But Gwen—Gwen was perfection itself. Not too stout, not too thin; strong, yet not masculine, she was indeed a queen. About the tent, when off duty, she wore a short blue skirt and a blue middy blouse open at the neck and tied with a dark red ribbon. Twice Johnny had seen her boxing with the Italian. Each time the blood had rushed to his temples. To think of such a queen taking her exercise with so coarse a creature filled him with inward rage.
“Oh, well, he’s of the caste,” Johnny had grumbled. “No matter; so shall I be in time. I don’t know just how, but I will.”
Pant, too, had puzzled him greatly. He had not forgotten his friend’s uncanny power of seeing in the dark. He had heard of the strange appearance and disappearance of the crimson flash in the animal tent and elsewhere, and suspected that Pant was at the bottom of it, but just what his game was, or what strange secret of the power of light Pant possessed, he could not guess.
Johnny had at last succeeded in buying the five bonds which Pant had wanted. He had obtained two of them for $39 each. These he had bought from a fat, red faced man who was a guard at the entrance to the big top. He was even now waiting to deliver them to Pant.
Presently that individual came shuffling by, and, motioning Johnny to follow him, continued down the beach until they had found a secluded spot in a turn of a breakwater.
“Got ’em?” Pant whispered.
“Sure.”
“Good! Let’s see!”
“Good! Fine!” he exclaimed, after he had glanced over the bonds. “Now can you tell me who sold you these two together?”
“I don’t know his name; a fat, red faced fellow at the entrance of the big top.”
“Good! That’s one of them. They’re the right kind, I’ll wager. Let’s see!”
Pant spread the bonds out on a broad plank.
“No, only one!” he mused. “Getting careful, I’d say, Johnny.” He turned suddenly. “Would you risk much for an old friend?”
“I’d do a lot for you, Pant.”
“Thanks!” Pant gripped his hand warmly. “Take these two bonds you got from that fat fellow and sell them to-morrow to some dealer in bonds on La Salle street. You bought them for $39, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“You should get $45. Good little gain, eh?”
Johnny grinned. He knew Pant too well to think for a moment that he would engage in a small business of trading in bonds two or three at a time. What his real game was, he was unable to guess.
“All right, old man. See you to-morrow,” he said, rising and tucking the bonds away in his inner pocket. “I’ll hurry back now. I think I’m going to box the fellow who boxes the bear, though how I am to arrange it, I can’t quite tell.”
Johnny wandered back to the big top. It was late morning. Many of the circus people would be in the big tent going through their stunts.
His hope of finding the boxer of the bear in one of the rings was not in vain. He was, at the moment of Johnny’s entrance, in the act of putting the bear through his mock heroic battle.
With an air of apparent indifference, Johnny leaned against a center tent pole and watched him. Allegretti hated being watched, Johnny knew. That was why he lingered.
The Italian stood his scrutiny for three minutes, then with an angry glare in his eye, he cried:
“Go ’way, you bum!”
Johnny’s only reply was a grin.
“Go ’way! No can box-a da bear when you all time loafin’ here.”
The Italian was dancing with rage.
“You can’t box anyway, so what’s the difference?” Johnny grinned again.
“No can box?” The Italian stormed, “No can box? You wan’na see?”
“Sure, show me,” Johnny grinned.
An extra pair of gloves lay near by. Allegretti kicked them toward him. “Putta dem on. ‘No can box,’ he says. Allegretti show dat bum!”
He squared away in such an awkward manner that Johnny found it hard to suppress a smile.
“Now where do you want me to hit you first?” Johnny asked politely.
The answer was a volley of quick blows, which all fell upon Johnny’s well managed gloves.
When the Italian paused for breath, Johnny tapped him lightly on the nose. Enraged at being so easily scored upon, the fiery foreigner fairly went wild in his efforts to reach Johnny with a blow that would send him to the surgeon. To avoid these wild swings was child’s play for Johnny. Time and again the Italian left him a wide opening, but Johnny only further enraged his opponent by tapping him lightly.
