sman was in the same fix, and everybody that tried
to hold an animal was pinned together with thorns, and they had gravel
up their trousers from sticking their heels into the soil.

Everybody was mad and they threatened to lynch pa when they got back to
the tent for suggesting letting the animals out to graze. We started
back to town, the cowboys and Indians driving the animals, and the
zebras and giraffes kicking up and acting as though they had got out of
school on account of the death of a dear teacher, like schoolboys.

Before we got to town a wind came up so strong that we had to walk
edgewise to go against it, and finally we met the tent coming out to
meet us, 'cause a cyclone had taken it bodily and was blowing it all
over the prairie. And when we got to town the animals in the cages, that
can't eat grass, were having an indignation meeting, and howling awful.

Pa was the first man to get back to the lot, and he asked me what I
thought he better do, and I told him he better get in the porcupine
cage, 'cause he looked, with the cactus thorns sticking out of him, like
the father of all porcupines. He said I thought I was smart, and he
asked me if I was hurt any, and I told him all I could find was a stone
bruise on my spine where I struck a prairie dog house.

Well, we got the animals into a livery barn, and it took us almost the
whole week to have the tent hauled back and sewed together, and we had
to pay the cowboys and Indians more than the animals were worth to bring
them back, and let them into the show free. The managers had a meeting
and resolved to get out of the Indian Territory and into Kansas just as
quick as possible.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Pa Is Sent to a Hospital to Recuperate--The Bad Boy Discourages
Other Boys from Running Away with the Circus--He Makes Them Water
the Camels, Curry the Hyenas and Put Insect Powder on the Buffaloes.

This is the first time since we started out with the circus in the
spring that pa and I have not been two "Johnnies on the spot," ready for
anything that the managers told us to do. Oklahoma, though, and the
Indian Territory, have been too much for pa, and they sent him on to
Kansas City to recuperate in a hospital for a week, while the show does
Kansas to a finish, and makes a triumphal entry into Missouri.

I wonder how the show will get along without us for a week, 'cause they
sentenced me to go along with pa, so I could be handy to hold his hands