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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater, by Vance Barnum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater
+       The Most Dangerous Performance on Record
+
+Author: Vance Barnum
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2004 [EBook #10579]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOE STRONG THE BOY FIRE-EATER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+JOE STRONG THE BOY FIRE-EATER
+
+OR
+
+_THE MOST DANGEROUS PERFORMANCE ON RECORD_
+
+BY VANCE BARNUM
+
+Author of "Joe Strong, the Boy Wizard," "Joe Strong and His Wings of
+Steel," "Joe Strong and His Box of Mystery," etc.
+
+1916
+
+
+
+JOE STRONG, THE BOY FIRE-EATER
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE VANISHING LADY
+
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, if you will kindly give me your attention for a
+few moments I will be happy to introduce to your favorable notice an
+entertainer of world-wide fame who will, I am sure, not only mystify you
+but, at the same time, interest you. You have witnessed the
+death-defying dives of the Demon Discobolus; you have laughed with the
+comical clowns; you have thrilled with the hurrying horses; and you have
+gasped at the ponderous pachyderms. Now you are to be shown a trick
+which has baffled the most profound minds of this or any other
+city--aye, I may say, of the world!"
+
+Jim Tracy, ringmaster and, in this instance, stage manager of Sampson
+Brothers' Circus, paused in his announcement and with a wave of his hand
+indicated a youth attired in a spotless, tight-fitting suit of white
+silk. The youth, who stood in the center of a stage erected in the big
+tent, bowed as the manager waited to allow time for the applause to die
+away.
+
+"You have all seen ordinary magicians at work making eggs disappear up
+their sleeves," went on the stage manager. "You have, I doubt not,
+witnessed some of them producing live rabbits from silk hats. But
+Professor Joe Strong, who will shortly have the pleasure of entertaining
+you, not only makes eggs disappear, but what is far more difficult, he
+causes a lady to vanish into thin air.
+
+"You will see a beautiful lady seated in full view of you. A moment
+later, by the practice of his magical art, Professor Strong will cause
+the same lady to disappear utterly, and he will defy any of you to tell
+how it is done. Now, Professor, if you are ready--" and with a nod and a
+wave of his hand toward the youth in the white silk tights, Jim Tracy
+stepped off the elevated stage and hurried to the other end of the
+circus tent where he had to see to it that another feature of the
+entertainment was in readiness.
+
+"Oh, Joe, I'm actually nervous! Do you think I can do it all right?"
+asked a pretty girl, attired in a dress of black silk, which was in
+striking contrast to Joe Strong's white, sheeny costume.
+
+"Do it, Helen? Of course you can!" exclaimed the "magician," as he had
+been termed by the ringmaster. "Do just as you did in the rehearsals and
+you'll be all right."
+
+"But suppose something should go wrong?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Don't be in the least excited. I'll get you out of any predicament you
+may get into. Tricks do, sometimes, go wrong, but I'm used to that. I'll
+cover it up, somehow. However, I don't anticipate anything going wrong.
+Now take your place while I give them a little patter."
+
+This talk had taken place in low voices and with a rapidity which did
+not keep the expectant audience waiting. Joe Strong, while he was
+reassuring Helen Morton, his partner in the trick and also the girl to
+whom he was engaged to be married, was rapidly getting the stage ready
+for the illusion.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," said Joe, as he advanced to the edge of the
+stage, "I am afraid our genial manager has rather overstated my powers.
+What I am about to do, to be perfectly frank with you, is a trick. I lay
+no claim to supernatural powers. But if I can do a trick and you can't
+tell how it is done, then you must admit that, for the moment, I am
+smarter than you. In other words, I am going to deceive you. But the
+point is--how do I do it? With this introduction, I will now state what
+I am about to do.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mortonti will seat herself on a stage in a chair in full
+view of you all. I will cover her, for a moment only, with a silken
+veil. This, if I were a real necromancer, I should say was to prevent
+your seeing her dissolve into a spirit as she disappears. But to tell
+you the truth, it is to conceal the manner in which I do the trick.
+You'd guess that, anyhow, if I didn't tell you," he added.
+
+There was a good-natured laugh at this admission.
+
+"As soon as I remove the silken veil," went on Joe, "you will see that
+the lady will have disappeared before your very eyes. What's that?
+Through a hole in the stage did some one say?" questioned Joe, appearing
+to catch a protesting voice.
+
+"Well, that's what I hear everywhere I go," he went on with easy
+calmness. "Every time I do the vanishing lady trick some one thinks she
+disappears through a hole in the stage. Now, in order to convince you to
+the contrary, I am going to put a newspaper over that part of the stage
+where the chair is placed. I will show you the paper before and after
+the trick. And if there is not a hole or a tear in the paper, either
+before or after the lady has disappeared, I think you will admit that
+the lady did not go through a hole in the stage floor. Won't you?" asked
+Joe Strong. "Yes, I thought you would," he added, as he pretended to
+hear a "yes" from somewhere in the audience.
+
+"All ready now, Helen," he said in a low voice to the girl, and an
+attendant brought forward an ordinary looking chair and a newspaper.
+
+Joe, who had done the trick many times before, but not often with Helen,
+was perfectly at ease. Helen was very frankly nervous. She had not done
+the trick for some time, and Joe had introduced into it some novel
+features since last presenting it. Helen was afraid she would cause some
+hitch in the performance.
+
+"You'll be all right," Joe said to her in a low voice. "Just act as
+though you had done this every day for a year."
+
+Placing the chair in the center of the stage and handing Joe the
+newspaper, the attendant stepped back. Joe addressed the audience.
+
+"You here see the paper," said the "magician," as he held it up. "You
+see that there is no hole in it. I'll now spread it down on the stage.
+If the lady disappears down through the stage she will have to tear the
+paper. You shall see if she does."
+
+Joe next placed the chair directly over the square of paper and motioned
+to Helen. Her plain black dress, of soft, clinging silk, swayed about
+her as she took her place.
+
+"I might add," said Joe, pausing a moment after Helen had taken her
+seat, "that in order to prevent any shock to Mademoiselle Mortonti I am
+going to mesmerize her. She will then be unconscious. I do this for two
+reasons. In totally disappearing there is sometimes a shock to a
+person's mentality that is unpleasant. To avoid indicting that on
+Mademoiselle Mortonti I will hypnotize her.
+
+"The other reason I do that is that she may not know how or when she
+disappears. Thus she will not be able to see how I do the trick, and so
+cannot give away my secret."
+
+Of course this was all "bunk" or "patter," to use names given to it by
+the performers. It kept the attention of the audience and so enabled Joe
+to do certain things without attracting too much attention to them. As a
+matter of fact he did not mesmerize Helen, and she knew perfectly well
+how the trick was done. Those who have read previous books of this
+series are also in the secret.
+
+Joe waved his hands in front of Helen's face. She swayed slightly in her
+chair. Then her eyes closed as though against her will, and she seemed
+to sleep.
+
+"She is now in the proper condition for the trick," said Joe. "I must
+beg of you not to make any sudden or unnecessary noise. You might
+suddenly awaken her from the mesmeric slumber, and this might be very
+serious."
+
+As Joe said this with every indication of meaning it, there was a quick
+hush among the audience. Even though many knew it was only a trick, they
+could not help being impressed by the solemn note in Joe's voice. Such
+is the psychology of an audience, and the power over it of a single
+person.
+
+"She now sleeps!" said Joe in a low voice. As a matter of fact, Helen
+was wide awake, and as Joe stood between her and the circus crowd she
+slowly opened one eye and winked at him. He was glad to see this, as it
+showed her nervousness had left her.
+
+"Now for the mystic veil!" cried Joe, as he took from his helper a thin
+clinging piece of black silk gauze. He tossed this over Helen and the
+chair, completely covering both from sight. He brought the veil around
+behind Helen's head, fastening it there with a pin.
+
+"To make sure that Mademoiselle Mortonti sleeps, I will now make the few
+remaining mesmeric passes," said Joe. "I must be positive that she
+slumbers."
+
+He waved his hands slowly over the black robed figure. A great hush had
+fallen over the big crowd. Every eye was on the black figure in the
+center of the raised stage in the middle of the big circus tent. All the
+other acts had temporarily stopped, to make that of Joe Strong, the boy
+magician, more spectacular.
+
+As Joe continued to wave one hand with an undulating motion over the
+silent black-covered figure in the chair, he touched, here and there,
+the drapery over Helen. He seemed very solicitous that it should hang
+perfectly right, covering the figure of the girl and the chair
+completely from sight in every direction all around the stage.
+
+The music, which had been playing softly, suddenly stopped at a wave of
+Joe's hand. He stood for a moment motionless before the veiled figure.
+
+"Her spirit is dissolving into thin air!" he said in a low voice, which,
+nevertheless, carried to every one in the crowd.
+
+Suddenly Joe took hold of the veil in the center and directly over the
+outlined head of the figure in the chair. Quickly the young magician
+raised the soft, black silk gauze, whisking it quickly to one side.
+
+The audience gasped.
+
+The chair, in which but a moment before Helen Morton had been seated,
+was empty! The girl had disappeared--vanished! Joe stooped and raised
+from the stage the newspaper. It showed not a sign of break or tear.
+
+Then, before the applause could begin, the girl appeared, walking out
+from one of the improvised wings of the circus stage. She smiled and
+bowed. The act had been a great success. Now the silent admiration of
+the throng gave place to a wave of hand clapping and feet stamping.
+
+"Was it all right, Joe?" asked Helen, as he held her hand and they both
+bowed their appreciation of the applause.
+
+"Couldn't have been better!" he said. "We'll do this trick regularly
+now. It takes even better than my ten thousand dollar box mystery. You
+were great!"
+
+"I'm so glad!"
+
+The two performers were bowing themselves off the stage when suddenly
+there came the unmistakable roar of a wild beast from the direction of
+the animal tent. It seemed to shake the very ground. At the same time a
+voice cried:
+
+"A tiger is loose! One of the tigers is out of his cage!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A DANGEROUS SWING
+
+
+There is no cry which so startles the average circus audience as that
+which is raised when one of the wild animals is said to be at large. Not
+even the alarm that the big tent is falling or is about to be blown over
+will cause such a panic as the shout:
+
+"A tiger is loose!"
+
+There is something instinctive, and perfectly natural, in the fear of
+the wild jungle beasts. Let it be said that a tiger or a lion is loose,
+and it causes greater fear, even, than when it is stated that an
+elephant is on a rampage. An elephant seems a big, but good-natured,
+creature; though often they turn ugly. But a lion or a tiger is always
+feared when loose.
+
+But the chances are not one in a hundred that a circus lion or a tiger,
+getting out of its cage, would attack any one. The creature is so
+surprised at getting loose, and so frightened at the hue and cry at once
+raised, that all it wants to do is to slink off and hide, and the only
+harm it might do would be to some one who tried to stop it from running
+away.
+
+Joe Strong, Jim Tracy, and the other circus executives and employees
+knew this as soon as they heard the cry: "A tiger is loose." Who raised
+the cry and which of the several tigers in the Sampson show was out of
+its cage, neither Joe nor any of those in the big tent near him knew.
+But they realized the emergency, and knew what to do.
+
+"Keep your seats! Don't rush!" cried Joe, as he released Helen's hand
+and hurried to the front of the platform. "There is no danger! The
+animal men will catch the tiger, if one is really loose. Stay where you
+are! Keep your seats! Don't rush!"
+
+It is the panic and rush that circus men are afraid of--the pushing and
+"milling" of the crowd and the trampling under foot of helpless women
+and children.
+
+There was some commotion near the junction of the animal tent and that
+in which the main performance took place. What it was, Joe did not
+concern himself about just then. He felt it to be his task to prevent a
+panic. And to this he lent himself, aided by Helen, Jim Tracy, and
+others who realized the danger.
+
+And while this is going on and while the expert animal men are preparing
+to get back into its cage the tiger which, it was learned afterward, had
+got out through an imperfectly fastened door, time will be taken to tell
+new readers something about Joe Strong and the series of books in which
+he is the central character.
+
+Joe Strong seemed destined for a circus life and for entertaining
+audiences with sleight-of-hand and other mystery matters. His father,
+Alexander Strong, known professionally as Professor Morretti, was a
+stage magician of talents, and Joe's mother, who was born in England,
+had been a rider of trick horses.
+
+His parents died when Joe was young. He did not have a very happy
+boyhood, and one day he ran away from the man with whom he was living
+and joined a traveling magician, who called himself Professor Rosello.
+With him Joe, who had a natural aptitude for the business, learned to
+become a sleight-of-hand performer.
+
+In the first book of the series, entitled "Joe Strong, the Boy Wizard;
+Or, the Mysteries of Magic Exposed," is told how Joe got on in life
+after his first start. Joe was not only a stage magician, but he had
+inherited strength, skill and daring, and he liked nothing better than
+climbing to great heights or walking in lofty and dizzy places where the
+footing was perilous. So it was perhaps natural that he should join the
+Sampson Brothers' Show. And in the second book is related, under the
+title, "Joe Strong on the Trapeze; Or, the Daring Feats of a Young
+Circus Performer," what happened to our hero under canvas.
+
+Joe loved the circus life, even though he made some enemies. But he had
+many friends. There was Helen Morton. Then there was Benny Turton, who
+did a "tank act," and was billed as a "human fish." Jim Tracy, the
+ringmaster, Bill Watson, the veteran clown, and his wife, the circus
+"mother," Tom Layton, the elephant man who taught the big creatures many
+tricks, were only a few of Joe's friends.
+
+Among others might be mentioned Senor Bogardi, the lion tamer, Mrs.
+Talfo, the professional "fat lady," Senorita Tanzalo, the pretty snake
+charmer, and Tom Jefferson, the "strong man." Joe loved them all. The
+circus was like one big family, with, as might be expected, a "black
+sheep" here and there.
+
+Joe became an expert on the trapeze, and, later, when Benny Turton was
+temporarily in a hospital, Joe "took on" the tank trick. In the third
+volume some of his under-water feats are related, while in the fourth
+book Joe's acts on a motor cycle on the high wire are dealt with.
+
+With his "Wings of Steel," Joe caused a sensation, and after an absence
+from the circus for a time he joined it again, bringing this act to it.
+
+Eventually Joe was made one of the circus owners, and now controlled a
+majority of the stock. He had also inherited considerable money from his
+mother's relatives in England, so that now the youth was financially
+well off for one who had started so humbly.
+
+The book immediately preceding this one is called "Joe Strong and His
+Box of Mystery; Or, the Ten Thousand Dollar Prize Trick." In that volume
+is related how Joe constructed a trick box, out of which he made his way
+after it was locked and corded about with ropes. Helen Morton helped him
+in this trick, which was very successful.
+
+The circus management offered a prize of ten thousand dollars to
+whomsoever could fathom how the trick was done. Bill Carfax, an enemy of
+Joe's and a former circus employee, tried to solve the problem but
+failed.
+
+The box trick was a great attraction for the circus, and Joe was in
+higher favor than before.
+
+He had been on the road with the show for some time when the events
+detailed in the first chapter of this book took place.
+
+By dint of much shouting and urging the people to retain their seats and
+not rush into danger, Joe Strong and the others succeeded in calming the
+circus crowd. Meanwhile there was much suppressed excitement.
+
+"Is the tiger caught? Is he back in his cage?" was asked on every side.
+
+While Joe and his fellow showmen were calming the crowd, the animal men
+were having their own troubles. Burma, one of the largest of the
+tigers, had got loose, having taken advantage of the open door of his
+cage. He rushed out with a snarl of delight at his freedom. His jungle
+cry was echoed by the roar of a lion in the next cage, and this was
+followed by the cries and snarls of all the wild jungle beasts in the
+tent.
+
+Fortunately the animal tent was deserted by all save the keepers, the
+audience having filed into the tent where the main show was going on.
+
+"Head him off now! Head him off!" cried Tom Layton, the elephant man, as
+he saw the tiger dart out of its cage--a flash of yellow and black.
+"Head him off! Don't let him get in the main top!"
+
+"That's right! Head him off!" cried Senor Bogardi, the lion tamer. "He
+won't hurt any one--he's too scared!"
+
+This was true, but it was difficult to believe, and some of the people
+seated in the "main top," or big tent, who were nearest the animal tent,
+hearing the cries and learning what had occurred, spread the alarm.
+
+Burma, the tiger, slunk around in behind the cages of the other animals.
+All about him were men with clubs and pointed goads, with whips and
+pistols. The circus men had had to cope with situations like this
+before. They surrounded the tiger, advancing on him in an ever-narrowing
+circle, and in a short time they drove him into an emergency cage which
+was pushed forward with the open door toward him. Burma had no choice
+but to enter, to get away from the cracking whips and the prodding
+goads. And, after all, he was glad to be barred in again.
+
+So, without causing any harm except for badly frightening a number of
+people in the audience, the tiger was caged again, and the circus
+performance went on.
+
+Joe Strong did his Box of Mystery trick. The usual announcement of a
+reward of ten thousand dollars to whomsoever could solve it was made,
+and there was great applause when Joe managed to get out of the big box
+without disturbing the six padlocks or the binding ropes.
+
+"I'm glad Bill Carfax isn't here to make trouble, trying to show how
+much he knows about this trick," said Joe to the ringmaster, as he
+stepped off the stage at the conclusion of the trick.
+
+"Yes, you put several spokes in Bill's wheels when you turned the laugh
+on him that time," said Jim Tracy. "I don't believe he'll ever show up
+around our circus again."
+
+But they little knew Bill Carfax. Those who have read the book just
+before this will recall him and remember how unscrupulous he was. But
+his plans came to naught then. Any one who wishes to learn how the
+wonderful box trick was worked will find a full explanation in the
+previous volume.
+
+Helen Morton received much applause at the conclusion of her act with
+her trick horse, Rosebud. Joe Strong's promised wife was an accomplished
+bareback rider, as well as one of her fiance's helpers in his mystery
+tricks.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to-day is over," said Helen to Joe that night, as they
+went to the train that was to take them to the next city where the
+circus performance would be given. "What with doing the vanishing lady
+act for the first time in a long while and the tiger getting loose, we
+have had quite a bit of excitement."
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe. "But everything came out all right. I'm going to put
+on a new stunt next week."
+
+"What's that?" asked Helen. "Something in the mystery line?"
+
+"No. I'm going back to some of my high trapeze work. You know, since we
+lost Wogand there hasn't been any of the big swing work done."
+
+"That's so," agreed Helen. "But I've been so busy practicing the
+vanishing lady act with you on top of my other work that I hadn't given
+it a thought. But you aren't going to do that dangerous trick, are you?"
+
+"I think I am," Joe answered. "It's sensational, and we need sensational
+acts now to draw the crowds. I used to do it, and I can again, I think,
+with a little practice. I'm going to start in and train to-morrow."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't," said Helen, in a low voice, but Joe did not seem
+to hear her.
+
+The big swing was a trapeze act performed on the highest of the circus
+apparatus. Part of this apparatus consisted of two platforms fastened to
+two of the opposite main poles, and up under the very roof of the big
+top.
+
+Midway between the platforms, which were just large enough for a man to
+stand on, was a trapeze with long ropes, capable of being swung from one
+resting place to the other. It was, in reality, a "big swing."
+
+Joe's act, which he had often done, but which of late had been performed
+by a man billed as "Wogand," was to stand on one platform, have the long
+trapeze started in a long, pendulumlike swing by an attendant, and then
+to leap down, catch hold of the bar with his hands, and swing up to the
+other platform. If he missed catching the bar it meant a dangerous fall;
+a fall into a net, it is true, but dangerous none the less. Its danger
+can be judged when it is said that Wogand had died as an indirect result
+of a fall into the net. He missed the trapeze, toppled into the net,
+and, by some chance, did not land properly. His back was injured, his
+spine became affected, and he died.
+
+When circus performers on the high trapezes fall or jump into the safety
+nets, they do not usually do it haphazardly. If they did many would be
+killed. There is a certain knack and trick of landing in a net.
+
+Joe Strong, ever having the interest of the circus at heart, had decided
+to do this dangerous swing. He was an acrobat, as well as a stage
+magician, and he had decided to take up some of his earlier acts which
+had been so successful.
+
+"But I wish he wouldn't," said Helen to herself. "I have a premonition
+that something will happen." Helen was very superstitious in certain
+ways.
+
+But to all she said, Joe only laughed.
+
+"I'm going to do the big swing," he replied simply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TOO MANY PEOPLE
+
+
+Hundreds of men toiling and sweating over stiff canvas and stiffer
+ropes. The thud of big wooden sledge hammers driving in the tent stakes.
+The rumble of heavy wagons, and a cloud of dust where they were being
+shoved into place by the busy elephants.
+
+On one edge of the big, vacant lot were wisps of smoke from the fires in
+the stove wagons, and from these same wagons came appetizing odors.
+
+Here and there men and women darted, carrying portions of their costumes
+in their hands. Clowns, partly made up, looked from their dressing tents
+to smile or shout at some acquaintance who chanced to be passing by.
+
+All this was the Sampson Brothers' Circus in preparation for a day's
+performance.
+
+Joe Strong, having had a good breakfast, without which no circus man or
+woman starts the day, strolled over to where Helen Morton was just
+finishing her morning meal.
+
+"Feeling all right?" he asked her.
+
+"Well, yes, pretty well," she answered.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Joe quickly, as he detected an under note of
+anxiety in the girl's voice. "Is your star horse, Rosebud, lame or off
+his feed?"
+
+"Oh, no," she answered. "It's just--Oh, here comes Mother Watson, and I
+promised to help her mend a skirt," said Helen quickly, as she turned to
+greet the veteran clown's wife. "See you later, Joe!" she called to him
+over her shoulder as she started away.
+
+The young magician moved away toward his own private quarters.
+
+"I wonder what's the matter with Helen," he said. "She doesn't act
+naturally. If that Bill Carfax has been around again, annoying her, I'll
+put him out of business for all time. But if he had been around I'd have
+heard of it. I don't believe it can be that."
+
+Nor was it. Helen's anxiety had to do with something other than Bill
+Carfax, the unprincipled circus man who had so annoyed her before Joe
+discharged him. And, as Joe had said, the man had not been seen publicly
+since the fiasco of his attempt to expose Joe's mystery box trick.
+
+"Well, I suppose she won't tell me what it is until she gets good and
+ready," mused Joe. "Now I'll go in and have a little practice at the big
+swing before the parade."
+
+Joe did not take part in the street pageant, though Helen did, riding
+her beautiful horse to the admiration, not only of the small boys and
+their sisters, but the grown-up throng in the highways as well. Helen
+made a striking picture on her spirited, but gentle, steed.
+
+It was not that Joe Strong felt above appearing in the parade. That was
+not his reason for not taking part. He had done so on more than one
+occasion, and with his Wings of Steel had created more than one
+sensation.
+
+But now that he did a trapeze act, as well as working the
+sleight-of-hand mysteries, his time was pretty well occupied. He had
+not, as yet, done the big swing in public since that act was abandoned
+on the death of the man who had been injured while doing it. But Joe had
+been perfecting himself in it. He had had a new set of trapezes made,
+and had ornamented them and the two platforms in a very striking manner.
+In other words, the trick had a new "dress," and Joe, as one of the
+circus proprietors, hoped it would go well and attract attention.
+
+This was from a business standpoint, and not only because Joe was
+himself the performer. Of course it was natural that he should like
+applause--all do, more or less. But Joe was one of the owners of the
+circus--the chief owner, in fact--and he wanted to make a financial
+success of it. Nor was this a purely selfish reason. Many persons owned
+stock in the enterprise, and Joe felt it was only fair to them to see
+that they received a good return for their investment. Any trick he
+could do to draw crowds he was willing to attempt.
+
+So, while the parade was being gotten ready, Joe went inside the main
+top, which by this time was erected, to see about having his platforms
+and trapeze put in place. In this he was always very careful, as is
+every aerial performer. The least slip of a rope may cause disaster, and
+no matter how careful the attendants are, the performers themselves
+always give at least a casual look to their apparatus.
+
+"All right, Harry?" asked Joe of one of the riggers who had charge of
+putting up the platforms and the big swing.
+
+"Sure, it's all right, Mr. Strong!" was the answer. "I should say so! I
+don't make no mistakes when I'm putting up trapezes. You'll find
+everything shipshape and proper. Going to have a big crowd to-day, I
+guess."
+
+Joe looked at Harry Loper closely. The young man had never talked so
+much before, being, on the whole, rather close-mouthed. As the man
+passed Joe, after giving a pull on the last rope, the young magician
+became aware that Harry had been drinking--and something stronger than
+pink lemonade.
+
+"I'm sorry about that!" mused Joe, as the rope rigger passed on. "If
+there's any place a man ought not to drink it's in a circus, and
+especially when he has to rig up high flying apparatus for others. It
+was drink that put Bill Carfax out of business. I didn't know Harry was
+that kind, I never noticed it before. I'm sorry. And I'll take extra
+precautions that my ropes won't slip. You can't trust a man who drinks."
+
+Joe shook his head a bit sadly. He was thinking of Bill Carfax, and of
+the fact that he had had to discharge the man because, while under the
+influence of liquor, he had insulted Helen. Then Bill had tried to get
+revenge on Joe.
+
+"I hope it doesn't turn out this way with Harry Loper," mused Joe, as he
+began climbing up a rope ladder that led to one of the high platforms.
+And as Harry had to do with the placing of this ladder, Joe tested it
+carefully before ascending.
+
+"I don't want to fall and be laid up in the middle of the circus
+season," mused the young circus man, with a frown.
+
+However, the ladder appeared to be perfectly secure, and as Joe went up,
+finally reaching the high platform, he felt a sense of exhilaration.
+Heights always affected him this way. He liked, more than anything else,
+to soar aloft on his Wings of Steel. And he liked the sensation when he
+leaped from one platform toward the swinging trapeze bar, aiming to
+grasp it in his hands and swing in a great arc to the other little
+elevated place, close under the top of the tent.
+
+There was a thrill about it--a thrill not only to the performer but to
+the audience as well--and Joe could hear the gasps that went up from
+thousands of throats as he made his big swing.
+
+But, for the time being, he gave his whole attention to the platform and
+its fastenings. The platforms were not very likely to slip, being caught
+on to the main tent poles, which themselves were well braced.
+
+The real danger was in the long trapeze. Not only must the thin wire
+ropes of this be strong enough to hold Joe's weight, but an added
+pressure, caused by the momentum of his jump. And not only must the
+cables be strong, but there must be no defect in the wooden bar and in
+the place where the upper ends of the ropes were fastened to the top of
+the tent.
+
+"Well, this platform is all right," remarked Joe, as he looked it over.
+"Now for the other and the trapeze."
+
+He went down the rope ladder and climbed up another to the second
+platform. The show would not start for several hours yet, and the tent
+was filled with men putting in place the stage for Joe's magic tricks
+and other apparatus for various performers. The parade was just forming
+to proceed down town.
+
+Joe found that Harry Loper had done his work well, at least as far as
+the platforms were concerned. They were firmly fastened. The one to
+which Joe leaped after his swing needed to be considerably stronger than
+the one from which he "took off."
+
+The next act of the young circus performer was to climb up to the very
+top of the tent, and there to examine the fastenings of the trapeze
+ropes. He spent some time at this, having reached his high perch by a
+third rope ladder.
+
+"I guess everything is all right," mused Joe. "Perhaps I did Harry an
+injustice. He might have taken some stimulant for a cold--they all got
+wet through the other night. But still he ought to be careful. He was a
+little too talkative for a man to give his whole attention to fastening
+a trapeze. But this seems to be all right. I'll do the big swing this
+afternoon and to-night, in addition to the box trick and the vanishing
+lady. Helen works exceedingly well in that."
