“Keep your seats,” yelled the loud-voiced announcer, “the tiger’s escaped but you’re safest in here. Keep your seats!”
In another instant he was deep in the panic-stricken mob, yelling for the people to “come back” and “nobody’s goin’ to be hurt; come this way.”
The terrified Elm Streeters held onto each other for a few moments, rising to their feet. Then as the white-faced mob began to swell toward them Connie shouted:
“Come on. We can get out through the dressing room.”
Others had started that way, but led by Connie and Art the boys plowed their way across the sawdust-covered ring to the dressing room entrance. Then, through the open horse entrance, they rushed out among wagons and horse tents. A cry of warning greeted them. One look along the side of the big tents showed a dozen men armed with stakes, pitchforks and sledges.
“Get back there, you kids. The tiger’s here!”
Before the trembling lads could retreat, a long form shot from beneath a low wagon, bounded forward and then paused. It was a gaunt and mangy tiger, its lips drawn back in a snarl and its almost hairless tail beating the ground.
“Run! Run!” yelled some one.
There had been no time to move. But the cry of warning aroused the tiger. A suppressed snarl broke from the beast and its dimly striped, sinuous length lunged forward again. But it was not toward the boys. With three bounds, arising each time like a rubber ball, the beast disappeared within a horse tent. The fear-stricken lads waited no longer. As if aroused from a spell they turned and fled around the dressing tent.
The boys heard the neighing cries of the haltered horses and at last, their tongues loosened, they told of what they had seen and escaped. Then came new crashes beyond the tents, the shouts of attendants, one piercing snarl of the tiger, and then the cries of those in chase grew fainter. The animal aroused by the taste of blood, for it had crushed the neck of a horse, was in renewed flight. Between wagons it had slunk away and had headed toward the edge of town. A thousand persons, young and old, were in a panic flight in the other direction, toward the residence part of town.