His dismal reflections were arrested by the opening of Gwen’s eyes. She sat up dizzily and gazed about her as if looking upon a world unknown.
“Where am I?” she faltered. “Oh!” she moaned, and held her head.
Johnny’s thoughts touched the bottom of despair.
But the next moment she was looking at him and actually smiling. “I suppo-pose,” she said uncertainly, “that you’d call—call that a ‘hay—hay maker’?“
Johnny grinned in spite of himself. “It was,” he agreed.
“And I—I ran into your ‘hay maker.’”
“Something like that,” Johnny agreed, sitting down beside her. “I hope you feel better.”
She did not answer, but sat staring at the sawdust. They remained in just that position until Johnny’s watch had ticked off a hundred and twenty seconds. He knew it was a hundred and twenty for he counted them all.
“I suppose,” he said, when he could endure the silence no longer, “that that’s the end of it?”
“I suppose so,” she agreed.
Again they were silent. There seemed nothing more to say.
“And I thought we would have some grand times together,” said Johnny, at last. “I might have known though—”
“Oh! But aren’t we?” There was a puzzled look on her face.
“Why! You—you said that was the end of it!”
“I suppose so for today. I’m really too shaky to box any more to-day. But how about to-morrow?”
With a wild shout of joy, Johnny leaped to his feet.
“Then—then—,” he stammered. “Why, you’re a brick!”
He extended his hand and helped her to her feet.
“Why? What’s so wonderful?” she smiled at him. “I ran into you and got bumped. I don’t hold that against you. Why should I? Would another boy hate you for it?”
“No. He might not, but a girl—”
“Fiddle! Girls are just like boys, if you let them be. Shall I see you to-morrow?”
“You sure will!”
For a moment Johnny hesitated before taking her hand for a farewell; the question of the diamond ring had flashed through his mind. Was this the time to ask? He hesitated; then gave it up. A moment before he had felt that he had lost her. He would risk nothing more this day.
“Good-bye and good luck,” he murmured, as she turned to go her way.
“Pant,” said Johnny the next evening, as they sat upon the beach in the moonlight, with the tom, tom, tom of the circus drum sounding from the distance, “there’s one thing that puzzles me about this crimson flash.”
“Let’s hear.” There was a smile lurking about the corners of Pant’s mouth.
“That big yellow cat last night was scared stiff, just frozen in his tracks by the crimson flash,” said Johnny. “They tell me that all the big cats act that way, except one.”
“Uh!” grunted Pant. “The black panther.”
“He leaps right at it, wants to eat someone up every time it’s flashed on his cage. How’s that?” asked Johnny.
Pant smiled, as he drank in a deep breath of cool, night air. “That, Johnny, is a rather long story, a story I’ve never told. But, because you’ve been a good pal, because, though I’ve doubtless seemed mighty queer at times, you’ve never asked a leading question, I’ve a strong notion to tell it to you.”
Johnny waited in silence. The tom tom of the drum ceased. By that he knew that Gwen, Queen of the circus, was just entering the ring for her part. He had intended to see that act again, but if Pant spoke—
“I think I will,” mused Pant. “You see,” he went on, “ever since I was a small child I have had a great interest in cats. Even before I could walk, so they tell me, I would turn up missing, and they’d find me at last creeping through the grass in the meadows, following an old tomato colored cat that was hunting for moles.
“As I grew older I came to know that a cat could see in the dark, and that he did most of his hunting at night. These things interested me. Night after night I would slip from my bed, steal out into the night and follow the cats in their nightly wanderings. I guess I learned things about cats that no one else knows; some of their secrets, I mean. I’ve never told them, and I’m not going to tell them to you. Knowledge is of very little use to people unless they go to the places where it can be applied, and very few are willing to go all that way.
“When I was thrown out into the world to shift for myself I still wanted to know more about cats. Little by little I came to know that house cats were but the pygmies among cats; that there were large, fierce, dangerous cats—wild cats, mountain lions, tigers, and the like. It was just when my curiosity about these big cats was at its height that I happened to wander into a zoo. There I found tigers, panthers, leopards and mountain lions. I was wild with joy. I watched these big cats for hours. I asked so many questions of the attendant that he threatened to throw me out. When night came he did force me to go away. For a week I did nothing but haunt that zoo.
“At last it came to me suddenly one day that I could learn nothing really worth while about these wonderful cats unless I could watch them, as I had watched house cats, in their native haunts, as they rested, fed, played and wandered about or stalked their prey. I asked the keeper where their native homes were. He showed me on a map. I was astonished. They were from all over the world, India, Africa, South America, everywhere.