+
+Having seen that his aerial apparatus was all right, Joe next went to
+his tent where his magical appliances were kept. Many stage tricks
+depend for their success on special pieces of apparatus, and Joe's acts
+were no exception.
+
+Joe saw that everything was in readiness for his sleight-of-hand work,
+and then examined his Box of Mystery. As this was a very special piece
+of apparatus, he was very careful about it. His ability to get out of
+it, once he was locked and roped in, depended on a delicate bit of
+mechanism, and the least hitch in this meant failure.
+
+But a test showed that it was all right, and as by this time it was
+nearly the hour for the parade to come back and the preliminaries to
+begin, Joe went over to the circus office to see if any matters there
+needed his attention.
+
+As he crossed the lot to where the "office" was set up in a small tent,
+the first horses of the returning parade came back on the circus
+grounds. Following was a mob of delighted small boys and not a few men.
+
+"Looks as if we'd have a big crowd," said Joe to himself. "And it's a
+fine day for the show. We'll make money!"
+
+He attended to some routine matters, and then the first of the afternoon
+audience began to arrive. As Joe had predicted, the crowd was a big one.
+
+The young performer was in his dressing room, getting ready for the big
+swing, which he would perform before his mystery tricks, when Mr. Moyne,
+the circus treasurer, entered. There was a queer look on Mr. Moyne's
+face, and Joe could not help but notice it.
+
+"What's worrying you?" asked Joe. "Doesn't this weather suit you, or
+isn't there a big enough crowd?"
+
+"That's just it, Joe," was the unexpected answer. "There's too big a
+crowd. We have too many people at this show, and that's what is worrying
+me a whole lot!"
+
+Joe Strong looked in surprise at the treasurer. What could Mr. Moyne
+mean?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE RUSTED WIRE
+
+
+"Yes," went on the circus treasurer, as he rubbed his chin reflectively,
+"it's a curious state of affairs, and as you're so vitally interested I
+came to you at once. There's going to be trouble!"
+
+"Trouble!" cried Joe with a laugh. "I can't see that, Mr. Moyne. You say
+there's a big crowd of people at our circus--too much of a crowd, in
+fact. I can't see anything wrong in that. It's just what we're always
+wanting--a big audience. Let 'em fill the tent, I say, and put out the
+'Straw Seats Only' sign. Trouble! Why, I should say this was good luck!"
+and Joe hastened his preparations, for he wanted to go on with the big
+swing.
+
+"Ordinarily," said Mr. Moyne, in the slow, precise way he had of
+speaking, brought about, perhaps, by his need of being exact in money
+matters, "a big crowd would be the very thing we should want. But this
+time we don't--not this kind of a crowd."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Joe, beginning to feel that it was more than a
+mere notion on the part of the treasurer that something was wrong. "Is
+it a rough crowd? Will there be a 'hey rube!' cry raised--a fight
+between our men and the mill hands?"
+
+"Oh, no, nothing like that!" the treasurer hastened to assure Joe. "The
+whole thing is just this. There are a great many more people in the main
+top now than there are admission prices in the treasurer's cash box. The
+books don't balance, as it were."
+
+"More people in the tent than have paid their way?" asked Joe. "Well,
+that always happens at a circus. Small boys will crawl in under the
+canvas in spite of clubs."
+
+"Oh, it isn't a question of the small boys--I never worry about them,"
+returned Mr. Moyne. "But there are about a thousand more persons at the
+performance which will soon begin than we have admission prices for. In
+other words there are a thousand persons occupying fifty cent seats that
+haven't paid their half dollar. It isn't the reserve chairs that are
+affected. We're all right there. But fully a thousand persons have come
+into the show, and we're short five hundred dollars in our cash."
+
+"You don't tell me!" cried Joe. He saw that Mr. Moyne was very much in
+earnest. "Have the ticket men and the entrance attendants been working a
+flim-flam game on us?"
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't that," said the treasurer. "I could understand that.
+But the men are perfectly willing to have their accounts gone over and
+their tickets checked up. They're straight!"
+
+"Then what is it?" asked Joe.
+
+"That's what we've got to find out," went on Mr. Moyne. "In some way the
+thousand people have come in without paying the circus anything. And
+they didn't sneak in, either. A few might do that, but a thousand
+couldn't. They've come in by the regular entrance."
+
+"Did they force themselves past without tickets?"
+
+"No, each one had the proper coupon."
+
+"Has there been a theft of our tickets?" demanded the young magician and
+acrobat.
+
+"No, our ticket account is all right, except there are a thousand extra
+entrance coupons in the box--coupons taken in by the entrance
+attendants. It's a puzzle to me," confessed the treasurer. "There is
+some game being played on us, and we're out to the tune of five hundred
+dollars by it already."
+
+"Is there any way of finding out who these persons are who have come in
+without paying us and having them ejected?" asked Joe.
+
+"I don't see how," admitted Mr. Moyne. "If they were in reserved seats
+it could be done, but not in the ordinary un-numbered fifty cent
+section. The whole situation is that we have a thousand persons too many
+at the show."
+
+"Well, we'll have a meeting of the executive body and take it up after
+the performance," said Joe, as he quickly prepared to get into his
+aerial costume. "We'll have to go on with the performance now; it's
+getting late. If we're swamped by people coming along who hold our
+regular tickets we'll have to sit 'em anywhere we can. If we lose five
+hundred dollars we'll make it up by having a smashing crowd, which is
+always a good advertisement. I'll see you directly after the show, Mr.
+Moyne."
+
+"I wish you would," said the harassed treasurer. "Something must be done
+about it. If this happens very often we'll be in a financial hole at the
+end of the season."
+
+He departed, looking at some figures he had jotted down on the back of
+an envelope.
+
+Joe Strong was puzzled. Nothing like this had ever come up before. True,
+there had been swindlers who tried to mulct the circus of money, and
+there were always small boys, and grown men, too, who tried to crawl in
+under the tent. But such a wholesale game as this Joe had never before
+known.
+
+"Well, five hundred dollars, for once, won't break us," he said grimly,
+as he fastened on a brightly spangled belt, "but I wouldn't want it to
+happen very often. Now I wonder what luck I'll have in my big swing. I
+haven't done it in public for some time, but it went all right in
+practice."
+
+Joe looked from his dressing room. He was all ready for his act now,
+but the time had not yet come for him to go on. He saw Helen hastening
+past on her way to enter the ring with her horse, Rosebud, which a groom
+held at the entrance for her.
+
+"Good luck!" called Joe, waving his hand and smiling.
+
+"The same to you," answered Helen. "You'll need it more than I. Oh,
+Joe," she went on earnestly, "won't you give up this big swing? Stick to
+your box trick, and let me act with you in the disappearing lady stunt.
+Don't go on with this high trapeze act!" she pleaded.
+
+"Why, Helen! anybody would think you'd been bitten by the jinx bug!"
+laughed Joe. "I thought you were all over that."
+
+"Perhaps I am foolish," she said. "But it's because--"
+
+She blushed and looked away.
+
+"I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you are so interested
+in my welfare," said Joe, with a smile. "And, believe me, I am. But,
+Helen, I can't back out of this act now. It's been advertised big. I've
+got to go on!"
+
+"Then do be careful, won't you?" she begged. "Oh, do be careful!
+Somehow, I have a feeling that--Oh, well, I won't set you to worrying by
+telling you," she said quickly, with a laugh, in which, however, there
+was no mirth. She smiled again, trying to make it a bright one; but Joe
+saw that she was under a strain.
+
+"I'll be careful," he promised. "Really, there's no danger. I've done
+the stunt a score of times, and I can judge my distance perfectly.
+Besides there's the safety net."
+
+"Yes, I know, but there was poor--Oh, well, I won't talk about it! Good
+luck!" and she hurried on, for it was time for her act--the whistle of
+the ringmaster having blown.
+
+Joe looked after the girl he loved. He smiled, and then a rather serious
+look settled over his face. Like a flash there had come to him the
+memory of the too loquacious Harry Loper, who had fitted up his aerial
+apparatus.
+
+"There can be nothing wrong with that," mused Joe. "I went over every
+inch of it. I guess Helen is just nervous. Well, there goes my cue!"
+
+He hurried toward the entrance, and then he began to ponder over the
+curious fact of there being a thousand persons too many at the
+performance.
+
+"We'll have to straighten out that ticket tangle after the show," mused
+Joe. "It's likely to get serious. I wonder--" he went on, struck by a
+new thought. "I wonder if--Oh, no! It couldn't be! He hasn't been around
+in a long while."
+
+Out into the tent, filled with a record-breaking crowd, went Joe to the
+place where his high trapeze was waiting for him. The band was playing
+lively airs, on one platform some trained seals were juggling big balls
+of colored rubber, and on another a bear was going about on roller
+skates. In one end ring Helen was performing with Rosebud, while in
+another a troupe of Japanese acrobats were doing wonderful things with
+their supple bodies.
+
+Joe waved his hand to Helen in passing, and then he began to ascend to
+his high platform. When he reached it and stood poised ready for his
+act, there came a shrill whistle from Jim Tracy, the ringmaster, who
+wore his usual immaculate shirt front and black evening clothes--rather
+incongruous in the daytime.
+
+The whistle was the signal for the other acts to cease, that the
+attention of all might be centered on Joe. This is always done in a
+circus in the case of "stars," and Joe was certainly a star of the first
+magnitude.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried Jim Tracy, with the accented drawl that
+carried his voice to the very ends of the big tent. "Calling your
+attention to one of the most marvelous high trapeze acts ever performed
+in any circus!"
+
+He pointed dramatically to Joe, who stood up straight, ready to do his
+act.
+
+"Are you ready?" asked the man who was to release the trapeze, which
+was caught up at one side of the platform opposite Joe.
+
+"Ready," answered the young acrobat.
+
+The man pulled a rope which released a catch, letting the trapeze start
+on its long swaying swing. The man pulled it by means of a long, thin
+cord, until it was making big arcs, like some gigantic pendulum.
+
+Joe watched it carefully, judging it to the fraction of an inch. He
+stood poised and tense on the gayly decorated platform, himself a fine
+picture of physical young manhood. The band was blaring out the latest
+Jazz melody.
+
+Suddenly, from his perch, the young acrobat gave a cry, and Jim Tracy,
+on the ground below, hearing it, held up his white-gloved hand as a
+signal for the music to cease.
+
+Then Joe leaped. Full and fair he leaped out toward the swinging bar of
+the big trapeze, the snare drum throbbing out as he jumped. He was dimly
+conscious of thousands of eyes watching him--eyes that looked curiously
+and apprehensively up. And he realized that Helen was also watching him.
+
+As true as a die, Joe's hands caught and gripped the bar of the swinging
+trapeze. So far he was safe. The momentum of his jump carried him in a
+long swing, and he at once began to undulate himself to increase his
+swing. He must do this in order to get to the second platform.
+
+As the young performer began to do this, he looked up at the wire ropes
+of his trapeze.
+
+It was a look given instinctively and for no particular purpose, as
+Joe's eyes must rest, most of all, on the second platform where he
+needed to land, to save himself from a bad fall.
+
+As his eyes glanced along the steel cables on which his life depended,
+he saw, to his horror, a spot of rust on one. And at the spot of rust
+several of the thin strands of twisted wire were loose and frayed.
+
+The cable seemed about to give way!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A FIRE SENSATION
+
+
+Joe Strong had to think quickly. Every acrobat, every person who does
+"stunts" in a circus, must; for something is always happening, or on the
+verge of taking place. And when Joe looked up and saw the rusted wire
+and noted the fraying strands, several thoughts shot through his mind at
+once.
+
+"That rust spot wasn't there this morning when, I looked at the
+trapeze," he mused. "And it hasn't rained since. How did it get there?"
+
+He thought of the too talkative Harry Loper, and an ugly suspicion
+associated itself with him. But Joe had no time for such thoughts then.
+What was vital for him to know was whether or not the thin wire cable
+would remain unbroken long enough for him to reach the maximum of his
+swing, and land on the platform. Or would he fall, spoiling the act and
+also endangering himself?
+
+True he might land in the net in such a way as to come to no harm, as he
+had done many times, and as many performers before him had done. But
+the danger was that in a sudden and unexpected drop downward he might
+not be able to get his limbs in the proper landing position.
+
+Joe Strong had nerve. If he had lacked it he would never have been so
+successful. And at once he decided on a courageous proceeding.
+
+"I'll bring all my weight suddenly on that left hand cable," he mused,
+as he swung to and fro, from side to side of the big tent. "If it's
+going to break it will do so then. And I'll be ready for it. I'll then
+keep hold of the trapeze bar, which will be straight up and down instead
+of crosswise, and swing by that. The other cable seems all right." This
+was a fact which Joe ascertained by a quick inspection.
+
+There was no time for further thought. As he swung, Joe suddenly shifted
+his weight, bringing it all on the frayed and strangely rusted cable. As
+he half expected, it gave way, and he dropped in an instant, but not
+far.
+
+The watching crowd gasped. It looked like an accident. And it was, in a
+way, but Joe had purposely caused it. As the wire broke Joe held tightly
+to the wooden bar, which was now upright in his hands instead of being
+horizontal. And though it slipped through his fingers, perhaps for the
+width of his palm, at last he gripped it in a firm hold and kept on with
+his swing.
+
+And then the applause broke forth, for the audience thought it all a
+part of the trick--they thought that Joe had purposely caused the cable
+to break to make the act more effective.
+
+To and fro swung Joe, nearer and nearer to the second platform, and
+then, reaching the height of the long arc, he turned his body and
+stepped full and fair on the little square of velvet-covered boards.
+
+With a lithe contortion, Joe squirmed to an upright position, recovering
+his balance with a great effort, for he had been put out in his
+calculations of distance, and then, turning, he bowed to the crowds,
+revolving on the platform to take in every one.
+
+Again the applause broke forth, to be drowned in the boom and ruffle of
+the drums as the band began to play. There is little time in a circus,
+where act follows act so quickly, for long acknowledgments.
+
+The other performers came into the rings or on to the raised platforms,
+and Joe descended by means of the rope ladder. Helen met him, and they
+walked toward the dressing rooms.
+
+"That was a wonderful trick, Joe," she said. "But I didn't see you
+practice that drop."
+
+"I didn't practice it," he remarked dryly. "I did it on the spur of the
+moment."
+
+"Joe Strong! wasn't it dangerous?"
+
+"Well, a little."
+
+"What made you do it?"
+
+"I couldn't help it."
+
+"You couldn't help it? Joe--do you mean--?" She sensed that something
+was wrong, but walking around the circus arena, with performers coming
+and going, was not the place to speak of it. Joe saw that she
+understood.
+
+"I'll tell you later," he said. "We have to get ready for the trick box
+and the vanishing lady stunt now."
+
+"Oh, Joe! were you in much danger?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, not much," he answered, and he tried to speak lightly. Yet he did
+not like to think of that one moment when he saw the rusted and broken
+wire.
+
+While Joe and Helen are preparing for the box act, which has been
+treated fully in the previous volume, the explanation of how the
+vanishing lady trick was accomplished will be given, though that, too,
+has been explained in an earlier volume.
+
+A large newspaper is put on the stage and the chair set on the paper,
+thus, seemingly, precluding the possibility of a trap door being cut in
+the stage through which the lady in the chair might slip. The word
+"seemingly" is used with a due sense of what it means. The newspaper was
+not a perfect one. On one of its sides which was not exhibited to the
+audience, there was cut an opening, or trap, that exactly corresponded
+in size with a trap door on the stage. The paper, as explained in the
+previous book, is strengthened with cardboard, and the trap is a double
+one, being cut in the center, the flaps being easily moved either way.
+
+The audience thinks it sees a perfect newspaper. But there is a square
+hole in it, but concealed as is a secret trap door.
+
+When Joe laid the paper on the stage he placed it so that the square,
+double flap in it was exactly over the trap in the stage floor. He then
+drew the page of the paper that he had held out to the audience toward
+himself, exposing the trap for use, but because it was so carefully
+made, and the cut was so fine, it was not visible from the front.
+
+Helen took her place in the chair, which, of course, was a trick one. It
+was fitted with a concealed rod and a cap, and it was over this cap,
+brought out at the proper moment, that Joe carefully placed the black
+veil, when he was pretending to mesmerize Helen. There was a cross rod,
+also concealed in the chair, and on either end of this, something like
+the epaulettes of a soldier, so that when these ends were under the veil
+and the cap was in place it looked as though some one sat in the chair,
+when, really, no one did.
+
+Helen was in the chair at the start. But as soon as she was covered by
+the veil she began to get out The seat of the chair was hinged within
+its frame As Helen sat on it, and after she had been covered with the
+veil, she rested her weight on her hands, which were placed on the
+extreme outer edges of this seat frame. She pulled a catch which caused
+the seat to drop, and at the same time the trap beneath her, including
+the prepared newspaper, was opened by an attendant. The black veil all
+about the chair prevented the audience seeing this.
+
+Helen lowered herself down through the dropped seat of the chair,
+through the trap, and under the stage. And while she was doing this it
+still looked as if she were in the chair, for the false cap and the
+extended cross rod made outlines as if of a human form beneath the black
+veil.
+
+As soon as Helen was out of the chair and beneath the stage an attendant
+closed the newspaper and wooden floor traps. Joe then suddenly raised
+the veil, taking in its folds the false cap and the cross piece which
+had represented Helen's shoulders. They were thin and light--these
+pieces of trick apparatus--and no one suspected they were in the veil.
+The hinged seat of the chair snapped back in place by means of a spring,
+and when Joe stepped aside, holding the veil, there was the empty chair;
+and the newspaper, which he picked up, seemed to preclude the
+possibility of there having been a trap in the stage. But Joe was
+careful how he exhibited this paper to his audience.
+
+And so it was that the lady "vanished."
+
+"And now, Joe, tell me all about it!" demanded Helen, when the circus
+was over for the afternoon, and the box and vanishing tricks had been
+successfully performed. "What happened to your trapeze?"
+
+"Some one spilled acid on one of the wire ropes, and it ate into the
+metal, corroding it and separating a number of the strands so that a
+little extra weight broke them," said Joe.
+
+"Acid on the cable?" cried Helen. "How did you find out?"
+
+"I just examined the wire. I knew it couldn't have rusted naturally in
+such a short time. There was a peculiar smell about the wire, and I know
+enough of chemistry to make a simple acid test! What kind of acid was
+used I don't know, but it was strong enough to eat the steel."
+
+"Who could have put it on?"
+
+"That I've got to find out!"
+
+"Was it Harry Loper?"
+
+"I taxed him with it, but he swears he knew nothing of it," said Joe.
+"I'm inclined to believe him, too. I charged him with drinking, and he
+could not deny that. But he said he met some old friends and they
+induced him to have a little convivial time with them. No, I don't
+believe he'd do it. He's weak and foolish, but he had no reason to try
+to injure me."
+
+"Who would, Joe? Of course there's Bill Carfax, but he hasn't been seen
+near the circus of late."
+
+"No, I don't believe it could have been Bill. I'll have to be on my
+guard."
+
+"Do, Joe!" urged Helen. "Oh, I can't bear to think of it!"
+
+"Don't then!" laughed Joe, trying to make light of it. "Let's go down
+town and I'll buy you some ice cream."
+
+"But you're not going to give up trying to find out who put acid on the
+trapeze, are you?"
+
+"No, indeed!" declared the young performer. "I have two problems on my
+hands now--that and trying to learn how too many persons came to the
+circus this afternoon," and he told Helen about the extra tickets.
+
+"That's queer!" she exclaimed. "Some jinx bug must be after us!"
+
+"Don't get superstitious!" warned Joe. "Now we'll forget our troubles.
+They may not amount to anything after all."
+
+But, though he spoke lightly, Joe was worried, and he was not going to
+let Helen know that. They went into an ice-cream parlor and "relaxed,"
+as Helen called it.
+
+The two were on their way back to the circus lot, intending to go to
+supper and prepare for the evening entertainment, when there was a
+sudden alarm down the street, and, in an instant, the fire engines and
+other apparatus dashed past.
+
+"A fire!" cried Joe. "Come on, Helen! It's just down the street!"
+
+They could see smoke pouring from a small building and a crowd rushing
+toward it. Thither, also, the fire apparatus was dashing. Joe and Helen
+were among the early arrivals.
+
+"What is it?" asked Joe of an officer. "I mean what sort of place is
+that?" and he pointed to the building, which was now obscured by smoke.
+
+"Dime museum," was the answer. "Lot of fakes. I sent in the alarm. A
+fire-eater was trying some new stunt and he set the place ablaze, so the
+boss yelled to me. Come now, youse all have to git back!" and he
+motioned to the crowd, which was constantly increasing, to get beyond
+the fire lines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SOMETHING NEW
+
+
+What with the clanging of the gongs on the engines and on the red
+runabouts that brought two battalion chiefs to the fire; the pall of
+smoke, with, here and there, the suggestion of a red blaze; the swaying
+excitement of the crowd; the yells of harassed policemen; the scene at
+the blaze of the dime museum was one long to be remembered by Joe Strong
+and Helen Morton--particularly in the light of what happened afterward.
+
+"Joe, did you hear what he said?" asked Helen, as she moved back with
+the young acrobat in conformity with the officer's order.
+
+"You mean that we've got to slide?"
+
+"No, that a fire-eater started the blaze. Does he mean a professional
+'fire bug,' as I have heard them called?"
+
+"Oh, not at all!" exclaimed Joe. "A fire-eater is a chap who does such
+stunts in a museum, theater, or even in a circus. Sampson Brothers used
+to have one, I understand, from looking over the old books. But it
+wasn't much of an act. Golly, this is going to be some blaze!"
+
+That was very evident from the increased smoke that rolled out and the
+crackle of fire that now could be heard above the puffing of the engines
+and the shouts of the mob.
+
+"A regular tinder box!" muttered the officer who had told Joe the origin
+of the blaze. "Place ought to have been pulled down long ago. Git back
+there youse!" he yelled to some venturesome lads. "Want to git mushed
+up?"
+
+The blaze was a big one, considerable damage was done, and several
+persons were injured. But quick work by an efficient department
+prevented the flames from spreading to the buildings on either side of
+the one where it had started.
+
+Joe and Helen stayed long enough to see the menace gotten under control,
+and then they departed just as the ambulance rolled away with the last
+of the victims.
+
+"That's the fire-eater they're taking to the hospital now," said the
+policeman who had first spoken to the young circus performers. "They
+took him into a drug store to wrap him in oil and cotton batting."
+
+"Will he live?" asked Helen.
+
+"Just a chance," was the answer. "Say, if I had to get my living eating
+fire I'd starve," confided the policeman. "It must be some stunt! I
+always thought it was a fake, but this fire burned real enough."
+
+"Oh, it isn't all fake," said Joe, "though of course there's a trick
+about it."
+
+"You seem to know," said the policeman, and he smiled at Joe and Helen.
+His chief troubles were about over with the departure of the ambulance
+and the knowledge that filtered through the crowd that the most of the
+excitement was over.
+
+"Oh, I'm in the circus business," confessed Joe. "I never ate fire," he
+went on, "but--"
+
+"Oh, I know you now!" cried the officer. "I was on duty out at the
+circus grounds this afternoon, and I went into the tent when you did
+that box act. Say, that's some stunt! Do they really pay ten thousand
+dollars to the fellow who tells how it's done?"
+
+"Well, we've never paid out the money yet," said Joe, with a smile. "But
+it's there, waiting for some one to claim it."
+
+"Then I'm coming to-night to watch you," said the officer, who appeared
+delighted that he had recognized one of the "profesh."
+
+"Come along," replied Joe. "Here, wait a minute! There are a couple of
+passes. Come and bring a friend. If you tell how I do the trick you'll
+get the ten thousand. Only you'll have to post a hundred dollars as a
+forfeit to the Red Cross in case you don't guess right. That's included
+in the offer."
+
+"Oh!" The officer did not seem quite so pleased. "Well, I'll come
+anyhow," he went on, accepting the passes Joe handed him. The policeman
+had allowed Joe and Helen to stay in an advantageous place where they
+could watch the fire.
+
+"Where are they taking the man who did the dangerous trick that caused
+all the trouble?" asked Helen, as she prepared to walk on with Joe.
+
+"To the City Hospital, Miss. He's a bad case, I understand."
+
+"Poor fellow," murmured Helen. "Do you think we could go to see him, and
+do something for him, Joe?" she asked solicitously. "He's in almost the
+same line of business as ourselves."
+
+"Well, I don't know," was the slow answer.
+
+"I can fix it up if you want to see him--that is, if the doctors and
+nurses will let you," said the policeman. "I know the hospital
+superintendent. You just tell him that Casey sent you and it will be all
+right."
+
+"Thanks; perhaps we will," said Joe.
+
+There was a little time after supper before the performers had to go on
+with their acts, and Helen prevailed on Joe to take her to the hospital
+whither the injured fire-eater had been removed. They found him swathed
+in bandages, no objection being made to their seeing him after the magic
+name of "Casey" had been mentioned to the superintendent.
+
+"We came in to see if you needed any help," said Joe to the pathetic
+figure in the bed. "We're in the same line of business, in a way."
+
+"Are you a fire-eater?" slowly asked the man.
+
+"No," Joe told him. "But I'm in the circus--Sampson Brothers'."
+
+"Oh, yes, I've heard about it. A partner of mine was with 'em for years.
+Gascoyne was his name."
+
+"That was before my time," said Joe. "But how are you getting on? Can we
+be of any help to you? We professionals must help one another."
+
+"That's right. We get knocked often enough," was the reply. "Well, I'm
+doing as well as can be expected, the doctor says. And I'm not really in
+need of anything. The museum folks were pretty good to me. Thank you,
+just the same."
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Helen.
+
+"Oh, just my carelessness," said the man. "We get careless after playing
+with fire a bit. I put too much alcohol on the tow, and there was a
+draft from an open door, some draperies caught, and it was all going
+before I knew it. I tried to put it out--that's how I got burned."
+
+"Then you really didn't eat fire?" asked Helen.
+
+Joe and the man swathed in bandages looked at one another and a
+semblance of a wink passed between them.
+
+"Nobody can eat fire, lady," said the museum performer. "It's all a
+trick, same as some your husband does in the circus."
+
+Joe blushed almost as much as did Helen.
+
+"We're not married yet, but we're going to be," explained Joe, smiling.
+
+"Lucky guy!" murmured the man. "Well, as I was saying, it's all a
+trick," he went on. "Strong alum solution in your mouth, just a dash of
+alcohol to make a blaze that flares up but goes out quickly if you
+smother it right. You know the game," and he looked at Joe.
+
+"Well, not exactly," was the reply. "I've read something of it. But,
+somehow, it never appealed to me."
+
+"Oh, it makes a good act, friend!" said the man earnestly. "I've done a
+lot of museum and circus stunts, and this always goes big. There's no
+danger if you handle it right. I'll be more careful next time."
+
+"You don't mean to say you'll go back to it, do you?" asked Helen.
+
+"Sure, lady! I've got to earn my living! And this is the best thing I
+know. I'll be out in a week. I didn't swallow any, thank goodness! Oh,
+sure I'll go at it again."
+
+Joe and Helen cheered the sufferer up as much as they could, and then
+departed. Joe privately left a bill of substantial denomination with the
+superintendent to be used for anything extra the patient might need.
+
+On the way back to the circus, where they were soon to give their
+evening performance, Joe was unusually quiet.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Helen. "Are you thinking of that accident on
+the trapeze?"
+
+"No," was the answer. "It's something different. I've got to get up a
+new act for the show. That trapeze act, even the way I had to do it this
+afternoon, isn't sensational enough. I've got to have something new, and
+I've about decided on it."
+
+"What?" asked Helen.
