Teddy had squared off, and was landing sledge-hammer blows on the empty air.
Phil, too, had squared himself prepared to give battle, but his hands fell sharply to his sides.
"Wha—what—" he gasped.
"Come on!" bellowed Teddy.
They were in a large room, brilliantly lighted, and about them, in a semi-circle, was a line of laughing faces. From them the eyes of the astonished Circus Boys wandered to a long table on which were flowers and plenty of good things to eat.
"Why, it's our old recitation room in the high school, Teddy," breathed Phil.
"I don't care what it is. I can lick the whole outfit!" shoutedTeddy Tucker advancing belligerently.
"It's the boys, Teddy, don't you understand?" laughed Phil. "Well, of all the ways of inviting a fellow to dinner, this beats anything I ever saw before."
"How does it feel to be kidnaped?" grinned President Billy, extending his hand.
"So you are the young gentleman who put up this job on us, are you?" demanded Phil.
"I guess I am one of them. But I wasn't unlucky enough to get a black eye, like Walter over there. You gave that to him, Teddy. My, what a punch you have!" laughed Billy.
"That isn't a circumstance to what's coming to you. I'll wait till I get back to school, next fall, and then I'll take it out of you. You'll have something coming to you all summer. Did I paint Walt's eye that way?"
"You did. It's up to you to apologize to him now."
"Apologize?"
"Yes; that's what I said."
"I like that! I have a good notion to apologize by painting the other eye the same color," growled Teddy.
"But, what does all this mean?" urged Phil, looking about him, still a bit dazed.
"It means that we fellows wanted to give you and Teddy a little supper. It isn't much, but there are sandwiches and cookies and pie and lots of other stuff that you'll like."
"Cookies?" interrupted Teddy, his face relaxing into a half smile.
"Yes."
"We knew you wouldn't come, so we planned to kidnap you both and bring you over here by main force. After we eat supper we'll have a little entertainment among ourselves. Walter is going to sing—"
"What's that? Walt going to sing?" demanded Teddy, halting on his way to inspect the table.
"Yes."
"Then I'm going, right now!" answered the lad, turning sharply and heading for the door.
"Why, why—"
"I've heard him sing before. Good night!"
"Come back here," laughed Phil, grabbing his companion by the shoulder. "We can stand even Walter's singing if he can. But really, fellows, we can't stay more than fifteen or twenty minutes."
"Why not?"
"Because we must get to the train. Were we to be left we might come in for a fine. Mr. Sparling is very strict. He expects everybody to live up to the rules. I'm sorry, but—"
"It's all fixed, Phil. No need to worry," President Billy informed him.
"Fixed? What do you mean?"
"With Mr. Sparling."
"You—you told him?"
"Yes."
"See here, Billy Ford," interrupted Teddy.
"What is it, Teddy?"
"Did you say Boss Sparling was in on this little kidnaping game— did he know you were going to raise roughhouse with—with us?"
"I—I guess he did," admitted President Billy.
"I'll settle with him tomorrow," nodded Teddy, swelling out his chest.
"Did you tell him you were going to have a supper up here?" asked Phil.
"He knows all about it. You need not worry about the train going away without you. Mr. Sparling said you had a short run tonight, and that the last section would not pull out until three o'clock in the morning. That's honest Injun, Phil."
"Well, if that is the case, then we'll stay."
"Hurrah for the Circus Boys!" shouted the class, making a rush for seats at the table.
"Ready for the coffee," announced the President.
Who should come in at that moment, with a steaming coffeepot, but the Widow Cahill.
"Are you in this, too?" Teddy demanded.
"I am afraid I am," laughed Mrs. Cahill. "The boys needed some grown-ups to help them out."
"You're no friend of mine, then. I'll—"
"But you are going to have some of those molasses cookies that I told you I baked for you—"
"Cookies? Where?" exclaimed Teddy, forgetting his anger instantly.
"Help yourself. There they are."
"It isn't much of a spread," apologized the president. "We have a little of everything and not much of anything—"
"And a good deal of nothing," added Teddy humorously.
"Everybody eat!" ordered Mrs. Cahill.
They did. Thirty boys with boys' appetites made the home-cooked spread disappear with marvelous quickness. Each had brought something from home, and Mrs. Cahill, whom they had taken into their confidence two days before the Sparling Shows reached town, had furnished the rest. Everything was cold except the coffee, but the feasters gave no thought to that. It was food, and good wholesome food at that, and the lads were doing full justice to it.
"Say, Phil, that was a wonderful act of yours," nodded President Billy, while the admiring gaze of the class was fixed on Phil Forrest.
"I wish I might learn to do that," said Walter.
"You? You couldn't ride a wooden rocking horse without falling off and getting a black eye," jeered Teddy, at which there was a shout of laughter.
"Can you?" cut in Phil.
"I can ride anything from a giraffe to a kangaroo—that is, until I fall off," Teddy added in a lower voice. "I rode a greased pig at a country fair once. Anybody who can do that, can sit on a giraffe's neck without slipping off."
"Where was that?" questioned a voice. "I never heard of your riding a greased pig around these parts."
"I guess that must have been before you were born," retortedTeddy witheringly.
"Say, Phil," persisted Walter, this time in a confidential tone.
"Yes?"
"Do you suppose you could get me a job in the circus?"
"I don't know about that, Walt. What do you think you could do?"
"Well, I can do a cartwheel and—"
"Oh, fudge!" interrupted Teddy.
"That's more than Tucker could do when he joined the show.Do you know what he did, first of all?" said Phil.
"No; what did he do?" chorused the boys.
"He poured coffee in the cook tent for the thirsty roustabouts.That's the way he began his circus career."