This farce lasted for five minutes. Johnny was puzzled to know what to do. He knew that the impostor, who called himself a boxer, was completely within his power. By a single jab of his powerful right, he could send him to dreamland. This, however, was farthest from his thought. To needlessly injure a man was never part of Johnny’s program.
A large, low, paper-topped barrel, used in the trained dog act, stood within ten feet of them. Suddenly Johnny resolved what he would do; he would humiliate his opponent. Perhaps that would bring him to terms.
Slowly he forced Allegretti back until he was within five feet of the barrel when, with a quick right to the chest, he lifted him off the ground and landed him square in the center of the top of the tub. There followed a ripping sound, the paper burst, and Allegretti dropped from sight.
With a smile Johnny stood waiting the Italian’s reappearance, when, to his utter astonishment, he was struck a sledge hammer blow in the middle of the back.
The blow sent him sprawling. In a flash he was on his feet, and faced about to meet this new and powerful foe. Imagine his amazement when he found himself facing, not a man but a bear. With gloved forepaws, with broad mouth grinning, the bear stood ready for his share of the match.
What had happened was evident. The Italian had neglected to remove the bear’s gloves. The bear had now entered the ring. Johnny had a choice of facing him or running. It was a novel experience, but he was not well acquainted with flight, so he held his ground.
The bear advanced with none of the skill of an experienced fighter. His training had been superficial. He had been taught to swing his arms in a certain way when his opponent swung his as a signal. The bear, however, was six times as heavy as Johnny. One fair smash in the face with that giant paw would send Johnny to the happy hunting grounds.
As Johnny squared back, with his guard high, the bear hesitated, a quizzical, almost human grin overspreading his face. Then, seeming to get a signal to rush in, he came plowing forward, striking straight out as he advanced. Johnny sidestepped, and, leaping off his toes, tapped him on the ear. It was a stinging blow. Bruin’s ears were sensitive. That blow came near proving the undoing of Johnny, for instantly flying into a rage, the bear forgot his training. Dropping on all fours, he rushed at Johnny with the fierceness of his forest ancestors. Dodging this way and that, Johnny sought to get in a felling blow, but in vain.
Again the bear reared upon his hind legs. So quickly was this accomplished Johnny did not escape the grappling swing which, open handed, the bear let fly. The animal’s stubby claws raked his face, leaving three livid lines of red. The matter was growing serious. Something must be done quickly. Johnny did it. Watching for an opening, he at last leaped high and forward. His arm went up in one of his short, lightning master blows. There was the sound as of a steel trap sprung. The bear whirled in a circle, then crumpled to earth.
“There’s your bear,” panted Johnny, wiping his face.
“No box-a da bear,” groaned the grief stricken Italian.
“I should say not,” said Johnny. “He doesn’t box fair. He scratches.”
“You kill-a da bear. I get-a your goat.”
“Oh! The bear’ll be all right,” grinned Johnny. “Just give him a lump of sugar and a sniff of smelling salts. He’s a bit dizzy, that’s all.”
“But say!” he said after a moment. “You can’t get my goat. I ain’t got any. But I have a notion that I’ve got yours right now.”
He had, but the Italian wasn’t to know it until some hours later.
As he turned to walk away, Johnny noticed a well built, wholesome looking girl in short skirt and middy standing a short distance off. She was looking his way and smiling. It was Gwen, the queen. He wanted to go over and speak to her. He was sure she had seen all that had happened.
“Can’t afford to rush things too fast,” he whispered to himself and, turning toward the bunk tent, he hastened away.
As an hour and a half remained before he must go on duty, Johnny slicked up a bit and went over to La Salle street to sell the bonds which Pant had entrusted to his care. The first two dealers he approached refused to buy; they did not purchase bonds in such small lots. The third looked Johnny over carefully, then examined the bonds. After that, he wet the tip of his right forefinger on a sponge and proceeded to count out a handful of bills. These, with some small change, he shoved beneath the lattice to Johnny.
“Fine day,” he smiled, as he turned away.
“You bet,” Johnny agreed, as he pocketed the money.
Out on the shore of the lake he found Pant.
The latter stared at him for a moment in silence. He was looking at the three red lines drawn on Johnny’s face by the bear.