+
+"I'm going to become a fire-eater!" was the unexpected, reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PAPER EXPERT
+
+
+For a moment Helen Morton stared at Joe Strong as though not quite sure
+whether or not he was in his proper mind. Then, seeing plainly that he
+was in earnest, she seemed to shrink away from him, as he had noticed
+her shrink away, for a moment, from the burned man suffering there in
+the hospital.
+
+"What's the matter, Helen?" asked Joe, trying to speak lightly. "Don't
+you want to see some more sensational acts in the show?"
+
+"Yes, but not that kind," she answered with a shudder she could not
+conceal. "Oh, Joe, if you were to--" She could not go on. Her breast
+heaved painfully.
+
+"Now look here, Helen!" he exclaimed with good-natured roughness, "that
+isn't any way to look at matters; especially when we both depend on
+sensations for making our living.
+
+"You know, as well as I do, that in this business we have to take risks.
+That's what makes our acts go. You take a risk every time you perform
+with Rosebud. You might slip, the horse might slip, and you'd be hurt.
+Now is this new act I am thinking of perfor--"
+
+"Yes, I may take risks, Joe!" interrupted Helen. "But they are perfectly
+natural risks, and I have more than an even chance. You might just as
+well say you take a risk walking along the street, and so you do. An
+elevated train might fall on you or an auto run up on the sidewalk. The
+risks I take in the act with Rosebud are only natural ones, and really
+shouldn't be counted. But if you start to become a fire-eater--Oh, Joe,
+think of that poor fellow in the hospital!"
+
+"He didn't get that way from eating fire--or pretending to eat it--for
+the amusement of the public. He might just as easily have been burned
+the way he is by lighting the kitchen stove for his wife to get
+breakfast. His accident was entirely outside of his act, you might say.
+Why, I use lighted candles in some of my tricks. Now, if some one
+knocked over a candle, and it caused a fire on the stage and I was
+burned, would you want me to give up being a magician?"
+
+"Oh, no, I suppose not," said Helen slowly. "But fire is so dangerous.
+And to think of putting it in your mouth! How can you do it, Joe? Oh, it
+can't be done!"
+
+"Oh, there's a trick about it. I haven't mastered all the details yet,
+so as to give a smooth performance, but I can make an attempt at it."
+
+"Joe Strong! do you mean to say you know how to eat fire?" demanded
+Helen, and now her eyes showed her astonishment.
+
+"Well, not exactly eat it, though that is the term used. But I do know
+how to do it. I learned, in a rudimentary way, when I was with Professor
+Rosello--the first man who taught me sleight-of-hand. He had one
+fire-eating act, but it didn't amount to much. He told me the secret of
+it, such as it was.
+
+"But if I put on that stunt I'm going to make it different. I'm going to
+dress it up, make it sensational so that it will be the talk of the
+country where circuses are exhibited."
+
+"And won't you run any danger?" questioned the girl quickly.
+
+"Oh, I suppose so; just as I do when I work on the high trapeze or ride
+my motor cycle along the high wire. But it's all in the day's work. And
+now let's talk about something pleasant--I mean let's get off the shop."
+
+Helen sighed. She was plainly disturbed, but she did not want to burden
+Joe with her worries. She knew he must have calm nerves and an
+untroubled mind to do his various acts in the circus that night.
+
+After supper and before the evening performance Joe made a careful
+examination of his trapeze apparatus. Beyond the place where the acid
+had eaten into the wire strands, causing them to become weakened so that
+they parted, the appliances did not appear to have been tampered with.
+Nor were there any clews which might show who had done the deed. That it
+could have happened by accident was out of the question. The acid could
+have gotten on the wire rope in one way only. Some one must have climbed
+up the rope ladder to the platform and applied the stuff.
+
+"But who did it?" asked Jim Tracy, when Joe had told him of the
+discovery of the acid-eaten cable.
+
+"Some enemy. Perhaps the same one who was responsible for our loss in
+tickets this afternoon," answered the young magician.
+
+"Carfax?" asked the ringmaster.
+
+"It might be, and yet he isn't the only man who's been discharged or who
+has a grudge against me. There was Gianni with whom I had a fight."
+
+"You mean the Italian? Yes, he was an ugly customer. But I haven't heard
+of him for years. I don't believe he's even in this part of the
+country."
+
+"And we haven't any reason to suppose that Carfax is, either, after his
+fiasco in trying to expose my Box of Mystery trick. But we've got to be
+on our guard."
+
+"I should say so!" exclaimed the ringmaster. "And now about your
+trapeze act, Joe! Are you going to put it on again to-night?"
+
+"Of course. It's billed."
+
+"Then you'll have to hustle to rig up a new rope."
+
+"I'm not going to put on a new rope," declared Joe. "The act went so
+well when I seemed about to fall, that I'm going to keep that feature
+in. I'll rig up a catch on the severed cable. At the proper time I'll
+snap it loose, seem to fall, swing by the dangling bar as I did before,
+and land on the platform that way. It will be more effective than if I
+did it in the regular way."
+
+"But won't it be risky?"
+
+Joe shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"No more so than any trapeze act. Now that I'm ready for the sudden drop
+I'll be on my guard. No, I can work it all right. And now about these
+extra admissions? What are we going to do about them?"
+
+"Well," said the ringmaster, "maybe we'd better talk to Moyne about
+them. If they ring an extra thousand persons in on us again to-night the
+thing will be getting serious."
+
+The treasurer was called in consultation with Joe and Tracy and other
+circus officials, and it was decided to keep a special watch on the
+ticket wagon and the ticket takers that night.
+
+Joe quickly made the change in his trapeze and tested it, finding that
+he could work it perfectly. Then he began to think of his new
+fire-eating act. He was determined to make that as great a success as
+was his now well advertised ten thousand dollar mystery box act.
+
+The evening performance had not long been under way, and Joe had done
+his big swing successfully, when he was sought out by Mr. Moyne.
+
+"The same thing has happened again," said the treasurer.
+
+"You mean more people coming in than we have sold tickets for?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Well, where do the extra admissions come from? I mean where do the
+people get their admission slips from--the extra people?"
+
+"That's what we can't find out," the treasurer aid. "As far as the
+ticket takers can tell only one kind of admission slip for the fifty
+cent seats is being handed them. But the number, as tallied by the
+automatic gates, does not jibe with the number of ordinary admissions
+sold at the ticket office. To-night there is a difference of about eight
+hundred and seventy-five."
+
+"Do you mean," asked Joe, "that that number of persons came in on
+tickets that were never sold at the ticket wagon?"
+
+"That's just what I mean. There is an extra source from which the
+ordinary admission tickets come. As I told you this afternoon, we are
+having no trouble with our reserved seats. There have been no duplicates
+there. But there is a duplication in the fifty cent seats, where one may
+take his pick as to where he wants to sit."
+
+"Don't we have tickets on sale in some of the downtown stores?" Joe
+asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, several of the stores sell tickets up to a certain hour. Then
+they send the balance up here for us to dispose of."
+
+"How about their accounts? Have you had them gone over carefully?"
+
+"They tally to a penny."
+
+"How about the unsold tickets these agents send back to us? Isn't there
+a chance on the way up for some one to slip out some of the pasteboards,
+Mr. Moyne?"
+
+"There is a chance, yes, but it hasn't been done. I have checked up the
+accounts of the stores, and there is the cash or the unsold tickets to
+balance every time. But somehow, and from some place, an extra number of
+the ordinary admission tickets are being sold, and we are not getting
+the money for them."
+
+"It is queer," said Joe. "I have an idea that I want to try out the
+first chance I get. Save me a bunch of these ordinary admission tickets.
+Take them from the boxes at random and let me have them."
+
+"I will," promised the treasurer. "There is nothing we can do to-night
+to stop the fraud, is there?" he asked. Mr. Moyne was a very
+conscientious treasurer. It disturbed him greatly to see the circus lose
+money.
+
+"I don't see what we can do," said Joe. "If we start an inquiry it may
+cause a fight. Let it go. We'll have to charge it to profit and loss.
+And don't forget to let me have some of those tickets. I want to examine
+them."
+
+Mr. Moyne promised to attend to the matter. Joe then had to go on in his
+Box of Mystery trick, and when this was finished, amid much applause, he
+caused Helen to "vanish" in the manner already described.
+
+The circus made considerable money in this town, even with the bogus
+admissions, and as the weather was fine and as the show would exhibit
+the next day in a big city for a two days' stand, every one was in good
+humor. Staying over night in the same city where they exhibited during
+the day was always a rest for the performers. They got more sleep and
+were in better trim for work.
+
+The last act was finished, the chariot races had taken place, and the
+audience was surging out. The animal tent had already been taken down
+and the animals themselves were being loaded on the railroad train.
+
+As Joe, Helen, and the other performers started for their berths, to
+begin the trip to the next town, the "main top" began coming down. The
+circus was on the move.
+
+Soon after breakfast the next morning, having seen that all his
+apparatus had safely arrived, Joe visited Mr. Moyne in the latter's
+office.
+
+"Have you a bunch of tickets for me?" asked the young magician.
+
+"Yes, here they are--several hundred picked at random from the boxes at
+the entrance. I can't see anything wrong. If you're looking for
+counterfeit tickets I don't believe you'll find them," added Mr. Moyne.
+
+"I don't know that I am looking for counterfeits," said Joe. "That may
+be the explanation, or it may be there is a leak somewhere in the ticket
+wagon."
+
+"I'm almost sure there isn't," declared the treasurer. "But of course no
+one is infallible. I hope you get to the bottom of the mystery."
+
+"I hope so myself," replied Joe, with a smile, as he put the tickets in
+a valise.
+
+A little later he was on his way downtown. He had several hours before
+he would have to go "on," as he did not take part in the parade, and he
+had several matters to attend to.
+
+Joe made his way toward a large office building, carrying the valise
+with the circus tickets. A little later he might have been seen entering
+an office, the door of which bore the name of "Herbert Waldon,
+Consulting Chemist."
+
+"Mr. Strong," said Joe to the boy who came forward to inquire his
+errand. "Mr. Waldon is expecting me, I believe."
+
+"Oh, yes," said the boy. "You're to come right in."
+
+Joe was ushered into a room which was filled with strange appliances,
+from test tubes and retorts to electrical furnaces and X-ray apparatus.
+A little man in a rather soiled linen coat came forward, smiling.
+
+"I won't shake hands with you, Mr. Strong," he said, "for I've been
+dabbling in some vile-smelling stuff. But if you wait until I wash I'll
+be right with you."
+
+"All right," assented Joe. And then, as he caught sight of what seemed
+to be a number of canceled bank checks on a table, he smilingly asked:
+"Have you been paying your income tax?"
+
+"Oh, no," answered the chemist with a laugh. "Those are just some
+samples of paper sent in for me to test. An inventor is trying to get up
+an acid-proof ink. I'm a sort of paper expert, among my other chemical
+activities, and I'm putting these samples through a series of tests.
+But you'll not be interested in them."
+
+"I don't know but what I shall be," returned Joe, with sudden energy.
+"Since you are a paper expert I may be able to set you another task
+besides that of showing me the latest thing in fire-resisting liquids.
+Yes, I may want your services in both lines."
+
+"Well, I'm here to do business," said Mr. Waldon, smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JOE EATS FIRE
+
+
+The chemist led the way into a little office. This opened off from the
+room in which was the apparatus, and where, as Joe had become more and
+more keenly aware, there was a most unpleasant odor.
+
+"I'll open the window, close the laboratory door, and you won't notice
+it in a little while," said Mr. Waldon, as he observed Joe's nose
+twitching. "I'm so used to it I don't mind, but you, coming in from the
+fresh air--"
+
+"It isn't exactly perfume," interrupted Joe, with a laugh. "But don't be
+uneasy on my account. I can stand it."
+
+However, he was glad when the fresh air came in through the window. The
+chemist washed his hands and then sat down at a desk, inviting Joe to
+draw up his chair.
+
+"Now, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Waldon. "Is it fire or paper?"
+
+"Well, since I know pretty well what I want to ask you in the matter of
+fire," replied Joe, "and since I've got a puzzling paper problem here,
+suppose we tackle the hardest first, and come to the known, and easier,
+trick later."
+
+"Just as you say," assented Mr. Waldon. "What's your paper problem?"
+
+Joe's answer was to take from the valise several hundreds of the circus
+tickets. They were the kind sold for fifty cents, or perhaps more in
+these days of the war tax. They entitle the holder to a seat on what, at
+a baseball game, would be called the "bleachers." In other words they
+were not reserved-seat coupons.
+
+However, these tickets were not the one-time blue or red pieces of stiff
+pasteboard, bearing the name of the circus and the words "ADMIT ONE,"
+which were formerly sold at the gilded wagon. These were handed in at
+the main entrance, and the tickets were used over and over again.
+Sometimes the blue ones sold for fifty cents, and a kind selling for
+seventy-five cents entitled the purchaser to a seat with a folding back
+to it, though it was not reserved.
+
+But Joe had instituted some changes when he became one of the circus
+proprietors, and one was in the matter of the general admission tickets.
+He had them printed on a thin but tough quality of paper, and each
+ticket was numbered. In this way it needed but a glance at the last
+ticket in the rack and a look at the memorandum of the last number
+previously sold at the former performance, to tell exactly how many
+general admissions had been disposed of.
+
+These numbered tickets were not used over again, but were destroyed
+after the day's accounts had been made up. At first Joe and some others
+of the officials had had an idea that the man who was charged with the
+work of destroying the tickets, instead of doing so, had kept some out
+and sold them at a reduced price. But an investigation proved that this
+was not the case.
+
+"Some one is ringing in extra tickets on us," stated Joe to the chemist.
+"We want to find out who it is and how the trick is worked. So far, we
+haven't been able to find this out. As a matter of fact, we don't know
+whether there are bogus tickets in our boxes or not. We haven't been
+able to detect two kinds. They all seem the same."
+
+"Some numbers must be duplicated," said Mr. Waldon, as he picked up a
+handful of the slips Joe had brought. "That's very obvious. The numbers
+must be duplicated in some instances."
+
+"Yes, we have discovered that," returned Joe. "But the queer part is,
+taking even two tickets with the same number, we don't know which was
+sold at our ticket wagon and which is the bogus one. Here's a case in
+point."
+
+He picked up two of the coupons. As far as eye or touch could tell they
+were identical, and they bore the same red number, one up in the
+hundred thousands.
+
+"Now," continued Joe, "can you tell which of these two is the official
+circus ticket and which is the bogus one?"
+
+The chemist thought for a moment.
+
+"Have you a ticket--say one issued some time ago--which you are positive
+is genuine?" he asked.
+
+"I'm ready for you there," answered Joe. "Here's a coupon that happened
+to escape destruction. It was one sold several weeks ago at our ticket
+wagon, before we noticed this trouble. I bought the ticket myself, so I
+know. I happened to be passing the wagon, and a boy was trying to reach
+up to buy a fifty cent seat. He wasn't quite tall enough, so I reached
+for him.
+
+"Then, when I looked at him, I saw that fifty cents meant a lot to him.
+I gave him back his half dollar out of my own pocket, and passed him in
+to a reserved seat. But I forgot to turn the ticket in to the wagon, and
+it's been in my pocket ever since. Now I'm glad I saved it, for it will
+serve as a tester."
+
+"Yes," admitted the chemist, "it will. It's a good thing you have this.
+But, Mr. Strong, this is going to take some time. I'll have to compare
+all these tickets with the admittedly genuine one, and I'll have to make
+some intricate tests."
+
+"Well, I hoped you might be able to tell me right off the reel which of
+these coupons were good and which bad," said Joe. "But I can appreciate
+that it isn't easy. We certainly have been puzzled. So I'll leave them
+with you, and you can write to me when you have any results. I'll leave
+you a list of the towns where we'll be showing for the next two weeks.
+And now suppose we get at the fire-eating business."
+
+"All right," was the reply of the chemist. "But with the understanding
+that you do all the eating. I haven't any appetite that way myself."
+
+They both laughed, and then, for some hours, Joe Strong was closeted
+with the chemist.
+
+When Joe emerged from the office of Mr. Waldon there was a look of
+satisfaction on the face of the young magician.
+
+"I think I can make quite an act, after what you've told me," he said.
+"As soon as I get it perfected I'll send you word and you can come to
+see me."
+
+"I will, if you aren't too far away," promised the chemist.
+
+That night, following the closing of the performance, Joe invited Helen,
+Jim Tracy, and a few of his more intimate friends and associates into
+his private dressing tent.
+
+"I have the nucleus of a new act," he said, when they were seated in
+chairs before a small table, on which were several pieces of apparatus.
+"Just give me your opinion of this."
+
+Joe lighted a candle, picked up on a fork what seemed to be a piece of
+bread, and touched it to the candle flame. In an instant the object that
+was on the fork burst into a blaze, and, before the eyes of his friends,
+Joe calmly put the flaming portion into his mouth.
+
+He closed his lips, seemed to be chewing something, opened his mouth,
+and showed it empty.
+
+"A little light lunch!" he remarked, but his smile faded as Helen
+screamed in horror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE CHEMIST'S LETTER
+
+
+"Oh, Joe, you'll surely burn yourself!" exclaimed the startled bareback
+rider.
+
+"Did you get burned?" questioned Mrs. Watson.
+
+"Some trick!" declared the snake charmer.
+
+For the moment there was some excitement, for this was a new act for the
+circus people.
+
+Helen soon recovered her customary composure, and then she explained the
+cause of her excitement and the startled cry she had given. She had, of
+course, expected some trick with fire when Joe had summoned her and the
+others to his own private part of the dressing tents. But she had not
+expected to see him actually put the blazing material in his mouth.
+
+"I thought there was some sleight-of-hand performance about it," she
+said. "I had an idea that you only pretended to put the blazing stuff in
+your mouth, Joe. And when I saw it I was afraid you'd breathe in the
+flames and--and--"
+
+She did not need to go on, they all understood what she meant, for
+every one in the circus knew that Helen and Joe were engaged.
+
+"I once saw a little boy burned at a bonfire at which he was playing,"
+went on Helen. "He died. Since then the sight of fire near a human being
+has always a bad effect on me. But I suppose I can get over it, if I
+know there is no danger," she said with a slight smile at Joe.
+
+"Well, I can assure you there isn't the slightest danger," he declared.
+"If there was, I should be the first to give it up. I am as fond of
+living as any one."
+
+"You don't show it, young man, in some of the tricks you do," commented
+Mrs. Watson, with the freedom befitting a "circus mother," and the
+privilege of an old friend. "You must remember that you don't live only
+for yourself," and she looked significantly at Helen.
+
+"Oh, I'll be careful!" promised Joe. "And now I'll do the trick again
+for you, and let you see that it's absolutely harmless. Any of you could
+do it--if you knew how."
+
+"Excuse me!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "Not for mine!"
+
+However they all watched Joe eagerly and interestedly, even Helen. He
+did not seem to make any unusual preparations. He merely took a drink of
+what seemed to be water. Then he ignited something in the flame of the
+candle and placed the burning stuff in his mouth, seeming to chew it
+with gusto.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Helen. But beyond that and a momentary placing of one
+hand over her heart, she did not give way to emotion. Then, as Joe did
+the fire-eating trick again, Helen forced herself to watch him closely.
+As he had said, he took no harm from the act.
+
+"Tell us how you do it," begged Bill Watson. "When I get over being
+funny--or getting audiences to think I am--I may want to live on
+something hot. How do you work it?"
+
+"Well," said Joe, "if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not tell. It
+isn't that I'm afraid of any of my friends giving the trick away, and so
+spoiling the mystery of it for the crowds. It's just as it was in my box
+act. If any of you are asked how I do this fire trick you can truly say
+you don't know, for none of you will know by my telling, not even Helen,
+though she is in on the box secret. I'll only say that I protect my face
+and mouth, as well as hands, in a certain way, and that I do, actually,
+put the blazing material into my mouth. I am not burned. So if any one
+asks you about the act you may tell them that much with absolute truth.
+Now the question is--how is it going to go with the audiences? We need
+something--or, at least, I do--to create a sensation. Will this answer?"
+
+"I should say so!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "That ought to go big when it's
+dressed up."
+
+"Oh, this is only the ground work," said Joe. "I'm going to elaborate
+this fire act and make it the sensation of the season. I've only begun
+on it. I got from a chemist the materials I want with which to protect
+myself, and I have shown, to my own and your satisfaction, that I can
+eat fire without getting harmed. So far all is well. Now I'm going to
+work the act up into something really worth while."
+
+"But you'll still be careful, won't you, Joe?" asked Helen.
+
+"Indeed I will," he assured her.
+
+"Do the trick once more, Joe," suggested Bill Watson. "I'm coming as
+close as you'll let me, and I want to criticize it from the standpoint
+of a man in the audience."
+
+"That's what I'm after," said Joe. "If there are any flaws in the act,
+now is the time to find it out."
+
+Once more he set the material ablaze and put it into his mouth. Bill
+Watson watched closely, and, at the end, the old clown shook his head.
+
+"I saw you actually put the fire in your mouth," he testified. "No one
+can do more than that. It takes nerve!"
+
+Of course, no one can actually swallow fire and live. The slightest
+breath of flame on the lungs or on the mucous membrane of the throat
+and passages is fatal. So when the terms "fire-eating" or "fire-eater"
+are used it will be in the sense of its being a theatrical act. There is
+a trick about it, and the trick is this:
+
+In the first place, the flame itself is produced by blazing alcohol.
+This produces a blaze, and a hot one, too, but there is no smoke. In
+other words, the combustion is almost perfect, there being no residue of
+carbon to remain hot after the actual flame is extinguished.
+
+And now as to the actual putting into one's mouth something that is
+blazing hot: It all depends on a very simple principle.
+
+If the hand be thoroughly wet in water it may be safely thrust for a
+fraction of a second into a flaming gas jet. But mark this--for the
+_fraction of a second only_. The water forms a protecting film for the
+skin, and before it is evaporated the hand must be taken out of danger.
+In other words, there is needed an appreciable time for the fire to beat
+the skin to the burning point.
+
+This immunity from burns, to which the professional fire-eaters owe
+their success, comes from this film of moisture on their skin. They do
+not always use water--in fact, this is only serviceable for a momentary
+contact with flame, and, at that, on the hands or face. In case a longer
+contact is desired, a fire-resisting chemical liquid is used.
+
+It is about the contact of flame with the tender mucous membrane
+surfaces of the mouth and throat that Joe, as a fire-eater, was most
+concerned.
+
+In the first place, there is a constant film of the secretion called
+saliva always flowing in the mouth. It comes from glands in the throat
+and mouth, and is very necessary to good digestion.
+
+Now, for a very brief period this saliva, which is just the same as a
+film of water on the hand, resists the fire. But professional
+fire-eaters do not depend on saliva alone. They use a chemical solution,
+and this is what Joe did when he drank something from a glass.
+
+What that chemical solution was, Joe kept as a closely guarded
+professional secret. He feared, too, that some boy might make it, rinse
+his mouth out with it, and then, getting an audience of his chums
+together, might try to eat some blazing coals. He might, and very likely
+would, be severely burned, and his parents or those in charge of him
+would blame Joe for allowing such dangerous information to leak out.
+
+So, though he guarded all his secrets of magic, he was particularly
+careful to keep this one to himself.
+
+But Joe protected his mouth and throat with a fire-resisting liquid, the
+formula for which was given him by the chemist to whom he submitted the
+circus tickets.
+
+The success of Joe and others of his kind depends also in this on a
+well known natural law. It is that there can be no combustion in the
+ordinary sense where there is no oxygen. As a candle will surely go out
+if enclosed in an air-tight receptacle--that is, it will go out as soon
+as it has burned up all the oxygen--just so surely will flame of any
+kind go out when a person closes his mouth on it. And as there is
+scarcely any air in the closed mouth--all of it going down the bronchial
+tubes into the lungs--it follows that the flame dies out almost
+instantly. That fact being considered, and the mouth and throat having
+been previously treated with the secret chemical, there is really not so
+much danger as appears.
+
+As a matter of fact, a person inadvertently swallowing hot tea or coffee
+will burn or scald his mouth or tongue much more painfully than will a
+professional fire-eater. Most people know how painful a burned tongue
+is.
+
+Joe told something of the history of fire-eating "champions" to his
+audience of friends, for it appeared that he had been reading up on the
+subject and was well informed. Then he announced that the private
+rehearsal was over.
+
+"But I'm going to work this fire-eating up into something that will
+cause a sensation," he said. And he made good his promise.
+
+It was about a week after this, and the circus had been traveling
+about, playing to good business, when Joe received a letter. In the
+upper left-hand corner was the imprint of Herbert Waldon, Chemist.
+
+"I hope he has some news about the circus tickets!" exclaimed Joe. For
+the show had been losing money steadily by means of the bogus coupons;
+not as much as at first, but enough to make it necessary to discover the
+fraud. And, so far, Mr. Moyne had not been successful.
+
+"Perhaps this explains the mystery," mused Joe as he opened the letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE PET CAT
+
+
+The typewritten sheet of the letter from Mr. Waldon enclosed two of the
+engraved circus coupons. They fluttered to the floor of Joe's private
+tent as he tore open the envelope.
+
+"Well, either he has discovered something, or he has sent them back and
+given up," mused the young magician. "Let's see what he says."
+
+Joe quickly took in the contents of the letter. In effect it stated that
+Mr. Waldon had discovered which were the bogus and which were the real
+circus tickets. He first gave an explanation of the chemical tests he
+used. Joe read this hastily, but carefully, then passed to the
+conclusions arrived at by the expert, who was an authority on various
+kinds of paper, as well as chemicals.
+
+"The ticket I have marked No. 1 is a genuine coupon, issued by your
+circus corporation," said Mr. Waldon in his letter. "The slip marked by
+me as No. 2 is a counterfeit. You will observe that they both bear the
+red ink serial number 356,891.
+
+"If you were a paper expert you would observe that the paper used in
+the two tickets is different. There is not a very great difference, and
+I am inclined to think that both the genuine and the counterfeit tickets
+were made on paper from the same mill, but of a different 'run.' That
+is, it was made at a different time.
+
+"The printer who manufactured your tickets bought his paper from a
+certain mill making a specialty of this particular kind. Then some one,
+who must know something of your financial and business interests, had
+the bogus tickets made, and on the same kind of paper. But there is a
+slight difference, which I was able to detect by means of chemical
+reactions. The coloring matter used varied slightly, though the texture
+of the two kinds of paper is almost exactly similar.
+
+"Now, having settled that point, the solution of the remaining equations
+of the problem rests with you. I can not tell who had the bogus tickets
+printed. You will have to go to the mill making the paper and find out
+to whom they sold this kind. In that way you will learn the names of all
+printers, using it, and by a process of elimination you will get at the
+one who printed the counterfeits.
+
+"This printer may be an innocent party, or he may be guilty. That is for
+you and the detectives to determine. I hope I have started you on the
+right track. I shall be interested to hear, my dear Mr. Strong, how you
+make out in your fire-eating act."
+
+"I'll tell him as soon as I try it on a real audience," said Joe, with a
+smile, as he folded the letter. "And so counterfeit tickets have been
+rung in on us! Well, I suspected that, since our own men were thoroughly
+to be trusted. Now to get at the guilty ones. And I shouldn't be
+surprised if I could name one of the men involved. But I'll call a
+meeting, and lay this before the directors."
+
+The Sampson Brothers' Show was incorporated and was run strictly on
+business lines. There was a board of directors who looked after all
+business matters, and Joe was soon in consultation with them, laying
+before them Mr. Waldon's letter and the two marked tickets.
+
+"It would take an expert to tell them apart," said Mr. Moyne, as he
+examined the coupons closely. "Well, what are we to do?"