"I didn't do it more than a day or two," Tucker explained, rather lamely.
"But you did it!" jeered Walter.
"Then his next achievement was riding the educated mule. I guess you boys never saw him do that."
"Not until tonight."
"This is different. The other was a bucking mule, and Teddy made a hit from the first time he entered the ring on Jumbo. He hit pretty much everything in the show, including the owner himself." Phil leaned back and laughed heartily at the memory of his companion's exhibition at this, his first appearance in a circus ring as a performer.
"No, Walt, I wouldn't advise you to join. Some people are cut out for the circus life. They never would succeed at anything else. Teddy and myself for instance. Besides, your people never would consent to it. You will be a lawyer, or something great, some of these days, while we shall be cutting up capers in the circus ring at so much per caper. It's a wonderful life but you keep out of it," was Phil Forrest's somewhat illogical advice.
"How far are you going this year?" asked one of the boys.
"I can't say. I understand we are going south—to Dixie Land for the last half of the season. I think we are headed for Canada, just now, swinging around the circuit as it were. Isn't it about time we were getting back to the train, Teddy?"
"No, I guess not. I haven't eaten up all the cookies yet. Please pass the cookies, you fellow up there at the head of the table."
"We shall have our little entertainment before you fellows go to your sleeper. We reckon Phil Forrest and Teddy Tucker ought to do some stunts for us. Isn't that so?" asked President Billy.
"Yes," shouted the boys.
"What, after a meal like that? I couldn't think of it," laughed Phil. "Never perform on a full stomach unless you want to take chances. It might do you up for good."
"Well, it won't hurt Teddy to be funny. Do something funny, Teddy."
Teddy looked up soulfully as he munched a cookie.
"Costs money to see me act funny," he said.
"Go on; go on!" urged the boys. "You never showed us any of your tricks except what you did in the ring this evening."
"Do you know, it's a funny thing, but I never can be funny unless there is a crop of new-mown sawdust under my feet," remarked Teddy.
"Nothing very funny about that!" growled a voice at the further end of the table.
Teddy fixed him with a reproving eye.
"Very well, but you'll be sorry. I will now present to you the giddiest, gladdest, gayest, grandest, gyrating, glamorous and glittering galaxy—as the press agent says—that ever happened."
Teddy, who sat at the extreme end of the table, placed both hands carelessly on the table, then drew his body up by slow degrees, until a moment later as his body seemed to unfold, he was doing a hand stand right on the end of the supper table.
The boys shouted with delight and Teddy kicked his feet in the air.
"Go on! Don't stop," urged the lads.
"You'll be wishing I had stopped before I began," retorted the lad, starting to walk on his hands right down the center of the table.
There were dishes in the way, but this did not disturb Tucker in the least. He merely pushed them aside, some rolling off on the floor and breaking, others falling into the laps of the boys.
"Here, here, what are you doing?" called Phil.
"This is what I call the topsy-turvy walk."
Teddy paused when halfway down the table, to let his mouth down to the table, where he had espied another cookie. When he pulled himself up, the cookie was between his lips, and the boys roared at the ludicrous sight.
Then, the lad who was walking on his hands, continued right on. He was nearing the foot of the table when something occurred that changed the current of their thoughts, sending the heart of every boy pounding in his throat.
Crash!
It seemed as if the roof had been suddenly hurled down upon their heads.
Teddy instantly fell off the table, tumbling into the laps of two of the boys, the three going down to the floor in a heap, finally rolling under the table. The other boys sprang to their feet in sudden alarm.
"It's a band," cried Phil. "Don't be afraid."
Then the circus band, that had been waiting in the hall just outside the dining place, marched in with horns blaring, drums beating, and took up their position at the far end of the room.
"It's the circus band," cried the lads, now recovering from their fright. "How did they get here?"
By this time Teddy, his face red and resentful, was poking his head from beneath the table.
"Hey, Rube!" he shouted, then ducked back again.
Phil understood instantly that this was one of Mr. Sparling's surprises. But there were still other surprises to come. No sooner had the band taken up its position than there was again a commotion out in the hall. The lads opened their eyes wide when a troop of painted clowns came trotting in, followed by half a dozen acrobats, all in ring costume. A mat was quickly spread by some attendants that Mr. Sparling had sent.
Then began the merriest hodge-podge of acrobatic nonsense that the high school boys ever had seen. The clowns, entering into the spirit of the moment, grew wonderfully funny. They sang songs and told stories, while the acrobats hurled themselves into a mad whirl of somersaults, cartwheels and Wild Dervish throws.
Thus far the boys were too amazed to speak.
All at once some of the performers began to form a pyramid, one standing on the other's shoulders.
"Here, I'm going to be the top-mounter!" cried Teddy, taking a running start and beginning to clamber up the human column. He was assisted up and up until he was standing at the top, his head almost touching the high ceiling in the room.
"Speech!" howled the delighted high school boys.
"Fellow citizens," began Teddy.
Just then the human pyramid toppled over and Teddy had to leap to save himself, striking the mat, doing a rolling tumble and coming up on his feet.
When all the fun making in the hall was over one surprise proved yet to be in the reserve. The high school boys of Edmeston turned out with lighted torches. Forming in column of fours they escorted Phil and Teddy to their car on the circus train. It was not many minutes later that the boys, tired out but happy, tumbled into their berths, where they were asleep immediately, carrying on, even in their dreams, the joyous scenes through which they had just passed.
Half a hundred motley fools came trooping into the sawdust arena, their voices raised in song and shout.