“There were two cats that had caught my eye, the great tawny beast, the Bengal tiger, and the smaller black cat with the shifting eye, the black leopard.
“When I was told that both these came from the jungles of India I was overjoyed. I would go there and follow them day after day, until I knew all their secrets.
“When I told the attendant of my resolve, he laughed at me; said I’d be killed and eaten before I had been in the jungle a day.
“I took to thinking about that; then I tried to study out some way to make the great cats of the jungle afraid of me. I returned again to the zoo and studied the great animals. When the keeper was not looking I tried many things. At last I found one thing that would make them afraid—all but one, the black cat with the shifting eyes; he was not afraid. He leaped at his bars snarling, but I said to myself, ‘He is only one, all other black leopards will be afraid.’”
“Of the crimson flash?” whispered Johnny.
Pant gave him a look of warning, then glanced away at the lake.
“I was only a boy and not very far in my teens at that, but I went to the jungles of India. I don’t remember much how I went. I was a stowaway on a big steamer, then in a smaller one. I helped pole long, heavy barges up an endless river where mosses and grape vines hung thick along the banks, and where great slimy beasts rose from the water to glare at us. I caught the fever and lay for weeks in a bed of a hospital provided for Dutch missionaries.
“After I got well, I poled more boats up the river until, at last, I was in the heart of India, where there were few white men, where there were many naked natives, where it was all jungle, and where in the night I could hear the call of the wild things, my friends, the great cats. Ah, my boy! Then I was happy. I would study. I would learn secrets. I would know things that no other man knew.”
Pant paused and, rising, began to pace restlessly back and forth, and Johnny, watching, was reminded of the great Bengal tiger pacing the length of his cage.
“There was a mission station,” Pant went on, still pacing to and fro; “a little mission, with a tiny hospital and a doctor. It was in a native village at the edge of a great jungle. The natives swarmed to it from many miles around. When I asked the gray haired doctor why they didn’t have a large hospital, he shook his head and answered:
“‘No money.’”
“I had a little money; I gave him that, and he let me stay there with them. There were just his wife and one nurse and the servants. I did little things for them about the place the time I was not sleeping during the day. At night I went out into the jungle alone. That first night, when they saw me starting out, they called me back; told me there were great cats lurking in the jungle that would kill and eat me; begged me not to go, but I said to them:
“‘I have a charmed life. Nothing can harm me. Besides, all cats are my friends.’
“You see,” Pant sat down upon the sand, “you see, I didn’t want to tell my secret. Never tell your secrets, Johnny, at least not all of them. You’ll mean more to your friends and trouble your enemies more if you keep them. I kept mine; but I went out into the jungle alone.
“I found them, Johnny; I found the great tawny cats with the dark stripes, the tigers. They were not hard to find, for I knew the secrets of cats, and all cats are alike.
“First I found the old tiger, then his mate. They were hunting in the tall grass. Right away, when they saw me, they wanted to hunt me and take me home to their cubs. But there I had them. There was my great secret. When I showed them what I could do, they were afraid. They walked round and round me until, in the morning, the grass was all trampled round in a circle.
“The next night I found their cubs playing near the roots of a fallen tree. They were three months old—big as dogs. The father had broken the forelegs of a deer, and had brought it home for them to kill.
“When they saw me, the old ones wanted to get me more than ever. How they snarled! How they circled and lashed their tails! They couldn’t get me; I had them. They were afraid. Ten men on elephants, with rifles, they would have attacked with a rush, but not me. They were afraid.
“But, Johnny, they were wonderful cats. Their coats! You have seen tigers in cages. Bah! They are nothing to the great, free cats of the jungle. The yellow! You have seen the sky at sunset sometimes when it was painted with golden fire? It was like that, only grander. And the dark stripes! They were like midnight. The gleam of their teeth, the burning red of their eyes, as they prowled in the night. Ah! Johnny! I had found true happiness. I only wanted one thing to make me perfectly happy, and that was to have them play with me, as they played with their cubs; as the house cats played with me when I was in rompers. That, too, would have come, but—”
Sighing, Pant rose and began pacing the beach again.
