The Circus Boys in Dixie Land Part 13

"Yanker didel doodle down, Didel, dudel lanter, Yankee viver, voover vown, Botermilk und tanther."

"Poor Zoraya!" muttered the clown under cover of the applause that greeted his vocal effort. And his a.s.sociates looked down from their perches high in the air, gazing in wonder upon the clown who was bowing so low that, each time he did so, he was obliged to turn a somersault to gain his equilibrium.

"Dangerously hurt--went through the net head first. Hurry!"

panted a belated clown, running by to his station.

"Boy hurt, too."

"Told you so!" grumbled Teddy.

But Shivers did not flinch, and, as he neared the reserved seats on the grandstand, his voice again rang out, this time in a variation of the ancient harvest song:

"Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle, dandy; Mind the music and the step, And with your feet be handy."

Never had the show people seen Shivers so uproariously funny.

Under the spell of his merriment, the audience quickly forgot the tragic scene that they had just witnessed.

Teddy, however, noticed little dark trenches that had ploughed their courses down through the makeup of the clown's cheeks from his eyes. Teddy knew that tears had caused those furrows.

As Shivers looked down the long, gra.s.sy stretch ahead of him, that he still must cover before his act would be finished, the goal seemed far away. He flashed one longing glance toward the crimson curtains that shut off the view of the paddock and the dressing tents, vaguely wondering what lay beyond for him and for little Zoraya. Then Shivers set his jaws hard, plunging into a mad whirl of handsprings and somersaults, each of which sent him nearer to the end of that seemingly endless way.

"Here, here, what are you trying to do?" gasped Tucker, unable to keep up with the clown's rapid progress by doing the same things.

Teddy solved the problem by running. He could keep up in no other way.

At last Shivers reached the end. With a mighty leap he sprang for the paddock and the dressing tent. And how he did run!

Such sprinting never had been seen in the big show, even between man and horse in the act following the Roman chariot races.

Once a rope caught Shivers' toes. He fell forward, but cleverly landed on his shoulders and the back of his neck, bouncing up like a rubber man and plunging on.

Shivers had darted through the crimson curtain by the time Teddy Tucker had succeeded in picking himself up from having fallen over the same rope.

Stretched out on a piece of canvas in the dressing tent, her head slightly elevated on a saddle pad, they found Zoraya, her pallor showing even through the roughly laid on makeup.

Phil was sitting on a trunk holding his head in his hands, for he had received quite a severe shock.

"If she regains consciousness soon she may live," announced the surgeon. "If not--"

"No, no!" protested the white-faced clown, dropping on his knees by the side of the child, folding Zoraya tenderly in his arms.

"She must not die! She cannot die!"

His jaunty baker's cap tilted off and fell upon her tinseled breast, while groups of curious, sorrowful painted faces pressed about them in silent sympathy.

Teddy crushed his white cap between his hands twisting it nervously.

"She isn't hurt. Can't you see? Look, she is smiling now,"

pleaded the clown.

The surgeon shook his head sadly, and Shivers buried his head on Zoraya's shoulder, pressing his painted cheek close to hers, while the dull roar of the circus, off under the big top, drifted to them faintly, like the sighing of a distant cataract.

An impressive silence hovered over the scene, which was broken, at last, by the quiet voice of the circus surgeon.

"The child is coming back, Shivers. She has fought it out, but she will perform no more, I am afraid, for bones broken as are hers never will be quite the same again."

"She don't have to perform any more, sir," snapped the clown.

"I'll do that for her. You put that down in your fool's cap and smoke it. Yes, sir, I'll--"

"Daddy!" murmured the lips that were pressed close to Shivers' ear.

It was scarcely a whisper, more a breath that Shivers caught, but faint as it was, it sent the blood pounding to his temples until they showed red, like blotches of rouge under powder.

"D-a-d-d-y--y-o-u-r--Zory got an awful--b-u-m-p."

Three harlequins who had been poising each on one knee, chins in hands, gazing down into the face of the little performer, suddenly threw backward somersaults in their joy.

"Yes, Phil's quickness saved you," spoke up the surgeon. "Had it not been for him you would be dead now."

Teddy Tucker, the tears streaming down his cheeks, was hopping about on one foot, vigorously kicking a shin with the other foot, trying to punish himself for his tears.

"I'm a fool! I'm a fool! But--but--I can't help it," he sobbed, wheeling suddenly and dashing into his own dressing tent.

"Call for Shivers!" bellowed the voice of the callboy, thrusting his head inside the entrance flap. "All the Joeys out for the round off!"

"Coming!"

Shivers gently laid the broken form of Zoraya back, pressed a hurried kiss on her painted lips and bounded away to take his cue, the circus band out there by the crimson curtains swinging brazenly into the enlivening strains of "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight!"

CHAPTER VIII

A RIVAL IN THE FIELD

Zoraya was left behind. She was sent to a hospital where she was destined to remain many weeks, before she would be able to be moved to her little home in Indiana. She never performed again.

In the meantime the Great Sparling Combined Shows had moved majestically along. They had left the United States and were touring Canada, playing in many of the quaint little French villages and larger towns, where the Circus Boys found much to interest and amuse them.

Teddy and Shivers had made a great hit in their "brother" clown act, which was daily added to and improved upon as the show worked its way along the Canadian border.

One day Phil, who had been downtown after the parade, where he went to read the papers when he got a chance, came back and sought out Mr. Sparling in the latter's private tent.

"Well, Phil," greeted the owner cordially, "what's on your mind?"

"Perhaps a good deal, but possibly nothing of any consequence.

You will have to decide that."

"What is it?" questioned Mr. Sparling sharply.

"Do we show in Corinto?"

"Yes; why?"