“Say,” he whispered at last, “give me those bonds!”
“I, I,” Johnny stared, “I haven’t got them!”
“Haven’t got them? Where are they?”
“Sold ’em as you said to do.”
“Sold them? When?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“With that on your face?”
“Sure.”
With a low whistle, Pant sank down upon the sand.
“Why, what’s wrong?” demanded Johnny.
“Oh! Nothing much. One of those bonds was a counterfeit, that’s all.”
“Counterfeit?”
“I said it.”
“And you sent me to sell it?”
“I suppose I should have told you. You’d have done it just the same. Anyway, you would have, had I told you everything. But if I had told you, that would have made you nervous and spoiled everything. I’m a marked man. I couldn’t go myself. How was I to know that you’d go and get branded in that fashion?
“Ho, well,” he continued after a moment’s reflection, “it’s all right, I’m sure. The bond was perfect except for one trifling detail. It was a shade lighter print than those made by Uncle Sam, and, after all, that’s really nothing. Who knows but the Government printer failed to ink his rollers well some morning? I know it was a counterfeit, though.”
He bent over and wrote a name in the sand, then quickly erased it.
Johnny had read it. “Who’s Black McCree?” he asked promptly.
“He,” Pant whispered, “is the slickest forger that ever lived, and the worst crook. We’re going to get him, you and I, Johnny. And he’s with the circus.”
“Did—did you ever see him?” Johnny demanded.
“I can’t be sure. Perhaps. But we will, Johnny, we will!”
For a moment they sat there in silence; then Johnny arose and without a word, walked away.
There was one particular part of the show that afternoon which Johnny was anxious to see. So anxious was he, indeed, that even the danger and mystery connected with the sale of the counterfeit Liberty Bonds were crowded from his mind. So intent was he upon seeing it, that he half neglected his duties, and received for the first time, directly upon his cheek, a sharp cut from Millie’s whip. Even that failed to make him angry. Once Millie’s act was over, and he had rushed the dapple grays to their stable, he dashed out of the horse tent, through the assembly grounds, under the canvas wall of the big top and found himself at last beneath the bleachers in a very good position to see what was going on in the ring to the south of the center.
He breathed a sigh of satisfaction, as he saw the swarthy Italian bear boxer, dressed in his green suit, come marching pompously down the sawdust trail toward the ring. The lumbering silver tip bear was at his heels.
The first part of their performance, the ball rolling, the stilt walking and bicycle riding, went off very well. The expectant smile on Johnny’s genial face was beginning to fade when finally boxing gloves were produced, and thrust upon the fore paws of the waiting bear.
Johnny’s smile broadened. A wild look in the bear’s eyes told him that something was about to happen.
It did happen, and that with lightninglike rapidity. No sooner had the bear felt the gloves upon his paws than, without waiting for signals, he let drive a tremendous right swing at the trainer’s head. He missed by but a fraction of an inch.
“Zowie! What a wallop,” whispered Johnny. “He hasn’t forgotten. I thought he wouldn’t.”
Indeed, the bear had not forgotten the punishment he had received earlier in the day and, whether or not he had the intelligence to know that Allegretti was no match for him, he had at least resolved to demolish him as speedily as possible, for hardly had the Italian recovered from his surprise when a second blow aimed at his chest sent him sprawling.
Leaping to his feet, the trainer waved his arms in frantic signals. It was of no avail. The bear had known the taste of victory. He was not to be signaled.
Straight at his trainer he rushed. The Italian uttered a shout of terror, then, closely followed by the bear, bolted from the ring.
The spectators, thinking this was a part of the play, howled and screamed as they rocked with laughter.
To the Italian it was tragedy. Had not the bear grown fat in idleness, and so impaired his running power, the affair might have ended unfortunately for Allegretti.
As it was, having pursued his trainer halfway down the length of the tent, the bear paused, rose on his haunches, tore a glove from his paw and aimed it with such force and accuracy at the trainer’s back that it sent him clawing in the dust.
