n, several being knocked
down in the stampeding rush.

The horse climbed to the sidewalk, with wheels bumping the curbing,
trying to get out of the way of some men who were seeking to stop it.
Almost before they were aware of it, horse and wagon seemed fairly on
top of Merriwell and the girls. Elsie gave a startled cry, and dashed
across the street, where the people were falling back out of the way,
with women pulling nervously and excitedly at their children.

A child fell headlong, and the horse seemed about to stamp it, when
Frank, with a quick leap, picked it up from under the very feet of the
runaway, and dropped it safely at its mother's side. Then a tremendous
roar ascended. Turning, Frank saw that Inza and Elsie had disappeared.
He did not at first know the cause of the roar.

The horse, veering again and wheeling sharply, had hurled the wagon
against a cage in which was confined a full-grown tiger. This was an
open cage--that is, the screening, wooden, outer shell had been removed,
showing the big beast of the jungle, with its keeper in circus costume,
seated in the center of the cage on a low stool.

Against the door of this cage the bounding wagon had struck heavily--so
heavily that the lock was torn away or broken, and the cage door pulled
open. The roar that went up was a roar of alarm and fright. And it
increased in intensity when the striped beast, with nervously flicking
tail, leaped past its keeper and into the street, where it crouched, not
knowing what to do with its newly found freedom.

The street was in the wildest tumult. The horses drawing the cage had
been brought to a stop by the driver. But another horse, frightened by
the din and the runaway, broke loose just at that time, and came tearing
along, with flaming eyes and distended nostrils, like a Malay running
amuck.

Frank sprang toward the head of this horse, for the peril to the
stampeding people seemed great. But the animal veered and passed by,
dragging Merry a few yards by the shafts and hurling him to the ground.

The sight he beheld as he scrambled up was enough to stop the beating of
his heart. Inza and Elsie had tried to again cross the street. Inza had
been knocked down by the horse, and lay unconscious, while Elsie had
been swept on in the crowd. More than that, the keeper of the tiger, who
had courageously leaped after the terrible beast with his spearlike iron
goad, hoping to be able to prod and cow it into subjection, had