“A change came over me. I began to see things and to wonder. At times I thought how sick I had been down there in the little Dutch mission hospital, and how the short, fat Dutch nurses had pattered about in their wooden shoes to help make me well. Then I saw the hundreds and hundreds of poor natives who came limping into our little station, or who were carried in on bamboo stretchers. It all set me thinking. Up to that time, I had thought that nothing mattered but cats. I wanted to know all about cats. I wanted, yes, I do believe I wanted to be like a cat. Some folks believe we were all animals once before we were born as humans. An old native of the jungle told me that. If that is true, then I was once a cat.
“But I got to thinking that perhaps humans counted more than the great cats in the jungle. I didn’t want to think that, not at first, but I couldn’t shake it off. When I went into the jungle to watch the cats I saw in my mind those sick people coming, coming, coming. I didn’t like it; didn’t want to see them. There was yet the great black cat. I must find him somewhere in the jungle. I must see him.
“One day I talked to the doctor about my thoughts, and he told me that people counted for much more than big cats. He said he needed medicine, supplies, new houses, everything, and since I could go to the jungle and come back alive, perhaps I could help him.
“‘How?’ I asked.
“It was a terrible thing he said: ‘Go into the jungle and get me tiger cubs. Traders will pay big money for them.’
“It was terrible. I could do it. There were three cubs. I could get them, but—
“‘But,’ I said to the doctor, ‘the big cats, the father and mother, must first be killed.’
“‘Yes,’ he smiled. And that was all he said.
“I went into the jungle again that night and, as I watched the splendor of the great cats, I said, ‘No, I will never do it! Never! Never!’ And yet I was going to do that very thing. I was going to take a rifle with me, and lie there in that wonderful moonlight to wait for them to come back; sooner than I thought, too.
“It was that night, for the first time, that the old tiger left his mate and the three cubs while I watched them and went away to hunt by himself. Then I was glad, for I always had wished to watch him as he hunted down the blue deer, the buffalo, wild goat or wild pig. So I followed. Creeping after him through the moonlight I lost him many times, for his yellow stripes were like the moonbeams, and the dark ones like wavering shadows. But I always found him again, as he rose to leap along some path or across an open spot in the forest.
“At last I knew that we were nearing the village. ‘Ah!’ I said to myself, ‘so that is your game. You will pick a calf or a fat young pig for your dinner. Perhaps you may not fare as well as that,’ for I decided that I must use my charm to drive him from the village if he went to rob there.
“But, before I had expected it, he began to circle. By that I knew he had scented some prey. Narrower and narrower his circle grew. Greater and greater became my curiosity, for I wondered what kind of prey he could find so near the village and yet not safe in its pen.
“Finally I climbed upon the trunk of a dead tree, and then I saw. My blood ran cold. Out of the village had wandered a child, a little girl of four or five years. She had crept from her bed while others were asleep, and there she was, the pale moonlight glistening from her body, and the tiger not four springs away. Then it was that I saw, saw clear as midday how it was; that all big cats were men’s enemies, and were but to be killed.
“Yet, I could not kill. I had not as much as a knife. I could do but one thing. I had my charm. I must stand between the beast and the child.
“Three leaps brought me in his path. Then I turned and faced him. It was a great and terrible moment. My charm; would it work? He was terribly angry. Lashing his tail, he leaped to one side. But that was no good. I had him. I was now beside the child, who was not one bit afraid.
“That time the tiger almost dared. He leaped once. Two more leaps remained. He leaped again. I could see the round, black pupils of his eyes; count his teeth; hear him breathe. Three times they relaxed. He did not dare. My charm; it worked. I had him. He did not dare.
“At last he slunk away through the tall grass. Then, because the child was not afraid, because I knew it would be the last time I should ever watch the cats and their cubs, I took the child and followed the tiger back to the lair, where all night long, beneath the moon, the tiger and his mate with their cubs beat a hard, round path about me and the little girl.
“Just before sunrise I heard the distant beat of the tom tom, the bellowing of bull buffaloes. Then it was that I knew that the natives were driving the herd of buffaloes to the jungle that they might frighten the tigers from their lair, and secure the remains of the child. And all the time I had the child safe in my arms.”
Pant paused and looked away over the glimmering water. The tom, tom, tom of the circus drum was sounding. The indistinct noises wafted on the breeze might be the lowing buffaloes. Johnny, for the second, fancied himself in the heart of the jungle with Pant, the child, and the tigers.
“The next night,” Pant’s voice had grown suddenly husky, “I went to the jungle again, and that morning I brought in the pelts of the tiger and his mate. The kittens were chained to a tree. The natives brought them in later. The hospital was bigger and better after that. And I, I was a hero, a hero to them all, but not to myself.”
