For an instant he looked into Gwen’s frank blue eyes, then, without a word, he drew the handkerchief from her pocket, wrapped the ring carefully up, then thrust it deep down in the pocket of her blouse.
“As I was about to say,” he continued with forced composure, “they could hold the balloons steady, while the clown tripped lightly along the wire. Perhaps he might even attempt a clog. When he was in the midst of the clog, the attendants could suddenly lose control of the balloons, letting the clown go up to the top of the tent. He could then climb to earth head first by doing a hand-over-hand on a rope fastened to a peg in the ground. Don’t you think that would bring a laugh?”
Gwen’s brow was wrinkled in thought for a moment.
“Yes, I think it would,” she said suddenly. “I think it would be a berry! How’d you like to be the clown?”
“I wasn’t in aviation in the Army,” smiled Johnny.
“No, but really, would you?”
“Why! Why! Yes, I might. It might be better than boxing the bear, and since I’ve got to stick around, I might as well be a clown as anything.”
“Stick around?” she asked. “Why do you have to stick around?”
For an instant the words were on the tip of Johnny’s tongue which would have told her the whole truth. But his lips would not frame the sentence.
“Why, I—I,” he stammered; “just my nature, I guess. Always did like the circus.”
Johnny was not a great success as a boxer that morning. He was thinking of the diamond ring, and wondering why he had not demanded the right to keep it, once he had it in his grasp; wondering, too, how it happened that Millie had it one day, and Gwen another. “Queer mixup,” was his mental comment.
Late that night, after the show was over, when the lights were dim, Johnny wandered into the animal tent. He was just passing the cage of the black leopard when a low hiss halted him. Then he felt a grip on his arm. It was Pant.
“Sit down here in the dark, Johnny,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you the story of that black beast. I can tell it better with his wicked red eyes burning holes at me through the dark, just as they did once before, and him a free black cat!”
Johnny started as he stared at the cage where, on a narrow wooden shelf, the leopard must be reposing. All he could see was a pair of red balls of fire, and it seemed to him that in all his life he had never seen anything so full of hate as was the red gleam that seemed fairly to shoot out from them.
CHAPTER XIII
PANT’S STORY OF THE BLACK CAT
“Life’s like this,” Pant gripped Johnny’s arm, as the two red balls in the back of the dark cage shifted from side to side; “life’s just like this: When once you’ve done a thing, you want to do it again. That’s why we have to watch our habits, if we want our lives to count for something. Lots of fellows don’t watch them. I told you about killing the old tiger and his mate, and bringing in the cubs to the doctor, so he could sell them to the traders and buy supplies for his hospital. Well, once I had done that, I wanted to do it again. I guess there was something of my old desire to study cats in me yet, for I was overjoyed when I heard wild stories about a giant black leopard that haunted the trail far up the river. You see, the mountain streams were drying up, and the big cats were being driven out of the mountain forests to the river jungles.
“The stories they told about that big black cat made a fellow’s blood run cold. He was big as a tiger. He was a fierce man-eater. His fangs were twice the size of a tiger’s, and each one like a knife blade. He had been seen to seize a full grown man, and before the man’s companions could fire upon him, to leap to the bough of a tree, ten feet from the ground, the man in his jaws, too. The others had fled in terror. They never knew what terrible fate had overtaken their companion until a few days later a second party passing that way had found his bones strewn beneath that tree.
“Of course I laughed at their stories. A black cat do a thing like that? Why, the one in the zoo back home was not three times the size of a house cat, and he, the keeper had told me, was eight years old.
“I did not believe their stories, but the natives believed them, and would not stir up the river road; and none would come down it, either; so those who were sick could not come to the hospital I had helped to make better. This made me angry.
“‘I will go and kill that black cat,’ I said to the doctor. ‘I will have his skin for a foot mat!’
“He smiled in a friendly way, and bade me not be rash. The black leopard, he told me, was much more to be feared than the tiger. Unlike the tiger, he killed for the fun of killing. He climbed trees, and there on the dark trunk, seeming but a part of the tree itself, he waited for his prey. In the gloom of the forest, he dropped without a sound, and his attack was most terrible. He was truly large, too, six feet in length from tip of nose to base of tail.