+
+"In the first place," declared Joe, "we must change our form of general
+admission tickets at once. That will stop the fraud, graft, or whatever
+you want to call it. Then we must do as Mr. Waldon says--look for the
+guilty parties. We'll have to hire some detectives, I think."
+
+This plan was voted a good one, and steps were at once taken to change
+the form and style of the general admission tickets. Joe also wired for
+a man from a well known detective agency to meet the show at the next
+town. Then the printing shop which made the circus tickets was
+communicated with.
+
+That was all that could be done at present, and Joe gave his attention
+to perfecting his new fire-eating act.
+
+He did not give up his mystery box trick, and he still presented the
+vanishing lady illusion, Helen assisting in both of these. Joe also did
+the big swing, which always caused a thrill on account of the danger
+involved. Careful watch was kept over the trapeze and other apparatus so
+that no more dangerous tampering could he attempted, and Joe always
+looked over everything with sharp eyes before trusting himself high in
+the air.
+
+"Some one evidently has a grudge against me as well as against the
+circus in general," he said to Jim Tracy.
+
+"Maybe it's the same person," suggested the ringmaster.
+
+"Perhaps. Well, as soon as we get some word from the detectives we can
+start on the trail."
+
+The circus had arrived at a large city, where it was to show three days
+and nights, and preparations were made for big crowds, as the city was
+the center of a large number of industries, where many thousands of men
+were employed at good wages.
+
+"We'll play to 'Straw Room Only' at every performance," said Mr. Moyne,
+rubbing his hands with glee as he thought of the dollars that would be
+taken in. "And I'm glad we discovered the bogus tickets in time. We'd be
+out a lot of money if the counterfeits were to be used here."
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe. "But we aren't out of the woods yet. The same man who
+imitated the light green tickets may have the bright blue ones which we
+now use for general admission duplicated and sell them."
+
+"We'll have to take that chance," said the treasurer. "But I'll instruct
+the ticket takers to be unusually careful."
+
+That was all that could be done. The detective had reported that he was
+making an examination, starting at the paper mill, and was endeavoring
+to learn where the bogus tickets had been made.
+
+The circus parade had been held and witnessed by enthusiastic crowds
+lining the streets. Then was every prospect of big business, and it was
+borne out.
+
+Joe wished he had prepared his fire act earlier but it could not be
+helped.
+
+"I'll have it ready for to-morrow, though," he said to Jim Tracy, at the
+conclusion of the first afternoon in the big city where they were to
+stay three days.
+
+"Then I'm going to have it advertised," said the ringmaster, who also
+sometimes acted as assistant general manager. "We'll bill it big. You're
+sure of yourself, are you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Joe with a laugh. "I'll give 'em their money's worth
+all right, but it won't be the big sensation I'm planning for later on.
+That will take time."
+
+"Well, as long as it's a fire act it will be new and novel, and it will
+draw," declared Jim Tracy.
+
+It was later in the afternoon, when the circus performance was over,
+that Joe and Helen strolled downtown, as was their custom. Some
+convention was being held in the city, and across one of the principal
+streets was stretched a big banner of the kind used in political
+campaigns.
+
+It was hung from a heavy, slack wire from the brick walls of two
+opposite buildings, and the banner attracted considerable attention
+because of a novel picture on it.
+
+Joe and Helen were standing in the street, looking up at the swaying
+creation of canvas and netting, when a woman's cry came to their ears.
+
+"Look! Look! The cat! The cat is walking the wire!" she exclaimed.
+
+Joe and Helen turned first to see who it was that had cried out. It was
+a woman in the street, and with her parasol she pointed upward.
+
+There, surely enough, half way out on the thick, slack wire, and high
+above the middle of the street was a large white cat. It was walking
+the wire as one's pet might walk the back fence. But this cat seemed to
+have lost its nerve. It had got half way across, but was afraid to go
+farther and could not turn around and go back.
+
+As Joe and Helen looked, a woman appeared at the window of one of the
+buildings from the front walls of which the banner was suspended, and,
+pointing at the cat, cried:
+
+"A hundred dollars to whoever saves my cat! A hundred dollars reward!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE RESCUE
+
+
+The tumult which had arisen in the street beneath the banner when the
+crowd caught sight of the cat was hushed for a moment after the woman's
+frantic cry. Before that there had been some laughter, and not a few
+cat-calls and exaggerated "miaows" from boys in the street. But now
+every one, even the mischievous urchins, seemed to sense that something
+unusual was about to take place.
+
+"Come back, Peter! Come back!" cried the woman, stretching out her arms
+to the cat from the window out of which she leaned. "Come back to me!"
+
+The white cat on the wire heard the voice of the woman and seemed to
+want to return to its mistress. But either the cat was not an adept at
+turning on such a narrow support, or it was afraid to try.
+
+And, likewise, it was afraid to go forward. There it stood, about in the
+middle of the wire, high above the street, and it clung to its perch by
+its claws.
+
+The banner was hung from the cross wire by means of several loops of
+rope, and it was in some of these loops that the cat had stuck its
+claws, and so hung on.
+
+As the cat remained there, suspended, the crowd in the street below
+increased in size. But from the time the woman had so frantically called
+there had been no more of the cries from the crowd that might be
+expected to frighten the animal.
+
+"Will some one get my cat?" cried the woman in a shrill voice, which
+could easily be heard by Joe, Helen, and nearly every one else. "I'll
+give one hundred dollars in cash to whoever saves him!" she went on.
+"Come back, Peter! Come back!" she appealed.
+
+There was a thoughtless laugh from some one at the woman's anxiety, and
+some one cried:
+
+"There's lots of cats! Let Peter go!"
+
+"The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ought to get after
+whoever that was," said Helen indignantly, and there was an approving
+murmur from some of those near her.
+
+"Does any one know that lady?" asked Joe, pointing at the figure in the
+window. A pathetic figure it was, too, of an old woman clad in black, as
+though she had lost all her friends.
+
+"Yes, she's a queer character," said some one who seemed to know. "Lives
+up there all alone in the old house that, except for the upper part
+where she is now, has been turned into offices.
+
+"She's rich, they say. Owns that building and a lot of others on this
+street. But she lives all alone in a few rooms, and has a lot of pet
+cats. I guess that's one which got away."
+
+"It got away all right," said another man. "And I don't believe she'll
+ever get it back. The cat's scared to death."
+
+"Why doesn't it jump?" asked some one. "I heard that cats always land on
+their feet, no matter how far they fall."
+
+"A fall from there would kill any cat," said Joe, as he handed Helen a
+small package he had been carrying--a purchase he had made at one of the
+stores.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked, sensing that Joe Strong had some
+object in mind.
+
+"I'm going to get that cat," he said in a low voice. "I can't bear to
+see it harmed, and it can't cling there much longer. Night's coming on,
+too, and if it isn't rescued soon it won't be until morning. I know what
+it is to have a pet suffer. I'm going to get that cat!"
+
+"Oh, mister, you can't!" cried a small girl who was standing near by and
+overheard this remark.
+
+"I should say not!" exclaimed the man who had given a little personal
+sketch of the woman in black. "The longest ladder in the fire department
+won't reach up to that wire, and they can't use extension ones, or
+scaling ones as they could on a building. You can't get that cat, sir,
+though I wish some one could. I don't like to see dumb brutes suffer.
+But you can't get it!"
+
+"Perhaps I can!" said Joe modestly.
+
+He started toward the street entrance of the old building, from the
+upper window of which leaned the pathetic figure of the woman calling to
+her cat out on the swaying wire.
+
+"Oh, Joe," Helen began, "are you really going to--" and then she
+stopped.
+
+"I am!" he answered, for he knew she understood. "Wait here for me. I
+won't be long."
+
+Only a few in the crowd had heard what Joe said, or understood his
+intentions as he made his way through the press of people. The woman at
+the window was unaware of the fact that some one had heard her and was
+about to heed her appeal.
+
+"A hundred dollars to whoever saves my cat!" she cried again.
+
+This time no one laughed.
+
+Joe Strong, acrobat, athlete, magician, and possessed of many other
+muscular accomplishments started up the stairs. The lower part of the
+office building was deserted at this hour, but he made his way to the
+place where he judged the woman lived alone. He was confirmed in this
+belief by hearing from behind a closed door the barking and whining of
+dogs.
+
+"She must keep a regular menagerie," mused Joe. "Probably these are all
+the friends she has, poor old lady!"
+
+He knocked on a door that seemed to be the entrance to the living
+apartments. There was a cessation of the barking and whining, and a
+moment later a querulous voice asked:
+
+"Who is there? What do you want?"
+
+"Is that your cat out on the wire?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes! Oh, yes! That's Peter! My favorite cat! Oh, have you saved him?
+Have you got him down? No, you can't have! He's out on that wire yet!"
+she cried. And then she opened the door.
+
+Joe was confronted by the same woman he had observed leaning from the
+window. Her face was pale, and she was quite elderly. But there was a
+kind and pathetic look about her eyes. Once, she must have been
+beautiful.
+
+Joe had no time to speculate on what might have been the romantic
+history of the woman. She looked eagerly at him.
+
+"What do you want?" she demanded. "I never see any one. I live here
+alone. I must beg you to excuse me. I have to see if some one will not,
+save my cat."
+
+"That is just what I came up for," said Joe, smiling. "I am a lover of
+animals myself. I'd like to save your pet."
+
+"Oh, if you will, I'll pay you the hundred dollars!" cried the woman. "I
+have it!" she went on eagerly. "It's in here," and she motioned to the
+rooms. They were tastefully, but not lavishly, furnished.
+
+"We'll talk about that later," said Joe, with a smile. "The point is let
+me get the cat first."
+
+"But you can't get him from here--from these rooms!" the woman in black
+exclaimed. "He's out on the wire! You'll have to climb up in some way!
+Oh, I don't know how you can do it!" There were tears in her eyes and
+she clasped her hands imploringly.
+
+"I can't get your cat from the street," said Joe. "That's why I came up
+here. I must walk out on the wire from your window. Have you a pair of
+slippers? The older and softer the better--slippers with thin, worn
+soles."
+
+"Why, yes, I have. But you--you can't walk out on the wire! It is too
+small, almost, for my cat! You can't do it! It is impossible!"
+
+"Oh, no," answered Joe gently, "it isn't impossible. I have done it
+before. If you'll let me get to a window near which the wire is
+stretched, and if you will let me take a pair of old slippers."
+
+"Come in!" interrupted the eccentric old woman, opening wide the door.
+"I don't in the least know what you intend to do, but something seems to
+tell me I can trust you. And if only you can save Peter--"
+
+"I'll try," said Joe simply.
+
+The woman began to search frantically in a closet, throwing out shoes,
+dresses, and other feminine wearing apparel. As she delved among the
+things, a shout arose from the street, the noise of the voices floating
+in through the open window. Joe looked out.
+
+"Oh, has Peter fallen?" cried the woman.
+
+That, too, had been Joe's thought.
+
+"No," he answered, as he took an observation. "Your cat has only changed
+his position a little. I suppose the crowd thought it was going to fall,
+but it's all right. I'll soon have it back to you. Is it a vicious cat?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed. He's as gentle as can be. But perhaps he might be so
+scared now that he wouldn't know what he was doing. I see what you mean.
+Here, I'll give you an old pair of gloves for your hands."
+
+"That's what I want," said Joe. "I can't afford to have my hands
+scratched, as I do some legerdemain tricks. But I need some soft-soled
+slippers more than I need gloves."
+
+"Here is a pair," said the woman. "They're mine. I wear large ones, for
+I like to be comfortable."
+
+"They'll fit me," decided Joe, after an inspection. "Just what I want,
+too!"
+
+He began to take off his shoes.
+
+"Do you really mean you are going to walk out on that wire and get my
+cat?" asked the woman, comprehending his intention as she saw Joe
+putting on the slippers and drawing on the old gloves she had given him.
+They were a man's size, and he judged she must have used them in rough
+work about the house.
+
+"I'm going out on the wire to get your cat," he said.
+
+"Oh, but I ought not to let you! You may fall and be killed! When I said
+I'd give a hundred dollars to whoever would save Peter, I did not mean
+that any one should risk his life. Much as I love my cat, I couldn't
+allow that."
+
+"I'll be all right," said Joe easily. "Walking wires is part of my
+business. Now don't worry. And please don't scream if you are going to
+watch me."
+
+She looked at him curiously.
+
+"I am not in the habit of screaming," she said quietly.
+
+"Well, I thought it best to mention it," said Joe.
+
+He was now ready for his most novel form of walking the wire. He moved
+toward the window from which the woman had leaned. It was the same
+casement whence the cat had started on its perilous journey. Joe felt
+sure of himself. The slippers were just what he needed, with soft,
+pliable soles, worn thin. They were the best substitute he could have
+found for his circus shoes.
+
+The wire from which the banner was suspended was fast to an eye-bolt
+set in the brick wall of the building a little below the sill of the
+window. It had been easy for the cat to step out and get on the cable.
+
+Joe appeared at the window. He had taken off his coat and, in his white
+shirt, blue tie, and black trousers, he made a striking figure in the
+brilliant sunset light.
+
+Instantly the crowd in the street saw him and divined his intention. Joe
+doubted not that Helen was looking up at him.
+
+It was an easy step for him from the window sill to the wire from which
+was suspended the banner. He knew it would support his weight in
+addition to the big net affair. The size of the cable and the manner in
+which it was fastened told him that. Still he cautiously tried it with
+one foot before trusting all his weight to it. The spring of the wire
+told him all he needed to know.
+
+Pausing a moment to make sure of himself, Joe Strong started to walk
+across the wire toward the clinging cat. The crowd gave one roar of
+welcome and approval, and then became hushed. This was what Joe wanted.
+
+Now it was just as if he were doing the act in the circus. Only there
+was this difference--there was no safety net below him. But it was not
+the first time Joe had taken this risk. True, beneath him were the hard
+stones of the street, but a fall from the height at which he now was
+would be fatal, no matter what the character of ground under him. He
+dismissed all such thoughts from his mind.
+
+Slowly, and with the caution he always used, Joe started on his journey
+across the wire. The cat felt his coming, and turned its head, as it
+crouched down, and looked at him. But it did not move. The creature was
+literally "scared stiff."
+
+Foot by foot Joe progressed. Below him the crowd watched breathlessly.
+Joe knew Helen was there, praying for him, though he could not see her.
+In the window stood the figure in black, a silent, hopeful but much
+worried woman. She kept her promise not to scream, but Joe realized that
+the crucial moment was yet to come.
+
+On and on he went nearer and nearer to the crouching cat. If only the
+animal would have sense enough to lie still and not make a fuss when he
+picked it up, Joe felt that all would be well.
+
+But would Peter behave? That was the question.
+
+Joe was now almost over the middle of the street. Far below him was the
+crowd--a sea of upturned faces, reddened by the reflected rays of the
+setting sun. The throng was silent. Joe was glad of that.
+
+"Keep still now, Peter, I'm coming for you!" said Joe in a low voice.
+
+"That's right, Peter!" added the woman. "Be a good cat now. You are
+going to be saved! Keep still and don't scratch!"
+
+Whether the cat heard and understood it is hard to say. But it uttered a
+pitiful:
+
+"Mew!"
+
+Inch by inch, foot by foot Joe advanced. He was quite sure of himself
+now. He felt that he could easily have walked across the wire from
+building to building, with the street chasm below him, and even could
+have made the return trip. But picking up the cat and carrying it back
+was another thing. It would have been easier for Joe to have carried a
+man across on his back. He could direct the motions of the man. Could he
+those of the cat?
+
+Still he was going to try.
+
+On and on he went. The woman in black was leaning from the window,
+holding out her arms as though to catch Joe should he fall.
+
+But he did not think of falling.
+
+In another few seconds he was standing right over the cat. He could see
+the animal's claws tensely clinging to the rope strands that held the
+banner. Now came ticklish work.
+
+"Easy, Peter! Go easy now!" said Joe soothingly.
+
+He slowly and carefully stooped down. It was a trick he had often
+performed in the circus on the high wire. But never under circumstances
+like this.
+
+Joe's hands came in contact with the fur of the cat's back. He gently
+stroked the animal, murmuring:
+
+"Come on now, Peter! Let go! Loosen your claws! I'm not going to hurt
+you. Let me pick you up!"
+
+Again it is hard to say that the cat knew what Joe was saying, but it
+certainly made its body less tense. The claws were loosed. Joe
+straightened up, holding the cat in his arms. He could feel its heart
+beating like some overworked motor.
+
+A roar arose from the crowd, but it was instantly hushed. The throng
+seemed to realize that the return journey was infinitely more perilous
+than the outward one had been.
+
+Joe could not turn. He must walk backward to the window, carrying the
+cat, which at any moment might become wild and scramble from his arms,
+upsetting his balance.
+
+Yet Joe Strong never faltered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE FIRE ACT
+
+
+Realizing that he must use every caution, Joe Strong had two things to
+think of. One was himself, and the other the cat. He could not carry the
+creature in his arms, as he needed to extend them to balance himself. He
+had walked short distances along slack wires without doing this, but in
+those cases he had been able to run, and his speed made up for the lack
+of balancing power of the extended arms. Now, however, he needed to
+observe this precaution.
+
+What could he do with the cat?
+
+In that moment of peril a boyhood scene arose to Joe's mind. He recalled
+that on the farm where he had lived there was a pet cat which liked to
+crawl up his back and curl on his shoulders, stretching out completely
+across them and snuggling against the back of his head.
+
+"If I can get this cat to do that I'll be all right," thought Joe. "I'll
+try it."
+
+Balancing himself, he changed the cat's position and put it up on his
+shoulder. Even if it rested on only one it would leave his hands free
+and he could extend his arms and balance himself. But Peter seemed to
+know just what was wanted of him. With a little "mew," the animal took
+the very position Joe wanted it to--extended along his back, close to
+his head.
+
+And not until then did Joe begin to step backward. Breathlessly the
+crowd watched him. Step by step he went, feeling for the wire on which
+he placed his feet. And each step made him more confident.
+
+The crowd was silently watching. It was reserving its wild applause.
+
+Step by step Joe walked backward until he heard the low voice of the
+woman at the open window.
+
+"Shall I take Peter now?" she asked.
+
+"Can you reach him?" asked Joe. He knew he was close to the building.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"Then do," said Joe. "He may try to spring off when he sees himself so
+close to you. Take him. I'll stand still a moment."
+
+He felt the cat stirring. The next instant he was relieved of Peter's
+weight, and then, with a quick turning motion, Joe himself was half way
+within the window and sitting on the sill.
+
+He had walked out on the wire, stretched a hundred feet above the
+street, and rescued the cat. The pet was now in the arms of the woman in
+black.
+
+And then such a roar as went up in the crowd! Men thumped one another
+on the back, and then shook hands, wondering at their foolishness and
+why there was such a queer lump in their throats.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" gasped the woman, as she hugged Peter to her. "I can never
+thank you enough--not in all my life. It may be foolish to care so much
+for a cat. But I can't help it. It isn't all that. I couldn't have borne
+it to have seen him fall and be killed."
+
+"He's all right now--after he gets over being scared," said Joe, as he
+stroked the cat in the arms of the woman in black.
+
+"And now will you let me know to whom I am indebted?" she asked. "Please
+come in, and I'll pay you the reward."
+
+"Well, I'll come in and put on my shoes," said Joe, with a smile. "I
+didn't need the gloves," he added. "Peter was very gentle."
+
+"Oh, he's a good cat!" said his mistress. "And now," she added, when Joe
+had resumed his shoes and coat, "will you please tell me your name and
+how you learned to walk wires and rescue cats?"
+
+"I never rescued cats before," Joe returned, smiling. "It's something
+new. But walking wires is my trade--or one of 'em. I'm with the circus.
+I do some tricks and--"
+
+"Oh, are you the man who gets out of the box?" she cried. "I have read
+about that trick."
+
+"It is one of mine," said Joe modestly.
+
+"I'm so glad to know you!" exclaimed the woman. She seemed less of a
+recluse than at first. "I haven't been to a circus for years--not since
+I was a child," she continued, half sadly, Joe thought. "But I'm coming
+to-night!" she exclaimed. "I'll have the janitor look after my cats and
+dogs, and I'll go to the circus. I want to see you act. It will bring
+back my lost youth--or part of it," she murmured.
+
+"Allow me to make sure that you will be there," said Joe. "Here is a
+reserved ticket. I will look for you."
+
+"And now let me give you the reward I promised," begged the woman, as
+Joe was about to leave. "I have the money here--in cash," she added
+quickly. She went to a bureau, putting Peter down on a cushion. The cat
+observed Joe intently. The woman came back with a roll of bills.
+
+"No, really, I couldn't take it!" protested Joe. "I didn't save your cat
+for money. I was glad enough to do it for the animal's sake."
+
+"Please take it!" she urged. "I--I am well off, even if I live here,"
+she said hesitatingly. "I shall feel better if you take it."
+
+"And I shall feel better if you give it to the Red Cross," said Joe.
+"That needs it, to help the stricken, more than I do. I make pretty good
+money myself," he added. "And I didn't do this for a reward."
+
+"But I promised it!"
+
+"Well, then consider that I took it, and you, in my name, may pass it on
+to the Red Cross," said Joe. "And now, may I ask your name?"
+
+The woman told him. It was Miss Susan Crawford. The name meant nothing
+to Joe, though he afterward learned she was a member of an old, wealthy
+and aristocratic family. She had had an unfortunate love affair, and,
+her family having all died, she made for herself a little apartment in
+one of her many buildings and lived there with her pets--a recluse in
+the midst of a big city. It was a pathetic story.
+
+"I wish you would let me reward you in some way," said Miss Crawford
+wistfully, as Joe left. "You did so much, and you get nothing out of
+it."
+
+"Oh, yes I do," returned the young acrobat. "I'll get a lot of
+advertising out of this, and it will be the best thing in the world for
+the circus."
+
+And Joe was right. The next day the papers all carried big stories of
+his wire-walking feat to save the cat that had ventured out over the
+street and was afraid to go back. Bigger crowds than ever came to the
+circus.
+
+As she had promised, Miss Crawford was at the evening performance, and
+Joe introduced a little novelty in one of his "magic stunts," producing
+a cat instead of a rabbit from a man's pocket. As he held it up he
+looked over and smiled at the old lady in black, for he had given her a
+seat near his stage. She smiled back.
+
+Joe never saw her again. She was found dead a few months later in her
+lonely rooms, with her cats and dogs around her. But Joe always
+remembered her.
+
+The street wire-walking feat was the talk of the city, and when, the
+following day, Joe announced that he was ready to put on his fire act,
+which had been well advertised, every one was on figurative tiptoes to
+see what it would be.
+
+Joe had made all his preparations, and he had taken care to provide
+against danger and accidents. He realized the risk he was running in
+handling fire in a circus tent before crowds of people. But
+extinguishers were provided, and one of the fire-fighting force of the
+circus was constantly on hand.
+
+After the preliminary whistle of the ringmaster which ended the other
+acts and prepared for Joe's new one, the young magician advanced to the
+platform and gave a little "patter."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "in introducing my new act I wish,
+first of all, to assure you that there is no danger. Even though I seem
+to be in the midst of fire, do not be alarmed. I shall be safe, and no
+harm will come to you."
+
+Joe did this to forestall a possible panic.
+
+"You have all heard of the ancient salamanders," he went on. "It is
+reputed that this animal was able to live in the midst of fire. As to
+the truth of that I can not say. I never saw a salamander, that I know
+of. But that fire may safely be handled by human beings, and not at the
+risk of being burned, I am about to demonstrate to you. I shall first
+show you how to carry fire about in your hands, so that if you run short
+of matches at any time you will not lack means of igniting the gas,
+starting your kitchen range, or enjoying your smoke. While the stage is
+being made ready for my main act, I will show you how to carry fire in
+your hands."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A SENSATIONAL DIVE
+
+
+Striking a match, Joe ignited two candles that stood on a little table
+at one side of his stage. On the other side his assistants were setting
+up the apparatus he intended to use in his more elaborate experiments.
+
+"You observe that the trick has not yet begun," said Joe, with a laugh,
+as he blew out the match. "In other words, I am lighting these candles
+in the ordinary way--just as any one of you would do it, if he needed
+to. In a moment I will show you how to light the candles in case one is
+accidentally blown out and you have no match."
+
+Allowing both candles to burn up well, with clear, bright flames, Joe
+suddenly blew out one.
+
+"Now," he said, "I will show you how to carry fire in your hands from
+the lighted to the unlighted candle. Watch me closely!"
+
+Joe cupped his hands around the lighted candle, seeming to take the
+flame up in his fingers. When he removed his hands, which he still held
+in cup, or globular, shape, the second candle had been extinguished.
+Both were now out.
+
+"You will notice that I am carrying the flame in my hands from one
+candle to the other," said Joe, in a loud voice, as he walked across the
+stage.
+
+For an instant he spread his hands, cup fashion, around the candle he
+had first blown out. Suddenly he withdrew his hands, holding them wide
+apart and in full view of the audience, and, lo! the unlighted candle
+was glowing brightly.
+
+There was a moment of silence, and then the applause broke forth. Joe
+bowed and said:
+
+"That is how to carry fire in your hands. But please don't any of you
+try it unless you get the directions from me."
+
+"Tell us how to do it!" piped up a small boy.
+
+"Come and see me after the show!" laughed Joe.
+
+And, while on this subject, it might be well to explain how Joe did the
+trick. It is very simple, but it takes practice, and an amateur may
+easily be fatally burned in the attempt, simple as it is.
+
+Joe lighted the candles in the usual way, with a match, as already
+explained. There was no trick about this, nor about blowing out one. But
+immediately after that the trick started. Joe placed a little piece of
+waxed paper between the first and second fingers of his left hand as
+soon as he had blown out the first candle. This paper was a slender
+strip, and could not be seen by the audience.
+
+When he cupped his hands around the remaining lighted candle Joe
+ignited this waxed strip, taking care to work it away from his palms and
+fingers. It burned with a tiny flame and with scarcely any heat in the
+middle of the hollow cup formed by his hands.
+
+As soon as he had ignited the paper Joe, by pressing the lower edges of
+his palms against the blazing wick of the candle, extinguished it. This
+had the same effect as though he had "pinched" out the flame with finger
+and thumb, as many country persons put out, or "snuff," candles
+to-day--for candles are still much used in some places.
+
+Now we have Joe with a little blazing taper concealed in his cupped
+hands, advancing to the candle he first blew out. He placed his hands
+around this, lighted the wick from the taper, which he at once crushed
+between his fingers, and the trick was done.
+
+The candle was lighted, the remains of the little taper were concealed
+between Joe's fingers, and it looked as though he had really carried
+fire in his hands. The quickness with which he pinched out the candle
+flame, and also smothered the taper after he had used it, prevented him
+from being burned in the slightest. But it is best for a boy unpracticed
+and without the dexterity of a professional prestidigitator not to
+undertake to play with fire.
+
+Joe Strong believed in doing his tricks and acts artistically and
+elaborately. He had watched other performers "dress their act," and he
+had often improved on what even stage veterans had done. His
+apprenticeship had been a stern but good one.
+
+And now he was going to introduce something novel in his fire-eating
+tricks, but he was also going to add to that. He had read considerable
+of late about the fire-eating tricks of the old "magicians" and had
+delved into many curious old books. Now he was going to give his
+audience some of this information.
+
+"There is a trick in everything," said Joe, as he faced his audience in
+readiness for the fire-eating act. "If I told you that I actually
+swallowed blazing fire, any physician would know that I was not telling
+the truth. I do not really eat the fire. I only seem to do so. But if in
+doing so I can deceive you into thinking I do, and you are thrilled and
+amused, you get your money's worth, I earn mine, and we are all
+satisfied. So don't be alarmed by what you see.
