elephants.
'Yeah' he added gloomily, 'you better hope them clouds stay right
on the horizon.'
But they didn't. They moved slowly toward us, cyclopean pillars in
the sky, purple at the bases and awesome blue-black through the
cumulonimbus. All air movement ceased, and the heat lay on us
like a woolen winding-shroud. Every now and again, thunder
would clear its throat further west.
About four, Mr. Farnum himself, ringmaster and half-owner of the
circus, appeared and told us there would be no evening
performance; just batten down and find a convenient hole to crawl
into in case of trouble. There had been corkscrew funnels spotted
in several places between Wildwood and Oklahoma City, some
within forty miles of us.
There was only a small crowd when the announcement came,
apathetically wandering through the sideshow exhibits or ogling
the animals. But Mr. Legere had not been present all day; the only
person at Green Terror's cage was a sweaty high-school boy with
clutch of books. When Mr. Farnum announced the U.S. Weather
Bureau tornado warning that had been issued, he hurried quickly
away.
I and the other two roustabouts spent the rest of the-afternoon
working our tails off, securing tents, loading animals back into
their wagons, and making generally sure that everything was nailed
down.
Finally only the cat cages were left, and there was a special
arrangement for those. Each cage had a special mesh 'breezeway'
accordioned up against it, which, when extended completely,
connected with the Demon Cat Cage. When the smaller cages had
to be moved, the felines could be herded into the big cage while
they were loaded up. The big cage itself rolled on gigantic casters
and could be muscled around to a position where each cat could be
let back into its original cage. It sounds complicated, and it was,
but it was just the only way.
We did the lions first, then Ebony Velvet, the docile black panther
that had set the circus back almost one season's receipts. It was a
tricky business coaxing them up and then back through the
breezeways, but all of us preferred it to calling Mr. Indrasil to
help.
By the time we were ready for Green Terror, twilight had come ---
a queer, yellow twilight that hung humidly around us. The sky
above had taken on a flat, shiny aspect that I had never seen and
which I didn't like in the least.
'Better hurry,' Mr. Farnum said, as we laboriously trundled the
Demon Cat Cage back to where we could hook it to the back of
Green Terror's show cage. 'Barometer's falling off fast.' He shook
his head worriedly. 'Looks bad, boys. Bad.'' He hurried on, still
shaking his head.
We got Green Terror's breezeway hooked up and opened the back