“But the black cat, the panther?” suggested Johnny after a moment of silence.
“Oh, yes, that was later. We have not time for it now. We move to-night. We must hurry. Already the people are leaving.”
“One thing more before we go,” said Johnny eagerly. “Light, Pant, does light travel in straight lines?” He was thinking of the crimson flash that had leaped apparently from mid-air in the tent the previous evening.
“I am surprised that you ask it,” Pant smiled. “You have been in Alaska?”
“Yes.”
“Then, at Cape Prince of Wales you must have seen the midnight sun?”
“Yes, in June.”
“If the sun’s rays shone straight, you must have had then as many hours of continuous darkness in December as you had of continuous daylight in June. Did you?”
“No,” said Johnny. “We had three or four hours of sun every day, even in December.”
“Then,” said Pant, smiling, “the sun’s rays must have been bent that they might reach you. In fact, the rays of light never travel straight. So long! I’ll leave you now to think that over. See you at our next stand. Hope I can tell you then who has your diamond ring.”
He vanished into the night, leaving Johnny to stare after him in wonder and admiration.
“Some day,” Johnny said to himself, “I’ll hear the story of the black leopard.”
Johnny had scarcely reached the cluster of tents that loomed large in the darkness, when he was startled by a sudden wild burst of activity. Men and boys rushed silently here and there; lanterns and searchlights flashed from place to place. For a second he stood there paralyzed. What was it, a fire or an approaching cyclone?
Then he laughed.
“We move to-night. Down go the tents.”
They did go down. Before his astonished eyes they disappeared as if by magic. In all his life he had never seen anything that came near equaling the team work displayed in the dropping of the big top and the loading of the circus.
In a marvelously short time they were on their way. Johnny, because of his prospects of becoming a regular performer, had been assigned a berth in a sleeping car. Pant, being merely a hanger-on, slept as he had on many another night, beneath the stars, with only a bale of canvas for covering.
Johnny spent a half hour in thought before the even click, click of the wheels lulled him to sleep. They were on their way, and he was glad. To-morrow he would have his try-out. To-morrow, too, he would give Gwen her second lesson in boxing. Should he ask her about the ring? To-morrow they would be in one of those small cities in which Pant had said the counterfeiters would reap their richest harvest. When would Pant find his man? Would he, Johnny, have a part in it? He must not fail to fulfill his promise to Pant; to get acquainted with the steam kettle cook and the midget clown.
The next morning Johnny kept his boxing appointment with Gwen. It was after a half hour of strenuous work, while they were resting on a mat, that she turned to him suddenly and said, in a low voice:
“A strange thing happened last night.”
“What was that?”
“I was awakened from my sleep. I had been dreaming of a fire, and I would have sworn that it was a flash of red light that awakened me.”
“That’s strange.” Johnny’s tone told nothing.
“What is stranger still, two other girls were awakened in the same manner.”
“You had upper berths?”
“Yes.”
“There were glass ventilator windows above you?”
“Yes.”
“Probably the light from a switch tower shining in.”
“It was too bright for that. It was so bright it was crimson. It was like—it was like the crimson flash that fell on the tiger that other night!”
“That was strange,” Johnny smiled, but his smile told nothing.
He was not surprised when, as he met Pant a half hour later, the strange fellow said to him in a matter-of-fact tone:
“It’s the slim girl, the one that rides bareback, Millie, what is it they call her?”
“Millie Gonzales.”
“She’s the one. She’s got your ring.”
“I thought you might know,” Johnny said quietly.
Pant shot him a quick glance. “Somebody been talking?”
“Not so you’d need be alarmed. But, say, now I know she’s got it, how am I to get it from her?”
“That’s up to you,” retorted Pant.
“It’s strange,” said Johnny a little later; “last night I dreamed that the circus train was wrecked, all shot to smithereens! And the animals—they were having the time of their lives, fighting each other and eating folks up.”
“If that ever happens,” Pant gripped his arm hard, “if it ever does, you get that big black cat! Get the black cat! See? He’s a bad one; a man-eater. Got a record. A bad one. See?”
Johnny nodded, and thought again of the story Pant was to tell him of that same black cat and the jungles of India. But there was no time for it now; the show would soon begin, and then would come the great event, his try-out.
It came. All too soon he found himself marching down the sawdust trail. Dressed in his tightly fitting green suit, and closely followed by the bear, he felt foolish enough. He was a trifle awed by the immense throng, too. He had been in many a boxing match, but never one like this. In those other matches he had had men for opponents, and mostly men as spectators. Here it was far different.
