Joe Strong on the Trapeze Part 19

"Well, it's true, little girl, isn't it?" cried Joe as they walked back to the circus together.

"Yes, and I'm very glad. I've always wanted money, but I never thought I'd have it--at least as much as I'm going to get. I wish you would inherit a fortune, Joe."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I don't expect it, and what one never has had can't be missed very much. Maybe I'll get mine--some day."

"I hope so, Joe. And now I want you to promise me something."'

"What?"

"That if ever you need money you'll come to me."

Joe hesitated a moment before answering. Then he said:

"All right, Helen, I will."

To Joe the novelty of life in a circus was beginning to wear off. To be sure there was something new and different coming up each day, but he had now gotten his act down to a system, and to him and the other performers one day was much like another, except for the weather, perhaps.

They did their acts before crowds every day--different crowds, to be sure; but, after all, men, women and children are much alike the world over. They want to be amused and thrilled, and the circus crowds in one place are no different from those in another.

The Sampson Brothers' Show was not one of the largest, though it was considered first cla.s.s. Occasionally it played one of the large cities, but, in the main, it made a circuit of places of smaller population.

Joe kept on with his trapeze work, now and then adding new feats, either by himself or with the Lascalla Brothers. On their part they seemed glad to adopt Joe's suggestions. Occasionally they made some themselves, but they were more in the way of spectacular effects--such as waving flags while suspended in the air, or fluttering gaily colored ribbons or strands of artificial flowers. But Joe liked to work out new and difficult feats of strength, skill and daring, and he was generally successful.

He had not relaxed his policy of vigilance, and he never went up on a bar or on the rings without first testing his apparatus. For he never forgot the strangely rotted rope. That it had been eaten by some acid, he was sure.

He did not again get sight of that particular small trapeze, nor did he ask Sid or Tonzo what had become of it. He did not want to know.

"It's best to let sleeping dogs lie," reasoned Joe. "But I'll be on the lookout."

Matters had been going along well, and Joe had been given an increase of salary.

"Well, if I can't get a fortune from some of my mother's rich and aristocratic ancestors," Joe thought with a smile, "I can make it myself by my trapeze work. And, after all, I guess, that's the best way to get rich. Though I'm not sure I'll ever get rich in the circus business."

But the calm of Joe's life--that is if, one can call it calm to act in a circus--was rudely shaken one day when in his mail he found a badly scrawled note. There was no signature to it, but Joe easily guessed from whom it came. The note read:

"You want to look out for yourself. You may think you're smart, but I know some smarter than you. This is a big world, but accidents may happen. You want to be careful."

"Some of Sim Dobley's work," mused Joe, as he tore up the note and cast it aside. "He's trying to get my nerve. Well, I won't let that worry me. He won't dare do anything. Queer, though, that he should be following the circus still. He sure does want his place back. I'm sorry for him, but I can't help it."

Joe did not regard the warning seriously, and he said nothing about it to Helen or any one else.

"It would only worry Helen," he reflected.

The show was over for the night. Even while the performers in the big tent had been going through with their acts, men had taken away the animal cages and loaded them on the flat railroad cars. Then the animal tent was taken down and packed into wagons with the poles and pegs.

As each performer finished, he or she went to the dressing tent and packed his trunk for transportation. From the dressing tent the actors went to the sleeping car, and straight to bed.

Joe's acts went very well that night. He was applauded again and again and he was quite pleased as he ran out of the tent to make ready for the night journey. He saw Benny Turton changing into his ordinary clothes from his wet fish-suit, which had to be packed in a rubber bag for transportation after the night performance, there being no time to dry it.

"Well, how goes it, Ben?" asked Joe.

"Oh, not very well," was the spiritless answer. "I've got lots of pain."

"Too bad," said Joe in a comforting tone. "Maybe a good night's sleep will fix you up."

"I hope so," said the "human fish."

The circus train was rumbling along the rails. It was the middle of the night, and they were almost due at the town where next they would show.

Joe, as well as the others in his sleeping car, was suddenly awakened by a crash. The train swayed from side to side and rolled along unevenly with many a lurch and b.u.mp.

"We're off the track!" cried Joe, as he rolled from his berth. And the memory of the scrawled warning came vividly to him.

CHAPTER XVI

THE STRIKE

The circus train b.u.mped along for a few hundred feet, the engine meanwhile madly whistling, the wheels rattling over the wooden sleepers, and inside the various cars, where the performers had been suddenly awakened from their sleep, pandemonium reigned.

"What's the matter?" called Benny Turton from his berth near Joe's.

"Off the track--that's all," was the answer, given in a rea.s.suring voice. For Joe had, somehow or other, grasped the fact there was no great danger unless they ran into something, and this, as yet, had not happened.

The train was off the track (or at least some of the coaches were) but it was quickly slowing down, and Joe, by a quick glance at his watch, made a mental calculation of their whereabouts.

For several miles in the vicinity where the accident had occurred was a long, and comparatively straight stretch of track, with no bridges and no gullies on either side. A train running off the track, even if going at fairly fast speed, would hardly topple over.

Before starting out that night Joe had inquired of one of the men about the journey, and, learning that they were approaching his former home, the town of Bedford, he had looked up the route and the time of arrival at their next stopping place. He had a quick mind, and he remembered about where they should be at the time the accident occurred. In that way he was able to determine that, unless they struck something, they were in comparatively little danger.

"Off the track--that's all!" repeated Benny Turton as he looked down from his berth at Joe. "Isn't that enough? Wow! What's going on now?"

The train had stopped with a jolt. The air brakes, which the engineer had flung on at the first intimation of danger, had taken hold of the wheels with a sudden grip.

"This is the last stop," said Joe, and he smiled up at Benny. He could do so now, for he felt that their coach, at least, was safe. But he was anxious as to what had happened to the others. Helen, with many of the other women performers, was in the coach ahead.

Benny crawled down from his berth, and stood looking at Joe.

"It doesn't seem to worry you much," he remarked.

"Not as long as there's nothing worse than this," Joe answered.

"You're not hurt, are you?"

"Only my feelings."