+
+"The resistance of the human body to heat is greater than many persons
+suppose," said Joe. "And there is a vast difference between wet heat and
+dry heat. Water, above one hundred and fifty degrees, would be
+unbearable. It would really burn you badly. Water, as you know, boils at
+two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit. But before this point is
+reached it is capable of ending life.
+
+"Dry heat, however, is different. Men have frequently borne without
+permanent discomfort dry heat up to three hundred degrees. This heat is
+often reached in the drying rooms of oilcloth and oiled silk factories.
+
+"Now the fire I handle is dry heat. I would no more think of pouring
+boiling water over my hands than I would of taking poison. And yet I
+will show you that I can thrust my hand into a blazing fire and suffer
+no harm.
+
+"In an old book I read that to enable one to thrust one's hands into the
+fire all you had to do was to anoint them with a mixture of _bol
+armenian_, quicksilver, camphor and spirits of wine. I should prefer to
+leave that mixture alone, though in the book it is said that if one puts
+that mixture on his hands he may handle boiling lead.
+
+"Perhaps some ancient magician did this, but I think he depended more on
+water than on anything else. If your hands are wet there is formed on
+them a film of moisture which, for a moment, will enable you to
+withstand high degrees of dry heat.
+
+"In another old book I read that if one prepared himself with 'liquid
+stortax,' which is juice from a certain tree growing in Italy, he could
+enter fire, bathe in fire, put a burning coal on his tongue, and even
+swallow fire.
+
+"Now I am not going to let you into all my secrets. You shall see--what
+you shall see!" concluded Joe.
+
+As intimated before, the method Joe Strong used is not going to be
+printed here. You have been given some genuine ancient formulae, safe in
+the knowledge that some of the ingredients can not be obtained. And the
+modern substitutes are not going to be told. Enough to say that Joe had
+"prepared himself."
+
+The young magician looked to see that all was in readiness. Perceiving
+that it was, he retired for a moment to a cabinet set up on the stage,
+and when he came out he was ready for his tricks.
+
+Joe advanced to what seemed to be an elaborate candelabra in which seven
+tapers were set. He stood in front of this a moment, and then he
+announced:
+
+"Having lived on a fire diet so long I have a bit to spare. I will light
+these candles without using a match."
+
+He waved his hand over the candelabra. Sparks were seen to shoot from
+his finger tips, and in an instant the seven lights were glowing. That
+was an electrical trick. In reality the candles were gas jets, made to
+look like wax tapers, and Joe lighted them from an electric current
+produced by a dry battery he carried on his person.
+
+He then proceeded to his main trick. He picked up a plate. It seemed to
+contain pieces of bread. Joe touched the edge of the plate to a flame
+of one of the candles. In an instant the plate was ablaze, and Joe
+calmly began putting the blazing stuff on it into his mouth.
+
+Cube after cube of the blazing "bread" he lifted up on a fork and thrust
+between his lips. And he seemed to enjoy the "eating" of it.
+
+The audience was spellbound. Every one's eyes were on Joe Strong doing
+his fire-eating trick.
+
+The plate was empty. Joe looked about as though for something else hot
+to eat. He caught up an article from a table. Holding it to the flame of
+a candle, it was at once ablaze.
+
+And then, with a thrilling cry, Joe Strong leaped from the stage, his
+two hands, held high above his head, seeming to be enveloped in a mass
+of fire. And with this fire held over him, he ran toward the tank in
+which Benny Turton did his "human fish" act.
+
+The next instant Joe Strong, apparently ablaze all over, dived into the
+tank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+HEAD FIRST
+
+
+Which was the more surprised--Benny Turton, who had just finished his
+fish act in his tank, the spellbound audience, or Jim Tracy, who was, in
+a way, directing Joe's performance--it would be hard to say. All three
+were thrilled by the unexpected outcome of the fire-eating act. Joe
+Strong alone seemed perfectly at his ease, and, it might be mentioned
+incidentally, perfectly at home in the water. He had, as told in a
+previous volume, entitled "Joe Strong, the Boy Fish," perfected himself
+in this sort of work, and could remain submerged for an unusually long
+time.
+
+Of course the fire which seemed to envelop the young magician was
+instantly put out when he leaped into the tank. He was wearing a rather
+fancy suit, and as he came up, wet and bedraggled, Jim Tracy could not
+help wondering what Joe meant by his performance.
+
+"Joe! Joe! was that part of the act or an accident?" asked Jim in a low
+voice, as he ran over to where Joe was now climbing out of the tank.
+For one instant Joe hesitated. The audience was wildly applauding now.
+Clearly there was but one thought in their minds. The whole thing was a
+trick--Joe had only pretended to be on fire and had taken that
+sensational means of appearing to extinguish the blaze.
+
+But the ringmaster noted a queer look on his friend's face. It was not
+the look it usually wore when Joe had completed some hazardous or
+sensational trick.
+
+"Are you hurt, Joe--burned?" asked Jim Tracy anxiously.
+
+"No," was the answer. "It was all part of the act!"
+
+The ringmaster looked satisfied, and it was not until some time
+afterward that he learned what a narrow escape Joe had had.
+
+"This will be part of the fire-eating stunt at every show," said Joe to
+the ringmaster. "You might make the announcement so the people won't be
+scared."
+
+"I will! Say, it's some stunt all right!" And then Jim began with his
+sonorous "Ladies and gentlemen!" He stated that the young fire-eater
+would show his familiarity with, and mastery over, fire by setting
+himself ablaze and leaping into the tank to extinguish the flames. The
+ringmaster added that there would be no danger to either the audience or
+the performer in this feature.
+
+Joe bowed to the applause that followed, and then hurried to his
+dressing room to don dry clothes for his mystery box trick.
+
+"I should think, if you were going to do tank work, you'd wear a suit
+better adapted to it--like mine," said Benny Turton, whose apartment was
+next to Joe's in the dressing tent.
+
+"I'm going to," Joe announced, looking around to make sure no one
+overheard. "The fact of the matter is, Benny, I didn't count on pulling
+off this stunt. It was an accident. Some of the alcohol I use on the tow
+was spilled on my sleeves and caught fire. Then more flames burst out.
+Luckily they were at my back, so when I ran the flames were fanned away
+from me. But I knew the tank was the safest place to go, and in I
+jumped."
+
+"But I heard you tell Jim it was all arranged."
+
+"I did that so the crowd wouldn't get into a panic. However I am going
+to work the trick at each performance after this, only I'm going to wear
+a different suit."
+
+And Joe did. He had a garment partly made of asbestos, though outwardly
+it did not resemble that fire-resisting material any more than do the
+asbestos curtains in theaters. And at the conclusion of his fire-eating
+act Joe would seemingly burst into fire and run blazing across the stage
+to leap into the tank of water.
+
+This finish to the act never failed to win great applause. And once in
+the tank Joe did some of the under-water tricks that had brought him
+fame. He was careful, however, not to duplicate anything that Benny
+Turton did, for he did not want to "crab" the act of his friend.
+
+But Joe's fire and water act was one of the big features on the circus
+bill.
+
+"Is this the sensation you were speaking of?" asked Helen one day, when
+they had concluded an afternoon's performance.
+
+"No," answered Joe. "This only came about by accident. I'm working on
+something more sensational yet, and I am going to ask you to help me."
+
+"I'm sure I'll do anything I can," said she.
+
+"You won't be in any danger," the young magician went on. "I'm beginning
+to understand fire better the more I study it. I'm not getting too
+familiar, either, let me tell you. Even a little scorch is very
+painful."
+
+"I glanced through one of your books the other day," remarked Helen. "Do
+you really suppose some of those old magicians actually handled fire in
+the way it is stated?"
+
+"Well, at least they pretended to," said her friend. "There are tricks
+in all trades, you know."
+
+As the circus went on its way business kept up well, and it was seen
+that the season was going to be an excellent one from a financial
+standpoint.
+
+"Any more bogus tickets coming in?" asked Joe one day of the treasurer.
+
+"Not since we adopted the new style," was the answer.
+
+"Have the detectives gotten on the trail of the man, or the men, who
+cheated us?" asked Helen.
+
+"Not yet," reported Mr. Moyne. "The last report I had from them was that
+they were getting nearer and nearer to a certain person whom they
+suspected. They promise an arrest soon."
+
+"That's the usual story," remarked Joe. "However, we don't so much care
+about an arrest now if we have stopped the counterfeit tickets from
+being worked off on us."
+
+"Well, there's always a chance that the same thing will happen again,"
+returned Mr. Moyne. "It's too easy money for the criminals to give up,
+I'm afraid. I'm on the lookout every day for more counterfeits."
+
+"Well, I'll leave it to you," remarked Joe. "Whenever anything happens
+let me know and we'll take some action."
+
+Joe Strong was now kept very busy in the circus. In fact he was what
+would be called a "star." He did his mystery box trick, and, with Helen,
+worked the "vanishing lady" trick so neatly that no one guessed how it
+was done. The ten thousand dollars was not claimed, successfully, though
+several tried it, with the result that several local Red Cross
+organizations were enriched by the hundred dollar forfeit.
+
+In addition to these mystery acts, and some more ordinary
+sleight-of-hand tricks which he used to fill in with, Joe did his
+fire-eating trick, ending that act with the plunge into the tank. This
+never failed to create a sensation.
+
+"But it isn't the big sensation I'm after!" said Joe, when his friends
+congratulated him. "Wait until you see that!"
+
+Another feature of Joe's performance was his wire-walking. Since he had
+rescued the lady's cat he had added this to his share of the program,
+and it was a thriller enjoyed by many audiences.
+
+"But it's a little tame," said Joe one day to Jim Tracy. "I want to put
+a little more pep into it."
+
+"How are you going to do it?" asked the ringmaster.
+
+"I think I know a way," was the answer.
+
+And a few days later Joe gave a demonstration.
+
+The wire on which he performed was a high one, stretched between two
+well-braced poles. On each pole was fastened a small platform, somewhat
+like those high up in the tent where the big swing was fastened.
+
+Joe walked across the wire from one platform to the other, doing various
+"stunts" on the slender support. One day Jim Tracy noticed that a long
+to the ground between one of the rings and a wooden platform.
+
+"What's that, Joe?" asked the ringmaster, "Looks like an extra guy wire
+for the pole."
+
+"No, that's for my new stunt," said Joe. "I'll show you at this show."
+
+The audience watched him performing on the high wire. Jim Tracy was
+watching, too, for he remembered what Joe had said. Suddenly, at the
+conclusion of the usual wire-walking feats, Joe stooped, placed his head
+on the slanting wire, raised himself until he was standing with his legs
+up and spread apart. Then he quickly flung wide his hands and slid on
+his head down the slanting win to the ground, stopping himself just
+before he reached it by grasping the wire in his gloved hands.
+
+Jim Tracy, who was sitting on a box, leaped to his feat.
+
+"Head first!" he cried. "That's some stunt!"
+
+And the audience seemed to think so, too, from the way it applauded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SWINDLERS AGAIN
+
+
+Joe Strong, having checked his rapid, head-first and head-on slide down
+the slanting wire by grasping it in his gloved hands, gave a "flip-flop"
+and stood up, bowing to the loud applause. Jim Tracy and some of the
+other circus employees surrounded the young man.
+
+"Why didn't you tell us you were going to pull off something like this?"
+demanded the ringmaster.
+
+"Because I wasn't sure until the last minute that I would do it,"
+answered Joe. "I hadn't practiced it as much as I should have liked, but
+when I got up there on the platform I felt pretty sure I could do it. I
+wasn't running much risk anyhow, except that of failure. I knew I
+wouldn't fall, for I could have grabbed the wire in my hands if I had
+started to topple over."
+
+"But how did you do it?" asked some one, who came up to join the
+wondering throng after Joe's feat had been performed. "I've seen you
+stand on your head before, but to slide down a wire--say, what sort of
+scalp have you, anyhow?"
+
+Joe laughed and held out a close-fitting skull-cap of leather. Fastened
+to the leather was a small steel framework, and in this frame were two
+small grooved wheels, like the wheels of a trolley by means of which
+street cars receive the electric current from the wire. Joe put the cap
+on his head to show how it enabled him to do the trick. The big races
+were on now, as the close of the performance was close at hand, and the
+crowd was paying attention to the contests and not to the group of
+performers surrounding the young magician.
+
+Once they had seen the cap with the grooved wheels on top placed on
+Joe's head, his friends understood how the trick was done. He had simply
+to balance himself on his head on the wire, a feat he had often
+performed before. The natural attraction of gravitation did the rest. He
+simply slid down on the wheels, his extended arms and legs steadying
+him.
+
+"It's just as if you had a roller skate on your head," said Senorita
+Tanlozo, the snake charmer, who had strolled into the main tent after
+her act in the side show was over.
+
+"Exactly," said Joe, with a smile. "Would you like to try it?"
+
+"Not while my snakes are alive!" she assured him.
+
+"Well, it's another drawing card for the Sampson Brothers' Show," said
+Jim Tracy that night when the receipts were being counted and
+preparations being made for moving on to the next city. "How long are
+you going to keep it up, Joe?"
+
+"As to that, I can't say," was the answer. "But I like the game, and I
+want to see the circus a success."
+
+"It's a big one now, thanks in a large part to you," observed the
+ringmaster. "But you'd better take a rest now, Joe, my boy. Don't try to
+pull off any more spectacular stunts."
+
+"Oh, I haven't pulled off my big one yet," replied the young magician.
+"I mean the one with the fire. I'm working on that. If it comes out the
+way I think it will we'll have to give three performances a day instead
+of two."
+
+"Oh, we can't do that!" protested Mr. Moyne, the treasurer. "It's hard
+enough keeping account of the money and tickets now, with two shows a
+day. If we have three--"
+
+He paused, for it was very evident Joe was only joking, and there were
+smiles on the faces of the other circus folk.
+
+"Don't worry!" said Joe to the treasurer. "I don't want to act three
+times a day any more than you want to count the tickets and cash. And, I
+suppose, if we could, by some means, give three performances, it would
+only give our swindling ticket friends more chance to work their scheme.
+By the way, there are no further signs of their putting bogus tickets
+on sale, are there?"
+
+"Not since we started the detectives at work," the treasurer answered.
+"But I'm always on the watch, and so are the men at the entrances."
+
+"It's about time those detectives got results, I think," declared Jim
+Tracy. "I wonder what they think we're paying them for?"
+
+"It takes time for a thing like that to be cleaned up," said Joe.
+
+"Well, I know what I'd do if I were detecting," half-growled the
+ringmaster.
+
+"What?" inquired the treasurer.
+
+"I'd round up and arrest a certain few worthless men I know who used to
+be in the circus business--some with this show!" declared Jim. "It's
+queer, but our outfit seems to be the only one that they pick on. That's
+what makes me think it was some one who used to work for us."
+
+"Who?" the treasurer wanted to know.
+
+"Well, I'm not mentioning any names," declared the ringmaster, as he
+prepared to divest himself of his dress suit in readiness for the trip
+to the circus train. "But I have my suspicions."
+
+"What makes you say ours is the only circus to have lost money on bogus
+tickets?" asked Joe.
+
+"Read it in _Paste and Paper_," was the answer. That was the name of the
+trade journal devoted to the interests of circus folk, tent shows, and
+the like. "The last number had a piece in it about our losing money on
+fake tickets," went on the ringmaster, "and it said it was the first
+case of its kind to appear in several years. There have been no
+complaints of circuses in other parts of the country being cheated that
+way, this article said. So I know it's some one picking specially on
+us."
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right," assented Joe. "But as long as we have
+changed our style of tickets and they haven't tried their tricks again,
+maybe we've settled them."
+
+"All the same I'm going to be on the watch," declared the treasurer.
+
+The city where the circus showed the following day and night was a large
+one. A new automobile industry employing many hands had located there
+within the last six months. It was decided to make a stay of two days in
+this place, since the advance agent reported that many of the men worked
+overtime and nights, and otherwise they could not see the performance.
+
+"Well, I'm glad we're to be here two days," remarked Helen, as she
+passed Joe's private quarters, where he was going over some of his
+apparatus, costumes, and effects.
+
+"Yes, we'll have a good night's rest," he agreed, though, truth to tell,
+the circus folk were so used to traveling that the train journey almost
+every night did not bother them. Still they always welcomed a stay in a
+city over night.
+
+"You seem busy," remarked Helen, as she sat down on a box and watched
+Joe.
+
+"Yes, I'm going to introduce a little novelty in the slide down the
+slanting wire," he answered. "I'm going to work in a fire stunt."
+
+"A fire stunt!" exclaimed Helen. "Surely you aren't going to--"
+
+"Oh, it won't be dangerous!" Joe assured her, guessing her thoughts.
+Helen had learned that the jump into Benny's tank the first time was due
+to an accident. "It's just a bit spectacular and will liven things up a
+bit, I think. If it goes well I have an idea you can work one of the
+features in your bareback act."
+
+"Oh, Joe, I never could walk a wire, nor slide down on my head, the way
+you do. And I don't see how Rosebud could, either." And Helen gave a
+merry little laugh at the vision she raised.
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to have your horse walk the tight rope nor the high
+wire!" laughed Joe. "It would be a corking good stunt if we could,
+though. No, this is simpler. I'll tell you about it later."
+
+Mrs. Watson, wife of the veteran clown, called for Helen just then,
+asking her to go to see one of the women performers who was ill.
+
+"I'll see you later, Joe," Helen called out, as she left him.
+
+Joe was busy mixing up some chemicals in a pail on the ground outside
+his tent when he was accosted by a rather hoarse voice asking:
+
+"Any chance for a job here, boss?" Joe looked up to see a somewhat
+disreputable figure of a man observing him. The fellow looked like the
+typical tramp, perhaps not quite so ragged and dirty, but still in that
+class. However, there was something about the man that attracted Joe's
+attention. As he said afterward, his visitor had about him the air of
+the "profesh."
+
+Joe's first impulse was to say that he knew of no job, or else to refer
+his accoster to the head canvas man, who hired transient help in putting
+up the main top and in pulling or driving stakes. But as Joe observed
+the man curiously watching him, he had another idea. Before he could act
+on it, however, the man exclaimed:
+
+"You do a fire-eating stunt, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," Joe answered. And then it occurred to him to wonder how the man
+knew. True he might have observed Joe in some of the many performances,
+but the man did not look like one who would spend money on circus
+tickets. He might have crawled under the tent, but it did not seem
+exactly probable. And, of course, some of the circus employees plight
+have pointed Joe out to the man as the actor who handled fire. But,
+again, Joe did not believe this. So he asked:
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+For answer the man pointed to the pail of chemicals into which Joe was
+about to dip a suit of tights.
+
+"Smelled the dope," was the brief answer. "You're using tungstate of
+soda, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Joe, surprised that a man, evidently of such a class,
+should recognize the not very common chemical.
+
+"We used to use alum in the old days," the man went on. "I guess the new
+dope's better, though I never tried it."
+
+"Are you in the business?" asked Joe.
+
+"Well, I--er--I used to be," and the man straightened himself up with an
+air of forgotten pride. "I was with a circus once--used to do a
+fire-eating act and jump into a fake bonfire. I doped my clothes with
+alum water though. That's great stuff for preventing the fire taking
+hold if you don't stay in the blaze too long. But, as I say, they've
+discovered something new."
+
+"You used to be a fire-eater?" asked Joe curiously.
+
+"Yes. And I was counted a pretty good one. But I lost my nerve."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well--er--not to put too fine a point on it, I got too fond of the
+fire-water. Couldn't stay on the water-wagon long enough, got careless
+in my act, went down and out. Oh, it's the old story. You've probably
+heard it lots of times. But I would like a job now. I'm actually hungry,
+and I've seen the time I could blow the bunch to champagne and lobster."
+
+Joe, on impulse, and yet, too, because he had an object, was just going
+to offer the man help when he saw Mr. Moyne coming across the lot toward
+him from the ticket wagon. The afternoon performance was about to start.
+
+"They're here again!" cried the treasurer.
+
+"Who?" asked Joe.
+
+"The ticket swindlers!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+RINGS OF FIRE
+
+
+Instantly Joe Strong lost interest in the "tramp fire-eater," as he
+afterward came to call the man. All the attention of the young magician
+was centered on what the treasurer had said.
+
+"Are you certain of this?" asked Joe.
+
+"Positive!" was the answer. "We've been keeping careful watch, paying
+special attention to the red serial numbers, and some duplicates have
+been taken in at the main entrance. The swindlers are at work again."
+
+"But our new tickets!" exclaimed Joe. "The new style of paper and the
+precautions we have taken! What of that?"
+
+In answer Mr. Moyne held out two tickets, both bearing the same serial
+number in red ink.
+
+"Which is the bogus and which is the genuine?" he asked.
+
+Joe looked carefully at the two. He examined them for a full minute.
+
+"I can't tell!" he admitted.
+
+"And no one else can, either," declared the treasurer. "We're up
+against it again! Those fellows are too clever for us. Now we'll lose a
+lot of money!"
+
+"Well, it won't break us," said Joe easily. "Though, of course, no one
+likes to be cheated. The only thing to do is to get the detectives busy.
+Let them know the new turn affairs have taken, and I'll send these two
+tickets to our chemist friend. He can tell which is printed from our
+regular stock, and which is the counterfeit.
+
+"Then, too, it ought to be easier to catch the rascals now than it was
+at first. You see, we didn't know how long the old tickets had been
+counterfeited. Now we're warned, first shot out of the box, about the
+new ones. And since the paper mill hasn't been supplying our printer
+with the new kind of paper very long, it ought to be easy to trace where
+the new and clever counterfeit supply is coming from."
+
+"Well, I hope they can catch the scoundrels," said Mr. Moyne. "I
+certainly hate to see money lost."
+
+Mr. Moyne was an ideal treasurer. He always had the interests of the
+circus at heart, and one would think that the money came out of his own
+pocket to hear him talk about the counterfeit tickets. In a way he did
+lose, personally, since he was one of the owners of the show, and the
+less money that came in the less his stock dividends would amount to.
+
+"I'll write to Mr. Waldon to-night," said Joe, as he took the two
+tickets. "And we'll notify the detectives. Now I must get ready for my
+act. That can't be dropped."
+
+"Having trouble, eh?" asked the tramp, who had moved a little to one
+side.
+
+"Oh, well, just a little," admitted Joe, who was not altogether pleased
+that this talk should have been overheard by a stranger.
+
+"Did you say there was any chance for a job?" asked the ragged man.
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Joe, rather doubtfully. "Is that straight
+goods, about your being a fire-eater?"
+
+"I was once. But I'm not looking for that kind of a job now," was the
+quick answer. "I lost my nerve, I tell you. Handling stakes or driving a
+wagon would be my limit."
+
+"What sort of an act in the fire line did you have?" asked Joe, for a
+certain idea was beginning to form in his mind.
+
+"It was a good act!" was the response, and again the spark of pride
+seemed about to be fanned into a flame. "Got any old-timers in this here
+circus of yours?"
+
+"Yes," answered Joe. "There's Jim Tracy and Bill Watson and--"
+
+"Bill Watson who used to clown it?" cried the man eagerly.
+
+"He clowns it yet."
+
+"Old Bill!" murmured the tramp. "Him still making good in the business,
+and me a bum! Well, it's all my own fault. If I'd stuck to the
+fire-eating and not drinking fire-water I'd be somewhere to-day. Just
+ask Bill Watson what sort of an act Ham Logan had--'Coal-fire Logan!'"
+exclaimed the man. "That was my title. Hamilton Logan is my name, but I
+haven't told any one in--not in a long time," he added, and he looked
+away. "But ask Bill Watson about me."
+
+"Here he comes now," said Joe, as he observed the veteran clown
+approaching. "Suppose you ask him yourself."
+
+For an instant Ham Logan hesitated. Then he stepped forward and
+confronted the old clown. The latter paid no attention at first,
+evidently thinking the man one of the many hangers-on about a circus
+ground.
+
+"Joe," began Bill Watson, "Helen sent me to ask you if you have any
+ammonia in your kit--I mean the kind they give the ladies when their
+hearts are weak, or something like that. One of the girls has some kind
+of a little spell, and we can't find the doctor."
+
+"Yes, I have some ammonia," said Joe. "I'll get it."
+
+Ham Logan looked Bill Watson in the face, and asked:
+
+"Don't you remember me?"
+
+"Can't say that I do," was the somewhat cool response of the veteran
+clown. "Is there any reason why I should?"
+
+"Do you remember Coal-fire Logan?"
+
+Bill Watson started, looked more closely at the man, and then slowly
+asked:
+
+"Are you Ham Logan?"
+
+"What's left of me--yes."
+
+"Well, I'll be gum swizzled!" exclaimed Bill. "Say, did the elephant
+step on you or one of the tent wagons roll over you?"
+
+"Neither one. I'm down and out, that's all--and it's enough, too."
+
+"Well, that's enough, I should say," commented the clown, as he took the
+bottle of stimulant Joe handed him. "Last I heard of you you'd gone on a
+theater circuit. That was just after you'd quit the Dobling show."
+
+"Yes, I did do a theater circuit," admitted Ham Logan. "But it didn't
+last. Or rather, I didn't last. I was just asking the young man here for
+a job. I said you'd remember me."
+
+"Well, I certainly do," returned the old clown, who was not to do his
+act until later in the day.
+
+"And I'm sorry to see you in this state, Ham. You did me a good turn
+once, and I haven't forgotten. Stick around a while, and I'll see you
+as soon as I play first-aid. Joe, if it isn't asking too much, will you
+look after Ham for a while? He used to be a good sort, and--"
+
+"Better say too much of a 'good _sport_,'" paraphrased the man.
+
+"I'll take care of him," promised Joe. "Did you say you were hungry?"
+asked the young magician, as the old clown turned and hurried away with
+the ammonia.
+
+"You said it! But I'm not altogether a grafter. I can work for what I
+eat." And again there was a flash of pride.
+
+"We'll talk of that later," said Joe. "Just now I want to get you
+something to eat. Here, take that over to the dining tent," and he
+scribbled a few words on one of his cards. "After you've eaten all you
+want, and after the show this afternoon, look me up."
+
+"Do you think you can give me work?" asked the man eagerly. "I don't
+mean to act," he hastened to say. "I'm past that--down and out. But I'm
+strong. I can pull on the ropes or drive stakes."
+
+"We'll talk of that later," replied Joe gently. "Go and eat now."
+
+"Well, I sure can feed my face!" exclaimed the man. "I--I don't know how
+to thank you. Bill will tell you that I wasn't a bad fellow in my day.
+I just lost my nerve--that's all. False friends and fire-water--"
+
+"See me later," said Joe, with a friendly wave of his hand. And the man
+hurried toward the dining tent, next to the cook wagons. Already he
+seemed imbued with more hope and pride, something that filled Joe with
+pleasure.
+
+Joe busied himself with mixing the chemicals in the pail. As Ham Logan
+had guessed, the young fire-eater was mixing up a solution of tungstate
+of soda. This chemical is a salt, made by roasting wolfram with soda
+ash, and wolfram is a native tungstate of iron and manganese. This soda
+preparation is used commercially in making garments fire-proof, and Joe
+had learned this from Mr. Herbert Waldon, the chemist. He had decided to
+use this instead of an alum solution, which is credited with great
+fire-resisting qualities. It has them, too, to a certain extent, but by
+experimenting Joe had found the tungstate of soda best.
+
+It was the evening of the circus in the city in which the show was to
+remain two days. Ham Logan had returned to Joe after having eaten a good
+meal, and later Bill Watson formed the third member of a trio that
+talked for some time in a corner of Joe's tent.
+
+As already said, it was the evening performance, and as Helen finished
+her act on Rosebud she looked over toward the place where Joe was
+preparing to do his slide down the slanting wire.