“I did not believe the doctor. Had I not seen a full grown black leopard in the zoo? Was he not an insignificant fellow? And yet, I was a little afraid, for I remembered that the black cat in the zoo had not been afraid, when all the other great cats cringed in dark corners of their cages. I was a little afraid, but I would not admit it.
“‘Just because you have told me he is terrible,’ I said, ‘I will take along a strong cage. I will bring him to you alive. We will sell him to the traders, and buy more beds for our hospital.’
“Then the doctor begged me not to be foolhardy. But I would not listen. With four natives to carry the cage, with a rifle in my hand, and a big knife at my belt, I went—went far up the river trail. When the natives would go no farther, I called them dirty cowards, and putting my rifle inside the cage, dragged the cage after me until I had come to a place where, in a deep forest, at the bend of the river, the black cat was said to make his stand.
“I was frightened a little, Johnny, when I saw the bleached bones of a man lying beneath a great tree where mosses and vines hung thick, but I reassured myself by saying the man had died there alone, and the jackals had picked his bones.
“‘That’s the origin of the wild story,’ I told myself. ‘Like as not there is no black cat at all, and I shall go home disappointed.’
“But I didn’t, Johnny, I didn’t.”
Johnny could feel Pant’s hand grip his arm hard, as the black creature in the cage stirred and gave forth a sort of hissing yawn.
“You were never in the jungle at night?” Pant’s tense, vibrant whisper told more plainly than words that he was living over again those hours in the jungle alone.
“No,” breathed Johnny.
“It’s wonderful, and terrible. The sun sinks from sight. Darkness comes and then out shines the moon. And the moonlight! Nowhere else is it like it is in the jungle. It creeps down among the masses of leaves, transforming swinging, swaying limbs into gigantic, twisting serpents, ready at any moment to swing down upon you. It turns every shadow-dotted tree trunk into a beast ready to leap at your throat. It’s weird, fascinating, terrible. Down at the river some beast plunges into the water. You hear the splash, then the swish, swish of his strokes. He is coming to your bank, you are sure. You are afraid. Who would not be?
“But me, I sat by my cage, with the rifle over one knee and watched. One hour, two hours, three hours I watched, until at last all the twisting branches, the spotted tree trunks were familiar to me.
“And then, then he came; the black beast, the great black cat, he came.”
Pant paused. There came a hiss from the cage, as if the black cat, too, was living those hours over again.
“I saw him, Johnny, I saw him. I caught the wicked gleam of his two red eyes.” Pant gripped Johnny’s arm until it hurt. “He was not thirty feet from me. Flattened against a broad tree trunk, he was glaring at me out of the dark. How he came so close without my seeing him, I cannot tell. He was a devil. Perhaps he had been there all that time. Who knows?
“Anyway, there he was. I cast my charm upon him. And I had him, Johnny, I had him. With my rifle I could have shot him on the instant. But he had me, too. He was so wonderful. I have told you about the wonder of the tiger’s coat. It is nothing to the coat of a black leopard in the jungle. You have seen him. You know how immense he is; seven feet from tip of nose to base of tail. You have seen him in his cage, but will never see him as I saw him that night, a free beast in his own wilderness, and I a stranger, an intruder.
“But I thought I had him. I wanted to study him: to learn his secrets. I planned how I would follow him day after day, and learn all his secrets. I was mad, stark mad.”
Pant paused again as if for breath. The black beast moved nearer on his shelf within the cage. The thrashing of his tail was like the dull beat of a drum.
“Just when I was thinking all this,” Pant rose upon his knees in his excitement, “just when I thought I had him, he gave one piercing scream and leaped. My man, what a leap! He struck me all unprepared; struck me with fangs and claws tearing at my flesh. Yet my right hand was free. It was a tense, agonizing second. In some way I got out my knife and slashed away with it. The next instant I lost consciousness.”
Pant paused again. Once more the leopard moved his length along the cage.