Mud clown, character clown, harlequin, fat boy, jester, funny rustic, vied with each other in mirth-provoking antics so aptly described by the circus press agent as a "merry-hodgepodge of fun-provoking, acrobatic idiosyncrasies of an amazing character."
And so they were.
Children screamed with delight, while their elders smiled a dignified approval of the grotesque, painted throng that trooped gayly down the uneven course.
The music of the circus band stopped short. Then came a fanfare of trumpets, and far down the line from behind the crimson curtains near to the bandstand, a dignified figure all in white, emerged and tripped along the grassy way, halting now and then to gaze fixedly at some imaginary object just above the heads of those on the upper row of seats, the very drollery of which gaze was irresistible.
Shivers, Prince of Clowns, the greatest fun maker and character clown of all that mad, painted throng, had made his entry.
Shivers had joined out with the Sparling show for the first time that season. He was known as the leading clown in the business. >From the first, Shivers had taken a liking to Teddy Tucker, and shortly after leaving Edmeston he had conceived the idea of making a full-fledged clown of Teddy. The permission of the manager had been obtained and this was Teddy's first appearance as assistant to Shivers. Teddy was considerably smaller, of course, and made up as the exact counterpart of Shivers trailing along after him like a shadow, the lad made a most amusing appearance. Every move that the clown made, Teddy mimicked as the two minced along down the concourse.
Shivers was a shining model of the clown both in method and makeup. His stiffly starched bulging trousers disappeared under the stiff ruffles of a three-quarter waist. A broad turnover collar of the nurse style was set off with a large bow of bright red ribbon, and a baker's cap, perched jauntily on one side of the head, completed his merry makeup. This too describes Teddy Tucker's outfit.
"Now, be funny!" directed Shivers.
"I can't help but be if I act like you," retorted Teddy, whereat the clown grinned.
Pausing before the dollar seats the clown pulled out the ruffles of his snow-white waist, poising with crossed legs on one toe. Teddy did the same, and a great roar was the reward of their drollery.
"La, la! La, la, la!" hummed the clown, stumbling over a rope to the keen delight of those in the reserved seats—the same rope, by the way, that he had been falling over twice each day for the past month. Then he blew a kiss to a fragile slip of a girl who was perched on a trapeze bar far up toward the dome of the great tent.
Zoraya, for that was her name, smiled down, gracefully swung off into space, soaring lightly into the strong, sure arms of her working mate.
Just the suspicion of an approving smile lighted up the face of the clown for the moment, for he dearly loved this little motherless daughter of his, who had been his care since she was a child.
Shivers had taught her all she knew, and Zoraya was the acknowledged queen of the lofty tumblers.
But the clown half unconsciously caught his breath as the lithe form of Zoraya shot over the trapeze bar, described a graceful "two-and-a-half" in the air, and, shooting downward, hit the net with a resounding smack that caused the spectators to catch their breath sharply.
The clown shook a warning head at her, and Teddy so far forgot himself as to stub his toe and measure his length upon the ground.
"Don't do it, Bright Eyes!" cautioned Shivers, shaking his head warningly at the girl, as the child bounced up from the impact, kicking her little feet together and turning a somersault on the swaying net. "It isn't in your contract. Folks sometimes break their necks trying kinkers that's not in the writings."
Her answer was a merry, mocking laugh, and Zoraya ran lightly up a rope ladder to the platform where she balanced easily for another flight.
"My, I wish I could do stunts like that!" breathed Teddy.
"Just like a bird. La, la, la! La, la, la!" sang the painted clown, turning a handspring and pivoting on his head for a grand, spectacular finish.
His refined comedy, so pleasing to the occupants of the reserved seats, had now been changed to loud, uproarious buffoonery as he bowed before the blue, fifty cent seats where his auditors were massed on boards reaching from the top of the side wall clear down to the edge of the arena.
He took liberties with their hats, passed familiar criticisms on their families and told them all about the other performers in the ring, arousing the noisy appreciation of the spectators.
Teddy was put to his wits end to keep up with this rapid-fire clowning, and the perspiration was already streaking the powder on his face.
All at once, above the din and the applause, the ears of the clown caught a sound different from the others—a scream of alarm. Shivers had heard such a cry many times before during his twenty years in the sawdust ring, and, as he expressed it, the sound always gave him "crinkles up and down his spine."
There was no need to start and look about for the cause. He understood that there had been an accident. But the clown looked straight ahead and went on with his work. He knew, by the strains of the music, exactly what Zoraya should be doing at the moment when the cry came—that her supple body was flashing through the air in a "passing leap," one of the feats that always drew such great applause, even if it were more spectacular than dangerous.
"No, it can't be Zoraya!" he muttered. But the clown cast one nervous, hesitating glance up there where her troupe was working in the air. The cold sweat stood out upon him. Zoraya was not with them. His eyes sought the net. It was empty. He saw a figure clad in pink, white and gold shooting right through the net.
Then, too, he saw something else. A slender, pink-clad figure was darting under the net with outstretched arms.
"It's Phil. He's going to catch her," shouted Teddy jubilantly.
But Phil went down under the impact of the heavy blow as Zoraya struck him. A throng of ring attendants gathered about them, and in a moment the two forms were picked up and borne quickly from the ring.
Once, years before, Shivers had been through an earthquake in South America, when things about him were topsy-turvy, when the circus tent came tumbling down about him, and ring curbs went up into the air in most bewildering fashion.
Now, that same sensation was upon him again, and quarter poles seemed to dance before his eyes like giddy marionettes, while the long rows of blue seats appeared to be tilted up at a dangerous angle. Then slowly the clown's bewilderment merged into keen understanding, but his painted face reflected none of the anguish that was gripping at his heart strings.
