CHAPTER XIII.—LEO MAKES A CHANGE.
Leo stared at the circus treasurer in amazement.
“For stealing two thousand circus tickets?” he repeated.
“Exactly, young man.”
“I am innocent.”
“I don’t believe Leo would steal a pin,” put in Natalie Sparks, who had just come up.
“That’s not for you to decide, Miss Sparks.” said Giles sharply. “We found evidence against you in your trunk, young man. You may as well confess.”
“What evidence?” asked Leo, bewildered.
The circus treasurer mentioned the red strips.
“I never placed them there,” declared Leo. “Somebody has been tampering with that trunk.”
“That’s too thin,” sneered Giles.
“Of course it’s too thin,” put in Snipper, who was watching the scene with an ill-concealed smile of triumph on his face.
Leo looked at the gymnast sharply. Then he suddenly bounded toward Snipper and ran him up against a pile of boxes.
“You scoundrel! This is some of your work! I can see it in your face.”
He choked Snipper until the man was red in the face.
“Let—let me go!” gasped the second-rate gymnast finally.
“Let him go, Dunbar,” ordered Giles, and caught Leo by the collar.
The noise of the trouble had spread, and now Barton Reeve appeared on the scene.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” he demanded.
He was quickly told by Natalie Sparks.
“I do not believe Leo is guilty, in spite of the red strips found in the trunk,” he said.
He talked the matter over with Giles, and finally Leo, Giles, and Barton Reeve went off to interview the manager.
They found Adam Lambert in the main ticket wagon, counting tickets and cash. He was much disturbed.
“I don’t know much about you, Dunbar,” he said coldly. “The thing looks very black, and——”
“Mr. Lambert, I am innocent!” cried Leo. “I believe this is only a plot against me.”
“A plot? Whose plot?”
“This man Snipper——”
“You and Snipper seem to be fighting continually,” broke in the manager.
“It is not my fault. He——”
“He always got along well enough before you came, Dunbar. I won’t have this continual quarreling around the show. It sets a bad example for the others.” The manager pulled at his mustache for a few seconds. “Can you prove you are innocent of the theft of the tickets?”
“Perhaps I can.”
“Aren’t you sure you can?”
“No, sir. I hope to be able to do so later on, though.”
“Well, then, until that time arrives you can consider yourself suspended from duty. I am going to get to the bottom of this affair.”
“I am discharged!” gasped Leo.
“Mr. Lambert, aren’t you a bit hard on the lad?” put in Barton Reeve.
“I don’t think so. Most men would have him arrested. But I’ll let him go, and that will give him a chance to clear himself—if he can.”
There was a sneer in the last words which cut Leo to the quick. He drew a long breath.
“Very well, sir, I’ll go,” he said in a strained voice. “But, sir, let me tell you that you are doing me a great injustice.”
Unable to control his feelings any longer, Leo, left the ticket wagon and hurried to the dressing tent.
Here his friends surrounded him and tried to pour words of sympathy into his ears. But he would not listen. Sick at heart, yet burning with indignation, he packed his trunk and prepared to leave.
“Where are you going?” asked Natalie Sparks, with something like a tear in her eye.
“I don’t know, Natalie—I’m too upset to think,” responded Leo, and that was all he could say.
Just before he left Barton Reeve brought him the wages due him, which Leo thrust into his pocket without counting.
“Lambert has got ’em on to-day,” he said. “In a day or two, when he cools down, he’ll be sorry he let you go.”
“It was a mean way to act,” answered the boy bitterly; and then he walked away from the circus grounds. A few blocks off he met a man with an empty wagon and hired him to go and fetch his trunk. When the man came back he asked if there was any hotel or boarding-house on the other side of town, conscious, in a way, that he must put up somewhere.
“Yes, there’s the Eagle Hotel,” said the man. “A good place and very reasonable.”
“All right; take me there.”
This was done, and then Leo sent the man to the other hotel, at which the higher class of circus performers were stopping, for the valise which contained his ordinary clothing.
He was still so upset in mind that he knew not what to do. Having engaged his room, he entered it and locked the door, and gave himself up to his reflections.
What should he do? Ah, that was the question. He had said that perhaps he could clear himself. How should he go to work to do it?
For fully an hour Leo pondered over the situation. Then he walked downstairs, left the hotel, and sauntered back to the circus grounds.
He kept his eyes and ears open in a vain endeavor to learn something to his advantage. The ticket thieves had taken warning, and not the slightest clew to them could be unearthed.
Leo passed a sleepless night at the hotel. Before he arose the “Greatest Show on Earth” had left the town.
“I’m out of it now,” he sighed. “Out of it, too, with a stain upon my name.” He bit his quivering lip until the blood came. “I can’t keep on following the circus around trying to clear myself, for I haven’t money enough.”
Yet Leo was not willing to give up, and that afternoon he took the stage to the next town, where the “Greatest Show on Earth” was stopping. Once more he hung around, and again nothing came of it. Sick at heart, he returned to the Eagle Hotel, wondering what he should do next.
At the hotel he found a man awaiting him—a sharp, shrewd individual, who introduced himself as Nathan Wampole.
“This is Leo Dunbar?”
“That is my name,” replied the young gymnast.
“I am the proprietor of ‘Wampole’s Trans-Continental Specialty Company,’ which opens in this place to-night. I was over to Cokeville this afternoon, where I met a friend of mine, Jack Giles, who belongs to the circus. He told me that you were out of a position, and as I need an extra performer or two, I thought I would call around and see you.”
“Did Mr. Giles send you to me?” queried Leo.
“Well, not exactly. But he said that probably you would be glad to obtain a position on the stage. He said you were a very fair gymnast and tumbler.”
“They used to think so at the circus.”
“I’ve no doubt you could do a very good turn or two.” Nathan Wampole coughed slightly and lowered his voice. “I heard of your trouble on account of some circus tickets, but of course that makes no difference to me,” and he looked at Leo suggestively.
“I had trouble, but I’m not guilty of any crime,” replied the boy quickly.
“Of course not, of course not! I merely thought to mention it. What do you say, would you like to join my company? We have a splendid route laid out and, consequently, we are sure of a very successful season.”
“What would you pay me, Mr. Wampole, if I joined you?” asked Leo cautiously. He did not like the man’s looks, but still thought it would be foolish to throw a chance of work aside.
“I might pay you ten dollars per week.”
“That would be a very small amount for a performer like myself.”
“Well, if you can do two good turns at each performance I’ll give you fifteen dollars. Come, what do you say?”
“I’ll take a look at the show first,” replied Leo.
In a few minutes more the pair were on the way to the theater in which “Wampole’s Trans-Continental Specialty Company” was to perform that evening.