"Oh, don't say that!" begged Ruth, clasping her hands.

They really did not know what to do. They were some distance from the
others of the moving picture company, and to go to them, and summon help,
might mean the death or injury of the children.

On the other hand, to call out suddenly, or to rush toward the little
ones, might precipitate the attack of the beast.

And then fate, or luck, stepped in and changed the situation of affairs.
Tommy spied another blossom--a brighter one than any he had yet gathered
and he cried out:

"Oh, look at that pretty flower! I'm going to get it!"

"No, let me!" exclaimed his sister, and the two got up with that
suddenness which seems so natural to children, and sped across a little
glade, out from under the tree, with its dangerous beast toward a clump
of ferns and flowers.

It was the best, and perhaps the only thing, they could have done.

"Oh--oh!" gasped Ruth. It was all she could say.

"Now they are safe," Alice ventured.

But not yet.

The beast had been about to spring and now, with a snarl of disappointed