“We’ll bust up his show, see if we don’t,” growled the first speaker.

“They must be the fellows who were discharged for drunkenness,” whispered Snap.

“Yes; and they are laying plans to square up with the proprietor,” added Whopper.  “Wonder what they will do?”

“If they are up to anything unlawful, they ought to be exposed,” was Mr. Jally’s comment.  He, too, had heard of the quarrel of the afternoon before.

“I don’t care to put myself out to help that circus man,” said Snap.  “He is responsible for what happened to that sick boy.  At the same time, I know ’two wrongs don’t make a right.`”

The men continued to talk, but in such low tones that the others could only catch a word or two.  Something was said about a lion and a chimpanzee and a toolhouse, but the boys could not imagine what the circus men had in mind to do.

Presently one of the circus men got up from his seat and walked around the lumber piles.  When he saw the boys and Mr. Jally he uttered a whistle of surprise.  Then he turned back to his companions, and all three of the men hurried away into the woods skirting the railroad tracks.

CHAPTER V

SOMETHING ABOUT A LION

“They are certainly up to something,” was Snap’s comment.

“Yes; and I’d give something to know just what it is,” added the doctor’s son.

Having rested, Mr. Jally took the boys to the bank of the river and there showed them how to make a good picture with a strong reflection in the water.  This was rather difficult because of the distribution of light over the plate.

“Be careful when you point your camera toward the sun,” said the photographer.  “Otherwise you may get a sun-spot, or ‘ghost,’ right in the center of your picture.”

“I know about that,” said Whopper.  “Once I tried to take a picture of my cousin standing by a well.  The glare of the sun got on the plate just where her head ought to have been, so she was headless.”

“That sure was a ghost!” cried Shep; and then all laughed.

The boys were to take the seven o’clock train back to Fairview, so at five o’clock they bid farewell to Mr. Jally and walked toward Mrs. Carson’s house to get supper.  Just as they turned the corner of a street close to the house they heard a man yelling wildly.  He was running rapidly at the same time.

“What’s that fellow saying?” asked Whopper.  “Maybe it’s a fire.”

“No, he didn’t say fire,” returned Snap.  “It sounded to me like lion.”

“Lion?” questioned Whopper.

“Look out for the lion!” bawled the man.  “Look out for the lion!” And down the street he went on the double-quick.

“He did say lion!” exclaimed Giant.

“One of the circus lions must have gotten free!” burst out the doctor’s son.

“Or else those circus men let him loose!” returned Snap.  “Don’t you remember they said something about a lion?”