Teddy brushed a hand across his own eyes.
"I—I guess they're both killed," he said falteringly.
Just then the voice of the head clown broke out in the oldNetherlands harvest song:
"Yanker didel doodle down,Didel, dudel lanter,Yankee viver, voover vown,Botermilk und tanther."
"Poor Zoraya!" muttered the clown under cover of the applause that greeted his vocal effort. And his associates looked down from their perches high in the air, gazing in wonder upon the clown who was bowing so low that, each time he did so, he was obliged to turn a somersault to gain his equilibrium.
"Dangerously hurt—went through the net head first. Hurry!" panted a belated clown, running by to his station. "Boy hurt, too."
"Told you so!" grumbled Teddy.
But Shivers did not flinch, and, as he neared the reserved seats on the grandstand, his voice again rang out, this time in a variation of the ancient harvest song:
"Yankee doodle, keep it up,Yankee doodle, dandy;Mind the music and the step,And with your feet be handy."
Never had the show people seen Shivers so uproariously funny. Under the spell of his merriment, the audience quickly forgot the tragic scene that they had just witnessed.
Teddy, however, noticed little dark trenches that had ploughed their courses down through the makeup of the clown's cheeks from his eyes. Teddy knew that tears had caused those furrows.
As Shivers looked down the long, grassy stretch ahead of him, that he still must cover before his act would be finished, the goal seemed far away. He flashed one longing glance toward the crimson curtains that shut off the view of the paddock and the dressing tents, vaguely wondering what lay beyond for him and for little Zoraya. Then Shivers set his jaws hard, plunging into a mad whirl of handsprings and somersaults, each of which sent him nearer to the end of that seemingly endless way.
"Here, here, what are you trying to do?" gasped Tucker, unable to keep up with the clown's rapid progress by doing the same things. Teddy solved the problem by running. He could keep up in no other way.
At last Shivers reached the end. With a mighty leap he sprang for the paddock and the dressing tent. And how he did run! Such sprinting never had been seen in the big show, even between man and horse in the act following the Roman chariot races.
Once a rope caught Shivers' toes. He fell forward, but cleverly landed on his shoulders and the back of his neck, bouncing up like a rubber man and plunging on.
Shivers had darted through the crimson curtain by the time Teddy Tucker had succeeded in picking himself up from having fallen over the same rope.
Stretched out on a piece of canvas in the dressing tent, her head slightly elevated on a saddle pad, they found Zoraya, her pallor showing even through the roughly laid on makeup.
Phil was sitting on a trunk holding his head in his hands, for he had received quite a severe shock.
"If she regains consciousness soon she may live," announced the surgeon. "If not—"
"No, no!" protested the white-faced clown, dropping on his knees by the side of the child, folding Zoraya tenderly in his arms. "She must not die! She cannot die!"
His jaunty baker's cap tilted off and fell upon her tinseled breast, while groups of curious, sorrowful painted faces pressed about them in silent sympathy.
Teddy crushed his white cap between his hands twisting it nervously.
"She isn't hurt. Can't you see? Look, she is smiling now," pleaded the clown.
The surgeon shook his head sadly, and Shivers buried his head on Zoraya's shoulder, pressing his painted cheek close to hers, while the dull roar of the circus, off under the big top, drifted to them faintly, like the sighing of a distant cataract.
An impressive silence hovered over the scene, which was broken, at last, by the quiet voice of the circus surgeon.
"The child is coming back, Shivers. She has fought it out, but she will perform no more, I am afraid, for bones broken as are hers never will be quite the same again."
"She don't have to perform any more, sir," snapped the clown. "I'll do that for her. You put that down in your fool's cap and smoke it. Yes, sir, I'll—"
"Daddy!" murmured the lips that were pressed close toShivers' ear.
It was scarcely a whisper, more a breath that Shivers caught, but faint as it was, it sent the blood pounding to his temples until they showed red, like blotches of rouge under powder.
"D-a-d-d-y—y-o-u-r—Zory got an awful—b-u-m-p."
Three harlequins who had been poising each on one knee, chins in hands, gazing down into the face of the little performer, suddenly threw backward somersaults in their joy.
"Yes, Phil's quickness saved you," spoke up the surgeon. "Had it not been for him you would be dead now."
Teddy Tucker, the tears streaming down his cheeks, was hopping about on one foot, vigorously kicking a shin with the other foot, trying to punish himself for his tears.
"I'm a fool! I'm a fool! But—but—I can't help it," he sobbed, wheeling suddenly and dashing into his own dressing tent.
"Call for Shivers!" bellowed the voice of the callboy, thrusting his head inside the entrance flap. "All the Joeys out for the round off!"
"Coming!"
Shivers gently laid the broken form of Zoraya back, pressed a hurried kiss on her painted lips and bounded away to take his cue, the circus band out there by the crimson curtains swinging brazenly into the enlivening strains of "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight!"
Zoraya was left behind. She was sent to a hospital where she was destined to remain many weeks, before she would be able to be moved to her little home in Indiana. She never performed again.
In the meantime the Great Sparling Combined Shows had moved majestically along. They had left the United States and were touring Canada, playing in many of the quaint little French villages and larger towns, where the Circus Boys found much to interest and amuse them.
Teddy and Shivers had made a great hit in their "brother" clown act, which was daily added to and improved upon as the show worked its way along the Canadian border.
One day Phil, who had been downtown after the parade, where he went to read the papers when he got a chance, came back and sought out Mr. Sparling in the latter's private tent.
"Well, Phil," greeted the owner cordially, "what's on your mind?"
"Perhaps a good deal, but possibly nothing of any consequence.You will have to decide that."