With one more yell, Allegretti rose and continued his flight. The second glove missed its mark. With mouth open, seemingly in a broad grin, the bear’s gaze swept the circle of delighted spectators, then, appearing to forget all about the incident, he dropped on all fours, and allowed an attendant to lead him quietly away.
Johnny ducked for the assembly enclosure. There he found the Italian waving his arms before the manager.
“No box-a da bear! No box-a da bear!” shouted Allegretti.
“No, I’d say you didn’t,” smiled the manager. “But you did better than that. You put on a scream; you made ’em laugh their heads off. Do that every day and I’ll double your pay!”
“What!” demanded the outraged trainer. “Do dat again! Not for five time, not for ten time my pay. He want-a keel me, dat-a bear. No box-a da bear. No more box-a dat-a bear.”
No amount of argument could make Allegretti change his mind. He was scared white. Johnny and the bear had got his goat. He was through. He would never box the bear again.
“Well,” said the manager, turning to Johnny, at last, “I guess it’s up to you!”
“Up to me? How?” gasped Johnny.
“You crabbed the Italian’s act by boxing the bear. Now you’ll have to become a professional bear boxer, and box him yourself. See?”
“No, I don’t see,” said Johnny stoutly. “Why, I don’t even know the signals.”
“Make up some of your own. Pete Treco, the tumbler, used to be a bear boxer. He can help you. We’ll be out of Chicago in three days. I’ll give you till then to get in form. What say?”
“I—I’ll try,” said Johnny.
“That’s all anybody can do. And say, if you can get him to pull that stunt, chasing you, throwing the glove and all that, the double pay offer stands.”
Johnny caught his breath. His opportunity had come. There had come a shake-up. In three days there would be another, and he would be “shaken up” to the position of a full-fledged performer, or he would be shaken down out of the circus altogether. Could he make it?
Closing his fists tight, he gritted between his teeth:
“By all that’s good, I will!”
Fiery and high tempered Millie lost her groom that very day.
As far as the circus people were concerned, Johnny Thompson vanished. In a small tented enclosure, eight hours out of every twenty-four were spent in strenuous attempts to teach that bear to do his bidding. It was a difficult task. More times than one he barely dodged a sudden swing of that powerful paw, which if it had landed would have increased the demand for cut flowers and slow music.
Pant alone saw him, and that after the shadows had fallen. It was at such times that they talked long of those other days in Arctic Siberia.
“Pant,” Johnny shot at his friend one night, “what are you here for?”
“Same back to you,” smiled Pant. “What are you here for? You’re not a circus man. What interest can you have in learning to box a bear?”
“It’s deeper than that,” smiled Johnny. “It’s a matter of honor. There are three girls in that circus I must get on speaking terms with. The only way to do that is to become a performer.”
“Oh! It’s a skirt!”
“Not exactly—only a diamond ring.”
“A ring?”
“Yes, listen,” and Johnny proceeded to tell his story.
“That’s interesting,” said Pant, “and I think I can help you. In fact, I think I am safe in promising to tell you in time which of the three girls has the ring.”
“You tell me? How?”
“Leave that to me. I have ways of finding things out. It can’t be done here, though; on the road, perhaps, or at a one-night stand. Wait and see.
“And now,” continued Pant, “I want you to promise to help me with my own mystery. It is a much deeper and far more important affair. You know the type of people that follow the circus?”
Johnny nodded.
“Well, mixed with these little crooks is a big one—a forger, a master counterfeiter. His work is so good, as you know yourself, that it can be passed on La Salle street, and that’s going some. I have several samples of his work. I know they are counterfeits, yet there is not a defect except the slight lack of color. They are technically perfect. One would almost say they were photographs of the real thing. These bonds are being secretly passed out even here in Chicago. When we get out into the safer small cities, I have no doubt the state will be flooded with them. It’s an easy game. You know how they work it: Circus employee has a bond he has been saving, money all gone, must sell at a sacrifice. Greedy rubes snatch them up. And the worst of it is, they are so perfect that only in cases where two of the same number chance to come together will they be detected. With the vast number of genuine bonds in the country, this is likely never to happen. So there you are. Why, I doubt if even the Treasury Department itself could detect them. And this Black McCree is at the bottom of it all.”
