Then Fred told his story. As has been said, he ran away from home because he felt his father should not have punished him.
"But I"ve had a good deal worse punishment since," the lad said, "and I"m sorry I ever ran away. I"d have gone home long ago only I was ashamed."
"Well, you needn"t be," said Mr. Brown. "Your father and your mother both want you back. We have been looking for you as well as we could on our auto tour. But it was Dix who knew you first."
"I wish he had seen me before the lion did," said Fred, smiling a little. "I wonder where he went to after clawing me?"
At that moment there was a noise out in the yard back of the farmhouse.
The crowing of roosters and the squawking of hens could be heard, mingled with a woman"s voice.
"That"s my wife!" cried Mr. Jason, jumping up, but at that moment his wife came into the room.
"I"ve caught it," she said coolly, though her face was flushed.
"Caught what?" they all cried.
"The circus lion," she answered. "I went out to the henhouse, and there he was crouching down in a corner, and looking as if he intended to have his choice of my fat pullets."
"What did you do?" asked Mr. Brown and Mr. Jason together.
"Well, I happened to have a broom stick in my hand so I hit him a smart blow over the nose to teach him to let my hens alone, and then I drove the chickens outside and locked the lion in the henhouse. He"s there now. You"d better send for the circus folks to take him away. I don"t want him around the place scaring the fowls."
"Didn"t he scare you?" asked Mr. Brown.
"I never stopped to think whether he did or not," was the cool answer.
"I just whacked him over the nose and he whined and cuddled up in a corner like a whipped dog."
"Oh, let"s go out and look at the lion in the chicken coop!" cried Bunny.
"No, indeed," said his father. "Wait until the circus men come and put him in the cage."
A neighboring farmer had a telephone, and word was sent to one of the circus men who had stayed at the village hotel, while his companion had gone to the rocky glen with a crowd of men and boys to try to find the lion there, after the alarm given by Mr. Jason.
The circus man, who had remained in the hotel, came with a light cage, drawn by horses, and the lion was easily driven from the henhouse into the cage and was soon safe behind locks and bars.
"Mrs. Jason caught the lion!" cried the crowd that gathered to watch what happened.
"Did he bite you?" she was asked.
"Never a bite," she answered smiling.
"What! Poor old Tobyhanna bite?" cried one of the circus men. "Why, he hasn"t but two teeth in his head and we have to feed him on boiled meat.
He"s no more dangerous than a tame dog, and when you hit him over the nose with your broom, lady, you must have hurt his feelin"s dreadful."
"Well, I didn"t mean to be _rough_," said Mrs. Jason with a smile, "but it"s the first time I ever caught a lion."
"Yes, and you get the reward, too," added the circus man, as he paid the farmer"s wife.
Then he started away with the lion in the cage to ship him back to the circus. And poor, old, almost toothless Tobyhanna, curled up in the corner of his cage and ate some bread and milk the farmer"s wife gave him. He was happy he had been caught.
Fred Ward"s story was soon told. After running away from home he joined the medicine show, because it gave him a chance to play the banjo he liked so well. He left Dr. Perry because he saw the Browns and feared they might have him sent home.
Then he joined the circus, the very one from which the lion had escaped.
In that show Fred had been one of a group who blacked up and played on mandolins and guitars and banjos, and though he had played in front of Bunny, Sue and Uncle Tad, none of them knew him, nor did Fred see them.
The night the show left the town, and just before the lion escaped, Fred had a quarrel with one of the managers and left. He was not paid his money and, quite miserable, he wandered away, not knowing what to do. He became lost in the woods, and finally he reached the rocky gulch where the lion attacked him.
"It was just an accident. Tobyhanna didn"t mean to hurt me," said Fred.
"I"d often fed him and scratched his nose for him in the circus. But I walked right over him as he was asleep in between some rocks, and when he jumped out, as much scared as I was he happened to scratch me. Then I managed to get to this house and I guess I must have gone out of my head or fainted or something."
"You did," said Dr. Fandon, "but you are all right now."
"We must send word to your father that you are safe," said Mr. Brown, and this was done.
Fred was not quite well enough to be moved, but his father came for him the next day, and he made a great fuss over his boy. They understood each other better after that.
Mr. Ward thanked everybody who had done anything to help his son, and a few days later took Fred and Dix home, for the dog would not leave his master, much as he liked Splash, Bunny and Sue.
In due time Tobyhanna, the lion, was taken back to the circus, and he never got out of his cage again, as far as I ever heard.
"Well, I think we can keep on with our tour now," said Mr. Brown, a few days after the new spring had arrived.
"It seems almost like leaving home to go away from here," said Mother Brown, as they prepared to leave.
"We"ve had such fun camping here," added Sue.
"And lots of things have happened, too!" added Bunny. "I never was near where a lion was locked up in a chicken coop before."
"And I don"t want to be again," said his mother.
"All aboard!" cried Uncle Tad.
And once more the "Ark," was traveling along the country road back toward Bellemere. The auto trip had been a great success, and Bunny and Sue talked of it many times, and of how Fred Ward had been found, and of the escaped lion that had scratched him.
But now it is time to say good-bye, though you must not think this is the last of the adventures of Bunny and Sue, even though there are no more in this book. There were more ahead of them, but, for the present, we will leave them.
THE END
THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
By LAURA LEE HOPE
Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books