Off by the runway, four clowns were mumbling among themselves. They had placed blue bandanna handkerchiefs across their eyes. They were peering through holes that they had cut in the cloth. Beside them rested a bulky wooden box, painted in imitation of a safe.
“Where’s Koko?” queried one.
“Don’t ask me,” growled another. “He ought to have been here three minutes ago. Say — maybe we ought to hold this stunt until after Wernoff has finished in the cage.”
“We will hold it if Koko doesn’t show up pretty quick.”
“Here he is now!”
The other clowns turned as the last one spoke. They stared at sight of the black-cloaked figure that had appeared in the runway. Tall and sinister, the mysterious form of The Shadow stood before them. A gloved hand was stretching from the cloak; its forefinger pointing toward the track.
“Come along,” gasped one of the clowns.
The four grabbed the fake safe and carried it out into the track.
A LAUGH greeted them from a sprinkling of spectators. The clowns faked a stumble and dropped their burden. They looked over their shoulders. The cloaked figure was following them. Frantically, the clowns seized the box and staggered forward.
“Say,” panted one. “That rig of his is spooky. It gives me the creeps.”
“Act like you was scared,” suggested another.
“Like I was scared!” retorted the first. “Say — if I wasn’t sure Koko was under that cloak I’d be so scared I’d hop in the big cage just to get away from him.”
The clowns did another stumble further along the track. Laughter was greeting them. It died as the spectators spied the pursuing figure. Something in the carriage of that swiftly stalking shape made the observers stare in wonder.
“Say” — a clown gasped as he helped hoist the wooden safe — “Koko’s working it good. He’s got the hicks woozy. Look at him.”
The others looked back as they prepared to run. One of them spoke in a voice that sounded serious.
“He’s got me woozy, the way he’s comin’ after us,” the funmaker declared. “That walk of his! He’s comin’ as fast as we’re runnin’.”
The next stumble was a brief one. The cloaked figure was looming closer. Gloved hands were swishing from the black garments. Businesslike automatics appeared in rigid fists.
“Lug it ‘til we get in front of the cage,” gasped a clown. “That’s where he’s goin’ to spring the ‘shootin’.”
“Too late,” returned another. “There go the glims. Drop the box.”
The clowns were only a dozen yards from the box where the sheriff was seated with his deputies. The officials were turning to view the cause of excitement on the track, when the lights were suddenly extinguished.
DARKNESS was only momentary. An instant later, a mammoth spotlight hurled its brilliant glare from across the ring. The steel bars of the cage glistened. The ring master mounted a pedestal and waved toward Eric Wernoff.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” came the ring master’s bellow. “Before you stands the king of all wild animal kings. He is the celebrated trainer whose name is known throughout the civilized globe whenever—”
The four clowns were not listening to the coming introduction. They had dropped the wooden safe at the very fringe of the spotlight’s glare. They formed a clustered, whispering group as they gazed toward a spot a dozen feet away.
There, at the inner edge of the track, stood their black-garbed pursuer. His vague form was barely discernible in the rim of brilliant light. There was something spectral in the figure’s bearing. The clowns could catch the flash of glittering eyes that were turned toward the big cage.
“Look at the way the light hits him,” gasped one clown. “Say — his eyes are brighter than the big tiger’s!”
“Whew!” exclaimed a second, mopping his painted brow with the bandanna that he had wrested from his temples. “If it wasn’t Koko—”
“Maybe it ain’t Koko!”
The other clowns laughed at the suggestion; but their mirth was feigned. Something in the statement worried them. They gathered close about the wooden safe. Not for an instant did they cease to gaze at the strange figure which stood so motionless before them.
“Presenting the same famous performance” — the ring master’s announcement had reached its highest pitch — “that he has given before the crowned heads of Europe and Asia. Ladies and gentlemen. I take pleasure in introducing — Eric Wernoff!”
Cheers and handclaps came with enthusiasm. The ring master stepped from his pedestal and mopped his forehead with a huge silk handkerchief. Wernoff gave a short bow; then turned to enter the cage.
Roughnecks who wore the coats of uniforms approached with poles and revolvers, to take their stand about the cage. Wernoff entered a door and closed it behind him. He was in a little compartment. He received a whip; opened the next door and stepped into the center of the cage.
A lion opened its jaws to growl. A leopard leaped down from its pedestal and prepared for a spring. Wernoff snapped his whip. The lion’s growl ended; but the leopard remained crouched. Another whip snap failed to make the beast retire. Wernoff fired a blank straight for the spotted cat’s face. The leopard snarled; then turned back toward its perch.
Even the sheriff had forgotten his mission here. With the deputies, he was staring tensely at the cage. The watchman alone remembered his appointed purpose. He plucked the sheriff’s sleeve.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “That man at the side of the cage! Outside — by the right corner—”
“Holding a revolver?”
“Yes. He’s one of the robbers. And the fellow next to him — the one turning this way — he’s another of the bunch. Look! There’s a third!”
The sheriff was rising. His badge caught the flash of the spotlight and returned it with a brilliant glitter. The watchman was pointing out another pair of roughnecks.
Eric Wernoff was cracking his whip with savage fury inside the cage; but the act no longer thrilled the sheriff and the men with him.
The sheriff had growled a command. Deputies and watchman were reaching for their guns. Their rising forms were conspicuous before the spotlight. They did not realize the mistake that they were making.
THE roughneck who had turned uttered a sharp cry. Like a flash, his four companions turned toward the box. Gleaming revolvers showed in their fists. One gun barked its first, quick warning. A bullet whistled past the sheriff’s head.
The roughnecks had become furious, leering mobsmen. Hard-fighting gorillas, they were whirling to beat the sheriff and his men in a quick duel of shots. The guns that they held were not charged with blanks. They were loaded with bullets, in readiness for this fray.
A second shot ripped splinters from the back of a chair beside the watchman. The sheriff and his aids were caught flat-footed, with their hands fumbling for guns. They were helpless targets for desperate murderers. Five guns were aiming toward them before they had drawn a single weapon!
Three of the clowns by the fake safe had turned toward the ring at the sound of the first gunshot. Only the fourth man had still kept his eyes upon the black-cloaked figure that they thought was Koko. It was his cry that brought the eyes of the others toward the same spot.
“Look! Look quick!”
As gorillas fired, the tall black figure stepped suddenly forward. Above the crackle of revolvers; above the roars from the big cage came a laugh that rose with weird crescendo. Like a mammoth moth within range of an attracting flame, The Shadow stood revealed with outstretched arms.