a long hot day, when big crowds had come to the circus,
and after Nero had done his tricks, and Dido, the dancing bear, had done
his, and Chunky, the happy hippo, had opened his big mouth so his keeper
could toss loaves of bread into it--one afternoon Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant, swaying as he chewed his hay, spoke through his trunk and
said:

"Something is going to happen!"

"What makes you think so?" asked Nero, from his cage.

"Well, I sort of feel it," answered Tum Tum. "I think we are going to
have a big thunderstorm, such as we used to have in the jungle!"

"I hope we do!" growled a striped tiger in a cage next to Nero. "I like
a good thunder storm, where the rain comes down and cools you off! I
like to feel the squidgie mud of the jungle, too, and when it thunders I
growl as loudly as I can. I like a storm. I want to get wet!"

[Illustration: Then the trainer put his head in the lion's mouth.
_Page 100_]

"I like a thunder storm, too," said Tum Tum. "But you animals in your
cages--you lions and tigers--aren't very likely to feel any rain. We
elephants will get wet, and so will the camels and the horses, for we
walk out in the open. But, Nero, I guess you in your cage won't feel the
storm any."

"No, I don't believe we shall," agreed the lion. "But I wish we could. I
am so hot and dry, sitting in this cage, that I wish I could get out and
splash around in the mud and water. So the sooner the thunder storm
comes the better."

"It isn't likely to do you much good," went on Tum Tum, "but it will be
cooler, afterward, anyhow."

And it certainly was very hot in the circus tent that day. It did not
get much cooler after dark, and when the circus was over, and the big
tents taken down, it was still hot.

"We are not going to travel on the train to go to the next town where
the circus is to show," said Tum Tum to Nero, as the men began hitching
horses to the animal cages and the big tent wagons. "We are to go along
the road, in the open."

"Then maybe I can see the lightning!" exclaimed Nero. "And, if it rains,
I can stick my paws out through the bars and get them wet."

"Maybe," said Tum Tum. Then he had to go off to help push some of the
heavy wagons, and it was some time before Nero saw his big elephant
friend again.

Soon the circus caravan was traveling along the road in the darkness.
And yet it was not dark all the time, for, every now and then, there
came a flash of lightning. The thunder rumbled,