“But, Johnny, here’s the strangest part of all. I cannot explain it; only know it’s true. They say that sometimes, in moments of great shock, men lose their personality and become another person; that when they come back to themselves they have done things they know nothing of, yet others have seen them do. It may have been like that with me. And then, a great teacher in the heart of India once told me that there was a great spirit of the forest who looked after brave hunters, and did things for them in time of great danger which they could not do for themselves. It may have been that, too. Whatever way it may have been, it was strange; so strange that you would not believe me were I not your friend who always told you the truth.
“Listen, Johnny! When I came to myself I was weak, terribly weak from loss of blood; but the cat, the big black cat, he was raging in the cage, and the door was fastened tight.”
Pant paused. The animal tent was still. Suddenly a crimson flash gleamed. For an instant it turned the black cat blood red. The next moment, with a wild snarl, the beast flattened himself against the bars of his cage.
A keeper sprang out of the darkness.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“What’s what?” drawled Pant.
“I thought I saw a flash.”
“He evidently thought something of the sort,” Pant replied, poking his thumb at the black cat.
“Well, you guys better move on. This ain’t no place for spinnin’ yarns.”
“That’s all right,” drawled Pant, “but let me tell you, friend; if anything ever happens to this circus, a fire, a cyclone, a train wreck, or anything like that, you get that cat. Get that black cat!”
“What d’you know about him?”
“Plenty that I don’t tell to strangers.”
Pant lifted the wall of the tent and stepped out into the moonlight, followed by Johnny.
“You didn’t finish,” suggested Johnny.
“There’s not much more to tell. You have to hand it to that doctor, though. When I didn’t come back in the morning, he tried to organize a party to search for me. No one would go. They were scared cold by the black cat. So he came alone. He found me there, too weak to move, and he carried me all the way back and put me in a bed I’d helped him to buy.
“The natives went for the black cat and brought him back to the village in triumph.
“When I was better a trader came to me and offered me the price of a tiger’s cub for the black cat. I laughed in his face, and told him I’d take the cat to the States myself. That’s what I did. I got five thousand dollars for him, and sent it all back to the doctor so he could buy beds, and absorbent cotton, and medicine for his hospital.”
“That was good of you,” said Johnny.
“Who’s good?” demanded Pant. “Didn’t he teach me sense when I didn’t know anything but cats? Didn’t he carry me out of the jungle on his back when no one else dared to go in?”
For a time they were silent. Then, gripping Johnny’s arm, Pant whispered: “But, Johnny, we’re after worse cats than the black one. We’re after human tigers. Tigers that destroy man’s faith in man; that make life little worth the living. And, Johnny, we’re on their trail, close on their trail. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the day after, you shall see—well, you shall see what you shall see.”
CHAPTER XIV
IN TOM STICK’S HOUSE
That same night, by the dull glow of a half burned out camp fire on the bank of a river, Pant told Johnny of his plans as a Secret Service man on a big case, and how they had worked out thus far.
“You remember the crimson flash in the animal tent, and how it frightened a lot of the colored boys into jumping their jobs?” he chuckled. “Well, that helped me, helped me a lot; for you see some of the boys that quit were working for this bunch of counterfeiters that has Black McCree as its head. Some of the boys that were hired were already getting pay from Uncle Sam for helping me. Some of them now are getting triple pay, once from the circus, once from me and once from the counterfeiters. See how it works?”
Pant chuckled again.
“These boys with the three pay checks have helped me a lot, but not enough. They can’t get back far enough. They know only the men who pass the bonds on to them, and those men are just helpers like themselves. They pass the goods on, but the real man is still back in the shadows; too far back for me to see him. He’s the man I want; the man and his outfit; and let me tell you, Johnny, that’s some outfit. There’s never been anything like it before. It’s a danger. Where and when they operate is more than I know. They could hardly do it in one of the tents. They might do it in one of the cars, and it might be Tom, the midget clown, doing it in his house on wheels.”
“I’ve talked with him,” said Johnny quickly. “I don’t believe he’s in on it.”