"What is it?" questioned Mr. Sparling sharply.
"Do we show in Corinto?"
"Yes; why?"
"I thought I had heard you mention that we were to do so."
"Why do you ask that question?"
"I'll answer it by asking another," smiled the Circus Boy."When do we make that stand?"
The showman consulted his route book.
"A week from next Tuesday," he said. "Anything wrong about that?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Nothing except that there is another show billed to play there the day before."
"What?"
Mr. Sparling bent a keen gaze on Phil's face, to make sure the lad was not joking.
"Yes, the Sully Hippodrome Circus is billed there for Monday."
"Where did you find that out?"
"I read it in a St. Catharines' paper down at the hotel this morning. I thought you would be interested in knowing of it."
"Interested? Why, boy, it will kill our business. So Sully is cutting in on us, is he? I thought he was playing the eastern circuit. He threatened to get even with me."
"Even?"
"Yes. Sully was once a partner in this show, but he proved himself so dishonest that I had to take legal measures to get him out. He got money from some source last season, and put a show of his own on the road. He has a twenty-five car show, I understand. Not such a small outfit at that. But I hear it is a graft show."
"What's a graft show? I must confess that I never heard of that before."
"A graft show, my boy, is a show that gets money in various ways. They frequently carry a gang of thieves and confidence men with them, who work among the spectators on the grounds before the show, robbing them and getting a commission on their earnings."
"Is it possible that there are such dishonest people in the show business?" marveled the lad.
"Not only possible, but an actual fact. I am happy to say, however, that there are few shows that will tolerate anything of that sort."
"I'm glad I did not have the misfortune to get with one of them," smiled Phil. "Are any of the big shows graft shows?"
"None of them. But about this heading us off?"
"Yes; what will you do about it?"
"We'll be there on Monday, too," decided the showman after a moment's reflection.
"On Monday?"
"Yes."
"Then—then you intend to skip a date somewhere?"
"We shall have to."
Mr. Sparling was a man of resource and quick action. He made up his mind in a minute as to what course to follow.
"I'm going to detach you from the show for a few days, if you don't mind, Phil," decided Mr. Sparling.
"I am glad to serve you in any way that you think I can," answered the lad with a flash of surprise in his glance.
"I know that. What I want you to do is to join that show right away."
"Join them?"
"I do not mean that exactly. I want you to go to the town where they are playing tomorrow, I will get the name of the town before the day is over. Follow the show right along from town to town until next Monday, paying your way when you go in and keeping your eyes open for their game. You, with your shrewdness, ought to have no difficulty in getting sufficient evidence to help me carry out my plans."
"What sort of evidence do you wish me to get?"
"Make a mental note of everything you see that is not regular, and if they have a route card get a copy of that. It's perfectly regular, young man," hastened the showman, noting Phil's look of disapproval. "You are not doing anything improper. I do not ask you to pry into their private affairs. We have a right, however, to find out if we can, what their plans are with relation to ourselves. If they are playing Corinto the day before we do, just by mere chance, then I shall make no further objections, but if they are planning to move along ahead of us and kill our business—well, that's a different matter."
"I see," nodded Phil. "Who will take my place in the ring work here?"
"We will get along without it, that's all. It doesn't matter so much in these small towns. I don't care if you do not join out until we get to Niagara Falls. We'll be playing in the real country then."
"And working south?"
"Yes. As soon as the weather gets cooler we will head for the south and stay there until the close of the season. They are going to have a big cotton crop in the south this fall, and there will be lots of money lying around loose to be picked up by a show like ours."
"When do you want me to start?" asked Phil.
"Just as soon as I can get an answer to a telegram that I'm going to send now. You will be off sometime this afternoon. But perhaps you can go on in your acts—no, I guess you had better not. You'll be missed at night if you do."
"Yes; that's so."
"I shall have some further directions for you. So long, for the present."
Phil turned away thoughtfully. Shortly after the afternoon performance Mr. Sparling sent for Phil again, the lad having in the meantime packed a few necessary articles in his bag preparatory to the journey that lay before him.
"The other show will be at St. Catharines tomorrow.Are you ready?"
"Yes, sir. What time can I get away?"
"Five o'clock. You will be there in the morning in time to see them set the tents. Let me warn you that Sully is ugly and unscrupulous. If he were to know what you are there for it might get you into a mix-up, so be careful."
"I'll be careful. Have you any further instructions?"
"I want to give you some money. You can't travel without money."
"I have plenty," answered Phil. "I will keep my expense account and turn it in to you when I get back. Where do you wish me to join you?"
"Corinto, unless you think best to come back in the meantime. That is, if you get sufficient information. You know what I want without my going into details, don't you?"
"I think so."
"Now, look out for yourself."
"I'll try to."
"You have not mentioned to anyone what you are going to do, of course?"
"Certainly not. Not even to Teddy. Perhaps if you will, you might make the explanation to him," suggested Phil.
"Yes; I'll do that as soon as you have gotten away. He'll be raising the roof off the big top when he misses you."
Phil extended his hand to his employer, then turned and hurried from the tent. First, the boy proceeded to the sleeping car in which he berthed, for his bag. Securing this he had just time to reach the station before the five o'clock train rumbled in.
The lad boarded a sleeping car and settled himself for the long ride before him, passing the time by reading the current magazines with which he provided himself when the train agent came through. Late in the evening the lad turned in. Riding in a sleeping car was no novelty to him, and he dropped asleep almost instantly, not to awaken again until the porter shook him gently by the shoulder.
"What is it?" questioned Phil, starting up.
"St. Catharines."
The lad pulled the curtains of his berth aside. Day was just breaking as he peered out.
