ter help my wife. She—she sometimes hez fits, an’ I was afraid she would git one and fall from the winder.”
All the circus men laughed at this explanation, but not one believed it true.
“An’ another thing, thet apple tree hez got ter be paid for,” continued the farmer.
“We’ll pay for that if the lion pulled it down.”