“I’ll come up with you and see what I can do,” promised Mr. Brown.  “Uncle Tad knows something about soldiers’ wounds, and perhaps he could——­”

“Oh, don’t take Uncle Tad with you!” pleaded Mrs. Brown.  “We need one man around here if there’s a lion loose in the woods.  Come back as soon as you can,” she begged her husband as he walked toward the farmhouse with Mrs. Jason.

“How did you happen to see the boy?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I was out gathering the eggs near the henhouse,” said Mrs. Jason, “and I heard a sort of groaning noise.  Then I saw somebody coming toward me.

“At first I thought it was a tramp, and I was just going to call my husband or one of the men, when I heard crying, and then I saw it was only a boy, and that he was bleeding.”

“How long ago was it that you found the scratched boy?” asked Mr. Brown.

“Nearly an hour now.  As soon as I saw what the matter was I hurried him into the house and got him on a couch.  Mr. Jason and I did what bandaging we could, and then I made him go for the doctor.”

“Did you know the boy, and did he say where the lion attacked him?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I never saw him before, that I know of.  But he just managed to say the beast jumped out of the bushes at him when he was coming through our rocky glen, then all of a sudden he fainted.”

“Where is this rocky glen of yours where you say the lion jumped out at the boy?”

“About two miles from here, back in the hills.  Waste land, mostly.  You aren’t thinking of going there, are you?”

“Not now, though I think I’d better send word to the circus people that their lion is around here.”

“Yes, it would be a good thing.”

By this time Mr. Brown and Mrs. Jason were at the house.

“I’ll take a look at him,” said Mr. Brown.

He saw, lying on a couch, a tall lad, whose face and hands were covered with bandages.  The youth was tossing to and fro and murmuring, but what he said could not well be understood, except that now and then he spoke of a lion.

“I didn’t dare take his coat off to get at the scratches on his shoulders,” said Mrs. Jason.  “I thought I’d let the doctor do that.”

“Yes, I guess it will be best.  But if you have any sweet spirits of nitre in the house I’ll give him that to quiet him and keep down the fever.”

“Oh, we always keep nitre on hand,” and Mrs. Jason helped Mr. Brown give some to the lad.  In a little while he grew quieter, and then Dr. Fandon came in with Mr. Jason.

The two men helped the physician get the youth undressed and into a spare bed, and then the doctor, with Mrs. Jason’s help, dressed the wounds on the boy’s face and shoulders, while the men waited outside.

Then, having done what he could for the boy, and promising to call in the morning, when he could tell more about the boy’s condition, the doctor went home, while Mr. Brown and Mr. Jason planned to get word of the lion to the two circus men who were still at the hotel in the village.