  Johnny had scarcely reached the cluster of tents that loomed large in the darkness, when he was startled by a sudden wild burst of activity. Men and boys rushed silently here and there; lanterns and searchlights flashed from place to place. For a second he stood there paralyzed. What was it, a fire or an approaching cyclone? Then he laughed. “We move to-night. Down go the tents.” They did go down. Before his astonished eyes they disappeared as if by magic. In all his life he had never seen anything that came near equaling the team work displayed in the dropping of the big top and the loading of the circus. In a marvelously short time they were on their way. Johnny, because of his prospects of becoming a regular performer, had been assigned a berth in a sleeping car. Pant, being merely a hanger-on, slept as he had on many another night, beneath the stars, with only a bale of canvas for covering. Johnny spent a half hour in thought before the even click, click of the wheels lulled him to sleep. They were on their way, and he was glad. To-morrow he would have his try-out. To-morrow, too, he would give Gwen her second lesson in boxing. Should he ask her about the ring? To-morrow they would be in one of those small cities in which Pant had said the counterfeiters would reap their richest harvest. When would Pant find his man? Would he, Johnny, have a part in it? He must not fail to fulfill his promise to Pant; to get acquainted with the steam kettle cook and the midget clown. The next morning Johnny kept his boxing appointment with Gwen. It was after a half hour of strenuous work, while they were resting on a mat, that she turned to him suddenly and said, in a low voice: “A strange thing happened last night.” “What was that?” “I was awakened from my sleep. I had been dreaming of a fire, and I would have sworn that it was a flash of red light that awakened me.” “That’s strange.” Johnny’s tone told nothing. “What is stranger still, two other girls were awakened in the same manner.” “You had upper berths?” “Yes.” “There were glass ventilator windows above you?” “Yes.” “Probably the light from a switch tower shining in.” “It was too bright for that. It was so bright it was crimson. It was like—it was like the crimson flash that fell on the tiger that other night!” “That was strange,” Johnny smiled, but his smile told nothing. He was not surprised when, as he met Pant a half hour later, the strange fellow said to him in a matter-of-fact tone: “It’s the slim girl, the one that rides bareback, Millie, what is it they call her?” “Millie Gonzales.” “She’s the one. She’s got your ring.” “I thought you might know,” Johnny said quietly. Pant shot him a quick glance. “Somebody been talking?” “Not so you’d need be alarmed. But, say, now I know she’s got it, how am I to get it from her?” “That’s up to you,” retorted Pant. “It’s strange,” said Johnny a little later; “last night I dreamed that the circus train was wrecked, all shot to smithereens! And the animals—they were having the time of their lives, fighting each other and eating folks up.” “If that ever happens,” Pant gripped his arm hard, “if it ever does, you get that big black cat! Get the black cat! See? He’s a bad one; a man-eater. Got a record. A bad one. See?” Johnny nodded, and thought again of the story Pant was to tell him of that same black cat and the jungles of India. But there was no time for it now; the show would soon begin, and then would come the great event, his try-out. It came. All too soon he found himself marching down the sawdust trail. Dressed in his tightly fitting green suit, and closely followed by the bear, he felt foolish enough. He was a trifle awed by the immense throng, too. He had been in many a boxing match, but never one like this. In those other matches he had had men for opponents, and mostly men as spectators. Here it was far different. Anxious questions forced their way into his consciousness. How was the boxing bout going? Would he be able to manage the bear, or would the animal, goaded on by the shouts of the crowd, repeat the performance of that other day, when he had run the Italian out of the tent? Cold perspiration stood out on Johnny’s forehead, yet he did not falter. Bracing himself for his ordeal, he bowed low to the audience, then turned to put the bear through his preliminary antics. All went well; still, through it all, Johnny’s eyes strayed now and then to the boxing gloves. So real was his fear of the outcome of the match, that