among
a lot o' rotten ones.

"Hated like hell to see her thar, specially with next to nothin' on,
fer somehow I couldn't help her 'mindin' me o' our Sorrel-top. Reckon
ef we busted up their damn show, that gal'd git to stay a while in a
decent woman's sort o' clothes. What say, shall we bust her!"

"Fer one, I sits in an' draw cards in your play cheerful," promptly
responded Bill Ball; "kind o' hurt me too to see Reddy thar. An' then
them animiles hain't gittin' no squar' deal. Never did believe in
cagin' animiles more'n men. Ef they need it bad, kill 'em; ef they
don't, give 'em a run fo' their money, way ol' Mahster meant 'em to
have when He made 'em. Let's all saddle up, ride down thar, tie onto
their tents, an' pull 'em down, an' then bust open them cages an' give
every dod-blamed animile th' liberty I allows he loves same as humans!
An' then, jest to make sure she's a good job, le's whoop all their
hosses ove' to th' Dolores an' scatter 'em through th' pinons!"

This motion was unanimously carried, even Circuit cheerfully
consenting, from memories of the outrage attempted upon him earlier in
the day. Ten minutes later the outfit charged down upon the circus at
top speed, arriving among the first comers for the evening performance.
Flaming oil torches lit the scene, making it bright almost as day.

By united action, thirty lariats were quickly looped round guy ropes
and snubbed to saddle horns, and then, incited by simultaneous spur
digs and yells, thirty fractious broncos bounded away from the tent,
fetching it down in sheets and ribbons, ropes popping like pistols, the
rent canvas shrieking like a creature in pain, startled animals
threshing about their cages and crying their alarm. Cowboys were never
slow at anything they undertook. In three minutes more the side shows
were tentless, the dwarfs trying to swarm up the giant's sturdy legs to
safety or to hide among the adipose wrinkles of the fat lady, and the
outfit tackled the cages.

In another three minutes the elephant, with a sociable shot through his
off ear to make sure he should not tarry, was thundering down Mancos's
main street, trumpeting at every jump, followed by the lion, the great
tuft of hair at the end of his tail converted, by a happy thought of
Lee Skeats, into a brightly blazing torch that, so long as the fuel
lasted, lighted the shortest cut to freedom for his escaping mates--for
the lion hit as close a bee-line as possible tryi