+
+"I wonder what he had in mind as a new act for me," mused Helen. "I do
+hope it isn't anything to do with fire. That sort of stunt creates a
+sensation, but it's dangerous, in spite of what Joe does to himself. I
+don't like it! Not after what happened to Joe that day!"
+
+She had seen that Rosebud was given in charge of the groom who always
+looked after the clever steed, and now Helen moved over where she could
+watch Joe's comparatively new wire act.
+
+As she approached this part of the circus tent Helen was startled to see
+several men carrying large hoops on long poles, take their positions on
+either side of the slanting wire down which the daring performer was
+soon to slide on his head, by means of the wheeled cap.
+
+"That's something new!" exclaimed Helen, as she saw the men with the big
+hoops. "I wonder if Joe is going to jump through them, as I jump through
+the paper hoops from Rosebud's back?"
+
+Joe was up on the little platform now, having finished his wire act. He
+was adjusting to his head the leather cap.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!" began Jim Tracy in his sonorous voice, as he
+pointed to Joe on his high perch, thus calling attention to the
+performer.
+
+All eyes were turned in his direction. Then, as Joe stooped over and
+stood on his head, preparatory to sliding down the wire, the hoops,
+which the men held over the cable by means of long poles, suddenly burst
+into flame. Held over the wire, down which Joe would in a moment slide,
+was a row of fiery circles!
+
+Helen held her hand over her lips to stifle a scream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE BROKEN BOTTLE
+
+
+So still was it in the big circus tent after the band stopped playing,
+while Joe prepared to do his head slide, that the whirr of the steel
+wheels in his leather cap could plainly be heard as he slid down the
+wire.
+
+And as Helen and the others watched, the intention of the daring young
+performer became evident.
+
+He was going to coast through the blazing hoops of fire which the men
+held in such a position that Joe could slide through them without
+touching them. Though they were called "hoops," in reality they were not
+completely closed, there being a slight opening to enable them to be
+slipped over the slanting wire. If a gigantic letter "C" with a long
+pole fastened to the lower curved part, can be imagined, it; will give
+an exact idea of what is meant.
+
+As to the fire itself, it was caused by blazing bits of tow fastened to
+the circumference of the big wire hoops. And thus through the blazing
+circles Joe Strong slid down the slanting wire on his head. At the lower
+end of the wire, where it was fast to a stake in the ground, he caught
+hold of the cable in his gloved hands and so slowed his speed. Then he
+leaped to his feet and bowed in acknowledgment of the applause.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Helen, as she watched. "It was only another of his
+sensational acts. When I first saw the blazing hoops I half thought that
+some one was trying to injure Joe, as they did when the acid was used on
+his high trapeze. Oh, it was only a trick!"
+
+And so it was. Joe had planned it that day after meeting Ham Logan. The
+latter, talking about the time when he, too, had been a fire-eater, had
+mentioned an act where a performer leaped through blazing hoops, and Joe
+determined to use the idea, varying it to suit his purpose. That it was
+effective was evidenced by the long-continued applause.
+
+"But, Joe," asked Helen, when the performance was over and she and Joe
+had received another ovation at the conclusion of the box mystery and
+the vanishing lady trick, "wasn't there danger of setting your clothes
+on fire when you went through the blazing hoops?"
+
+"None at all," Joe assured her. "I have been planning a stunt like this
+for some time, and my garments were fire-proofed. Of course I wouldn't
+have done it otherwise. Look here!"
+
+He took up a fancy jacket he had worn in his wire slide. Taking a match
+Joe lighted it and held it against the cloth. It did not take fire.
+
+"There was that day--"
+
+"But I have perfected the act since then, Helen. Of course the tungstate
+of soda that I soaked the clothes in wouldn't keep them from catching
+fire if I put the suit in a furnace. But the solution will make cloth
+resist a blaze temporarily, as will alum under some circumstances. I use
+alum on the suit I wear when I pretend to set myself on fire and then
+jump into the tank of water," went on Joe. "But after this I'm going to
+use the soda. It's more certain."
+
+Joe worked the trick of seeming to set himself ablaze in this way. As he
+said, his suit was made as nearly fireproof as possible. Then on the
+back of his jacket were placed some bunches of tow saturated with
+alcohol. When this tow was set on fire it burned quickly, but Joe knew
+the flame would not last long. And the fact that the garments on which
+the burning material was fastened were as nearly fireproof as was
+possible to make them gave him additional safety. He really ran little
+risk, as the fire was at his back, and, as he ran toward the tank, his
+speed carried the flames away from him.
+
+Joe, and all others who do a fire-eating act, calculate to a nicety just
+how long a certain fire will burn. And they do not place the blazing
+material into the mouth until the flames are almost on the point of
+going out of themselves. This, added to the fact that a chemical
+solution protects the tongue and lips, makes the act comparatively safe.
+But one word of caution. _Do not try to fire-proof the mouth with
+tungstate of soda_. This warning cannot be made too strong!
+
+In fact, it is well not to try any fire-eating _at all_. It is too risky
+unless one is a professional.
+
+"Well, Joe," remarked Jim Tracy, later that night when most of the
+circus folk were asleep, "if you want to add this fellow to our show, go
+ahead. You have the say, you know."
+
+"Well, I don't want to do it in just that way," replied the young
+fire-eater. "Bill Watson says that Ham Logan was once a good man. He is
+down and out now, but he knows a lot about circus life and this handling
+of fire. I believe I can work him up into something useful--use him in a
+new act I'm thinking of putting on. If we can only keep him away from
+intoxicants he'll be all right, and I'd like to give him a chance."
+
+"Well, Joe, as I said, it's up to you. Go to it! But remember, while he
+means all right, he may not have the spunk to keep his promise not to
+drink."
+
+"I think he'll keep it," said Joe. "Anyhow, I'd like to give him a
+trial. He helped me with that fire hoop stunt, and it would be an act of
+charity to give him work."
+
+"All right--you can be the charity," said the ringmaster. "What do you
+say, Bill Watson?"
+
+"Oh, give him a chance," replied the old clown good-naturedly. "We all
+have our troubles. He can't do much harm, anyhow."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Jim, with a shake of his head. "This
+playing with fire by a man who can't keep away from fire-water, is
+risky."
+
+"Well, I'll take the chance," said Joe. And that was characteristic of
+him--taking chances.
+
+Ham Logan was deeply grateful to Joe for what the young performer did.
+That is, he hired the former fire-eater as a sort of handy man in the
+circus, Ham to be subject to Joe's direction day and night.
+
+"And let the fire-water alone!" demanded Joe. "I will! I really will!"
+said the old circus performer. He seemed to mean it.
+
+Joe advanced him money enough to get some better clothes, to have a bath
+and be shaved, and it was quite a different person who appeared at the
+tent the following day, ready to help Joe. As Ham knew more about fire
+than any assistant Joe had yet been able to train, the new man was given
+charge of the various apparatus Joe used in his sensational acts,
+including the one of sliding down the wire on his head through the
+blazing hoops.
+
+One matter bothered Joe and his friends, in spite of the great success
+the circus was having, and this was the bogus tickets. Several hundred
+of them were presented at the performances in the city where the two-day
+stay was made--the city already mentioned as being the location of a big
+automobile industry. And where the tickets came from remained a mystery.
+They were so nearly like the ones issued from the ticket wagon that not
+until duplicate numbers had been observed could the fraud be detected.
+
+And as the men at the main entrances had no time in the rush to compare
+serial numbers, there seemed no way of stopping the cheating. It was
+impossible to see to it that every one who came to the show purchased
+admission tickets at the wagon. The surging crowds around prevented
+this.
+
+Men engaged by the circus circulated through the throngs about the tent,
+seeking to learn whether any unauthorized persons were selling bogus
+tickets. But none was seen.
+
+"It is evident," said Mr. Moyne, "that the counterfeiters get a bunch of
+the fake tickets and sell them in large lots to some men. These men, in
+turn, dispose of them at reduced prices to others, and perhaps the
+persons who use the tickets do not know they are counterfeits. I believe
+the swindlers go to the big factories and stores, and sell the tickets
+at a slightly lower price than we ask."
+
+"We ought to be able to put a stop to that," said Joe.
+
+"We'll try it!" said the treasurer. "It seems the only way--that and
+having the detectives stop the fraud at the source. You see, we can't
+tell which are the counterfeit tickets until after we check up the
+serial numbers--that's what makes it so hard."
+
+And so, in spite of the success of Joe's acts and The success of the
+show in general, there was this element of annoyance. Joe wished the
+mystery could be cleared up. He had received back from the chemist the
+two tickets sent on last, and the counterfeit was marked. This was sent
+to the paper mill and the detectives notified. That was all that could
+be done for the present.
+
+"Well, how's Coal-fire Logan making out?" asked Bill Watson of Joe one
+day, just before an afternoon performance.
+
+"Very good," was the answer. "He's faithful and steady, and he's good
+help to me. He certainly knows the fire-eating stunt."
+
+"Well, as long as he doesn't do any fire-drinking maybe he'll be all
+right," said the old clown.
+
+"I haven't noticed any lapse," said Joe. "I have great hopes of him."
+
+But that very afternoon, during the performance, Joe felt doubt
+beginning to creep over him. He caught Ham in several mistakes--slight
+ones--but enough, if not noticed in time, to have spoiled the act.
+
+"I wonder what the matter is with him?" mused Joe. "He doesn't seem to
+have been drinking, and yet he acts queer. I wonder if he can be using
+drugs."
+
+It was at the close of the act and the wind-up of the circus for the
+afternoon that Joe told Ham to put away some of the apparatus until
+evening. Joe was called away from his dressing room for a moment and
+when he came back he saw Ham hastily throw away a dark brown bottle
+which struck on a stone and broke. Immediately a queer odor filled the
+air.
+
+"I wonder if that was liquor he was taking, and if he threw away the
+empty bottle," thought Joe quickly. "I'm going to find out, I've got to
+stop this thing at the start."
+
+He hurried to the place where Ham had tossed the bottle. The fragments
+lay there, and the queer odor was more pronounced.
+
+"Don't touch that! Let that bottle alone!" suddenly cried Ham Logan, as
+he became aware of Joe's intention. "Don't touch it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE
+
+
+Joe Strong was in two minds as he heard this warning and observed the
+face of the man he was befriending. His first thought was that Ham had
+broken his promise and was indulging in intoxicants. Naturally the man
+would want to conceal this as long as possible. The other thought was
+that the tramp fire-eater was up to some trick--perhaps he was jealous
+of Joe's success and his own failure and wanted to spoil some of Joe's
+apparatus. Yet Joe did not recognize as any of his property the brown
+bottle, which when broken emitted such a queer smell.
+
+Joe decided to investigate further, and so, not heeding the warning call
+of the former circus star, he walked closer to the broken flask.
+
+"Keep away from that!" cried Ham sharply. "Keep away!"
+
+"Why?" asked Joe, with equal insistence.
+
+"Because it's dangerous," was the answer. "Very dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous for you or me?" Joe wanted to know. "Look here, Ham," he
+said earnestly, "are you up to--any of your old tricks? You know what I
+mean. Are you?"
+
+The man flushed. Then, looking Joe straight in the face, he said:
+
+"You have a right to ask that, and I'll answer you as straight. I
+haven't broken my promise--that is, only the times you know about. I
+haven't broken it this time. I found that bottle in among your things,
+and I was mighty sure it didn't belong there."
+
+"What's in the bottle?" asked Joe, for, though he had dabbled in
+chemistry, he did not recognize the queer odor.
+
+"A combination of the strongest acids ever known!" was the answer of Ham
+Logan. "A drop of it makes a terrible burn, and it will eat through
+solid steel and iron. I knew that if it broke where it was, among your
+trick things, a lot of them would be ruined. And I knew you couldn't
+have left the bottle there by mistake, as it wasn't there the last time
+I packed away your duds. And I knew if you knew what it was you wouldn't
+have left it around in that careless way. So, taking no chances, I threw
+it away, and I meant to break the bottle. That acid is awful stuff. It's
+best to let it soak into the ground. Come over and see what it does even
+to earth and stones."
+
+He led the way to where the fluid had escaped from the broken flask,
+the fragments of which were scattered about. The odor was less strong
+now, as the acid was soaking into the earth. But there was a fuming and
+bubbling at the spot, and the very stones and earth seemed to be burning
+up in a small area.
+
+"Don't step in it!" warned Ham Logan. "It will eat right through your
+shoes. Glass is the only thing it won't hurt--glass and porcelain. They
+mix it in porcelain retorts. I'll throw some loose earth over this
+place. The effects of the acid will soon be lost, but while it's active
+it's terrible stuff, believe me!"
+
+"And you say you found that bottle in my baggage?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes," answered Ham Logan. "And am I right in saying you didn't know it
+was there?"
+
+"I certainly didn't," declared Joe. "Who in the world could have put it
+there?"
+
+"Have you any enemies?" asked Ham. "I mean some one who would like to
+see your circus acts spoiled, or even see you laid up for a while?"
+
+"Well, I guess perhaps there are some I've made enemies of by having to
+discharge them, or something like that," admitted Joe, his thoughts
+going naturally to Bill Carfax. "There's one man, but he hasn't been
+seen around for a good while."
+
+"That doesn't count. He may have gotten some one to do his trick for
+him," asserted Ham. "You'd better look out, Mr. Strong."
+
+"I will!" declared Joe. "And thank you for your watchfulness. As you
+say, I didn't know that bottle was there, and I might have broken it by
+accident or have opened it and spilled some out. How did you come to
+discover it?"
+
+"Just by accident. The smell is something you never forget. It comes up
+even around the glass stopper. As soon as I began overhauling your
+things, as you told me to, I smelled the stuff and I went on a still
+hunt for it.
+
+"I was careful, too. I knew what it meant to get any of that acid on
+you, or on any of the things about you. I used to work in the chemical
+plant where they made the stuff--that was after I left the circus. Well,
+it can't do any harm now," he said as he got a shovel and covered with
+clean earth the bits of broken glass and the still fuming drops of add.
+
+"Thank you," said Joe fervently.
+
+He went into his private tent. Presently he came out with a bit of wire
+cable, such as is used in making circus trapezes. One end was blackened
+and partly fused, as though it had been in the fire. Joe held out this
+bit of wire rope. It was part of the trapeze he used in his big swing.
+
+"What would you say had eaten through these strands?" he asked.
+
+Ham Logan looked carefully at the cable. He sniffed it cautiously. He
+held it up to the light and again smelled it.
+
+"It was this same acid that ate those strands," he declared. "I know how
+it used to eat metal out at the chemical works, and it does so in a
+queer way. This wire rope is eaten through just like that. There isn't
+any odor left, though sometimes it lasts a long time. But I'm sure the
+same kind of acid was used. You don't mean to tell me you have been
+experimenting with it!" and he looked in surprise at Joe.
+
+"No indeed!" and the young fire-eater shook his head. "I never handle
+the acid. And the fact that the cable was eaten through nearly caused an
+accident." He then explained how he had discovered the partly severed
+wire rope just in time.
+
+"They must have put on a weak solution of the acid," declared Ham.
+"Otherwise it would have eaten the rope through in jig time. So that's
+the game, is it? Well, they may have been trying it on a larger scale.
+Did you find out who doped the rope?"
+
+"There was a man who might have done it," said Joe, thinking of Harry
+Loper. "But I don't believe he did."
+
+"Is he still with the show?"
+
+"Yes. I'll tell you all the circumstances," which Joe did, mentioning
+Loper by name.
+
+"Well, we won't say anything," declared Ham Logan; "but I'll just keep
+my eyes on this Loper. As you say, he may not have done it, but he may
+know who did. I'll keep my eyes on him. Meanwhile be careful in
+overhauling your things. Look out for bottles that smell as this one
+did."
+
+"I will!" promised Joe. "I guess I won't forget that odor. I can't tell
+you how I thank you, Ham. You've done me a good turn!"
+
+"Well, you did me one," was the answer. "I was down and out when you
+gave me work, and I won't forget that in a hurry."
+
+Joe pondered over what had happened as he performed his circus acts the
+remainder of that day and evening. He shuddered at the narrow escape he
+had had, and, when he had a chance, he carefully noted the conduct of
+Harry Loper. But that young fellow did not seem at all to act like one
+who had tried to do a dastardly trick. He was jolly and good-natured, as
+he always was, albeit somewhat of a weak character.
+
+The circus performances went off well, Joe and the other actors
+receiving wild applause as they did their specialties. Joe's fire-eating
+was eagerly watched, and when he slid down the rope on his head, through
+the blazing hoops, the crowd went wild, as they did when, seemingly all
+afire, he leaped into the tank.
+
+"When you going to spring that sensation you've been talking of, Joe?"
+asked Jim Tracy, at the conclusion of one afternoon show.
+
+"Oh, pretty soon now," was the reply. "Ham Logan and I are working on
+it."
+
+"Ham Logan! Is he going to be in it with you?" asked the ringmaster in
+some surprise.
+
+"Of course!" answered Joe. "It's partly his idea. He's an old
+fire-actor, you know, and he's given me some good suggestions. Yes, he's
+going to help me. I think we'll put the act on next week. We've got to
+train some new performers first."
+
+"New performers! Say, what are you going to do, Joe, take a troupe of
+fire-eating actors out on the road?"
+
+"Something like that, yes," answered the young magician, with a laugh.
+"You'll see."
+
+Joe Strong varied his acts in the circus tent Sometimes he would omit
+the "vanishing lady" act, as Helen wanted to put through some extra work
+with Rosebud, and there was not time for both. Again he would leave out
+some of his acrobatic work, or perhaps not do the trick of seeming to
+catch fire and extinguishing the flames in Benny Turton's tank. Once in
+a while he would omit the ten thousand dollar mystery box trick.
+
+But on the day when he had the above conversation with Jim Tracy they
+were showing in a large factory town. There had been good business in
+the afternoon, and Joe had not done the box trick. But just before the
+evening show Jim came to Joe and said:
+
+"There've been several requests, Joe, that you put the box trick on
+to-night."
+
+"Requests from whom?" Joe asked.
+
+"One of the newspaper men was telling me they received a lot of
+telephone calls to-day asking if the box trick would be done and the
+reward paid in case some one discovered the way it was done."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said I thought you'd put the trick on in that case. Don't you think
+you'd better? We didn't advertise it specially for to-night, but there
+might be a lot of sore-heads if we don't pull it off."
+
+"Oh, I'll do it all right!" declared Joe. "I thought it was getting a
+bit stale. But if the crowd wants to see it I'll do it."
+
+"I guess it will be better," said the ringmaster.
+
+Accordingly, at the proper time, Joe, in his dazzling white suit, took
+his place in the silk-curtained enclosure. Helen, in her black dress,
+was ready to help him. The fireman, with his gleaming ax, ready to chop
+Joe out of the box in case anything should go wrong, was also on the
+stage.
+
+As has been related in the other book, this last was done only for
+effect. Joe well knew that he could get out of the box. The manager made
+the usual offer of ten thousand dollars to be paid to any one who would
+disclose how the trick was done.
+
+"You will all be given a chance to claim the reward under the usual
+conditions after the trick has been performed by Professor Strong," was
+the announcement made.
+
+As the description of the manner in which Joe and Helen did the trick is
+given in all its details in the volume preceding this, suffice it here
+to say that Joe got into the box, which was locked and roped, and, at
+the proper time, he appeared outside.
+
+"Is there any one who can tell how the trick was done, and so earn the
+ten thousand dollar reward?" asked the manager. He had made this
+announcement many times. Seldom, of late, had any one come forward. But
+now, somewhat to the surprise of Joe and his friends, a man's voice
+called from a location near the platform:
+
+"I can tell how it was done!"
+
+"Will you please come forward," invited Joe, now taking charge of the
+proceedings.
+
+A fairly well-dressed man stepped across the arena and approached the
+stage. Joe and Jim Tracy and the others vitally interested looked
+closely at him. He was not Bill Carfax--that was certain. And Joe did
+not know the man, nor, as Jim Tracy admitted afterward, did he.
+
+"You say you can tell how I get out of the box?" asked Joe, and the
+audience listened intently.
+
+"Yes. I know the secret."
+
+"Are you willing to post a hundred dollars to be forfeited to the Red
+Cross in case you fail?" went on the young magician.
+
+"I am. Here is the money!" was the cool response. This quick compliance
+with the terms of the offer rather staggered Joe. But he had no fear as
+to the outcome.
+
+"Very well," went on the originator of the box trick. "The ringmaster
+will hold your money. If you are successful in telling how I get out of
+the box the cash will be handed back to you, and you will receive, in
+addition, a check for ten thousand dollars. Now then, how do I get out
+of the box? Tell the audience."
+
+There was a moment of suspense, and then the man, with an air of
+confidence, stepped close to the big, heavy box and, pointing to a
+certain corner, said:
+
+"Right there is a secret panel. You slip it back and get out that way!"
+
+The man seemed so triumphantly confident and so sure of his statement,
+that several in the audience cried:
+
+"Is that right? Is that how you do the trick? If it is pay him the ten
+thousand dollars!"
+
+Joe looked at Jim Tracy. This was the first time any one had ever come
+so close to the truth. Helen, standing at one side of the stage, began
+to be fearful that, after all, Joe's secret was discovered. It would
+mean an end of the box trick.
+
+Then Joe smiled, and stepped forward. And there was something in the
+smile that reassured Helen.
+
+"Has he guessed it?" she asked in a low voice, as Joe passed her.
+
+"No. But it was a narrow escape," was the answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+JUGGLING WITH FIRE
+
+
+Smilingly the man who had made claim to the ten thousand dollars waited
+for Joe Strong. The fellow seemed already to have the money in his
+grasp.
+
+"You say there is a sliding panel in that corner?" asked Joe.
+
+"Positive."
+
+"And that I get out that way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I say you are wrong, and I am going to prove it," returned Joe
+easily, and also smiling. "Now I'm going to let you, and any one you may
+select from the audience, paste sheets of paper over that corner. Then
+I'll do the trick over again. If I get out of the box, and the paper you
+paste on remains unbroken, you'll have to admit that I didn't come out
+through the place where you say is a sliding panel, won't you?"
+
+"Well, if you don't break the paper, I guess I'll have to admit you
+didn't get out that way," said the man, with a grin. "But I want to see
+you do it first."
+
+"Very well. I'll send for some paste and paper," went on Joe. "Meanwhile
+call upon any of your friends you like to help."
+
+"Come on up here, Bill!" called out the man.
+
+For an instant Joe, and Helen also, as she admitted later, feared it
+might be Bill Carfax to whom he referred. But an altogether different
+individual shuffled up to the stage.
+
+"We'll paste paper over this end where the trick panel is," went on the
+man who had claimed the reward. "He won't get out then!"
+
+"Sure he won't," agreed his companion. "Do we get the ten thousand
+then?"
+
+"Naturally, if you have guessed right," said Joe. "But that remains to
+be seen."
+
+There was no trouble in getting paste and paper. That is part of a
+circus, for, even though it is old-fashioned, paper hoops are still used
+for the clowns and some bareback riders to leap through.
+
+A plentiful supply of large, white sheets and a pail of paste with a
+brush were brought up to the stage. Then the men were invited to begin
+their work, which was to seal up the corner the man had picked out as
+the location of the secret panel.
+
+Before pasting on the paper the men looked closely at the joinings of
+the box. They seemed rather puzzled in spite of the cock-sureness of
+the first individual.
+
+The pasting was not a work of art, but it was effective. The corner of
+the box was plastered over with sheets of white paper, in which there
+was no break.
+
+"If I get out of the box without cracking, tearing, or disturbing the
+paper you have pasted on, without moving it in any way, you'll admit
+that you're wrong, won't you?" asked Joe, as he prepared to do the trick
+again.
+
+"Yes," was the answer. "I will. But I've got you sewed up!"
+
+"Pasted up would be a better word," returned Joe, with a smile. "But
+that remains to be seen."
+
+The box was placed in position, and Joe took his place in it. The lid
+was slammed down, locked, and the rope was knotted about it. The two men
+who had done the pasting assisted in this.
+
+Then the curtains were drawn, and Helen and the firemen took their
+places. There was a period of waiting. The tense suspense of the
+audience was manifest. Even Jim Tracy and Bill Watson, veteran circus
+men though they were, seemed a bit worried. The man who had claimed the
+ten thousand dollars and his companion seemed a bit ill at ease.
+
+Then, suddenly, the curtains parted and Joe Strong stood in plain view,
+outside the box, bowing to the applause that greeted him. When it had
+subsided, he said:
+
+"Will you two gentlemen kindly look at the paper seals you placed on one
+corner of the box? If they are unbroken and undisturbed I take it you
+have lost. Kindly look and announce what you find."
+
+The men shuffled to the case and bent down over the corner that was
+covered with the pasted sheets. Look as they did, they could find no
+evidences of a break or tear in the paper. And it had not been removed
+and put back again. The men admitted that.
+
+"Then you have to admit that I didn't get out of the box by means of a
+secret panel in that corner, don't you?" asked Joe, when the two had
+asserted that the paper was intact.
+
+"Yes, I guess you win," said the first man. "But there's some trick
+about it!"
+
+"Oh, I admit that!" laughed Joe. "It is a trick, and if you discover it
+you get ten thousand dollars. But not to-night. Red Cross is richer by a
+hundred dollars."
+
+"Um!" grumbled the man, as he walked off, and many in the audience
+laughed. Joe had won.
+
+The circus performance went on to its usual exciting close in the
+chariot races, and when preparations were being made to travel on to the
+next city, Helen had a chance to speak to Joe.
+
+"It was a narrow escape," she said.
+
+"Just what it was!" he replied. "If he had picked the other corner--the
+left instead of the right--he would have had me. But luck was with us."
+
+"I'm glad," said Helen. "But how did he happen to select any corner?
+Some one must know more about your trick box than you think."
+
+"I'm afraid so," admitted Joe ruefully. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised
+but what this was some of the work of Bill Carfax."
+
+"Has he been around again?" asked Helen, and there was a note of
+annoyance in her voice.
+
+"He hasn't been seen," said Joe. "But this man may have been in
+communication with him. Bill may have been studying the trick out since
+his last failure, and I must admit that he's on the right trail--that
+is, if it was Bill who put this man up to making the claim."
+
+"What makes you think Bill had anything to do with it?" asked Helen.
+
+"Well, for the reason that this is just the kind of town where Bill
+would be likely to have friends--I mean in a big manufacturing center.
+Bill may have found a man who is willing to act to help pull down the
+reward for him. But this time they failed."
+
+"He may succeed next time," remarked Helen.
+
+"No, I'll take care of that," Joe said. "I'm going to make a change in
+the box."
+
+As the mechanism of the trick box has been explained in the preceding
+volume, it will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that Joe's
+method of getting out of the box could be changed, so that if a person
+thought he had discovered the secret panel it could be shifted to
+another part of the case.
+
+It was two or three days after this, and Joe had made a change in his
+box which satisfied him that the secret would not soon be discovered,
+that Helen, coming over to where he sat in his private tent, saw him
+making what seemed to be torches.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked. "Do you think our electric lights or
+gasoline flares are going to fail?" she went on jokingly. The Sampson
+Brothers' Show was a modern one, and carried a portable electric light
+plant.
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not worrying about that!" answered Joe. "But I have a new
+idea for my wire act, and I want to see if it will work out."
+
+That night, at the proper time, when Joe was introduced as about to
+perform his wire act, Helen noticed Ham Logan come out with the young
+fire-eater, carrying a number of the torches Joe had made.
+
+Joe started across the high, slack wire, and on it performed many of his
+usual feats. They were not specially sensational, and Helen wondered
+what he had planned.