“Don’t be too sure. Take no chances. If he’s especially friendly, that may mean that he is onto the fact that you’re working with me and that I’m after them. A bunch like that would stab you in the back in a second.”
For a few minutes there was silence, then Pant continued: “We are making some progress. We know about how much of the ‘queer’ they are peddling in these towns, and take my word, it’s a plenty. They are planting it thick. We’ve got to get ’em, and get ’em quick. Have you talked with Andy McQueen, the steam kettle cook, yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Do it to-morrow. He may be important. And Johnny,” Pant leaned forward with an impressive gesture, “Johnny, watch your step. You’re in danger every moment. They may know you’re with me; probably do, and if they do, they’ll get you if they can. That’s all. Goodnight.”
Rising, he stretched himself like a cat, then went slouching away into the darkness.
For a long time Johnny lay there on the sand dreamily gazing into the fire. It was, indeed, a tangled web of mystery the unraveling of which he had let himself in for, and one which, as Pant had suggested, might at any moment suddenly break and let him down with an awful fall.
There was the ring. Gwen had it that morning; Millie had it two days before; perhaps Mitzi had it at this very moment. He was still surprised at himself because of his action of that morning. Well, he must have that ring. This, if for no other reason, must hold him to his surprising circus career. He wondered if Gwen were serious about the clown stunt and, if so, whether she would soon have it arranged. He thought again of Pant’s problem, and wondered for the hundredth time if he should have any part in its solving.
But the greatest mystery of all was the crimson flash. He had seen it leap down from the air and turn the tiger, loose in the big tent, blood red. He had seen it do the same thing in the animal tent. In his suggestion regarding the direction of the sun’s rays in the Arctic, Pant had intimated that rays of light could be made to follow crooked paths. If this could be done, if Pant held within his fertile brain the secret of this terrible power, what a wonderful fellow he was! How it would transform modern life, modern warfare! Trenches would be utterly useless once a light might be thrown upon them from any angle. Many things that were dark, secret and hidden in every day life would be clear as the light of day. What dark corner, what secret rendezvous, would be safe from the glare of those crooked rays of gleaming light?
Johnny pondered until his head whirled, then, rising and shaking himself, he made his way to the sleeping car in which he now bunked. The circus would soon be on its way to the next small city.
That next small city, if Johnny had but known it, was only ten miles from the home of the grandparents of the millionaire twins. They had ridden cross country for a visit to their grandparents. Along the roads they had seen glaring posters announcing the coming of the circus. They had decided at once that now was the time to join that circus. Their circus riding clothes were in the trunk, which had been sent on by express. Even as Johnny rose from beside the fire, the twins, in their beds at their grandfather’s rambling, old house, were planning how, on the morrow, they would slip on their circus garb underneath their dresses, and ride away to discover their old friend, Johnny, and join the parade.
Morning broke bright and clear on the old fair grounds of Rokford, which was the place of the great circus’ next one day stand. When Johnny had eaten breakfast, he strolled past the cooking tent and, having paused to admire the row of shining copper steam kettles, he thought of his promise to get in touch with the manager of these kettles. The cook was not in sight at that moment, so Johnny paused to study these great vats, which resembled nothing so much as giant kettle drums.
“Just a twist of the valve and the steam does the rest,” he murmured to himself.
“Great, ain’t they?” a voice said at his elbow.
“Sure are.” Johnny turned about. It was the cook. A tall, slender man, well past middle age, with a drooping mustache, and a wrinkled smile, he studied Johnny from head to toe.
“You’re a boxer,” he said, getting his smile into operation. “Saw you box a conman once. Been wonderin’ ever since how such a small fellow could pack such a wallop.”
“I don’t mind tellin’ you,” said Johnny. “It’s absurdly simple. Instead of just getting the force of your arm muscles into the blow, or the push of your shoulder, you leap as you strike, and that puts the whole of your body back of your mitt. That’s easy, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is, after you been doin’ it a few thousand times; easy as fryin’ flapjacks.”
“How long have you been cooking with steam kettles?” asked Johnny.
“Only five or six years. But I’ve been cookin’ all my life. I was cook for a surveying outfit when the Union Pacific was built. Boy! Those were the days of real sport. Used to run out of fuel and everything.”