Anxious questions forced their way into his consciousness. How was the boxing bout going? Would he be able to manage the bear, or would the animal, goaded on by the shouts of the crowd, repeat the performance of that other day, when he had run the Italian out of the tent?
Cold perspiration stood out on Johnny’s forehead, yet he did not falter. Bracing himself for his ordeal, he bowed low to the audience, then turned to put the bear through his preliminary antics. All went well; still, through it all, Johnny’s eyes strayed now and then to the boxing gloves. So real was his fear of the outcome of the match, that at times it seemed to him the gloves were alive and ready to leap from the floor into his face.
Yet, when the time came, the thing seemed as simple as child’s play. The bear performed his part perfectly. Johnny even risked a little extra exhibition by entering into a clinch with the bear and cleverly extricating himself. The great test came, however, when the bear, appearing to grow angry, leaped squarely at him. Three times the great beast did this, then with a sudden cry of seeming terror, Johnny darted from the ring and, closely followed by the bear, raced away before the packed throng of amazed and delighted spectators. When the bear paused, threw his gloves and turned to leer at the audience, Johnny knew that he had not only made good, but made good big. He had won his double pay.
He was just rounding the outer entrance, with the applause of the crowd dying away, when a small, shrill voice squeaked up to him:
“You did fine. You’re all right.”
Glancing down, Johnny had no difficulty in recognizing Tom Stick, the midget clown. He cut a comical figure as he stood there. A mere child in size, he was dressed in an African hunting suit and carried a shiny air rifle. Not far away, a gigantic elephant stood complacently stuffing hay into his mouth.
Johnny looked first at the midget, then at the elephant.
“We go on next,” squeaked the little fellow, “Jo-Jo, that’s the elephant, and myself. I play I’m hunting wild elephants. See? Shoot him. See? Shoot him with the air gun all around the tent. Real bullets, too! He doesn’t mind. Hide’s tough. We always get a laugh; Jo-Jo and I do. Want to know how we came to be friends, Jo-Jo and me?”
Johnny nodded.
“Well, you see, Jo-Jo was a French elephant. They didn’t need him during the war, so they sent him over to America, and sold him here. Well, Jo-Jo knew French all right, but he didn’t understand a word of English. He was supposed to be one of the smartest elephants in the world over in France, but over here he was so stupid they actually had to push him off the cars when they unloaded him. Just plumb stupid. See? Got so they wished they didn’t have him at all.
“Well, you know, I used to show in France once myself, so I knew a little French, and one day, just for fun, I said to Jo-Jo:
“‘Bon jour, Jo-Jo. Comment alle vous!’”
“Well, sir, that elephant nearly wiggled his old palm leaf ears off out of pure joy. I knew right away what made it; it was hearin’ someone speak in his own language, so I just went right on spielin’ French to him, and he kept on gettin’ happier and happier until at last I had to stop for fear he’d break a blood vessel laughin’.
“When the Boss knew about it, he gave Jo-Jo to me, and we’ve been mates ever since.
“We’ve got to be movin’ up. Good-by, Mr. Bear Boxer. See you some other time.”
Johnny watched the dwarf, as he walked behind the elephant and, turning a corner, disappeared from sight.
“So that’s one of the fellows Pant suspects of being the forger, Black McCree? Not the man, I’d say,” he muttered. “And yet, you never can tell.”
It was the next morning, while he was preparing for his daily bout with Gwen, that Johnny received a shock of surprise which he did not soon forget.
A unique plan for creating a new laugh had occurred to him. He was telling it to Gwen.
“They don’t have the clown assist you in your turn, do they?” He smiled, as he laced her right glove.
“No. How could they? I never saw a clown walk the tight wire.”
“Wouldn’t need to; just pretend to.” He stooped to pick up her left glove.
“How?”
“Well, you see, they might have two or three small balloons just large enough to lift him off the ground. They could have small ropes attached to each of these. The attendants—the—the—”
Johnny’s eyes had seen something which made him stutter. On the plump third finger of Gwen’s left hand reposed the ring, the diamond ring, which had been the means of making him a circus performer.
“I—I’ll take it off for you.” He drew the ring from her finger.
“Thanks,” she smiled at him. “Awfully stupid of me to wear it. There’s a handkerchief in the right hand pocket of my blouse. Just wrap it in that, and put it in my pocket, please.”
For one brief second Johnny hesitated. Was this the moment of moments? The ring which would clear his good name was within his grasp. Should he say, “Gwen, this belongs to a friend of mine, not to you; I must take it to her”?
