CHAPTER I
JOE SOLVES A PUZZLE
“How did he do it? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“So would I. It sure was a queer trick all right—and it looked so easy, too.”
“Well, I’ve tried to guess, but I can’t. The more I think of it the more I believe that the professor really is a magician, in a certain way.”
“Pooh! It couldn’t be anything like that! It was just a trick, like all the others he did. But I’d like to know how to do it.”
Four boys sat under the shade of a big willow tree in a grassy meadow on the bank of a stream. They were earnestly discussing something, the import of which may be gathered from their talk.
“I tried to do the trick after I got home last night,” confessed Harry Martin.
“You didn’t do it, did you?” asked Charlie Ford, rumpling up his red hair. Charlie was not at all ashamed of his red hair. His sister Mazie called it “auburn,” but Charlie himself stuck to plain “red.”
“Do it? I should say not!” cried Harry. “I didn’t come within a mile of it, and our folks just laughed at me.”
“And yet how easy Professor Rosello did it,” observed Henry Blake.
“Yes, and he didn’t have any machinery or truck on the stage to do it with, as he had for his other tricks,” remarked Tom Simpson. “All he had was a plain slate, same as the little kids use in our school.”
“It must have been a trick slate,” said Harry. “That’s the only way I can account for the figures getting on it.”
“No, there wasn’t any trick about the slate,” declared Charlie Ford. “I was sitting right up front, and he passed the slate to me first, to look at. There wasn’t a sign of a number on it when I had it.”
“And you handed it right over to Mr. Burton to hold, didn’t you?” asked Tom.
“Yes; and Mr. Burton held it until the figures came out on it—under the handkerchief, of course. It sure was a good trick.” Charlie shook his head in wonderment.
“I’d like to know how it was done,” said Henry Blake. “But I don’t s’pose he’d tell us if we asked him. He’s in town yet. I saw him around the hotel when I came past a little while ago.”
“It isn’t very likely he’d tell us how he did it,” said Harry. “That’s the way he makes his living—by doing magical tricks—and it isn’t to be supposed that he’d give away his secrets. But all the same——”
“Hello, fellows! What’s up now?” asked a new voice. “Talking secrets that you don’t want me to hear?”
The four boys, gathered under the willow tree, looked up quickly. Looks of welcome accompanied by smiles greeted the newcomer.
“Hello, Joe!” shouted Charlie Ford.
“Say, you’re looking good!” added Tom.
“I’m feeling good,” was the response. “What’s up?”
“Oh, we’re just talking about the show last night. You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I saw the great Professor Alonzo Rosello give his world-mystifying exhibition of black and allied arts,” and Joe smiled as he quoted from the circulars that had been scattered broadcast over the town of Bedford, advertising the exhibition given in the Opera House the previous evening.
“What did you think of him?” asked Henry Blake.
“Why, he was pretty fair in some things,” said Joe, slowly.
“Pretty fair? Why, say! he was great!” cried Tom Simpson. “I’d like to see you do even the simplest trick that he did!”
“Perhaps I can,” replied Joe, quietly.
His chums looked curiously at him. And, for the moment, we can do no better than to observe this boy, who had sunk down in an easy position on the grass. A moment’s study of him now will help greatly in understanding the nature of a youth destined to have many curious and thrilling adventures. And he was a lad well adapted by nature for a life of daring excitement.
Briefly, Joe Strong was a remarkable boy. From the time of his early infancy he had never known what it was to be ill or ailing. Even the simplest childish diseases seemed to pass him by as one too strong and sturdy to try to weaken. He had a superb physical form, and as soon as he was old enough to take regular exercise he added to his suppleness and strength in a systematic way.
There was no better runner, jumper, swimmer, diver or all-around athlete in Bedford than Joe Strong. Added to this he could ride any horse he ever saw; he could climb to the roof of the church and walk the ridge pole, with never a qualm of dizziness; he was an excellent shot with a rifle; and he could juggle with stones, baseball bats, balls—in fact with almost anything that he could handle. Taking it all in all, Joe was rather remarkable.
Another point in his favor, and one that was destined to stand him in good stead in after life, was the fact that he seemed absolutely without nerves. Rather be it said that his nerves were under such perfect control that he was their master, not their slave. It took high-strung but perfectly controlled nerves to do some of the things Joe did.
