The Circus Comes to Town Part 23

"How old are you now?" Whiteface asked.

"Eight and more'n a half."

"Three years ago," said Mrs. Bowe. "That was only a few months after he was stolen. How did he happen to be alone in a country road?"

"I don't know," replied Danny.

"Perhaps your mother knows," suggested Whiteface.

"I don't think so," Danny replied. "Father always said it was a mystery.

It was very late at night--almost midnight, I guess."

"We must see her, Robert, and thank her for taking care of Gary."

"Yes," said Whiteface, "she kept him after her husband's death--with five children of her own. She must have liked him very--"

"She does," Chris interrupted eagerly.

"We all do," Danny stated.

"How could you help it?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Now, Gary, can you tell me anything about what happened to you? Think hard."

"Yes," said his father. "We left you in the dressing room with one of the girl acrobats while we were on and when we came back you were gone.

The girl had been called out for a few minutes and got back just as we did. We hunted all over the circus for you and got the police to help us."

"Do you remember any one taking you away?" asked the beautiful lady who was now his mother.

"No'm," replied Jerry.

"Say, Mother, Gary," pleaded her low, beautiful voice close to his ear.

"No, Mother," Jerry repeated obediently.

"Try to think awfully hard," said Whiteface; "was there a man with a big mark across his forehead--"

"A red mark?" interrupted Jerry eagerly.

"Yes!" cried his mother. "Robert, it was John Rand! I knew it was that low creature."

"I feared it," said the clown.

"What did he do to you, Gary? Was he kind to you?" asked his mother.

Jerry seemed to see in a flash a man with a red mark across his forehead cuffing him over the head and twisting his arm till he cried out from the pain.

"I'll pull your arm right out if you ever tell any one you ain't my brat," a coa.r.s.e, thick voice seemed to be saying in his ear, "or if you ever let on as how I ever hurt you in anyway at all."

Jerry cowered down in his mother's arms and hid his face against her breast. He did not answer her questions. His heart was galloping with fear. The man with the red scar might come back.

"Why don't you answer, Gary?" asked the clown gently. "Don't you remember?"

Jerry felt the lady who was his mother holding him tighter in her arms and then she gave a sudden start. He did not answer. He was afraid to.

"Robert!" she cried. "His heart is beating as though it would burst! The memory of that beast must frighten him terribly."

"He can never hurt you again, Gary," Whiteface a.s.sured him. "You will always be with us from now on and we won't let him ever come near you again. Did he ever hurt you?"

Jerry, remembering now vividly what the man had done to him, became more frightened than ever and, instead of answering, began to cry.

"We must not hurry him into confidence," said Whiteface.

"Oh, my boy!" wailed the elephant lady. "How terribly you must have suffered when my heart was aching so to know you were safe and to comfort and love you!"

She kissed him pa.s.sionately and squeezed him so hard that his breath went entirely out of his body for a moment.

"Has Gary ever told you anything about the man who stole him?" asked Whiteface of Danny.

"No," he replied, "but Jerry ran away from him."

"How do you know that?"

"He said he had when he was going to run away from us."

"Why was he going to run away from you?"

Danny swallowed rapidly but didn't answer.

"Because Danny wouldn't let him be el'funt in our play circus," Chris explained for his brother.

Mr. Bowe took Chris' words up so quickly that Jerry thought his father was angry with Chris.

"Wouldn't let him be the elephant!" he exclaimed. "Why did Gary want especially to be the elephant?"

"I don't know," Chris answered.

"Remember, if you can," urged Whiteface. "It will help me to prove to every one that Gary is our boy."

"I guess it was because he knew something about el'funts," Danny ventured. "He knew that el'funts' tails are small and round like a rope, but he didn't know how he knew."

"I see," said the clown. "That is an important fact. I'm glad you told me."

"An' he said 'O Queen' when he saw the picture of the el'funt jumping the fence!" cried Danny excitedly. "Just the same as he did at the circus when the band stopped playin' an' before the el'funt picked him up."

"He didn't know he said it," Chris added, "an' he couldn't tell Danny what he meant by it, could he, Danny?"

"No," Danny replied.

"That clinches it!" exclaimed Whiteface, and took Jerry from his mother's arms. "Don't you cry any more, Gary-boy. n.o.body shall hurt you again. O'Queen was what you used to call Sultana, the elephant--'Sult Anna O'Queen,' as though that were her name. It was the way you said a part of one line in my elephant song: 'Great Sultana, Oh, Queen of the jungle!"