+
+But, after a daring run across the slender support, following some risky
+side swinging, Helen saw Joe lower from the high platform where he
+stood a flexible wire. Standing on the ground below, Ham Logan received
+it and fastened on the end several of the metal torches Joe had made.
+The young magician hauled them up to him by means of the wire.
+
+Then, as Helen and the audience watched, Joe set the torches ablaze.
+They were made of hollow cones of sheet iron, in which were placed bits
+of tow, soaked in alcohol.
+
+With four blazing torches, two in either hand, Joe Strong started out to
+cross the high, slack wire. And then, to the wonder and amazement of the
+audience, no less than that of his friends in the show, Joe began
+juggling with fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE BLAZING BANQUET
+
+
+Across the wire walked the young performer, and as he walked he tossed
+into the air, catching them as they came down, the flaming torches. When
+it is remembered that the fire was of the real, blazing sort, and hot at
+that, also when it is recalled that if Joe happened to catch hold of the
+wrong end of any of the whirling torches, and when it is evident that he
+must "watch his step," it will be seen that he was performing no easy
+feat.
+
+Yet to watch him one would have thought that he had been doing it right
+along for many performances, instead of this being his first in public,
+though he and Ham Logan had practiced in private.
+
+Across the wire walked Joe, juggling with fire, and when he reached the
+other platform he walked backward along the swaying wire.
+
+Then the applause broke out, loud and long. The crowd appreciated the
+trick, with all its dangers. True, Joe Strong was an expert on the wire,
+and he was also a good juggler. But juggling with torches while on a
+swaying cable was not as easy as handling harmless rubber balls or
+Indian clubs, and the circus throng seemed to appreciate this.
+
+Getting back to the platform whence he had started, Joe dropped the
+still blazing torches into a tub of water where they went out hissingly.
+This provided a fitting climax to the act, as showing that the flames
+were real ones.
+
+And then Joe donned his cap of leather, with the little grooved wheels
+fastened in the top, and on his head he slid down the slanting wire
+through the blazing hoops. It was a good end to a good trick; and the
+crowd went wild.
+
+"Well, Joe, you sure did put another one over for us," said Jim Tracy,
+at the conclusion of the performance. "That fire juggling was a great
+trick. That's the sensation you promised us, I suppose."
+
+"No, it isn't," was the answer. "I'm not ready for that yet. But I'm
+glad you liked the trick. No, what I have up my sleeve is something even
+better, I think."
+
+"Well, I hope you haven't any blazing torches up your sleeve," remarked
+Helen, with a laugh. "You'll need a new coat, if you have."
+
+"No danger," laughed Joe. "I think I'll be ready soon. By the way, any
+news of the bogus tickets--I mean the detectives haven't found out
+anything positive, have they?"
+
+"Not yet," answered Mr. Moyne, who had joined the little party. "And
+it's keeping all of us who have to do with the financial end guessing as
+to where the trouble will break out next."
+
+"It is an unpleasant state of affairs," agreed Joe. "But I don't see
+what we can do except to wait. You haven't noticed any more of the
+counterfeit tickets of late, have you?"
+
+"No," answered the treasurer. "It's only when we hit the big mill cities
+that they are worked in on us. That's why I believe there is some system
+to it all."
+
+"Well, we'll have to break up the system," declared Joe. "As soon as I
+get this new act of mine perfected I'm going to take a day or two off,
+over Sunday say, and visit the detective agency. They may need stirring
+up."
+
+"I wish something could be done," declared the treasurer.
+
+About a week after this conversation, during which time the circus had
+moved from place to place, doing good business, Mrs. Watson, meeting
+Helen on the lot, said:
+
+"Who are Joe's new friends?"
+
+"New friends? I didn't know he had any specially new ones," remarked the
+young bareback rider. "Has he been befriending some more poor
+broken-down circus men, like Ham Logan?"
+
+"These aren't men," said the clown's wife. "They are three pretty girls.
+I saw Joe coming back from downtown with them. They seemed
+jolly--laughing and talking."
+
+"Three pretty girls!" murmured Helen. And then she quickly added, with
+an air of indifference: "Oh, I suppose they may be some cousins he
+hasn't seen for a long while."
+
+"I thought Joe said he had no relatives in this country," went on Mrs.
+Watson.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," and Helen's voice was very cool.
+
+"There's something behind all this," mused Mrs. Watson, as Helen walked
+away. "I hope those two haven't quarreled. Maybe I shouldn't have said
+anything."
+
+However, it was too late now. The seeds of jealousy seemed to have been
+sown, though unwittingly, by Mrs. Watson. Helen walked on with her head
+high in the air, and as the clown's wife passed Joe's official tent a
+little later she heard, issuing from it, the jolly laughter and talk of
+several girlish voices.
+
+"I wonder what Joe Strong is up to," thought Mrs. Watson. "He never
+acted like that before--going off with other girls and neglecting Helen.
+I'm going to speak to him. No, I won't either!" she decided. "I'll just
+keep still until I know I can help. It's better that way."
+
+It was perhaps an hour after this that Joe, meeting Helen, called to
+her:
+
+"Oh, I say! don't you want to do me a favor?"
+
+"What sort?" asked the rider of Rosebud, and if Joe had not been
+thinking of something else he would have noticed the danger signs about
+Helen's countenance.
+
+"The fancy jacket I use in one of my tricks is torn," went on Joe.
+"Would it be asking too much to request you to mend it?"
+
+Helen tossed back her head and there was a snap to her eyes as she
+answered:
+
+"Why don't you get one of the three pretty girls to do your mending? I'm
+afraid I'm not clever enough!" And with that she walked on haughtily.
+
+For an instant Joe was so surprised that he could not speak. His face
+plainly showed how taken aback he was. Then, after a moment, he managed
+to stammer:
+
+"Oh, but I say! Helen! Wait a moment! Let me explain. I--er I--I only--"
+
+But Helen did not pause, she did not look back, and she did not answer.
+Joe stood staring after her in blank amazement. Then he gave utterance
+to a low whistle and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, ho! I see! Well, it will be my turn later!" and he laughed
+silently.
+
+"He's either playing a mean trick or else he's up to some joke,"
+declared Mrs. Watson, who, from a distance, had watched this little
+scene. "And," she added with a shake of her head, "I can't be sure what
+it is. Young folks are so foolish! So foolish!" and she sighed as she
+walked away.
+
+Joe, with the torn jacket in his hand, turned back toward his own tent,
+and presently there came from it the sounds of several young persons,
+including girls, in conversation and laughter.
+
+It was later, that same afternoon, when Helen noticed Joe in one part of
+the big tent. He was surrounded by three pretty young ladies and three
+good-looking young men. They were on one of the platforms seated about a
+table, and Joe seemed to be entertaining them, for there were plates,
+cups, knives and forks on the board--all the outward indications of a
+meal.
+
+The time was late afternoon, following the day performance and prior to
+the evening show. Helen looked curiously over at the gay little scene,
+and something tugged at her heart-strings. Then she looked away, and
+Mrs. Watson, observing her from the other side of the tent, shook her
+gray head.
+
+"I can't understand Joe Strong," murmured the clown's wife. "What has
+come over him?"
+
+It was just before the opening of the evening performance that night
+when Joe, meeting Helen in the dressing tent, said:
+
+"I shan't need you in the box trick, to-night, nor in the vanishing lady
+stunt, either."
+
+"Oh, I suppose you're going to use one of the new, pretty girls,"
+snapped Helen.
+
+Joe looked at her quietly.
+
+"No," he said, "I am not. But I am not going to put on either trick. I
+thought you'd like to know, so if you want to introduce any of your
+extras you'll have a chance."
+
+"Thank you!" she said coldly, and passed on.
+
+Joe smiled as he looked after her.
+
+With a blare of trumpets, a boom and ruffle of drums, the gay procession
+started around the circus arena. The stately elephants, the hideous
+camels and the beautiful horses went around to be looked at, wondered
+at, and admired. Then, when the last of the cavalcade had passed out,
+the various acts began. Helen had a new costume for her bareback act,
+and as she started it she looked over to where Joe was busy on his
+stage. She saw the young men and women around him. They wore fancy
+costumes and seemed a part of the circus. Helen wondered what act they
+were going to appear in, since none including them had been announced.
+
+She danced about on the back of Rosebud, and thought bitterly that Joe
+had never noticed her new dress. She was wearing it for the first time,
+too.
+
+The whistle blew. All acts stopped and Jim Tracy advanced toward Joe's
+platform.
+
+"A most marvelous and striking act!" he cried, not stating what it was
+to be.
+
+All eyes, even those of Helen Morton, turned in the direction of Joe
+Strong.
+
+He acted quickly. With a wave of his hand he invited the three pretty
+girls and the three well-appearing young men to be seated. They took
+their places around a table, with Joe acting as host. The table appeared
+to be well laden, and at first the act seemed to be only a rather
+elaborate meal being served in public.
+
+"What is it all about?" mused Helen. "I can't see anything very
+wonderful in that."
+
+But, even as she thus mused, something strange happened. The banquet
+table seemed to burst into flames. The dishes of food blazed up, and the
+audience gasped.
+
+But the young men, the young women, and Joe Strong did not seem in the
+least surprised. They kept their seats and went right on eating.
+
+And then, with a thrill of surprise, it was noticed that Joe Strong and
+his guests were devouring the blazing food itself! The girls and young
+men put portion after portion of the blazing viands into their mouths!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+HAM IS MISSING
+
+
+Surprise and astonishment held the audience silent and spellbound for a
+moment. Then a woman screamed, and, ready for this emergency and fearing
+a panic, than which nothing is more dreaded by circus men, Jim Tracy
+cried:
+
+"Sit still! Keep your seats! There is no danger! This is all part of the
+show. We are merely showing you how to eat your meals in case any of you
+ever get caught in a blazing volcano. Watch the ladies and gentlemen eat
+their stuff hot--right off the fire!"
+
+There was a laugh at this sally, and a laugh was what the ringmaster
+wanted more than anything else just then. He knew the tide of fear had
+been changed to one of wondering admiration.
+
+And so, sitting on the stage in sight of the thrilled audience, Joe
+Strong and his guests, in the shape of pretty girls and manly young
+fellows fancifully attired, continued to eat the blazing food.
+
+The very pieces of bread seemed to be on fire, there was a dancing flame
+over the butter, and each bit of meat or other food Joe and the
+performers lifted on their forks was alive with leaping fire.
+
+Then the daring feature of the act was borne home to the audience and
+the applause broke forth--applause loud and long. There were yells and
+whistles from the younger and more enthusiastic portion of the circus
+crowd.
+
+And then the fires died away. The table seemed emptied of victuals, and
+the young men and women, imitating Joe's example, leaned back in their
+chairs as though well satisfied with their hot meal.
+
+"There you are, ladies and gentlemen!" declaimed the ringmaster. "They
+have come to no harm from eating living fire. If any of you are tired of
+cold victuals, kindly step forward and you will be treated to a free,
+hot lunch by Professor Strong."
+
+"Not any in mine, thank you," murmured a man, and that seemed to be the
+general opinion.
+
+As Joe and his new associates arose to bow to the renewed applause, the
+ringmaster made an announcement.
+
+"A blazing banquet, such as you have just witnessed, will take place at
+each and every performance," he declared. "Come and bring your friends!
+Nothing like it ever seen before on any stage or in any circus in the
+world!
+
+"Remember, you will see the same and identical act at each and every
+performance and all for the price of one admission. Professor Strong and
+his gifted salamander associates will eat fire as they did just now, at
+each and every show in the big tent. I thank you!"
+
+"Well, Joe, it went all right!" said Jim Tracy when the performers had
+left the stage and the young fire-eater was alone on the platform. "It
+went like a house afire!"
+
+"Yes," said Joe, "it seemed to. I guess it went better than if we had
+made a lot of preliminary notices. The suddenness of it took them by
+surprise."
+
+"But we can advertise it big now," said the ringmaster. "We don't need
+to specify exactly what it is. Of course those who have seen it will
+tell their friends who are coming and who haven't seen it. But the big
+majority of the audiences will be as much surprised as this one was. It
+went big."
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe, "it did. And I'm glad of it. This is the sensation I
+was planning, but I didn't want to go into details until I was sure it
+would work. I had to engage my helpers in the dark, so to speak, and I
+didn't even tell you what I was planning until the last minute."
+
+"No, you didn't," said Jim.
+
+Helen Morton came slowly across the arena. Her act was over, and she had
+seen the blazing banquet and Joe's part in it.
+
+Her cheeks were unusually red as she approached holding out her hand,
+and there was a rather misty look about her eyes as she said:
+
+"Will you forgive me, Joe?"
+
+"For what?" he asked tantalizingly.
+
+"Oh, you know perfectly well!" she exclaimed. "It was very silly of me,
+but--"
+
+"I know, Helen. I did tease you a bit," he said. "I suppose I might have
+told you that the pretty girls were those I had engaged to help in the
+banquet scene, together with the young fellows. We had only a few
+rehearsals in my tent, and I didn't want to spread the news too
+generally, even among the circus crowd, for fear of a leak. But I
+suppose I might have told you."
+
+"It would have saved me from acting so silly, if you had," she murmured.
+
+"Then it is I who should ask forgiveness," said Joe. "But it's all right
+now. And may I come to lunch with you, or would you rather that I should
+go with--one of the pretty girls?"
+
+"If you do I'll never forgive you!" declared Helen, blushing more than
+ever. And so the little quarrel ended.
+
+As Joe had intimated, he had engaged his banquet helpers secretly, and
+they had met him at the city where the circus was to remain three days
+and nights. Ham Logan had been instrumental in getting the performers
+for Joe, since the old circus man knew the best theatrical agency at
+which to apply. So Joe had hired the young men and women to act the
+part of guests at the "banquet." He had guessed that Helen's actions
+denoted her jealousy, but he could not forbear teasing her.
+
+"But did they actually eat the fire?" Helen asked, when she and Joe were
+together again. "Of course I know they didn't," she went on. "It's silly
+of me to ask such a question. But it was very realistic."
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Joe. "No, they didn't actually 'eat' the fire,
+any more than I eat it. And I may say that I had quite a little trouble
+in getting them to put it near enough their mouths to make it seem as if
+they did.
+
+"But the 'food' was only very thin paper of a peculiar kind, which Ham
+Logan and I worked out together. It can be made to look like almost any
+food, and yet it is treated chemically so as to burn easily and quickly.
+The flames go out as soon as they come near enough our mouths to feel
+the effects of certain chemicals that are on our faces. I can't tell you
+all the secrets, but that is enough to show you how we worked it.
+
+"There was no more danger than there is when I 'eat' fire, and the trick
+is done in much the same way. Ham Logan is getting to be an invaluable
+helper. I hope he stays with me. I never could have done this trick
+without him."
+
+The blazing banquet was the talk of that and other cities. As Jim Tracy
+had said, the feat was shown at each and every performance, Joe cutting
+out some of his less sensational acts. The circus made a longer stay
+than usual in the city where the fiery food was first "eaten," and
+played to record-breaking business.
+
+"And the best of it is that we haven't seen a bogus ticket!" said the
+treasurer, much elated.
+
+Joe, as one of the chief owners of the circus, was able to hire the
+"fire-eaters" unknown to any of his associates until the last minute,
+and thus the surprise was all the greater.
+
+Joe's fire tricks were now the talk of the theatrical and circus worlds,
+and he received many offers to leave Sampson Brothers' Show and star by
+himself. But he refused them all, saying he wanted to build up his own
+show to a point never before reached.
+
+As he had said, Ham Logan proved a valuable helper. The man, a
+fire-eater of the old school, knew many valuable secrets, and he held
+himself under such obligation to Joe that he revealed many of them to
+the young magician.
+
+"Have you learned anything more about who left that bottle of powerful
+acid in among my things?" asked Joe of Ham, one afternoon when the fire
+banquet had been unusually successful.
+
+"No, not exactly," was the answer. "But I'm on the trail, I think I am
+working along the right lines, but it is too early to make any
+statement."
+
+"Well, take your time," said Joe. "Only I don't want to get mixed up
+with any of the deadly stuff."
+
+"Don't worry. I'm on the watch," declared the old performer.
+
+That night, when the time for Joe to prepare for his acts, including the
+fire tricks, came, he did not see Ham in the dressing tent, where the
+assistant was usually to be found.
+
+"Have you seen him?" asked Joe of Harry Loper.
+
+"Yes, about half an hour ago," was the answer. "He said he was going in
+to town."
+
+"Going in to town--and so near performing time?" cried Joe. "I wonder
+what for! He ought to be here!"
+
+Joe was worried, and when his signal for going on came Ham Logan was
+still missing. Joe Strong shook his head dubiously. It had been found
+necessary to get another man to help with the act.
+
+"I don't like this," he murmured. "I don't like it for a cent!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A SUDDEN WARNING
+
+
+Only the fact that he had strong nerves and that he possessed the
+ability of concentrating his mind on whatever was uppermost at the time,
+enabled the young circus man to get through his various circus acts with
+credit at that performance. He began with the worry over Ham Logan's
+disappearance before him. And he was actually worried--a bad state of
+affairs for one whose ability to please and deceive critical audiences
+depends on his snappy acting, his quickness of hand and mind, and his
+skill.
+
+But, as has been said, Joe possessed the ability to concentrate on the
+most needful matter, and that, for the time being, was his box trick,
+his fire-eating, and his slide on his head down the slanting wire
+through the blazing hoops.
+
+Then came the blazing banquet, and this created the usual furor in the
+audience. Joe managed to get through it with credit, though his rather
+strange manner was noticed and commented on afterward by the young
+people associated with him.
+
+"I wonder what's bothering the boss?" asked one of the young
+fire-eaters of another. "He nearly made a slip when he was lifting up
+that fake fried oyster."
+
+"Maybe the circus is losing money and he's got to cut out this act--let
+some of us go--can't pay our salaries," was the reply.
+
+"Don't you believe it!" declared the other. "The circus is making more
+money than it ever did--more even when the fake tickets are worked off
+on it."
+
+"Well, it's none of our affair."
+
+"I wouldn't like my salary to be cut off."
+
+"Oh, neither would I."
+
+"Fake tickets? I hadn't heard of them."
+
+"Oh, yes," explained the first speaker, and he went into the details of
+the affair.
+
+"But there's surely something worrying the boss," commented still
+another of the young men, and his associates, including the "pretty
+girls," agreed with him.
+
+And what really was worrying Joe was speculation over the fate of Ham
+Logan. Not since Joe had first taken the old and broken circus actor
+into his employ had Ham been away more than a few hours at a time, and
+then Joe knew where he was. This time Ham had left no word, save the
+uncertain one that he was going into the city, on the outskirts of
+which the circus was at the time showing.
+
+"But don't you think he'll come back?" asked Jim Tracy, when, after the
+performance, Joe had spoken of the missing Ham.
+
+"I wish I could think so," was the reply. "I sure will hate to lose him.
+I depend a lot on him in my fire tricks."
+
+"What makes you think you will lose him?" asked Tracy curiously.
+
+"Well, his going off this way, for one," declared Joe. "What I'm really
+afraid of is that he may have gone back to his bad habits. You know how
+it is. A man starts to reform, and he keeps the pledges he makes until
+he meets some of his boon companions who used to help him on the
+downward road. They invite him to come along for a good time, and he
+goes."
+
+"And you think that's what's happened to Ham?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. I'm going down town and see if I can get any trace of
+him."
+
+And this Joe did as soon as he was relieved of his duties in the circus.
+The show was to remain in town over night, and this gave him just the
+chance he wanted.
+
+It was an unpleasant errand, but Joe went through with it. He had to
+call at many places that were distasteful to him, but in none of them
+did he get a trace of Ham Logan. Joe saw in the more brilliant parts of
+the city a number of the circus men, including some of the chief
+performers. They were taking advantage of the two-days' stay, and were
+meeting old friends and making some new acquaintances.
+
+Of these Joe inquired for news of Ham, but no one had seen him. The old
+fire-eater had endeared himself to more than one member of the Sampson
+Brothers' Show, for he was always ready to do a favor. So more than Joe
+were interested in seeing that Ham kept on the good road along which he
+had started. But all of Joe's efforts were of no avail.
+
+It was after midnight when he ended his search, and, rather than go back
+to the sleeping car where the other performers spent their night, Joe
+put up at a hotel, sending word to Jim Tracy of what he intended to do.
+
+"I want to find Ham," Joe wrote in the note he sent to the ringmaster by
+a messenger boy, "and I've asked the police to be on the quiet lookout
+for him. If I stay at the hotel I can help him more quickly, in case
+he's found, than if I am away out at the railroad siding where the
+circus train is. I'll see you in the morning."
+
+But Joe's night at the hotel was spent in vain, for there was no word of
+Ham Logan, and the morning which Joe put in, making inquiries, was
+equally fruitless.
+
+"I guess Ham is gone for good," sighed Joe, and his regret was genuine,
+and almost as much for the sake of the man himself as for his own loss
+of a good assistant.
+
+For Ham Logan was that and more to Joe. The former tramp had much
+valuable information regarding the old style fire-eating tricks, and
+though he was not up to the task of doing them himself, he gave Joe good
+advice. It was by his help and advice that Joe had staged the blazing
+banquet scene, which was such a success and which the newspapers
+mentioned constantly.
+
+True, Joe did not actually need Ham to go on with his acts. He could
+break in another man to help him, to hand him the proper article at just
+the right time, to see to the mixing of the fire-resisting chemicals and
+to the preparation of the viands that seemed to be composed of fire
+itself.
+
+"And that's what I'll have to do," mused Joe, when he became convinced
+some days later that Ham was not to be found.
+
+He wished that Helen was able to act as his assistant in the fire
+scenes, as she did in the box trick and the vanishing lady act. But she
+could spare no more time from her own act with Rosebud, since she was
+billed as one of the "stars." Then, too, Helen had a fear of fire, and
+though she had succeeded in overcoming part of it, still she would not
+have made the proper sort of assistant in those acts. Besides, she
+would not have been able to mix the chemicals Joe required to render
+himself immune from such fire as he actually came in contact with,
+though momentarily.
+
+"I've got to train in a new man," decided Joe. He mentally considered
+various circus employees, rejecting one after another, and finally
+selected one of the young men who acted in the blazing banquet scene.
+This youth was a bright, manly fellow, and had introduced some new
+"business" in the act which made it more interesting.
+
+"I'll train him in," decided Joe, "with the understanding that if Ham
+comes back he'll get his old place. If he comes back! I wonder if he
+ever will, and if he'll be in a condition to help me."
+
+Joe shook his head dubiously.
+
+The circus moved on. It had played to good business, and there was more
+good business in prospect. Mr. Moyne, the treasurer, was on the anxious
+seat much of the time, fearing another flood of bogus tickets, but the
+efforts mentioned, on the part of the swindlers, following the use of
+new paper, was all they had to complain of so far.
+
+"Either the detectives are too close to the trail of the cheats to allow
+them to work in safety, or they've given it up altogether," decided the
+treasurer.
+
+"I hope so," said Joe. "Still it won't do to relax our vigilance. I
+wrote to the detective firm, as I said I would, jacking them up a bit.
+Maybe they are ready to make an arrest, and that would stop the
+swindlers."
+
+The young man Joe had picked out to act as his chief assistant in the
+fire scenes was Ted Brown. Ted was about eighteen years old, and this
+was his first position with a circus. But he was making good, and he had
+not yet been afflicted with the terrible disease known as "swelled
+head," something which ruins so many performers.
+
+Ted learned rapidly, and Joe felt that it would be safe to trust him
+with some of the secrets of the tricks--the mixing of the fire-resisting
+chemicals and the like. Joe's choice seemed to be a good one, for Ted
+did well, and his part in the banquet scene was made even better by his
+knowledge of the inner workings of the material used.
+
+But though Joe did not lose materially by the desertion of Ham, if that
+was what it was, since he could now depend on Ted, the young circus man
+many times found himself wondering if he would ever see the old
+fire-eater again.
+
+The circus opened one afternoon in a large city--one in which lived many
+thousands of men employed in a large ship-building plant.
+
+"There'll be big crowds here," said Mr. Moyne, as he walked toward the
+ticket wagon in preparation for the rush. "And it's here we'll have to
+look out for bogus coupons."
+
+"Why?" asked Joe, who was getting ready for his acts.
+
+"Because in every other case the swindlers have worked their game where
+there was a big plant engaging many men of what you might call rough and
+ready character--ready to take a chance on scalped admission tickets,
+and rough enough to fight if they were discovered. So I'm going to be on
+the watch."
+
+"It's just as well to be," decided Joe. He turned back into the tent
+which was his combined dressing room and a storage place for his various
+smaller bits of apparatus and the chemicals he used in his fire act.
+
+Before giving his last act Joe always washed his hands and face and
+rinsed his mouth out with a chemical preparation that would, for a time,
+resist the action of fire. It was a secret compound, rather difficult to
+handle and make, and Joe had taught Ted Brown how to do it.
+
+The young fellow was handing Joe this mixture, some of which was also
+used by all who took part in the blazing banquet scene, when the flap of
+the tent was suddenly pushed aside and Harry Loper entered.
+
+"Stop!" he cried, raising a restraining hand. "Don't use that solution,
+Mr. Strong! It's doped! Don't use it!"
+
+Joe, who had been about to apply some of the stuff to his hands, turned
+in surprise. He was alarmed at the strange look on the face of the youth
+who acted as his helper in the high wire and in some of the trapeze
+acts.
+
+"Don't use that stuff!" cried Harry. "It's doped!" and then he sank down
+on a chair and, burying his face in his hands, burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A STRANGE SUMMONS
+
+
+Joe Strong looked from the sobbing Harry Loper to the amazed Ted Brown.
+The latter's face showed his great surprise. For an instant Joe had an
+ugly suspicion that his new assistant had played him false--that,
+because of jealousy or from some other motive, he had mixed the
+chemicals in some way to make them ineffective. This would spoil the
+illusion, or it might even cause injury.
+
+"Look here, Harry! what's the matter?" cried Joe, purposely using a
+rough voice, so as to stop, if possible, the display of emotion on the
+part of the youth. "Act like a man, can't you! If you've done some mean
+trick tell me about it. What do you mean when you say this mixture is
+doped?"
+
+"Just that!" exclaimed Harry, looking up with haggard face. "I can't
+stand it any longer. I promised not to tell, but I've got to. I--I can't
+see any harm come to you."
+
+"Harm!" cried Joe. "Do you mean this is poison?"
+
+"No, not that. He said it wouldn't do you any harm--that it would only
+make the act turn out wrong--that you, nor anybody, would not be hurt.
+But I don't believe him. I believe he wants to harm you, and I'm going
+to tell all I know. I can't stand it any longer."
+
+"Look here, Harry!" said Joe sternly, "are you perfectly sober? Do you
+know what you're saying?"
+
+"Yes, I know that, all right, Mr. Strong," whined the lad. "I won't say
+I haven't been drinking, for I have. I did it to try to forget, but it
+wouldn't work. I'm plenty sober enough to know what I'm saying."
+
+"And you tell me this chemical preparation will work harm to me and
+those who help me in the fire acts?"
+
+"I don't know as to that, Mr. Strong. He told me that it wouldn't harm
+you. But I don't believe him! I won't trust him any more."
+
+"Who do you mean?" asked Joe. "Do you know anything about this?" he
+demanded sternly of Ted Brown. "You prepared this mixture, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Strong, I did. I made it just the way you told me. If you
+think--"
+
+"No, he doesn't know anything about it," murmured Harry, who seemed to
+have recovered some of his composure, now that the worst of his
+confession was over. "He didn't have a hand in it. I'm to blame. If I
+hadn't let him into your tent he couldn't have doped the stuff. Oh, I'm
+sorry! I was a fool to believe him, but he promised me a lot of money
+just to keep still, and I've done it up to now. But I'm through with
+him!"
