Dick's Bankroll

As he waited in the big steel practice cage, Dick Clemens didn't look much like a lion tamer. The cage was in his backyard outside Peoria. Dick had just come out of the house in an old felt hat and a checkered woolen shirt. He looked more like a leathery, slow-moving farmer. But that was because you couldn't see much of his hide. He'd been working with cat acts for 30 years and he had scars all over him. Doctors had taken 118 stitches in his back and dozens more in his arms and legs.

This morning he stood eyeing the chute which led from cages in the barn. He had four young, 200-lb. lion cubs up on pedestals around the practice cage. He was putting them into the act for the first time and he was waiting to see how the rest of the cats would act. His two striped sinuous tigers, Prince and Roger, stopped and snarled before they leaped to their shelf. But the five big old lions looked all right as they came in.

Tyrone, the level-headed old work cat, jumped up on his perch and sat there, solid as a rock. Betty and Patsy had been in heat; they were slow and sullen, but they went to their places without arguing. Zebou, the old rogue male, kept roaming, but Zebou always got funny before he went to work. Dolly loafed in the chute.

Dick waited patiently for the cats to settle down. He was holding a buggy whip and a broom handle, and he had a kitchen chair in case one of them got tough and jumped him. A pitchfork might have been better, but these were his cats (and his life's investment) and he didn't want to scar them. He called to Fay Maloney, his assistant: "Looks like an easy deal."

Fay said: "Sure does."

The Lion's Roar. Then it happened. Prince, the tiger, got nervous, began whipping his tail. It flicked against Tyrone and the big lion turned, rose, roared and lashed out with his paw. The tiger snarled, lashed back, lost his balance and fell. Tyrone was on him like a load of coal. The second tiger jumped Tyrone. Then every lion in the cage came down. In 15 seconds the air was trembling with the kind of noise you hear when a bomber's engines are run up full. Big cats crouched, sprang, rolled, roared all over the ground.

Dick jumped in like a man trying to beat a run on the bank. He went for the tigers first--they cost $1,000 apiece. But when he drove them up to the shelf with the buggy whip, big lions piled up at the chute and began killing little lions.

Dick went on hitting like crazy, belting cats over the eyes with his broomstick. It took 15 minutes, but finally, one by one, he got them back to their places. Two of the cubs were down; one was dead with a broken neck and the other was torn up and dying. The other two scuttled off into the chute. Dick got each big cat out in turn, and ended the act right. He was not hurt.

Then he came out and took off his hat and sat down hard on the lawn. He was white. It was a cold morning, but sweat was running off him like water. After a while he said: "I'm scared."

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