at times it seemed to him the gloves were alive and ready to leap from the floor into his face. Yet, when the time came, the thing seemed as simple as child’s play. The bear performed his part perfectly. Johnny even risked a little extra exhibition by entering into a clinch with the bear and cleverly extricating himself. The great test came, however, when the bear, appearing to grow angry, leaped squarely at him. Three times the great beast did this, then with a sudden cry of seeming terror, Johnny darted from the ring and, closely followed by the bear, raced away before the packed throng of amazed and delighted spectators. When the bear paused, threw his gloves and turned to leer at the audience, Johnny knew that he had not only made good, but made good big. He had won his double pay. He was just rounding the outer entrance, with the applause of the crowd dying away, when a small, shrill voice squeaked up to him: “You did fine. You’re all right.” Glancing down, Johnny had no difficulty in recognizing Tom Stick, the midget clown. He cut a comical figure as he stood there. A mere child in size, he was dressed in an African hunting suit and carried a shiny air rifle. Not far away, a gigantic elephant stood complacently stuffing hay into his mouth. Johnny looked first at the midget, then at the elephant. “We go on next,” squeaked the little fellow, “Jo-Jo, that’s the elephant, and myself. I play I’m hunting wild elephants. See? Shoot him. See? Shoot him with the air gun all around the tent. Real bullets, too! He doesn’t mind. Hide’s tough. We always get a laugh; Jo-Jo and I do. Want to know how we came to be friends, Jo-Jo and me?” Johnny nodded. “Well, you see, Jo-Jo was a French elephant. They didn’t need him during the war, so they sent him over to America, and sold him here. Well, Jo-Jo knew French all right, but he didn’t understand a word of English. He was supposed to be one of the smartest elephants in the world over in France, but over here he was so stupid they actually had to push him off the cars when they unloaded him. Just plumb stupid. See? Got so they wished they didn’t have him at all. “Well, you know, I used to show in France once myself, so I knew a little French, and one day, just for fun, I said to Jo-Jo: “‘Bon jour, Jo-Jo. Comment alle vous!’” “Well, sir, that elephant nearly wiggled his old palm leaf ears off out of pure joy. I knew right away what made it; it was hearin’ someone speak in his own language, so I just went right on spielin’ French to him, and he kept on gettin’ happier and happier until at last I had to stop for fear he’d break a blood vessel laughin’. “When the Boss knew about it, he gave Jo-Jo to me, and we’ve been mates ever since. “We’ve got to be movin’ up. Good-by, Mr. Bear Boxer. See you some other time.” Johnny watched the dwarf, as he walked behind the elephant and, turning a corner, disappeared from sight. “So that’s one of the fellows Pant suspects of being the forger, Black McCree? Not the man, I’d say,” he muttered. “And yet, you never can tell.” It was the next morning, while he was preparing for his daily bout with Gwen, that Johnny received a shock of surprise which he did not soon forget. A unique plan for creating a new laugh had occurred to him. He was telling it to Gwen. “They don’t have the clown assist you in your turn, do they?” He smiled, as he laced her right glove. “No. How could they? I never saw a clown walk the tight wire.” “Wouldn’t need to; just pretend to.” He stooped to pick up her left glove. “How?” “Well, you see, they might have two or three small balloons just large enough to lift him off the ground. They could have small ropes attached to each of these. The attendants—the—the—” Johnny’s eyes had seen something which made him stutter. On the plump third finger of Gwen’s left hand reposed the ring, the diamond ring, which had been the means of making him a circus performer. “I—I’ll take it off for you.” He drew the ring from her finger. “Thanks,” she smiled at him. “Awfully stupid of me to wear it. There’s a handkerchief in the right hand pocket of my blouse. Just wrap it in that, and put it in my pocket, please.” For one brief second Johnny hesitated. Was this the moment of moments? The ring which would clear his good name was within his grasp. Should he say, “Gwen, this belongs to a friend of mine, not to you; I must take it to her”? 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. |
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