“How do you know that?” Johnny bent forward eagerly.
Pant smiled. “He has a foolish habit of scrawling his name about. He made the mistake of scribbling it on one of the bonds which later came into my hands. He’s known to the police the country over, not so much as counterfeiter, however, as a ‘Red’—a dynamiter of the worst type. He has more than once left his scribbled name above a ghastly piece of work. That is all they know of him. He has never been identified. Just why he has decided to take up the life of a sane crook and enter the forging game, I can’t tell unless—by George! I believe I have it! Yes, sir! It’s a financial plot!”
“How’s that?” Johnny asked.
“Can’t you see? Our country is deeply in debt. Every town and city is flooded with national credit slips in the form of Liberty Bonds. A nation’s credit is its life. Now, if some slick fellow can fill the safety boxes of the land with bogus bonds, what is to become of the country’s credit? In time government bonds cannot be sold at any price, for the would-be purchaser cannot tell whether he is buying a genuine bond or a counterfeit.”
“I see,” breathed Johnny.
“And yet,” mused Pant, “it may not be a plot, after all. Perhaps this Black McCree thinks he has discovered a way to get rich quick, and has dropped his radical notions. They mostly drop them when they fall heir to a piece of money. But, anyway,” he straightened up with a jerk, “we’ve got to get him.”
“What’s he like?” asked Johnny.
“That’s what no one knows. He’s never been seen. He may be large or small. He may be, for instance, a certain husky conman with a ragged ear.”
“The very chap,” exclaimed Johnny. “He’s a crook, all right. I caught him in a crooked deal the other day. We had a little boxing match.”
“You can’t be sure he’s the man,” smiled Pant. “Small crooks seldom do big jobs, and big crooks don’t operate con games. Yet he’ll bear watching. He may be doing that as a blind.
“There’s another fellow, though,” Pant went on, “a midget clown—Tom Stick, a queer little chap. He’s the prize of the circus. Dresses like a mosquito, and drives a huge elephant around the ring. Strange part about him is, he insists on living all by himself in a little house built on wheels. Far as I know, no one has ever been allowed inside that house of his. You see the chance, don’t you? He could have all kinds of an outfit in there, and no one would be the wiser. Of course, he wouldn’t sell many bonds himself; he’d pass ’em out through others.
“There’s a third fellow, a cook, the steam kettle cook, Andy McQueen. Don’t know so much about him. What I want you to do is to get acquainted with these men and see what you can find out. You’re on the inside, so you can do it. There’s another fellow, he’s—”
At that juncture the conversation was ended by the appearance of a party rounding a sand pile, and Johnny hastened back to the tented grounds.
“I’m crazy to get in my first performance,” he told himself. “If it’s successful, it’ll put me on even ground with Gwen, the Queen. Then we’ll see what we shall see. She looks mighty interesting, to say the least.”
Late that night Johnny Thompson was reminded for the hundredth time of his position as a serf among the knights and ladies of the circus. He was just passing into the now almost deserted big top when he came face to face with Millie Gonzales. In sudden embarrassment he was about to speak to her and doff his cap when, with chin in air, she swept past him.
Setting his teeth hard, Johnny hastened on. Only when he was at a safe distance did he give vent to his feelings.
“If it wasn’t for the ring, I wouldn’t stand for it,” he raged in a whisper, “I, I’d, well, I’d make her bite her own sharp tongue. Maybe,” he reflected, “maybe some time I will.”
The incident was soon forgotten, and it was not so long after that Johnny was made to realize that not all the ladies of the circus were like Millie, not even those who ranked above her.
In a dark corner of the tent, Johnny threw himself on a pile of netting to think. Life had grown strangely complicated for him since he had joined the show. Problems great and small lay before him for solving. It was like a lesson in algebra. There was the problem of boxing the bear. His ability to solve that problem would be tested all too soon, on the day after to-morrow. In some small city he would have his try-out. Depending upon the successful solving of this problem was the other and more important one, that of the ring. Who had it? Millie, the bareback rider, Mitzi, the trapeze performer, or Gwen, the dancing queen of the tight wire? Thus far he had not the slightest clue. If one of them had it, she never had worn it while Johnny was in sight. Could it be that the one in possession of it suspected him of seeking it? That did not seem probable.
