The bay was off like a shot, leaving Phil directly in front of the oncoming elephants.

"Run! I'll come back and get you," shouted Dimples over her shoulder.

"You can't. The reins are over the bay's head," he answered.

She was powerless to help. Dimples realized this at once.

She was in no danger herself. She was such a skillful rider that it made little difference whether the reins were in her hand or on the ground, so far as maintaining her seat was concerned.

With Phil, however, it was different.

"I guess I might as well stand still and take it," muttered the lad grimly.

He turned, facing the mad herd, a slender but heroic figure in that moment of peril.

CHAPTER XV

EMPEROR TO THE RESCUE

"Get back!" shouted the boy.

He had descried Teddy Tucker driving his own mount toward him.

Teddy was coming to the rescue in the face of almost certain death.

"You can't make it! Go back!"

Whether or not Teddy heard and understood, did not matter, for at that moment the view of the plucky lad was shut off by the elephants forming their charging line into crescent shape.

"Emperor!" he called in a shrill penetrating voice. But in the dust of the charge he could not make out which one was Emperor, yet he continued calling l.u.s.tily.

"Emperor!"

Phil threw his hands above his head as was his wont when desirous of having the old elephant pick him up.

Right across the center of the crescent careened a great hulking figure, uttering loud trumpetings--trumpetings that were taken up by his companions until the very ground seemed to shake.

Phil's back was half toward the big elephant, and in the noise he did not distinguish a familiar note in the call.

All at once he felt himself violently jerked from the ground.

The lad was certain that his time had come. But out of that cloud of dust, in which those who looked, believed that the little Circus Boy had gone down to his death, Phil Forrest rose right up into the air and was dropped unharmed to the back of old Emperor.

For the moment he was so dizzy that he was unable to make up his mind what had happened or where he was. Then it all came to him.

He was on Emperor's back.

"Hurrah!" shouted Phil. "Good old Emperor! Steady, steady, Emperor!

That's a good fellow."

He patted the beast's head with the flat of his hand, crooned to him, using every artifice that he knew to quiet the nerves of his big friend.

Little by little Emperor appeared to come out of his fright, until the lad felt almost certain that the big beast would take orders. He tried the experiment.

"Left, Emperor!"

The elephant swerved sharply to the left, aided by a sharp tap of the riding crop which Phil still carried.

Phil uttered a little cry of exultation.

"Now, if I can head them off!"

With this in mind he gradually worked Emperor around until the herd had been led into a narrow street. Here, Phil began forcing his mount back and forth across the street in an effort to check the rush of the stampede, all the time calling out the command to slow down, which he had learned from Mr. Kennedy.

He was more successful than he had even dreamed he could be.

"Now, if I am not mistaken, that street beyond there leads out to the lot. I'll see if I can make them go that way."

All did save Jupiter, who charged straight ahead for some distance, then turning sharply tore back and joined his fellows.

"If I had a hook I believe I could lead him. He's a very bad elephant. I hope n.o.body has been killed."

It was more quiet in the street where Forrest now found himself, and by degrees the excitement that had taken possession of the huge beasts began to wear off.

Phil uttered his commands to them in short, confident tones, all the time drawing nearer and nearer to the circus lot.

Very soon the fluttering flags from the big top were seen above the intervening housetops.

"I'm going to win--oh, I hope I do!" breathed the Circus Boy.

With rapid strides, at times merging into a full run, the beasts tore along, now understanding that they were nearing their quarters, where safety and quiet would be a.s.sured.

And, beyond that, it was time for their dinners. Already bales of hay had been placed in front of their quarters, and the elephants knew it.

As the procession burst into the circus lot a dozen attendants started on a run toward them.

"Keep off!" shouted Phil. "Do you want to stampede them again?

Keep away, I tell you and I'll get them home. Drive all the people out of the way in case the bulls make another break.

That's all you can do now."

Now young Forrest urged Emperor to the head of the line of bobbing beasts, feeling sure that the others would follow him in now.

They did. The whole line of elephants swept in through the opening that the attendants had quickly made by letting down a section of the side walls of the menagerie tent, with Phil Forrest a proud and happy boy, perched on the head of old Emperor.

"Halt!"

He went at it with all the confidence and skill of a professional elephant trainer.

"Stations!"

Each beast walked to his regular place, a dozen sinuous trunks gathering up as many wisps of hay.