For an instant he looked into Gwen’s frank blue eyes, then, without a word, he drew the handkerchief from her pocket, wrapped the ring carefully up, then thrust it deep down in the pocket of her blouse.
“As I was about to say,” he continued with forced composure, “they could hold the balloons steady, while the clown tripped lightly along the wire. Perhaps he might even attempt a clog. When he was in the midst of the clog, the attendants could suddenly lose control of the balloons, letting the clown go up to the top of the tent. He could then climb to earth head first by doing a hand-over-hand on a rope fastened to a peg in the ground. Don’t you think that would bring a laugh?”
Gwen’s brow was wrinkled in thought for a moment.
“Yes, I think it would,” she said suddenly. “I think it would be a berry! How’d you like to be the clown?”
“I wasn’t in aviation in the Army,” smiled Johnny.
“No, but really, would you?”
“Why! Why! Yes, I might. It might be better than boxing the bear, and since I’ve got to stick around, I might as well be a clown as anything.”
“Stick around?” she asked. “Why do you have to stick around?”
For an instant the words were on the tip of Johnny’s tongue which would have told her the whole truth. But his lips would not frame the sentence.
“Why, I—I,” he stammered; “just my nature, I guess. Always did like the circus.”
Johnny was not a great success as a boxer that morning. He was thinking of the diamond ring, and wondering why he had not demanded the right to keep it, once he had it in his grasp; wondering, too, how it happened that Millie had it one day, and Gwen another. “Queer mixup,” was his mental comment.
Late that night, after the show was over, when the lights were dim, Johnny wandered into the animal tent. He was just passing the cage of the black leopard when a low hiss halted him. Then he felt a grip on his arm. It was Pant.
“Sit down here in the dark, Johnny,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you the story of that black beast. I can tell it better with his wicked red eyes burning holes at me through the dark, just as they did once before, and him a free black cat!”
Johnny started as he stared at the cage where, on a narrow wooden shelf, the leopard must be reposing. All he could see was a pair of red balls of fire, and it seemed to him that in all his life he had never seen anything so full of hate as was the red gleam that seemed fairly to shoot out from them.
“Life’s like this,” Pant gripped Johnny’s arm, as the two red balls in the back of the dark cage shifted from side to side; “life’s just like this: When once you’ve done a thing, you want to do it again. That’s why we have to watch our habits, if we want our lives to count for something. Lots of fellows don’t watch them. I told you about killing the old tiger and his mate, and bringing in the cubs to the doctor, so he could sell them to the traders and buy supplies for his hospital. Well, once I had done that, I wanted to do it again. I guess there was something of my old desire to study cats in me yet, for I was overjoyed when I heard wild stories about a giant black leopard that haunted the trail far up the river. You see, the mountain streams were drying up, and the big cats were being driven out of the mountain forests to the river jungles.
“The stories they told about that big black cat made a fellow’s blood run cold. He was big as a tiger. He was a fierce man-eater. His fangs were twice the size of a tiger’s, and each one like a knife blade. He had been seen to seize a full grown man, and before the man’s companions could fire upon him, to leap to the bough of a tree, ten feet from the ground, the man in his jaws, too. The others had fled in terror. They never knew what terrible fate had overtaken their companion until a few days later a second party passing that way had found his bones strewn beneath that tree.
“Of course I laughed at their stories. A black cat do a thing like that? Why, the one in the zoo back home was not three times the size of a house cat, and he, the keeper had told me, was eight years old.
“I did not believe their stories, but the natives believed them, and would not stir up the river road; and none would come down it, either; so those who were sick could not come to the hospital I had helped to make better. This made me angry.
“‘I will go and kill that black cat,’ I said to the doctor. ‘I will have his skin for a foot mat!’
“He smiled in a friendly way, and bade me not be rash. The black leopard, he told me, was much more to be feared than the tiger. Unlike the tiger, he killed for the fun of killing. He climbed trees, and there on the dark trunk, seeming but a part of the tree itself, he waited for his prey. In the gloom of the forest, he dropped without a sound, and his attack was most terrible. He was truly large, too, six feet in length from tip of nose to base of tail.
“I did not believe the doctor. Had I not seen a full grown black leopard in the zoo? Was he not an insignificant fellow? And yet, I was a little afraid, for I remembered that the black cat in the zoo had not been afraid, when all the other great cats cringed in dark corners of their cages. I was a little afraid, but I would not admit it.