“And yet,” he reflected, “stranger things have happened. She may have seen me make that foolhardy dash for it when the elephant flicked it from the chain.”
But at once his mind swept on to the third and most important problem of all—Pant’s problem, the problem of the counterfeit bonds. Pant had named three men who might be responsible, the conman of the ragged ear, the midget clown, the steam kettle cook. Johnny Thompson was one of the kind of fellows who, when they recognize a great and important problem, set themselves to solving it, leaving all minor difficulties to take care of themselves. As he lay there now, he realized that Pant’s problem had already become his; that for the time being, the ring might be all but forgotten. And yet he hoped that, as the more important and difficult problem was being solved, this one of lesser importance would work itself out.
“Well, anyway,” he mumbled, half rising, “my success at boxing the bear comes first, for unless I put that stunt across, I will have precious little chance to discover the whereabouts of the ring, or to help Pant run down the counterfeiter. To-morrow’s my last day of training. Me for my bunk.”
But just as he was about to get upon his feet he checked himself and sank back in his place. A vision had struck his eye—a vision of lithe wonder and beauty. It was dancing along a silver wire.
It was Gwen, Queen of the circus. The great tent was totally dark, save for the corner where she practiced. She had arranged a spot light in such a manner that its brilliant rays struck squarely across the tightly drawn wire, and there in that light, which was flashed back by her brilliant costume and her tossing umbrella, she was performing all unconscious that anyone was watching her.
Johnny Thompson thought he was the only onlooker, and perhaps at first he was. If so, it was not for long. Had he but known the nature of that other spectator, he might have leaped to his feet and rushed to warn the queen of her danger. Not knowing, he sat entranced by the wonderful apparition who seemed more a being of another world, or perhaps some tropical bird, as she flitted from end to end of that silver wire. Now she rose straight in air and, seeming to soar aloft, swept down to the wire again. And now she dropped upon her hands to bend and twist in a blinding whirl, while her gleaming parasol spun above her.
“Um,” Johnny breathed; then again, “Um!”
But what was that? He thought he detected a stealthy movement to the right of him. It might have been but the swaying of a tent pole shaken by the wind, but he kept his eyes upon the spot for some time. He had concluded it was nothing, and was about to turn his attention to the girl again, when the movement came again, this time closer at hand. At the same time he heard a sound that in a place less quiet to an untrained ear would be nothing at all. To Johnny it spoke of danger—perhaps danger to himself, perhaps to the girl. He thought of the counterfeiters. Did they know he had joined Pant in the task of hunting them down, and realizing his importance as an inside man, had they decided to do away with him at once? Or was this some enemy of the beautiful dancer?
Danger, Johnny had learned, loses much of its terror when squarely faced. He now threw himself upon the sawdust and began creeping, knife in hand, toward the spot from which the sound had come.
Ten feet he crawled, then paused to listen. In the stillness he heard the occasional creak of the wire, the spatter of the spot light. Then again he caught that gliding sound. It was retreating from him, moving closer to the girl. This time he crept twenty feet or more before he paused. Again the same sounds greeted his strained ears. Again the gliding sound. The creature, whether beast or human, traveling faster than he, must be not more than thirty feet from the swinging, swaying girl.
And now, like a flash, his eyes, for a moment relieved from the dancer’s dazzling light, saw the creature—a gaunt tawny beast it was, a tiger stalking human prey. For a second Johnny shivered and shrank back. How had this creature escaped? This he could not know. Its purpose was all too evident. Attracted by the gleam of the fairylike figure dancing on the wire, it was thinking only of breaking her bones with its yellow fangs.
Johnny paused for half a minute, then resumed his forward movement. Poorly armed as he was, he would not allow the beast to have its way unopposed.
Yet, after covering another yard or two, he paused. The girl was ten feet in air. Did the tiger have the power to leap that high? For a tiger of the jungle this would be no feat at all, but for this one of the cage, Johnny was in doubt. And Gwen? Did she have the iron nerve to keep on dancing down the wire with a great yellow beast leaping madly for her feet?