"There they are," he muttered, catching sight of a switch full of gaudily painted cars bearing the name of the Sully Hippodrome Circus. "They have just got in," he decided from certain familiar signs of which he took quick mental note. "Looks like a cheap outfit at that. But you never can tell."
Phil Forrest dressed himself quickly and grasping his bag hurried from the car, anxious to be at his task, which, to tell the truth, he approached with keen zest. He was beginning to enter into the spirit of the work to which he had been assigned, and which was to provide him with much more excitement than he at that moment dreamed.
"I guess I'll leave my bag in the station and go over to the lot," decided the lad.
"The stake and chain gang will just about be on the job by this time."
It is a well known fact in the circus world that there is no better place to get information than from the stake and chain gang, the men who hurry to the lot the moment their train gets in and survey it, driving stakes to show where the tents are to be pitched, and it is a familiar answer, when one is unable to answer a question to say: "Ask the stake and chain gang."
That was exactly what Phil Forrest had in mind to do.
He followed a show wagon to the circus lot, where he found the men already at work measuring off the ground with their surveyor's chains, in the faint morning light.
"Morning," smiled Phil, sauntering over to where he observed the foreman watching the work of his men.
"Morning," growled the showman. Phil knew he would growl because the fellow had not yet had his breakfast.
"Seems to me the circuses are coming this way pretty fast?" suggested the lad.
"What d'ye mean?"
"I hear that there are to be two over in Corinto within two days—yours and—and. What's the name of the other one?"
"Sparling's," grunted the foreman.
Phil grinned appreciatively. He had drawn his man out on the first round.
"That's it. That's the name. I shouldn't think he'd want to show in the same place the day after you had been there?"
"Why not?"
" 'Cause the folks will all spend their money going to your show."
The foreman threw back his head and laughed.
"That's exactly what they will do, kid. That's what we want them to do. We'll make that Sparling outfit get off the earth before we get through with them. The boss has his axe out for that outfit."
"Indeed?" cooed Phil.
"Yes. He's going, between you and me, to keep a day ahead of them all the way over this circuit."
"Smart, very smart," laughed Phil, slapping his thigh as if he appreciated the joke fully. "Have an orange. I always carry some about with me when I'm going to visit a circus."
"Thanks, that will taste good at this time of the morning. It will keep me going until the cook tent is ready. The cook tent is where we get our meals, you understand. 'Course you don't know about those things."
"No indeed!"
"Outsiders never do," replied the man.
"I was wondering something a moment ago, when you told me about getting ahead of the other fellow."
"Wondering?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Wondering how you know where the other fellow is going?"
"That's a dark secret, kid," answered the stake and chain foreman, with a very knowing wink.
"But if you know where he is going he must know where you are billed for at the same time," urged Phil.
"He don't."
"But why not?"
"In the first place we bill ourselves only a few days ahead. And, in the second, we have a way of finding out where Sparling is going for the next month or so ahead. Sometimes further than that."
"Well, well, that's interesting—" The foreman hurried off to give some directions to his men, slowly returning a few minutes later.
"I should like to know how you do it?"
"Say kid, there's tricks in the show business just the same as in any other. Mebby there's somebody with the Sparling outfit who keeps us posted. Mind you, I ain't saying there is; but that there might be."
"Oh, I see," muttered Phil, suddenly enlightened. "Then someone in the other show is giving away his employer's secrets. Fine for you, but pretty rough on the other fellow."
"Let the other fellow take care of himself, the same way we do," growled the foreman, following it with a threatening command to one of his men.
"That hardly seems fair," objected Phil.
"All is fair in war and the circus business. You seem a good deal interested in this competition business?" snapped the man with sudden suspicion in voice and face.
"I am. But where is this—this Sparling show going to—do you know what towns they are going to play for the next month? Can you tell that, too?"
"I can come pretty close to it," grinned the showman, whereupon he named the towns on Phil's route list without so much as missing one of them. But the stake and chain foreman did not stop here; he went on and gave a further list that Phil only knew of as having heard mentioned by Mr. Sparling in his various conversations with the circus lad.
Phil was amazed.
"Then they must be going west. I see," nodded the boy.
"No, you don't see. You only think you do."
"No?"
"No. If you was a showman and knew your business you'd know that the Sparling outfit was going to make a sudden turn after a little, and head for Dixie Land."
"Down south," exclaimed Phil.
"Sure. Why not? You see you lubbers don't know any more about the show business than—"
"And you are going to follow them?"
"Follow them? No. We're going to lead them. They'll follow us."
"You're like a wildcat train then?"
"Something of the sort."
"Where's the boss?"
"There he comes now. I'll have to hustle the men, or he'll scorch the grass off the lot with his roars."
The foreman hastened to stir up his surveyors and Phil moved off that he might get a better look at Mr. Sully, the owner of the show. Phil found him to be a florid-faced, square jawed man whose expression was as repulsive as it was brutal. Sully wore a red vest and red necktie with a large diamond in it. He gave the Circus Boy a quick sharp look as he passed. "I'll bet he will know me the next time he sees me," muttered Phil. "But whether he does or not I have made some discoveries that Mr. Sparling will be glad to know about, though they will not make him particularly happy, I'm thinking."
Phil was hungry, and he was anxious to get back to the village to write a letter, but decided that he would wait until the tents were up. Then again, he wanted to see the wagons brought on so he could count them and get a fair inventory of the show and what it possessed. He soon discovered that the Sully Hippodrome Circus was no one-horse affair, though considerably smaller than the one with which he was connected.
Not until the people were getting ready for the parade did Phil leave the lot. Then he hastened downtown and got his dinner and breakfast all in one, after which he sat down to write a full account of what he had learned to Mr. Sparling.
