THE next morning before Connie and Veve were dressed, Eva Leitsall came to their tent door.

“Wake up, you sleepy heads!” she called. “You slept most of yesterday, and now you’ll miss your breakfast if you don’t hurry.”

“Breakfast?” Connie mumbled, throwing off the covers. “Is it morning? What happened to last night?”

Jumping out of bed, she began to dress as rapidly as she could. Veve also leaped out and scrambled into her clothes. Both girls were annoyed to think they had spent so much time sleeping when they could have been exploring the circus lot.

“What time is it?” asked Veve, stepping outside of the tent. The bright morning sunlight made her blink like an owl.

“Seven o’clock,” laughed Eva. “If you want to see the animals fed, we’ll have to move right along. And the afternoon circus performance is at one-thirty. Worse luck!”

“Can’t you get out of being in the act just for today?” suggested Veve.

“It wouldn’t do any good to ask,” sighed Eva.

“You mean you always have to be in the show?” Connie inquired. “Whether or not you want to?”

“Always. You daren’t be a minute late either.”

“I shouldn’t like that,” declared Connie.

“At least you don’t have to go to school and study,” remarked Veve. “That part might be nice.”

The circus girl gave a quick laugh. “A lot you know about it! My mother makes me study my lessons every single night.”

“Summer time too?”

Eva nodded. “In the winter months I go to a regular school in the East. ’Course then I don’t get to see my mother or father.”

“Do you have to study lessons all by yourself here on the circus lot?” Veve asked.

“Sure. And if I don’t know them, then I can’t have any candy or ice cream.”

Connie and Veve both liked school even though sometimes they pretended they didn’t. But the part they enjoyed best was playing with other boys and girls at recess. And if they occasionally missed having perfect lessons, no one made them go without candy or ice cream.

“I suppose you must get plenty of candy and good things to eat,” remarked Veve. “If I traveled with a circus, I would eat Cracker Jack all day long.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” Eva corrected her quickly. “Every single package of it has to be paid for.”

“You mean you can’t have popcorn and peanuts whenever you want them!” exclaimed Connie.

“Every sack is counted. If even one is missing, well there’s trouble!”

“Don’t you have any fun at all?” demanded Veve.

“Oh, I get to play some between shows. When we’re in the larger cities, the circus bus takes all the children to the swimming pool, or maybe a picture show.”

“Don’t you like being in the riding act?” Connie questioned.

“I like it when folks clap and applaud. Only I so hate to do that old somersault. Once I fell—”

“I just wouldn’t do it,” announced Veve firmly.

“Oh, yes you would,” corrected the circus child. “My mother and father tell me that unless I practice every day and keep doing it, I’ll never be a really great performer.”

Again the girls went to the cook tent for their breakfasts. They were given eggs, bacon, cereal and milk—all they could eat. The food was excellent, but Connie was not very hungry.

She kept thinking of her mother and father, Miss Gordon, and the Shady Hollow camp. She wondered why no answer had been received to the telegram sent to the Brownie Scout leader.

“Now what would you like to see this morning?” Eva asked her friends as they left the tent.

“May we see the giraffe?” inquired Veve eagerly.

Eva led the two girls to a high iron screen enclosure where the long-necked animal was kept. An attendant was giving the giraffe water from a wooden bucket.

“What a distance the water has to travel!” chuckled Veve. “Does a giraffe ever have a sore throat, Mister?”

“He never told me about it if he had one,” laughed the attendant. “But then, a giraffe can’t make a single sound, you know.”

“Not even a tiny one?” Veve questioned. All she ever had known about a giraffe was that it had a long neck.

“Not a squeak,” replied the attendant. “Sometimes a giraffe will cry, but the tears come without any sound.”

Connie asked the man what a giraffe liked to eat.

“Clover, oats, corn biscuits,” the man replied. “And as a special treat, onions.”

Now Veve and Connie considered this a very strange diet, even for an animal. They would have asked other questions, but Eva warned them they must hasten on.