It was a tense moment. Every muscle in his body quivered. The hand that gripped his knife almost crushed the hilt.
The questions that surged through his brain were not long in being answered, for now, in the dim half light about her, the girl saw the beast. For one brief second her eyes were dilated with fear. The parasol, trembling, wavering, almost slipped from her grasp.
Johnny rose on one knee. “If she falls? If she falls?” he breathed silently.
But she did not fall. Seeming to summon all her nerve and strength, she held her parasol high and once more danced gracefully down the wire.
* * * * * * * *
Two hours before this moment in our story, Pant had left the circus grounds, and, crossing a viaduct over the tracks, had made his way down the avenue toward the river. As he cut across the roadway and lost himself down a dark alley near the river, he might have been heard saying to himself:
“The bear, driven from his lair, returns; the rabbit circles back to his brush pile; sometimes crooks return to their rendezvous. I wonder if they will this time? Well, we shall see what we shall see.”
He was by this time nearing a long, low-lying building that flanked the river. Before a door which was reached by three downward steps, he paused. All was dark, silent, mysterious. For a moment he listened intently, then after a hasty glance up and down the deserted alley, he darted to a low, narrow window. His efforts to lift the sash were fruitless. Quickly drawing a thin-bladed knife from his pocket, he inserted the blade beneath the catch. There was a click. The next instant Pant had lifted the sash, dived through and closed the window after him.
The room was utterly dark, yet he appeared to have no difficulty in finding his way about the place. Whether he had a previous knowledge of the building, was endowed with an instinctive sense of location of things, or could see in the dark, would have been a question too difficult for a casual thinker to answer. An observer, had there been one, might have said that the room had a strange way of flashing crimson for a fraction of a second, then becoming inky black again.
After moving about for a time, Pant doubled himself up and, creeping into the broad lower part of a dilapidated cupboard, closed the door behind him.
Ten minutes elapsed. A rat scurried over the uneven floor. Another creeping through a hole in the base of the cupboard, began rattling a loose bit of board about. Pant kicked at it. Then all was silent again.
Five minutes more passed. Three rats had ventured out upon the floor when, of a sudden, there sounded the rattle of a key in the outer door. The rats scurried away. Pant caught a quick breath, as he whispered:
“They return!”
A match was struck. A broad, fat face appeared at the door. The man’s small, beady eyes peered about the place for a moment, then he whispered back over his shoulder:
“All right. C’m’on.”
“Safe?”
“Sure!”
Two other men followed him. One was slim, the other broad shouldered. Pant almost let fall an exclamation, as he saw that the broad-shouldered one had a ragged ear.
“Perhaps Johnny’s right,” was his mental comment.
Through a hole left by what had once been a lock on the cupboard door, he could catch every move of the mysterious three.
Gathering around the table they proceeded at once to what appeared to be the task of the night. A flat tin affair was placed on the table. A tin cup from which the handle of a brush protruded was set down close to the pan. A roll of paper was produced. It was while this was being rolled backward and then drawn across the smooth edge of the table to make it straight that Pant felt something touch his hand. Barely checking a start, he held himself rigidly motionless. In an instant he realized that it was only a hungry rat. But in a minute he knew that this was quite bad enough, for the rat began to gnaw at his finger.
In the meantime, in the room the man of the ragged ear had taken the broad brush and moved it several times over the pan. He dipped the brush each time in the cup, as if applying a liquid. The fat man held a sheet of paper as if ready to spread it out upon the pan.
The rat persevered. He had gnawed his way through the tough outer skin of Pant’s finger, and had touched tender flesh when, with a sudden quick movement, Pant’s thumb closed down. He was not quick enough. The rat, whirling about, was caught only by the tail. With a piercing, almost human scream the rat struggled for freedom.
Instantly the room went dark. In that same instant, a hand groped for the door, behind which Pant was concealed. Pant had hoped to strangle the rat without a sound. In this he had failed. Just what he was in for now, he could not even guess.