"There, if anything happens to me he is pretty well informed so far. It's enough to enable him to lay those plans he has in mind, whatever they may be. I can see him hammering his desk and getting red in the face when he reads this letter."
Phil was cautious enough not to mention the name of the Sully show in his letter, and tried to couch it in such terms, that while Mr. Sparling would understand perfectly, another might not.
Phil took the letter to the post office, then went out on the sidewalk where he stood leaning against a lamp post to watch the parade, which he did with critical eyes.
"A pretty good-sized show," he mused. "But all their trappings are second hand. They have bought them up from some show that has discarded them. That's one thing the Sparling outfit never does. All their stuff is new nearly every season. Sully may have some of our old trappings, for all I know."
The parade was a long one; there were a good many cages, besides a fair-sized herd of elephants.
"Hm-m-m! Three tuskers among the bulls," muttered Phil. "Pretty well up to our herd, but I wouldn't trade Emperor for any two of them, at that."
After the parade had passed, Phil once more strolled over to the circus lot and hung about until time for the afternoon performance to begin, when he bought a ticket and entered, occupying a reserved seat where he could see all that was going on.
The lad smiled at the thought of how his position had changed. He was so used to being over there in the ring that it did not seem quite right for him to be occupying a chair in the audience. He could scarcely resist the impulse to hurry back to the dressing tent and prepare for the ring.
The grand entry came on; then his attention was centered on the performance, which he watched with the keen eyes of an expert, noting the work of every performer, completely forgetting the cheering audience in his absorption.
It was really a fair performance. He was forced to admit this, especially of the aerial acts. But the bareback riding he did not think compared favorably with his own, especially so far as the men riders were concerned. One woman rider was very good, indeed.
Phil drew a long breath when the performance had come to an end. A circus performance, to him, was a matter of the keenest interest. The fact that he himself was a circus performer did not lessen that interest one whit, but rather intensified it. Yet the glamour of his youthful days had passed. It was now a professional interest, rather than the wondering interest of a boy who never had seen the inside of the dressing tent.
Phil did not hang about the grounds. He went downtown, but was once more on hand for the evening performance, where he noted that the show was cut short fully half an hour, and this without apparent good reason.
He had made the acquaintance of a "candy butcher" during the hour before the show, and from him had learned some further details that were of interest to him and his investigation.
The Circus Boy, after watching the striking of the tents, returned to the railroad station and took a late train for the town where the circus was to show next day. It was not a long run, so he took a day coach. In it he saw several familiar faces—faces that he had noticed about the circus lot that afternoon, and from their appearance he was forced to conclude that these men belonged to the shows.
"Those fellows are crooks, as sure as I am alive," decided the lad, after listening to the conversation of the couple just ahead of him. "That's what Mr. Sparling told me. I could hardly believe it. I'll spend part of the time outside tomorrow and make sure. I shall know those fellows when I see them, if they are on the grounds."
It had not occurred to Phil Forrest that he might be recognized also, though he knew full well that circus people had keen eyes, especially in an outfit such as this.
The next morning he hunted up his friend the candy butcher, inviting that worthy to take breakfast with him which the lad, a boy about his own age, was glad to do. From the "butcher" Phil learned a whole lot of things that added to his store of knowledge, among them being the fact that Sully's outfit was even worse than it had been painted.
Mingling with the crowds about the main entrance, before the doors were opened that afternoon, Phil once more saw the same men he had observed on the train the previous evening. From their actions he was more than ever satisfied that he had not been mistaken in his estimate of them.
"I shouldn't be surprised if they were looking for some pockets to pick," mused the lad, "but I do not see them doing anything yet."
As a matter of fact, the men were plying their trade, but his eyes had not been quick enough to catch them at it. Phil, however, was more successful just before the evening show.
Standing among the people massed out in front he saw a man's hand steal slowly toward the handbag of a well-dressed woman. Phil traced the hand back until he made out the owner, who was one of the same men that had come through on the train with him.
A gasoline torch lighted the operation faintly, and Phil gazed with fascinated eyes while the stealthy hand opened the bag quickly extracting its contents.
Almost at the instant the woman looked down, perhaps attracted by the tug at the bag.
"I've been robbed!" she cried.
The words stirred Phil to instant action.
In another second the thief felt a vise-like grip about the wrist that held the plunder.
"Here's the man that did it, madam. Call an officer," saidPhil calmly.
Giving the wrist of his prisoner a sharp twist, Phil snatched away the small handful of bills that the fellow had stolen, returning them to the woman.
By this time the thief had suddenly recovered his wits and sought to jerk his hand away, seeing that it was merely a boy who had grabbed him. To the surprise of the crook he found it was not an easy matter to free himself from that grip. After making several desperate efforts the fellow adopted other methods.
"Let go of me, I tell you. I'll have you put away for this."
"I'll let go of you when a policeman has hold of you, and not before," retorted Phil. "You are a thief. I saw you steal that woman's money."
The man suddenly uttered an angry exclamation and launched a blow at Phil's head, which the lad avoided, allowing it to pass over his shoulder.
"Hurry! Get a policeman! This man is a thief," urged Phil, as he closed with his antagonist.
"Thief! Thief," cried several voices at once. It was a cry that had been heard before about the Sully shows.
Phil had not struck back at his enemy. Instead the lad, by a skillful twist, had whirled the fellow about until his back was toward the boy. Then Phil suddenly let go his hold on the wrist, clasping the man around the body and pinioning his arms to his sides.
"You might as well stand still," said the lad coolly. "You can't get away until I permit you to, and that won't be until something that looks like a policeman comes along."