+
+"Look here!" cried Joe. "How long has this been going on? Was this
+mixture ever doped, as you call it, before?"
+
+"Oh, no, not that I know," was the answer. Joe knew this much, at least,
+was true. The mixture had always worked perfectly before, and if it had
+been tampered with that would not have been the case.
+
+"Then what do you mean?" cried the young magician. "Speak up, can't you?
+Be a man! If you haven't done anything really wrong you won't be
+punished. I'm after the person back of you. Speak up! Who is he?"
+
+He realized that Harry Loper was but a weak tool in the hands of some
+one else, and many things that had seemed strange came back to Joe with
+a sudden rush now. He might be able to learn who it was that had such
+enmity against him and the circus.
+
+"Are you going to tell me?" demanded Joe.
+
+"Yes! Yes! I'll tell you everything!" was the answer. "I can't stand it
+any longer. I can't eat in comfort any more, and I can't sleep! First he
+promised to pay me for letting him come to your tent when you were out.
+Then he threatened to kill me if I told. But I'm going to tell. I don't
+care what he does!"
+
+"But if this is the first time my chemical mixture has been doped, what
+do you mean about 'him,' whoever he is, coming to my tent at other
+times?" asked Joe. "What other times were they?"
+
+"Don't you remember when the bottle of acid was found?" asked the
+abashed youth.
+
+"Yes! Was that some of your doings too?" cried Joe hotly.
+
+"No, I didn't do it. He did. But I--I looked the other way when he did
+it. And then there was the time when the trapeze wire broke. It was acid
+that did that. He put it on."
+
+"Who is this mysterious person you call 'he' all the while?" asked Joe.
+"I want to get after him."
+
+"I'll tell you!" promised Harry. "But you'll protect me, won't you, Mr.
+Strong?"
+
+"As far as I can with decency, yes. Now tell me!"
+
+But there came another interruption. A man thrust his head into the tent
+and exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Tracy wants to know if you can advance the fire scenes about ten
+minutes, Mr. Strong. One of the men acrobats has sprained his wrist and
+they've got to cut out his act. Can you go on ten minutes sooner than
+usual?"
+
+"Guess I'll have to," said Joe. "Quick, Ted, make up some new solution.
+I'll help you. As for you, Harry, you stay right here. I'll talk to you
+later. Haven't time now. And I'm going to have some one stay with you,
+to make sure you don't weaken and run away. It is as much for your own
+sake as mine. If you've decided to leave the man who got you to help in
+this work I'll stand by you. But I want to be sure your repentance is
+genuine. So stay right here, and we'll talk about this later. Don't say
+anything outside," he cautioned Ted.
+
+"I won't," was the answer. "Say, I hope you don't think I had any hand
+in this?"
+
+"No," Joe answered, "I don't. I'm trusting you--that's my best
+evidence."
+
+"Thank you," said the young fellow, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+Quick work was needed on the part of Joe and his new helper to get ready
+for the act. New chemicals had to be mixed, to render it safe to handle
+fire. This was in the acts where Joe seemed to swallow flames and where
+he and the others "dined" on blazing food.
+
+In the other acts, where Joe juggled on the slack wire with the flaming
+torches, where he slid down the wire through the blazing hoops, and
+where he jumped into the tank of water with his garments apparently in
+flames, no change was needed. In these feats Joe's costume was
+fireproofed, and, as they had been treated some time before, he knew
+there was only a remote possibility that they had been tampered with.
+
+Still he was taking no chances, and while he was waiting for Ted to
+complete the mixing of the fire-resisting chemical mixture, Joe tested
+his garments with a blazing bit of paper. They did not catch fire, which
+assured him of safety during his sensational acts.
+
+"How about you, Joe?" asked Jim Tracy, thrusting his head into the tent
+a little later. "Are you going to be able to make it?"
+
+"Oh, sure. I'll be there!"
+
+"Sorry to have to make the change," went on the ringmaster. "But Baraldi
+is hurt, and his act had to be cut out completely. So I had to move you
+up."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Joe assured him.
+
+"Hello, what are you doing here--and what's the matter with you?" cried
+Jim, seeing Harry Loper sitting dejectedly in a chair. "Why aren't you
+out fixing the trapezes? You know Mr. Strong goes on them soon."
+
+"I--I--he told me to stay here," Loper stammered, indicating Joe.
+
+"Yes," supplemented Joe Strong, "there's something doing, Jim. I'll tell
+you later. I want some one to stay in here with Harry. Some one we can
+trust," he added significantly.
+
+"I'll send Paddy Flynn," promised the ringmaster. As he went out he
+looked curiously at Harry.
+
+"How's the stuff coming on, Ted?" asked Joe, when the doctored mixture
+had been thrown away and new made.
+
+"All right, I guess. I'll try it."
+
+He put some on one finger, thrust the member into the flame of a candle,
+and held it there longer than usual.
+
+"Look out!" Joe warned him. "You can't be too familiar with fire."
+
+"The stuff's all right," was the answer. "It's better than the last we
+used."
+
+"Good! Well, let's get busy!"
+
+In spite of the strain of what he had gone through in listening to the
+partial confession of Harry Loper, Joe did some of his best work in the
+fire acts that day. The blazing banquet was most effective.
+
+Having changed to his costume for his magical box and other tricks, and
+learning that Harry was still safe under the watchful eye of Paddy
+Flynn, Joe hurried out to his stage, where Mr. Tracy was already making
+the ten thousand dollar offer.
+
+As Joe hurried across the arena one of the tent men thrust into his hand
+a scrap of paper.
+
+"What is it?" asked Joe.
+
+"I don't know," was the reply. "A boy just brought it and told me to
+give it to you."
+
+Joe had a half minute to wait while the ringmaster was talking. Quickly
+he read the note--it was really a scrawl. But it said:
+
+"Please forgive me and still believe in me. I am suffering! I can't come
+to you in the condition I'm in now. But I have something to tell you if
+you could come to me. The boy will bring you."
+
+The note was signed "Hamilton Logan."
+
+"Whew!" whistled Joe. "Worse and more of it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE TRAP IS SET
+
+
+Pausing only long enough to tell the man who had given him the note to
+be sure and detain the boy who had brought it, Joe Strong hurried over
+to the stage to begin his box trick. That was to be followed by the
+"disappearing lady" act.
+
+And here again Joe had to use all his reserve nerve to enable him to go
+on with the performance as smoothly as he usually did. He had to dismiss
+from his mind, for the time being, all thoughts of Ham Logan, and he
+steeled himself not to think of what the strange summons might mean.
+
+"If Ham is in trouble I'm going to help him--that's all!" declared Joe.
+
+Following the usual announcement by Jim Tracy, Joe got into the box. It
+was locked and roped and then Helen took her place, as did the fireman
+with his gleaming ax.
+
+Joe worked unusually quickly that night in getting out of the box. He
+knew this haste would not spoil the illusion of the trick. In fact it
+really heightened it. For he was out of the heavy box in much shorter
+time than it had taken the volunteer committee to lock him in.
+
+And Joe was glad no one came forward at this performance to claim the
+ten thousand dollars. That would have taken up time, and time, just
+then, was what Joe wanted most.
+
+"Evidently none of you know how the trick is done," commented the
+ringmaster, when his offer of ten thousand dollars was not taken
+advantage of. "We will now proceed to the next illusion, that of causing
+a beautiful lady to disappear and vanish into thin air before your very
+eyes. There is no reward offered for the solution of this mystery."
+
+Helen then took her place on the trick chair over the trap in the stage.
+The silk shawl was placed over her, and, in due time, the chair was
+shown empty.
+
+The usual applause followed and Joe was glad his acts were over for the
+time. Bowing to acknowledge the fervor of the audience, Joe started
+toward his dressing apartment.
+
+"I want to see you as soon as I can," he quickly told Helen. "But I have
+to go away. It's about Ham," he added. "I've heard from him."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"I don't know. Just a scrawled note. The messenger who brought it is
+going to take me to him."
+
+"Oh, Joe, I'm so glad you've heard from him. I liked him."
+
+"I did too. I hope I can continue to like him. But I'm afraid, from the
+tone of his note, that he's broken his pledge. However, we can't expect
+too much. Don't go away for an hour or so. I'll be back as soon as I can
+and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"I'll wait for you," promised Helen.
+
+As Joe hurried across the arena he saw the tent man who had given him
+the note.
+
+"Where's the boy?" he asked.
+
+"I took him to your tent. Paddy Flynn is there and Loper. Is anything
+the matter, Mr. Strong?"
+
+"Oh, nothing that can't be made right, I hope."
+
+Joe found a red-haired boy sitting on the edge of a folding chair in the
+dressing tent. The lad was looking wonderingly about the place.
+
+"Did you bring this note?" asked Joe, showing the crumpled paper.
+
+"Sure I did! And say, I wish I could see the show!"
+
+"You can to-night after you take me to Mr. Logan," replied Joe. "You
+know where he is, don't you?"
+
+"Sure I do! Didn't he give me the note to bring youse?"
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Down in Kelly's joint. I live next door."
+
+"What is Kelly's joint?"
+
+"A saloon," answered the red-haired boy. "De name on de winders is cafe,
+but they don't pronounce it that way--anyhow some of 'em don't. It
+oughter be cave I guess. It sure is a joint!"
+
+"Is Mr. Logan there?" asked Joe.
+
+"Sure he is. Upstairs in one of de rooms. He's been on a terrible spree
+he said, but he's sober now and sick--gee, mister, but he sure was sick.
+Me mudder helped take care of him."
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Joe. "We'll go to him at once. Where is
+Kelly's--er--cafe?"
+
+"Down by de river near de shipyards," answered the red-haired lad.
+
+For an instant Joe hesitated, but only for an instant. The district
+named, as he well knew, was a bad one. It was also dangerous.
+
+But it was still afternoon, though growing late. It would not be dark
+for some time, however, and Joe felt that he would be safe enough in
+going alone. At night he would have taken some one with him.
+
+But there were two reasons why he did not want to do this now. One was
+that no one whom he felt he could trust to be discreet could be taken
+away from the circus, which was not yet over, though Joe's acts were
+finished. Another reason was that he did not want the possible
+degradation of Logan seen by any of his former associates. Possibly he
+might come back to the show, and he would always have a feeling of shame
+if he knew that those with whom he worked had seen him recovering from
+a "spree," as the red-haired lad called it.
+
+"I've got to go away," said Joe to Paddy Flynn. Joe and the lad had
+talked at one side of the tent and in low tones, so the young circus man
+knew their voices had not been overheard by Paddy and the man he was
+guarding, Harry Loper. "I'll be back as soon as I can," went on the
+young fire-eater. "Meanwhile you stay here, Loper. Paddy will take care
+of you, and when I come back I'll have a talk with you."
+
+"All right," assented the other wearily. "I feel better now I've told
+you."
+
+Joe and Micky Donlon, which the red-haired boy said was his name, though
+probably Michael was what he had been christened, were soon on their way
+toward the river and the location of one of the shipyards.
+
+"Are youse sure I can see de show to-night?" asked Micky eagerly, as
+they walked along.
+
+"Positive," said Joe. "Here's a reserved seat ticket now. Two, in fact,
+in case you want to take some one."
+
+"I'll take me mudder," declared the lad. "I got a girl, but she's goin'
+wit another feller. He bought two tickets, but dey wasn't reserved
+seats. I didn't have the dough--dat's why she shook me, I guess. But
+when I flash dese on her--say, maybe she won't want to shine up at me
+again! But nothin' doin'! I'll take me mudder. She needs a change after
+waitin' on dat guy what's been on a spree."
+
+"How long has Mr. Logan been ill?" asked Joe.
+
+"Oh, he's been in Kelly's joint for a week."
+
+"He must have been waiting for the circus to arrive," thought Joe. "He
+knew we were booked for here. Poor fellow!"
+
+Joe was glad it was still light when he entered the district where
+Kelly's cafe, or saloon, to be more exact, was situated. For the place
+was most disreputable in appearance, and the character of men loitering
+about it would have made it a place to stay away from after dark.
+
+Suspicious eyes looked at Joe as he entered the place with his young
+guide.
+
+"He's come to see de sick guy," Micky explained to the bartender.
+
+"Well, I hope he's come to pay what's owin'," was the surly comment.
+
+"I'll settle any bills that Mr. Logan may owe for board or lodging,"
+said Joe.
+
+"Board! He don't owe much for _board_!" sneered the barkeeper. "He
+hasn't eaten enough to keep a fly alive. But he does owe for his room."
+
+"I'll pay that," offered Joe. Then he was guided upstairs to a squalid
+room.
+
+"Come in!" called a weak voice, and Joe, pushing back the door, saw,
+lying on a tumbled bed, the form of the old fire-eater. It was a great
+change Ham Logan was in even worse condition than when he had applied
+to Joe for work. He was utterly disreputable. But in spite of that there
+was something about his face and eyes that gave Joe hope. The man was
+sober--that was one thing.
+
+As Joe looked at him, Ham turned his face away.
+
+"I--I'm ashamed to have you see me," he murmured. "I fought it off as
+long as I could, but I just had to see you. 'Tisn't for my own sake!" he
+added quickly. "I know you're through with me. But it's for your
+own--and the good of the show. I've got something to tell you, and, when
+I've done that, you can go away again and forget me. That's all I'm fit
+for--to be forgotten!"
+
+A dry sob shook his emaciated frame.
+
+"Son, here's a quarter," said Joe to the red-haired Micky. "You go out
+and get yourself an ice-cream soda and come back in half an hour."
+
+And after he had thus delicately removed a witness to the sad scene Joe
+closed the door, and, going over to the bed, held out both his hands to
+the man.
+
+And then tears--tears to which he had long been stranger--coursed down
+the sunken cheeks of Hamilton Logan.
+
+Just what Joe said to the man whom he had befriended and who had gone
+back to his old ways and what Ham Logan said to his young benefactor
+will never be known. Neither would tell, and no one else knew. As a
+matter of fact, it did not matter. Afterward, though, following some
+sensational happenings which did become known, Joe told his closest
+friends enough of Ham's story to make clear the trend of events.
+
+Punctually on the time agreed, Micky Donlon was back at his post. Joe
+was coming out of the room.
+
+"Are you engaged for the rest of the day?" asked the young circus
+performer of his guide.
+
+"Engaged?"
+
+"I mean have you anything to do?"
+
+"Not so's you could notice! Me mudder's goin' to dress up to see de
+show, but me--I'm all ready!"
+
+"Good! Then you can help me. I'll pay you for your time. Can we get an
+automobile in this part of the city?"
+
+"Gee, no, mister! Dere's jitney buses about two blocks up, though."
+
+"Well, perhaps they'll do for a time. I've got a lot to do, and you can
+help me."
+
+"I sure will, mister!" cried Micky. "Are youse in de circus--I mean does
+youse ride a horse or jump over de elephants?"
+
+"Well, something like that--yes," answered Joe with a smile. "You'll see
+to-night if you come."
+
+"Oh, I'll be dere! Don't forgit dat!"
+
+Joe and his guide took a jitney to the nearest public hack stand, where
+a number of automobiles were waiting, and Joe entered one of these with
+Micky.
+
+"Gee, if me girl could see me _now_!" murmured the red-haired lad, as
+he sank back in the deep seat.
+
+Joe was too preoccupied to more than smile at the lad. There was much
+that remained to be done. The circus was to remain in this city two days
+more, over Saturday night, in fact, leaving on Sunday for a distant
+city.
+
+"There's time enough to trap them!" mused Joe. "Time enough to trap
+them!"
+
+And, getting back to the show lot, he dismissed the automobile, and,
+taking Micky with him, sought out Jim Tracy, Mr. Moyne, and some of the
+other circus executives.
+
+And then the trap was set.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A BLAZE OF GLORY
+
+
+"Well," remarked Joe, after having talked rapidly and said considerable
+to his friends, "what do you think of my news?"
+
+"Great!" declared the ringmaster. "I didn't think things would take just
+that turn, but after Loper's confession and what Ham told you, I believe
+it all. That scoundrel ought to be sent away for life."
+
+"He'll go for a long time if I have anything to say," declared the
+treasurer. "Did you know we spotted more bogus tickets to-day?" he asked
+Joe.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, we did. I found it out just after you left. There were only a
+few. The rush will come to-night."
+
+"Unless we stop it," put in Jim Tracy.
+
+"We'll stop it!" decided Joe. "That's why I wanted to get things started
+in a hurry. The trap is all ready to spring. The detectives will be here
+at eight o'clock, just when the rush is at its height at the ticket
+wagon."
+
+"Are you going to bring Ham back?" asked Jim, when the conference was
+over.
+
+"I certainly am," was the answer. "I think he's been on his last spree.
+And he wouldn't have gone on this one only that he was tempted by some
+person. Put this tempter out of the way, and it will mean Ham's safety.
+Now we've got to work."
+
+There was an exceedingly busy time at the circus from then on, and very
+little of it concerned the show itself. The performance was delayed half
+an hour that night to enable the trap to be sprung.
+
+Joe and Jim Tracy met a certain train that came in from a large city,
+and saw alight from it two quiet, unassuming men.
+
+"There they are," said Joe. "Now things will move!" And he and the
+ringmaster were soon in conversation with the two new arrivals.
+
+A little later the four entered Joe's dressing tent at the circus
+grounds. And some time after that four men, whose faces were black from
+the smudge of machine oil and grease and whose clothes carried like
+marks, left Joe's quarters.
+
+"Down near the shipyards when the last of the day shift comes off will
+be the time and place," said one of the four smudge-faced men.
+
+"Right!" declared another.
+
+From the big shipyard poured hundreds of men. As they began to emerge
+from the gate the four soiled-faced individuals who had come from Joe's
+dressing tent mingled with them. They heard some one ask:
+
+"Are you sure the tickets'll be good?"
+
+"Sure," was the answer. "This fellow and his pal are part of the show.
+He sells 'em this way so there won't be such a crowd at the wagon, and
+that's why he makes such a big discount. It sort of guarantees a pretty
+big crowd, too. Oh, the tickets are good, all right. There's the ticket
+guy now."
+
+The crowd of men turned down a side street, and the four
+smutty-countenanced men went with them. One of the four said:
+
+"Wait till he sells a few tickets and then nab him."
+
+"There's two of 'em," said another voice.
+
+"Nab 'em both! They work together."
+
+Soon the men from the shipyard surrounded the two men, one of whom had
+been designated by the sentence: "There's the ticket guy now."
+
+Money began to change hands, and tickets were passed around. The four
+men who had kept together shoved their way through the crowd of ship
+workers.
+
+"How much are the tickets?" one asked.
+
+"Thirty-five cents," was the answer. "They'll cost you fifty or
+seventy-five at the wagon. The only reason we sell 'em this way is to
+avoid the rush. Then, too, you're really buying 'em at wholesale."
+
+"I'll take four," said the man of the quartette.
+
+"Here you are! Four."
+
+There was another clink of money and a rustle of slips of paper. Then
+the man who had passed over the tickets, said:
+
+"Here's your change. That was a five you gave me, wasn't it? Take your
+change."
+
+"And you take yours, Bill Carfax!" suddenly cried one of the four. "It's
+quite a sudden change, too!"
+
+There was a flash of something bright, a metallic click--two of them, in
+fact--and the ticket seller tried to break away. But he was held by the
+handcuffs on his wrists, one of the four grasping them by the connecting
+chain.
+
+"Get the other!" cried a sharp voice.
+
+There was a scuffle, another flash of something bright, two more clicks,
+and one of the four cried:
+
+"That'll be about all from you, Jed Lewis, _alias_ Inky Jed."
+
+The two handcuffed men seemed to know that the game was up. They
+shrugged their shoulders, looked at each other, and grew quiet suddenly.
+The set trap had been successfully sprung.
+
+"Hey! what's the big idea?"
+
+"What's it all about?"
+
+"Don't we get our tickets?"
+
+Thus cried the men from the shipyards.
+
+"You don't want these tickets," said Joe Strong, for as Bill Carfax
+looked more closely at one of the four he recognized him as the young
+circus man. "You don't want any tickets these men could sell you."
+
+"Why not?" demanded a man who had bought one.
+
+"Because they're counterfeit," was Joe's answer. "This man, Bill
+Carfax," and he nodded toward the one first handcuffed, "used to work
+with the Sampson show. He was discharged--ask him to tell you why--and
+soon after that we began to be cheated by the use of counterfeit
+tickets. We have been trying ever since to find out who sold them, and
+now we have."
+
+"You think you have!" sneered the man who had been called "Inky Jed."
+
+"We know it," said Joe decidedly. "Ham Logan overheard your plans
+discussed, and he's told everything."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Bill Carfax, and there was a world of meaning in that
+simple interjection.
+
+"And who might you guys be?" asked one of the shipyard men.
+
+"I'm one of the circus owners," said Joe quietly, "and this is the
+ringmaster," he went on, indicating Jim Tracy. "These other two
+gentlemen are detectives who have been working on the case since we
+discovered the counterfeits. We disguised ourselves in this way in
+order to trap these two," and he pointed to the handcuffed men.
+
+The ship workers nodded. One of them asked:
+
+"And aren't they with your show, and can't they sell tickets at reduced
+prices?"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Joe. "You might get in on the tickets you bought from
+them, but it would be illegally. The counterfeits are clever ones," he
+said, holding up four he had bought for evidence. "But we can detect the
+difference by means of the serial numbers. And now, if you men really
+want to see the show, go up to the lot and get your tickets from the
+wagon, or buy them at one of the authorized agencies."
+
+There were many questions fired at Joe and his friends by the shipyard
+men, but they had time to answer only a few.
+
+"We've got to get back to the performance," said Joe to the detectives.
+"You can take them with you," and he nodded toward Bill Carfax and his
+crony. "Jim and I will see you later."
+
+"Oh, we'll take them with us all right!" laughed one of the detectives.
+"Move lively, boys!" he added to the two prisoners. "The jig is up!"
+
+And the two counterfeiters seemed to know it.
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked Helen of Joe, when he got back a little
+before the time to go on with his acts. He had washed his face and
+changed to his circus costume. The two prisoners had been locked up.
+
+"Well, it means we killed two birds with one stone," said Joe. "We got
+rid of the men who have been making us lose money my means of the
+counterfeit tickets, and we have also under lock and key Bill Carfax,
+who tried several times to injure me, or at least to spoil my act, by
+means of acid on the trapeze rope and by changing the fireproof
+mixture."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Helen. "Then you were in danger?"
+
+"I suppose so--danger of injury, perhaps, but hardly death. I think
+Carfax, desperate as he was, would stop at that."
+
+"How did you find out about him and the other man?"
+
+"I'll just have time to tell you before my first act," said Joe. "It was
+Harry Loper who gave me the first idea. When he broke down it was
+because of what he had done, and on account of what Bill Carfax wanted
+him to do again. It was Bill who got into the tent once and put acid on
+my trapeze wire. And it was because he bribed poor Loper that he was
+able to do it. Bill pretended it was only a trick to make me slip,
+because he wanted to get even with me for discharging him. So poor, weak
+Harry let him sneak into the tent, disguised so none of our men would
+know him. Bill climbed up, put acid on the wire, and the fiery stuff did
+the rest.
+
+"Well, that preyed on Harry's mind, but he kept putting it away. But
+finally, knowing the hold he had on him, Bill came back and gave him a
+bottle of acid to work some further harm to me or my apparatus. But Ham
+discovered that in time.
+
+"Bill was provoked over his failure, and, when he wasn't helping Inky
+Jed get out the bogus tickets, he followed the show and tried to prevail
+on Harry to play another trick on me. Just what it was Harry doesn't
+know. He refused to do it, and then he came and confessed to me. So much
+for Harry. He's a sorry boy, and I think he'll turn over a new leaf.
+
+"Now about Ham. Just as I feared, he got to drinking again. But it was
+because Bill met him when poor Ham's nerves were on edge, and Bill
+induced him to take liquor. Then Ham went all to pieces and started on a
+spree which lasted until now. He managed to get from place to place,
+always under Bill's eye, and at last he landed here, very weak and ill.
+Mrs. Donlon looked after him.
+
+"And it was here that Ham first heard Bill and his crony plotting about
+the bogus circus tickets. The two counterfeiters planned to make a big
+strike here with the shipyard workers. Then Ham sent the warning to me.
+I called on him, learned the plans of Bill and Jed, and we sent for the
+detectives. The latter, we learned, were about to make an arrest
+anyhow, but it was of the men who really printed the bogus tickets. They
+hadn't a clew, as yet, to Bill and Jed, who were the real backers of the
+game. The detectives came on, disguised themselves with us, and we
+caught the scoundrels in the very act. Now they're locked up."
+
+"Oh, Joe, it's wonderful!" exclaimed Helen. "I'm so glad it's all over.
+And are you going to bring Ham back to the show?"
+
+"Just as soon as he's able to travel. Micky Donlon wants to join too,
+and I may give him a chance later. Well, our troubles seem to be over
+for a time, but I suppose there'll be more."
+
+"Oh, look on the bright side!" exclaimed Helen. "Why be a fire-eater if
+you can't look on the bright side?" she laughed.
+
+"That's so," agreed her admirer. "Well, I've got to get ready to eat
+some fire right now."
+
+As Joe had said, everything was cleared up. Bill Carfax was at the
+bottom of most of the personal troubles of the young circus man, and his
+acts were actuated by a desire for vengeance. As to the ticket trick,
+Bill was only a sort of agent in that. Jed Lewis, alias Inky Jed, was an
+expert counterfeiter. He had already served time in prison for trying to
+make counterfeit money, and when he fell in with Bill, and heard the
+latter tell of some of his circus experiences, the more skillful
+scoundrel became impressed with the chance of making money by selling
+spurious tickets.
+
+They had some printed and worked the scheme among crowds of men coming
+from factories, just as they were doing when they were caught.
+
+As Ham told Joe, the old fire-eater had overheard the plots and saw his
+chance to do Joe a favor. Carfax, it was surmised, hoped to get Ham
+Logan under his influence through drink, so that he might use him in
+order to injure Joe, after having failed with Harry Loper.
+
+It developed, afterward, that the paper mills had, innocently enough,
+furnished the swindlers with the paper for the counterfeit tickets. The
+material was secured through a trick, and Inky Jed knew an unscrupulous
+printer who did the work for him.
+
+It was Bill Carfax who had sent the man who so nearly exposed Joe's box
+trick. But fortune was with the young circus man.
+
+The music played, the horses trotted about, clowns made laughter, and
+Helen performed graceful feats on Rosebud. Joe did some magical tricks,
+walked the wire, slid down on his head, and then prepared for the
+blazing banquet.
+
+In order to show what he could do, Ted Brown had introduced some
+novelties. After Joe and the guests had devoured the blazing food there
+was a pause, and then, suddenly, from the center of the table spouts of
+red fire burst out, so that the banquet ended in a blaze of glory.
+Joe's new helper had used some fireworks effectively.
+
+In due time Bill and his crony were tried, convicted, and sent away to
+prison for long terms. Harry Loper changed his rather loose and weak
+ways and became one of Joe's best friends. Ted Brown was continued as an
+"assistant assistant," for in a few weeks Ham Logan was able to rejoin
+the show, and he again became Joe's chief helper.
+
+"Well, what are you going to spring next on the unsuspecting public as a
+sensation?" asked Helen, when the show had reached a city where two days
+were to be spent. "Have you other acts as good a the fire-eating?"
+
+"Well, perhaps I can think up some," was the answer.
+
+And so, with Joe Strong thinking what the future might hold for him and
+the circus, we will take our leave for a time.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater, by Vance Barnum
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