Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/153

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street that poor Leo had killed two people in the restaurant, and that he was eating one of them in the cellar.

Luckily at this point two of the lion keepers appeared, and, armed merely with clubs, went into the cellar. They found the much-maligned lion hiding away in a dark corner.

He was finally roped and dragged from his place of hiding, put into a temporary cage, and then carried back to the circus lot. When he was given the chance to get back into his own cage, he was the happiest lion in North America.

The local paper afterwards described him as a ferocious beast that had narrowly missed killing half a dozen people. It told of how he had been captured in his native jungle with the loss of the lives of several natives, and congratulated the city on having escaped with such small damage. As a matter of fact, Leo had been the most frightened creature on Main Street that day. He had also been born in captivity,