In the meantime the captive was struggling and threatening.All at once he raised his voice in a peculiar, wailing cry.The Circus Boy felt sure that it was some sort of a signal,though it was new to him. But he was not to be cowed.
"Police!" shouted Phil.
"Police!" cried many voices.
Half a dozen men came rushing into the crowd, thrusting the people aside as they ran, looking this way and that to learn from where the cry for assistance had come.
Phil's captive uttered a sharp cry, and the lad realized what was going to happen. At first he had thought it was the police coming, but he was undeceived the moment he caught his prisoner's appeal to them. The men dashed toward the two, and as they rushed in Phil whirled his man so that the latter collided violently with the newcomers. That checked the rush briefly. He knew, however, that he could not hope to stand off his assailants for more than a few seconds. Yet the lad calculated that in those few seconds the police might arrive. He did not know that they had been well bribed neither to see nor to hear what occurred on the circus grounds.
A moment more and the lad had been roughly jerked from his captive and hurled violently to the ground.
Phil sprang up full of fight while the angry fellows closed in on him. He saw that they were showmen. A sudden idea occurred to him.
"Hey, Rube!" he shouted at the top of his voice, hoping that the rest of the show people within reach of his voice might crowd in and in the confusion give him a chance to get away.
And they did crowd in. They came on like a company of soldiers, sweeping everything before them. Phil, in that brief instant, while he was sparring to keep his opponents off, found time to smile grimly.
The fellow he had first made captive now attacked Phil viciously, the lad defending himself as best he could, while the people who had come to attend the show got out of harm's way as rapidly as possible. Phil could hope for no assistance from that quarter.
"I guess I have gotten myself into a worse scrape by calling the rest of the gang," he muttered, noting that he was being surrounded as some of the first comers pointed him out to the others.
Suddenly they fell upon Phil with one accord. He was jerked this way and that, but succeeded pretty well in dodging the blows aimed at his head, though his clothes were torn and he was pretty badly used.
Suddenly a voice roared out close behind him.
"Stop it!"
Turning his head a little Phil recognized Sully, the owner of the show. Sully's face was redder than ever.
"What—what's all this row about? Haven't you fellows anything more important to do than raising a roughhouse? Get out of here, the whole bunch of you! What's he done? Turn him over to the police and go on about your business."
One of the men said something in a low tone to Sully.The showman shot a keen, inquiring glance at the lad.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"I don't know that it makes any difference. I saw a fellow robbing a woman, and it was my duty to stop him. I did it, then a lot of his companions, who, I suppose, belong to your show pitched into me."
"So, you are trying to run the whole show, are you?"
"I am not."
"Well, you get off this lot as fast as you can hoof it. If I find you butting in again it will be the worse for you."
"That's the fellow who was hanging around the lot atSt. Catharines yesterday," spoke up someone.
"Yes; I remember now, he was asking me questions," said another, whose voice Phil recognized as belonging to the foreman of the stake and chain gang. "I got to thinking about it afterwards, and realized that he was a little too inquisitive for a greenhorn. He's been on the lot all day again."
Mr. Sully surveyed Phil with an ugly scowl.
"What are you doing around here, young man?"
"For one thing, I am trying to prevent one of your followers robbing a woman," answered Phil boldly.
"Who are you?"
"That is my own affair."
"I know him! I know him! I Know!" shouted another.
Sully turned to him inquiringly.
"Who is he, if you know so much?"
"He's a fellow what was with the Sparling outfit last year. He was always butting in then, and I can tell you he ain't here for any good now, Boss."
"So, that's the game is it?" sneered Sully. "You come with me.I've got a few questions I want to ask you."
"I don't have to go with you," replied Phil.
"Oh, yes you do! Bring him along and if he raises a row just hand him one and put him to sleep."
Two men grabbed Phil roughly by his arms.
He jerked away and started to run when he was pounced upon and borne to the ground. Phil found himself grasped by the collar and jerked violently to his feet, with the leering face of Sully thrust up close to his own.
"I'll see that you don't get away this time," growled the showman.
Dragging the lad along by the collar further off on the lot, the showman finally paused.
"Get the carriage," he commanded sharply.
"What you going to do with me?" demanded Phil.
"That depends. I'm going to find out something about you first, and decide what to do with you later."
"And, when you get through, I shall have you arrested for assault. It will be my turn to act then," retorted the Circus Boy. "I have done nothing except to stop a miserable thief from plying his trade. I understand that's a game you—"
"That will do, young man. Here's the wagon. Now, if you go quietly you will have no trouble. But just try to call for help, or raise any sort of a ruction, and you'll see more stars than there are in the skies when the moon's on a strike. Get in there."
Phil was thrust into the closed carriage, which the showman used for driving back and forth between the train and the lot.
Quick as a flash Phil Forrest dived through the open coach window on the other side, and with equal quickness he was pounced upon by the driver, who had gotten off on that side, probably at a signal from Sully.
Had Sully not run around to the other side of the wagon Phil would have quickly disposed of the driver, strong as was the latter.
With an enraged cry Sully sprang upon Phil, and raised his hand to strike.
"If you attempt to do that you'll serve the rest of the season in jail," dared Phil, taking a bold course. "You know they don't trifle with brutes like you up here in Canada?"
Sully growled an unintelligible reply, but that he recognized the truth of the lad's words was evident when he slowly dropped his clenched fist to his side.
"I'll see that you don't get away this time," he said once more thrusting Phil into the carriage, this time, however, keeping a firm grip on the lad's arm.
The driver whipped up the horse and the carriage rumbled away, soon reaching the village street and turning sharply off into a side street.