A humorous twinkle lurked about the man’s eyes, as he lighted his pipe and sat down on an upturned bucket.
“I mind one time,” he mused, “when we was plumb out of wood, and nothin’ but grass; prairie all ’round us. Just enough fire to make coffee; not enough to fry flapjacks, and the nearest supply station thirty miles away.”
“What did you do?” asked Johnny.
“Well, sir,” the cook removed his pipe and spat on the ground, “I said, ‘Boys, there’ll be flapjacks for breakfast just the same.’ I mixed ’em up as usual in a big tin bucket. I gave the bucket to one of the boys, and a hunk of bacon rind to another, and told ’em all to follow me. I struck a match and set the prairie grass on fire; then I held my fryin’ pan over it until it was hot. I baked the first flapjack and tossed it out of the pan over my shoulder. Some fellow caught and ate it. I did another and another the same way, and kept that up until every fellow in the bunch was satisfied.”
Johnny smiled. The cook smiled, spat on the ground, then concluded his story. “When we got through breakfast we were ten miles from camp. Prairie fire travels. So did we.”
Johnny laughed; then he thought and laughed again. After a time he rose and went on his way.
“That’s another fellow,” he told himself, “that I’d never suspect of being a crook, but what’s that about people who ‘smile and smile and are a villain still’? A fellow has to watch out.”
He was just thinking of this when a shrill voice piped:
“Hello, Johnny! Want to see my house?”
It was Tom Stick, the midget clown. He was offering Johnny a rare privilege; inviting him to view the inside of his house on wheels. Pant had told Johnny that such a boon had been granted to no one. Yet, because it was so rare, and because of Pant’s warning, “They’ll stab you in the back,” he was tempted for a second to decline.
Courage and curiosity overcame his fears, and smiling he said:
“Sure! Lead the way.”
The clown’s house was little more than a box on wheels, but once Johnny had crowded himself through the narrow door and seated himself, much humped up, on a miniature chair, he was surprised at the completeness of its furnishings. He could easily imagine himself in a hunter’s lodge in the depths of the forest. An open fireplace, with a real wood fire burning, a roughly hewn table, benches beside the fireplace, a cluster of fox skins hanging in the corner, a bear skin on the floor, rifles hanging on one wall; all these, with the unmistakable odor of fresh pine wood, went far toward taking him back to the forests.
“You see,” squeaked Tom Stick, rubbing his hands in delight at Johnny’s astonishment, “I was born and brought up in the Maine woods. I loved the wild out-of-doors, and when the circus people offered me big money to join them, I told them no. But my mother needed the money, so, at last, I told them if they’d build me this house, and never disturb me in it, I’d come. You see they did. I’ve never had any of the other circus people in here. Didn’t think they’d understand. They’ve always lived in a tent. They’d laugh at a fellow who wanted a home with four board walls, a ceiling, and a smell of the pine woods in it. But I knew you wouldn’t. You’ve had a home, and you know the woods. Tell that by the color in your cheeks, and the way you swing your arms when you walk.”
For a moment the dwarf was silent, then suddenly he shot a question at his visitor.
“Johnny, what do you live for?”
“Why, why, I don’t know,” Johnny stammered. “Just live because it’s fun to live, I suppose.”
The midget wrinkled his small brow in thought.
“Not so bad,” he murmured. “Not so bad. But Johnny; did you ever wonder what a little fellow like me lives for?”
“No, I didn’t,” Johnny admitted.
“Well, there’s a lot of things we can’t do that big folks can; but there’s one thing, Johnny, one thing,” Tom’s tone died to a whisper; “a short man can have a tall bank account. He can, can’t he, Johnny?” The little fellow twisted his face into a knowing smile.
“I guess he can,” grinned Johnny, “and it’s a fine thing that he can.”
Johnny had stepped over and was examining an ancient squirrel rifle, which Tom explained had belonged to his grandfather, when he noticed the way the walls of the house were fastened. The walls were made of fresh pine slabs. They were wired tight to something behind them. “Iron bars,” was his mental comment. “When they made this they just built it inside a wild animal cage. I wonder what would happen if a fellow were to get locked in here?”