In the dim half light, as Johnny crouched in the sawdust ring, knife in hand, he saw the tiger lash his tail as he prepared for a spring. He saw the girl dancing on the wire, twirling her parasol as she danced. His mind whirled. Was this all a dream? Was it but a moving picture flashed upon the screen? He shook himself. No, there were the colors in the girl’s costume, the red that came and went in her cheek, and there were the wonderful colors in the coat of that giant cat. It was real, and the cat was preparing for a spring. Should he cry out? Attract the beast’s attention, then stand for battle? To do so meant sudden death. No man armed with a knife could hope to defeat a tiger.
On the other hand, what if he waited? Could the tiger leap ten feet in air? If he could, what then? The girl had nerve; Johnny could see that. There was a strong chance that the tiger could not reach her. He would wait.
Suddenly into that brilliant circle of light there shot upward a tawny, gleaming body. The tiger had leaped square at the girl. Johnny’s heart stood still. There came an audible gasp from the girl. The cruel fangs of the beast flashed in the light. Up, up he rose, five feet, six, seven, eight. Now his great paws flashed at the girl’s feet. An instant of suspense ended with a gasp of relief. The tiger had missed.
For a fraction of a second the girl teetered on the wire. She seemed about to lose her balance and fall, but she at once regained her composure, and, with a smile upon her lips, such as she threw to admiring spectators, she tripped again along the wire.
“Bravo!” Johnny’s lips formed the word, but he did not say it.
Again the tiger crouched for a spring. The girl was gaining self-control. Estimating the position of the tiger, she tripped away from him. Angered, the tiger roared savagely, gave two short jumps, then leaped straight and high.
With a little cry, half of fear, half of defiance, the girl sprang in air. The next instant the tiger’s paw touched the wire. One breathless second the girl appeared to hover in air, then she dropped. Her toe touched the vibrating wire. She slipped. She uttered a low moan.
Just at that moment the spot light blinked suddenly out, leaving the great tent in utter darkness.
* * * * * * * *
For a few moments after the candle was extinguished in the mysterious room down by the river Pant remained motionless. Then, as a groping hand found the door to his hiding place, he leaped into spring-steel-like action. The cupboard door banged open. A sudden flash of red light was followed by the dull thud of a body striking the floor. A second flash produced the same result. A chair clattered to the floor. The street door swung suddenly open, then banged shut again. A fugitive figure sought cover in the shadows of a dark corner of the building.
“Are you shot?” came a gruff voice from within.
“Thought I was, but guess I ain’t.”
“So did I.”
“There wasn’t any report.”
“A red flame, and a biff that floored!”
There followed sounds of movement. A match was struck. For a moment a light flickered in the room, then three heads appeared at the door. Mounting to the third step, the leader glanced quickly up and down the street. Then, followed by his two companions, he darted away.
“Some rotten luck,” grumbled Pant, for it was he who lurked in the corner.
Without a light, he again entered the room. When he came out a short time later, he was straightening out a bit of crumpled paper.
* * * * * * * *
For Johnny, after the spot light in the circus tent blinked out, an agony of suspense followed. The girl—had she dropped? The tiger—was he now about to spring? Without a light Johnny could do nothing. A sudden wave of remorse overcame him. He blamed himself for not entering the struggle when the light was on.
But what was this? Could it be that his straining ear caught the sing of the wire, as the girl’s foot touched it in her wild dance? He listened. There could be no mistake about it. Even in the darkness she had regained her footing, was dancing down the wire.
But the tiger could see in the dark. She could not see his leaps. And he would leap again, Johnny was sure of that.
In this he was not mistaken, for, with sinking sensation, he heard the cat leave the ground. There followed no sound. Breathlessly he waited till he felt the slight shock of the cat as he dropped. Or was it Gwen?
At this time of uncertainty a weird thing happened. Seeming to come from a spot in mid air, a streak of crimson light flashed down at an angle toward the floor. For an instant, it turned the costume, the parasol, the face of the girl crimson; the next, it swept the crouching tiger with a flood of blood red light. With a growl of fear the beast shrank back. The light followed him. He rose and leaped away. He paused. The light was again upon him. With a wild snarl, he sprang away toward the far end of the tent.