CHAPTER XVIII
IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
Joe Strong was rather taken by surprise. To be sure he had thought of some day rejoining some circus, if not the one he had formerly been with as the daring trapeze performer and boy fish. But he had expected to finish out the season under his own management. As he hesitated about answering, Jim Tracy said:
"You can practically name your own price, Joe. We've reached the point where we've got to have a thriller, and as soon as we heard about you we owners got together and made up our minds you would fill the bill. We're prepared to meet your own price and give you every accommodation you want."
"Doesn't Benny's tank act and Helen's horse draw any more?" asked Joe.
"Oh, sure! They go as well as ever, if not better. Helen is certainly a little wonder with that Rosebud horse of hers, and Ben has added one or two little stunts to his work. But what we want is something new and big, and your act seems to be the thing. In fact I know it's what we want. Will you come?"
"Let me think it over a bit," suggested Joe. "You know I'd like to come back and join my old friends if I could make as much money under canvas as I can outside. Only there are certain mechanical difficulties in the way. Mine's a pretty big act, you know, and it takes lots of room."
"I know it, Joe. But we're going to buy a new main-top tent, and if you come with us we can afford to get one so big that you can set your act almost as you do now. You may have to shorten the wire a little and not have it quite so high, but the act will be just as good. There's another thing too, Joe; you can show at night with us, and in wet weather as well as in dry. Think it over."
"I will, and I'll let you have my answer by night. Now come on out to lunch with me. How'd you manage to get away from the show?"
"Oh, I just had to come to see you. The circus needs you, Joe."
After talking it over at lunch with the ring-master, Joe came to his decision.
"Well, Jim Tracy, I'll come back to the show," he announced.
"Good!" was the enthusiastic response. "That's what I want to hear. Now we'll get down to brass tacks."
This they did. In other words, they set about settling the terms of the contract and numerous other details, with the result that Joe received a contract that was very favorable to him financially. He was also pleased at the prospect of getting back among his friends. He would take Ryan and Jeroleman with him, as they understood the setting up of the high-wire apparatus.
"Yes, it will seem good to get back under canvas again," mused Joe, when he had affixed his signature to the contract.
"And I know a certain little lady who will be glad to hear you are coming," said the ring-master. "She's been lonesome."
"Has she?" asked Joe.
"How'd you know whom I meant?" inquired Jim Tracy, clapping Joe on the back.
"Oh, I—er—I sort of guessed," and Joe blushed under his tan, for he was as brown as an Indian from being in the open air so much.
Jim Tracy went back to the circus, and Joe promised to join them at Columbus, when he had finished his week's act in Akron.
"We work eastward after that," said Jim Tracy. "And you'll probably be back in New York before long."
"That's good," said Joe, for he liked Manhattan Island.
"And then we're going to make a big jump to the West," went on the ring-master. "We're going to make a trial out there. It may be a risk, but we've decided to try it. The East is getting pretty well crowded with shows now."
Joe's work in Akron was a success, though it was marred by a slight accident. One day, toward the close of his engagement, he did not hit the slanting wire properly, and as a result he narrowly missed colliding with the base of one of the supports. But he pulled his wheel over in time, and went shooting past.
The management feared he would give up the act for that day, but Joe had no thought of that. He tried it again, and amid cheers from the crowd he shot up the incline, and out on to the level wire, completing the ride successfully.
When his week was up, Joe made ready to rejoin the circus. Some mechanical rearrangements would be necessary in his apparatus, but he wanted to see the new big tent before he made any changes. And when he saw the main-top which the Sampson Brothers had purchased, Joe found that it was larger than he had expected.
"I can do my act almost exactly as I have been doing it," he told Jim Tracy. "And that makes it better for me, as I won't have to rejudge my distances."
Acrobats, circus performers of all sorts, and others who do physical turns, or acts, become mechanical after long practice. They know, instinctively, just when to make certain jumps, just where to "take off," and if distances are changed it confuses them. So Joe was glad he did not have to make any great alterations. The big new tent would be so arranged that he could ride nearly his three hundred feet, and while the height was slightly reduced, that did not make so much difference.
It was the first day of Joe's performance with the circus he had rejoined. All over the lot there were busy scenes. Men were putting up the canvas shelters, others were feeding the animals or arranging meals for the circus folk themselves. Here and there the acrobats were looking after their apparatus, and Joe had a glimpse of Helen walking across to see about her horse, Rosebud.