He was speculating on this, when he heard a voice outside calling.
“Johnny, Johnny Thompson!” It was Gwen.
He answered the call and, turning to his little host, said: “Guess I better go. Some work, I suppose. Great little house, you’ve got. Much obliged for letting me see it.”
He backed out of the door and hurried away to join Gwen, but even as he did so, he thought of the midget clown’s reference to a tall bank account, and of his house built inside a cage. What if this little fellow was a miser? What if his greed for gold had led him into counterfeiting? What if he were Black McCree? What safer place could be found for hiding a counterfeiter’s den than a house built inside a cage on wheels?
All these speculations were cut short by the appearance of the smiling face of his lady boxing partner, Gwen.
“It’s the clown stunt,” she exclaimed excitedly. “The big chief fell for it right away. He hurried a messenger off to Chicago for the balloons. They’re already here, and they’ve tried them out with a dummy and they worked beautifully. They want you to try it right away.”
“This dummy,” smiled Johnny, “he didn’t fall and break his neck, did he?”
“No, of course not, Silly!”
“Well, here’s hoping I don’t, but it’s a powerful long distance from the top of the center tent pole down to the sawdust.”
CHAPTER XV
BURSTING BALLOONS
The big top had never been more crowded than it was the night of Johnny’s first performance as a clown. And never, in the memory of the oldest circus man, had there been a jollier throng. Never had there been an act more thoroughly appreciated than that of Gwen, the Queen, and Johnny, the fat clown.
Johnny had been dressed in inflated rubber clothing until he appeared as fat as a butcher. When, by the aid of the balloons, he rose to the tight wire, when he tripped lightly along it, and returned cakewalking, the spectators howled their approval. But when in apparent consternation, he lost his step and instead of plunging downward, leaped upward with the sudden lift of the balloons, they rose to their feet and roared their delight.
Silently, calmly, he rose toward the tent top. There was nothing calm about the feelings that surged in Johnny’s breast, however. He had never been in aviation, and never would be. Going up in the air made him feel sick. Had it not been for Gwen, he would have refused to attempt this stunt.
“Oh, well!” he sighed, “here’s the top; now I can grab the rope and come down. Rope’s more certain than these balloons.”
Hardly had the thought passed through his brain than there came a loud report. So close it was that it hurt his ear drums. It was followed almost instantly by a second explosion.
“The balloons,” Johnny groaned. “They’re bursting!”
For a second his head whirled. To drop from those dizzy heights meant death. Then his mind cleared. The rope was to his right. Already he was beginning to shoot downward. Could he reach it? With one wild leap in mid-air, he thrust out a hand. He grasped the rope with his left, then lost his hold. With his right, he secured a firmer grip. At that same instant the last balloon burst. For one sickening moment, he clung there, swinging backward and forward, madly groping for the rope with his free hand. At last, he found it, and, with a sigh of relief, began sliding down the rope.
The crowd was standing up cheering. The band was playing. Even the performers thought it part of the act.
For a minute or two after he had reached the ground, Johnny rested on a mat. As he rose to go he noticed something lying in the sawdust. Carelessly he picked it up, examined it, then gave a low whistle. It was an arrow-like affair. The shaft was of steel wire, the head of wood. The head had been discolored, part yellow and part dark brown.
“Sulphur!” he murmured. “Dipped in burning sulphur, then shot at my balloons! No wonder they exploded. Now, who played that dirty trick?”
He examined the thing carefully. “Couldn’t have been shot from a bow, no groove for the bow string. Now I wonder. An air rifle, that’s what it was.”
Quickly there flashed before his mind a picture of a midget clown chasing a huge elephant around the ring. The clown was dressed in equatorial hunting garb and carried an air rifle.
“Tom Stick!” Johnny murmured. “Tom Stick and his air rifle! I wouldn’t have thought he’d do it.”
Slowly he walked back through the alleyway that led to the dressing room.