The secret of his abilities, if secret it was, lay in the fact that his mother, now dead some years, had been one of the most daring bareback riders in any circus that ever toured the country. She was billed as Madame Hortense, though her name was Mrs. Janet Strong. She was an English woman, and Joe dimly remembered hearing that before her marriage her name had been Willoughby. Beyond that fact he knew little of his mother’s early history.
But it was not alone from his mother that Joe inherited certain health, nerve, daring, ability to ride a horse and to take risks higher up off this solid earth than most persons care to go. He also was indebted to his father for many of his talents and abilities.
Professor Morretti—known in private life as Alexander Strong—had been in his day, one of the best-known and best-drawing (from a theatrical standpoint) magicians that ever brought a live rabbit out of a silk hat, or locked himself up in a solid box, only to be found missing when the box was opened, the professor himself afterward walking coolly down the aisle of the playhouse.
Thus Joe inherited two totally different sets of talents. And that was about all he had inherited from his parents. For they had both died when he was about five years old, the professor first, following a severe attack of pneumonia contracted when one of his water tricks went wrong, and he received a drenching on a zero night.
Mrs. Strong did not long survive her husband. Perhaps she lost her nerve, following news of his sudden death. At that they were traveling in different shows, Joe being with his mother. Usually, however, Professor Morretti and Madame Hortense went about together, caring for little Joe between them.
Only a few months after the professor died, Madame Hortense had a bad fall from a new horse she was trying, and she received injuries which resulted in her death in a few weeks.
Joe was left alone in the world, with only an inheritance of a superb set of muscles, nerves, hawklike eyes and an active brain.
The circus people were kind to him, and did what they could, but a circus is not the best place in the world for an orphan boy, and the manager soon realized this.
Consequently he was glad to read an advertisement of a couple who wanted to adopt a strong, healthy boy of about Joe’s age. Letters were written, and Mr. Amos Blackford came on with his wife to have a look at Joe.
Mr. Beeze, the circus manager, had artfully neglected to state, in his early letters, the fact that Joe was the orphan of a bareback rider and a “Professor of Black Art and Magic”; and when Mr. and Mrs. Blackford discovered this they were well-nigh horrified. For they were old-fashioned persons, with very strict ideas about right and wrong, and to them a woman who rode a horse in a circus was a person not to be admitted to the best society, and they regarded the dead Professor Morretti in about the same light as they would an outlaw.
At first they were going back without Joe. But Mrs. Blackford could not resist the heart-appeal of the attractive little chap, and so he was taken, and carried to the Blackford home in Bedford by his foster-parents, who had since brought him up.
They had done well by Joe, as far as their rather narrow minds let them. They treated Joe harshly at times, without understanding that they did so. They wanted him to forget that he was ever in a circus, that his mother ever rode bareback, and that his father juggled Indian clubs and produced live rabbits from the vest pockets of innocent persons in the audience.
But Joe could not forget those things. He had been born in a circus, and the smell of the sawdust, the jungle odor from the animal tent, always brought back to him, most vividly, his early days.
He had not lived long in Bedford before he became known as a daring little fellow. Mrs. Blackford nearly fainted when once she saw him walking the back fence like a tight rope, with a clothes pole as a balancer in his chubby hands.
And from then on, by gradual stages, Joe advanced to more and more daring tricks, until one day on a challenge he walked the ridgepole of the church.
His foster-father whipped him for that—whipped him cruelly—and from that time Joe came to dislike, with a dislike that never ceased, the man who had brought him up. From then on his life was more or less miserable. But he did not give up what was born to him in his blood. In secret he imitated the acts of circus performers, remembering some of them from his childhood days, seeing pictures of others on the gaudy fence bills, and, rarely, getting into a show himself. That was his seventh heaven of delight.
As the years went on, Joe gained in health, strength, nerve and daring. Joe was not a paragon—far from it. But he was certainly a remarkable youth, and perhaps “daring” is the best word to use in describing him. He seemed never to be afraid to take a chance, but, if the truth were known, his keen eye and active brain had already figured the chances out in his favor before he undertook any feat.