"I'm so glad you're back with us, Joe," she said.
"And so am I. It seems like old times."
"Have you heard anything more about your mother's people?" the girl asked. "Any news of the man you overheard speak of her?"
"No, not a thing, and I don't believe I ever shall."
"Oh, you mustn't give up so soon. You may get your inheritance yet. Look how long I had to wait for my little one."
"Oh, I'll take it if it comes," Joe remarked, with a laugh. "But as things are going now I can get along without it. How are matters going with you, Helen?"
"Oh, fine! Rosebud is a darling."
Joe thought he knew of some one else of whom that could be said, but he did not make the remark aloud.
He went over to where his apparatus was put, and with Ryan and Jeroleman began getting it in order to set up. It was about ten o'clock, and the parade would start soon. Then would come the afternoon's performance.
"What are you doing now, boss?" asked Ryan, as he saw Joe busily at work over his shining motor-cycle.
"Oh, it's just a little experiment. If it goes well I'll have a little surprise for the crowd to-night."
"Well, don't take any chances. Remember it's your first ride at night."
"Yes, I know that. Oh, this isn't any risk."
In fact, it was Joe's first night ride. Special lights had been arranged that were to be placed on the ground near the spot where the wires slanted out of the earth. These lights would enable Joe to see properly to guide his grooved front wheel to the cable.
With a blare of trumpets and booming of drums the afternoon performance opened. There was a big crowd, and Jim Tracy ascribed it to the advent of Joe, whose performances on the high wire had been well advertised the week before.
Joe's act came about the middle of the show, after Benny's tank act and Helen's performance with Rosebud.
Our hero noted that Benny was doing well in the tank with the goldfish and the seal, and that the "human fish" could stay under water much longer than formerly.
"I guess the operation did him good in more ways than one," thought Joe.
Helen's act with Rosebud was a dainty and pretty one, and the circus audience, especially the children, liked it very much.
"And now, Joe, we're ready for you," said the ring-master.
"All right," was the answer.
Jim Tracy made an unusually elaborate announcement concerning Joe. He spoke of the youth's having formerly been with the circus in the tank act, which many in the audience remembered, as the show had played the same town the previous season. Then Joe's exploits in New York—climbing the Flatiron Building, and riding his machine across the street—were mentioned, until the throng was on tiptoe with expectancy.
Everything was in readiness, and when Joe, having examined his apparatus to make sure it was all right, sent his machine across the approach space and up the slanting wire, there was a gasp of surprise from the crowd.
There was silence when the boy shot out across the high wire, but it was a greater tribute than a great shout would have been. The shouting and cheers came when Joe rode safely down the other side of the wire.
"Did you like it, Helen?" asked Joe, after he had bowed to the applause.
"I—I didn't dare look at you, Joe," she said.
"Why not?"
"I was afraid you'd fall."
"But I didn't fall!" laughed Joe. "And, really, I'd like to have you see my act."
"I'll look at it some day, maybe," she answered, softly.
Joe had a little surprise for the audience that night. As he shot out on the straight wire his motor-cycle suddenly became ablaze with little twinkling lights. He had secured a storage battery and made it fast to his machine, connecting to it scores of tiny electric incandescent bulbs of the smallest size. These were of various colors, and, flashing on and off as Joe worked the switch with his finger, they made a pretty and novel effect with his white, shimmering, spangled suit.
"Great, Joe! Great!" cried the ring-master, as our hero finished the act. "That's the best yet! Keep it up!"
"I—I looked at you that time," confessed Helen, as he went over toward her.
"And how did you like it?"
"It was wonderful, Joe. I don't see how you think of all those things."
"Oh, they come naturally."
The show moved on, and it did better and better business all along the route, for Joe proved to be a great attraction. Then one day the ring-master said:
"Well, we'll be in New York City next week. We'll show there for a month."
"Where?" asked Joe.
"In Madison Square Garden."
"That's great!" exclaimed the young performer. "Now I can really show New Yorkers what I can do."
It is the ambition of every actor to be seen in a production on Broadway, and it naturally follows that it is the ambition of every circus performer to appear in Madison Square Garden, that big amphitheatre, the Mecca of all circuses, reached by but few.
In the course of time the Sampson Brothers' Show arrived in the metropolis, and the animals, the actors and the mass of paraphernalia were taken to the big building.
"In Madison Square Garden!" thought Joe exultingly. "That's the place for my stunt!"