He had discarded his clown suit and had walked out into the open air, when a shrill young voice called his name:
“Johnny, Johnny Thompson.”
Whirling about, he found himself facing the millionaire twins. They were riding astride their ponies, and were dressed as if ready for their turn in the ring.
“Wha—where’d you come from, and who let you in?” he gasped.
“We came from our grandfather’s to join the circus,” piped Marjory.
“Yes, and to think,” Margaret fairly wailed, “we got here too late for the parade!”
Johnny looked at them for a moment, then laughed a good natured laugh.
“Got let down, didn’t you?” he smiled. “Well, so did I a minute ago, mighty sudden, too. But perhaps we can get you into a part yet, since this is positively your first and last appearance.”
“Oh, no, Johnny,” exclaimed Marjory, “not the last! We’ve come to stay as long as you do.”
“Then I don’t stay long,” laughed Johnny. “Circus is no place for millionaire twins. You wait right here. I’ll be back.”
By dint of much persuading, Johnny succeeded in getting the twins a place on the program. At the end of the races came a pony race. The ponies were ridden by monkeys. It was arranged that the two little girls, on their own ponies, were to race the monkeys on their circus mounts.
It was a wilder and more genuine race than is usually pulled off in the circus, for the twins were dead in earnest about winning it, and so were the monkeys. The monkeys and their ponies had played at racing so long, however, they were not able to get seriously down to business. When the twins were riding neck and neck, three lengths ahead of their nearest rivals, they delighted the throng by leaping upon their feet and riding in this manner around the last sweeping circle and out of sight.
“That’s fine,” exclaimed the manager, rubbing his hands. “Who are they, friends of yours? Can we book ’em for the rest of the season?” He was speaking to Johnny.
“Can’t book them for another show,” groaned Johnny. “And I’ll get skinned alive for letting them in on this one. They’re the daughters of Major MacDonald, the steel magnate. Ran away from their grandfather’s, and they go back to-night.”
The manager whistled. “Too bad to spoil perfectly good circus girls to make society belles,” he smiled. “But seein’ that’s who they are, I guess it can’t be helped.”
“Oow-wee! That was grand!” exclaimed Marjory, who now came up with her sister. “Did we make good. Can we stay?”
“You made good, but you can’t stay,” smiled Johnny. “What do you suppose your grandparents are thinking of about now?”
“Oh, they won’t know about it at all. We are supposed to be over here with friends who live down on Pine street. That’s how they let us come at all. These friends are real old folks and don’t go to circuses. When we got here, we called them up as if we were at home and told them we couldn’t come; so you see it’s all right. And, Johnny, if we can’t stay and be circus folks, we can stay just one night, can’t we, and have a real ride in a circus train?”
Johnny looked at the manager.
“Sure,” grinned the good natured boss of the circus. “We’ll put you in the care of Ma Kelly, the circus girls’ matron, and you’ll be safe as a bean in a bowl of soup.”
“How far do we move?” asked Johnny, a bit anxiously.
“Only forty miles, and that leaves us less than thirty miles from their grandfather’s place. They can make it back all right.”
“I’ll borrow one of the rough riders’ ponies, and hoof it back with them,” said Johnny. “But remember,” he turned to the twins, “remember, this is the last. To-morrow morning you turn your faces toward home. And by thunder! I wish I could go along to stay!”
“Why? Why can’t you?” cried Marjory. “We want you to. Indeed, we do.”
“I can’t tell you now. Maybe some time. You stay right here. I’ll send Ma Kelly around. Then I’ve got to go box the bear.”
Johnny rushed away, and that was the last they saw of him for some time.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WRECK OF THE CIRCUS
That night, as Johnny listened to the chant of the negroes as they went about their tasks of breaking camp and loading, he fancied that there was a weird and restless tone to it, foretelling some catastrophe brooding over all.
The night was dark, with black, rainless clouds hurrying across the sky. Johnny shivered as he walked toward his sleeping car. His hand was on the rail when someone touched his arm. It was Pant.
“Johnny,” he whispered, “how’d you like to ride with me in the gondola to-night?”