Before they had walked very far, Veve stopped to listen. She had heard a loud roar.

“That was Buster,” said Eva. “He’s mad because the attendants are slow in uncovering his cage this morning.”

“Can you tell which lion it is so far away?” asked Connie in surprise.

“Oh, sure,” replied Eva carelessly. “Every lion has a different kind of roar. Buster’s voice is real deep.”

“Let’s go to see him,” Veve proposed.

The three girls drew near the lion cages. An attendant had removed nearly all of the canvas cage covers.

Buster, a sleek old animal with a mane, kept pacing up and down. Now and then he would give a loud roar.

“Buster is in a hurry for his breakfast,” laughed Eva. “And here it comes now.”

A man brought several large chunks of raw meat for the lions. Buster’s allotment fell just outside his cage. The lion kept trying to pull the meat through the bars, but could not get it easily.

“He can’t get his food,” said Connie anxiously. She thought someone should help the lion.

“Yes, he can,” replied Eva. “Buster enjoys his meal more if he has to work to get it. The attendant always puts it just outside the cage.”

In a moment Buster managed to pull the big hunk of meat through the iron bars. Holding it in his teeth, he leaped up on a shelf in the cage. There he lay, chewing contentedly.

“Now what shall we see?” asked Veve. She was a little tired of watching the lion.

“I can’t show you anything more,” said Eva regretfully. “It’s time for me to practice my riding act. See you later.” Left to themselves, Connie and Veve wandered slowly about, watching the men feed the other animals. As they were staring at the camels, they heard footsteps directly behind them.

“Hi, there!” greeted a familiar voice.

Veve and Connie whirled around to see Clem Gregg, the circus detective.

“Well, if it isn’t my young friends from Rosedale,” he said gaily. “I heard you two had joined the show. How do you like it by this time?”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Gregg,” said Connie. “We like the circus, but we’re not intending to stay.”

“You don’t think you’d care for it as a steady thing?”

“Well,” returned Connie politely, “we would miss our parents. Besides, we want to go back to Shady Hollow Camp.”

“When will someone come for us?” Veve asked.

“We haven’t received word from Shady Hollow yet. I imagine there may be a telegram at the railroad station now.”

“How soon will you know?” inquired Veve.

“I’m on my way to the station now,” returned the detective. “Would you like to come along?”

“Oh, yes, let’s!” cried Veve. Mr. Gregg said they would walk to the station which was only three blocks away.

“We haven’t any time to waste,” he told the girls. “The nine-fifteen train will arrive in ten minutes.”

“Are you expecting someone?” Connie asked him.

“Well, no one in particular,” answered the detective. “I always meet all of the morning trains.”

“Why do you do that?” inquired Veve curiously. By this time she knew circus people almost never did anything without a special reason.

“It’s my job to keep watch for the slick-fingered lads,” explained the detective. “Whenever I recognize one, I tell him to get out of town right away.”

“Do you mean pickpockets?” questioned Veve, walking fast to keep up with the long-legged detective.

“Yes, they frequently ride in on the excursion trains.”

“I wish we’d see Pickpocket Joe,” remarked Connie.

“Not much chance of it,” replied the detective. “He gives me a wide berth because he knows I’m looking for him.”

Mr. Gregg and the girls reached the station only a minute before the train came in. The detective attentively watched passengers alight from the coaches.

“Ah, there’s someone I know!” he exclaimed.

Going over to the man, he touched him on the arm. The fellow looked worried when he saw Clem Gregg.

“You’re not wanted around here,” the detective said to him. “Get right back on the train. Keep riding unless you want my boys to take you out of town the hard way.”

The man answered something which Veve and Connie did not hear. Clem Gregg took him by the arm and shoved him back onto the train.

Connie had been watching other people who were leaving the train. Suddenly she noticed a man coming around the end of the last car with a small suitcase in his hand.

“Oh, Veve!” she whispered excitedly. “See that man sneaking away from the train! Doesn’t he look almost like Pickpocket Joe?”