And now, on this sunny day, he was sitting under a willow tree with his companions, discussing a show given the night before by Professor Rosello.
“Do you mean to tell me, Joe,” asked Tom Simpson, “that you can do any of those tricks the professor did?”
“Some of ’em, yes,” answered Joe. “Of course I can’t do those that need a whole lot of trick apparatus, a darkened stage, and all that. I could if I had the stuff. But I think I can do the one you were talking about as I came up,” and Joe regarded his companions with sparkling eyes.
“You mean the slate trick?” asked Harry.
“Yes. Adding up a sum and making the answer come on the slate. I could do that now, if I had the slate. That was the only trick thing about it all.”
“Was that slate a trick one?” asked Charlie, rumpling up his red hair.
“Yes. It was a trick slate, but not very complicated. Now just watch a moment and I’ll do the trick, as nearly like the professor as is possible. I guess I’ve got some papers and a pencil.”
From his pocket Joe brought out some white slips and a stub of a pencil.
“Now you fellows just sit in a row a little way apart, and I’ll pretend this is the stage,” went on Joe, as he stood beside a flat stump near the willow tree. “Here, Charlie, you put down a number on this slip of paper. Any number of four figures, say 1,876, or anything you like.”
“All right,” said Charlie, and he wrote a number.
“Now, Harry, you set down a number under Charlie’s,” directed Joe, “and then it will be Henry’s turn. This is the way the professor did it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, only he talked more,” replied Tom.
“Well, I could sling the ‘patter,’ as they call it, if I wanted to,” said Joe. “Only as I’m going to show you how the trick is worked I don’t need a lot of talk.”
“Are you really going to show us?” asked Harry.
“Sure I am! Now, Harry, if you’ve got your number written pass the paper to Henry. You set down a number of four figures, Henry, and draw a line under the sum. Tom, you’re pretty good at addition, aren’t you?”
“Pretty fair, yes.”
“Well, I don’t want any mistake made,” Joe, with a smile, warned them. “Here you go now. Add up those figures Tom, and get ’em right,” and he passed a slip of paper to the boy who had not set down any of the numbers. “Add ’em up, and set the result down in pencil under the line Henry drew. When you’ve done that I’ll make the answer appear on this flat piece of stone. Here, you hold it, Charlie,” and picking up a flat stone from the ground, Joe threw his handkerchief over it and passed it to Charlie to hold. “Don’t take off the handkerchief until I tell you to,” he warned the lad.
“Is the sum added, Tom?” asked Joe, a moment later.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Ten thousand, four hundred and sixty-seven.”
“Good!” cried Joe, and, unconsciously perhaps, he imitated the language, manner and gestures of Professor Rosello. “Now then,” went on the boy wizard, “you three boys each set down a separate number. None of you knew what the others wrote, and Tom, who didn’t write any figures, announces the sum of the other three fellows’ numbers to be ten thousand four hundred and sixty-seven. Am I right, Tom?”
“That’s right Here’s the paper. I’m sure I added ’em up right.”
“Well, I’ve no doubt but you did, Tom. Now then, I think you’ll agree that I didn’t know beforehand what numbers you fellows were going to write, so, of course, I couldn’t tell what they’d add up to. Could I?”
“I don’t see how you could,” admitted Henry, but a little doubtfully.
“Well, now comes the magic part. I’m going, without touching it, to cause this sum, which Tom announces as ten thousand four hundred and sixty-seven, to appear on that flat stone Charlie holds under the handkerchief. I won’t touch the stone, which answers the same purpose as the professor’s slate. But I’ll take the paper you have, Tom, with the sum of ten thousand four hundred and sixty-seven on it,” and Joe did so.
“Now to make the trick more simple I’ll just burn this paper with the sum on, where you can all see it,” Joe went on. He held up the paper in plain sight and set fire to it with a match.
“I will now pronounce the magic words: oshkalaloolu presto, smacko! The sum has now vanished in smoke, and will appear on the flat stone. Charlie, lift the handkerchief and hold up the stone so we can all see it.”
Charlie did so, and there, in black pencil on the gray surface of the stone, was the answer to the little sum—10,467!
“Whew!” whistled Charlie. “How under the sun did you do it, Joe?”
“And right under our very noses, too!” added Tom, in amazement.