“Oh, all right,” Johnny answered, a note of impatience in his voice.
“If it’s going to be a bother, don’t come.”
“I’ll come along.”
“Thought you might like to be in on something big.”
“I’ve been in on something big twice to-day. The first came near to being my funeral, and the second will be, if I don’t get those twins back to their grandfather’s pretty quick.”
Johnny told Pant of the day’s experiences, as they made their way back to a tent car.
“Oh, you’ll come out all right with the twins,” said Pant. “I only hope we don’t get into things that’ll muss us up to-night, but we’ll go careful.”
“Of course,” he whispered, as they settled down among the piles of canvas, “it’s that Liberty bond business. I’ve been scouting ’round in the towns we’ve been in, and the way they’ve been spreading the ‘queer’ about is nothing short of a super-crime.
“I’ve been running up a blind trail for a long time. Thought I had something on that conman with the ragged ear and two of his pals. I followed them down to the river in Chicago twice, and the second time came near catching them; would have, too, if it hadn’t been for a rat that tried to eat my hand off. I got ’em the other night—outfit and everything, and it turned out to be only a mimeograph kit for making fake telegrams, announcing results of races, baseball games, and the like. I was sore when I found it was nothing; might have been a blind, at that. But I had to start all over again, and last night when we were on the way, I made a mighty important discovery. There was a light in the rear end of one of the horse cars most of the night. That’s as far as I got. It was moonlight. They might see me if I came spying around. Besides, I wanted someone else along; someone with a strong arm. Didn’t want to get pitched off the train just when I had my hand on the trick. Of course, it may be just an all night crap game, but I don’t think so. Anyway, we’ll see. We’ll let them get under way, then when we’re clipping it up at a lively rate, and the moon’s under, we’ll have a look.”
Pant fell silent, apparently lost in his intricate problem. Johnny yawned.
A quarter of an hour later Johnny was just dropping off into a doze, when Pant gripped his arm and whispered:
“C’mon. Let’s go!”
Having climbed over two gondolas and the top of a one-time express car, they dropped cat-like from the roof of the express car to the platform of a second express car.
Here they stood silent, listening for fully two minutes. At first everything appeared dark, but presently Johnny caught a faint gleam of light that apparently came through a crack in a lower panel of the express car door.
“What’ll we do if they come out at us. It’s a rotten place,” he whispered. Just then the car gave a lurch which almost threw him from the narrow platform.
“Duck and jump.”
“Mighty risky.”
“Only chance. Too many of ’em. Probably guns and everything.”
“All right. Get busy.”
Pant dropped on his knee and, bracing himself to avoid being thrown against the door by a sudden lurch, peered through the crack.
What he saw drew forth a whispered exclamation:
“It’s the real gang!”
For some time all was silent. Johnny’s heart was doing time and a half. What if they were forced to stand and fight or jump? He shivered as he tried to make out the embankment through the darkness. They were racing down grade.
“We’ve got ’em! It’s the gang!” Pant whispered again. “Look!”
He rose and stepped aside. With muscles set for action, Johnny dropped on his knees, and, shutting one eye, peered through the narrow opening.
What he saw astonished him. In a brilliantly lighted room, the width of the car, and some ten feet deep, four men were working rapidly, and apparently with great skill. What surprised him most of all was that all four men wore heavily smoked glasses, such as Pant himself wore. He saw at a glance that neither the steam kettle cook nor the midget clown was with them. He was glad the cook was not there. His feeling regarding the midget, after the events of the previous day, was not unmixed.
The things the men were doing interested him immensely. Two of them appeared to be putting little squares of paper through a wash, such as a photographer uses. A third was drying them before a motor-driven, superheated electric fan. The fourth was stamping them in a small press. Each time he stamped one, he appeared to change the type.
Presently, the two who were handling the baths appeared to come to the end of their tasks. Hardly had they spoken a word to their companions than each man stepped to a corner, and, turning his back from the center of the room, stood there motionless.
“Wha—” Johnny’s lips formed the word. There was not time to finish. The next instant he dropped limply back upon the platform, as if he had been shot.