CHAPTER XVI
THE STRIKE
The circus train bumped along for a few hundred feet, the engine meanwhile madly whistling, the wheels rattling over the wooden sleepers, and inside the various cars, where the performers had been suddenly awakened from their sleep, pandemonium reigned.
"What's the matter?" called Benny Turton from his berth near Joe's.
"Off the track—that's all," was the answer, given in a reassuring voice. For Joe had, somehow or other, grasped the fact there was no great danger unless they ran into something, and this, as yet, had not happened.
The train was off the track (or at least some of the coaches were) but it was quickly slowing down, and Joe, by a quick glance at his watch, made a mental calculation of their whereabouts.
For several miles in the vicinity where the accident had occurred was a long, and comparatively straight stretch of track, with no bridges and no gullies on either side. A train running off the track, even if going at fairly fast speed, would hardly topple over.
Before starting out that night Joe had inquired of one of the men about the journey, and, learning that they were approaching his former home, the town of Bedford, he had looked up the route and the time of arrival at their next stopping place. He had a quick mind, and he remembered about where they should be at the time the accident occurred. In that way he was able to determine that, unless they struck something, they were in comparatively little danger.
"Off the track—that's all!" repeated Benny Turton as he looked down from his berth at Joe. "Isn't that enough? Wow! What's going on now?"
The train had stopped with a jolt. The air brakes, which the engineer had flung on at the first intimation of danger, had taken hold of the wheels with a sudden grip.
"This is the last stop," said Joe, and he smiled up at Benny. He could do so now, for he felt that their coach, at least, was safe. But he was anxious as to what had happened to the others. Helen, with many of the other women performers, was in the coach ahead.
Benny crawled down from his berth, and stood looking at Joe.
"It doesn't seem to worry you much," he remarked.
"Not as long as there's nothing worse than this," Joe answered. "You're not hurt, are you?"
"Only my feelings."
"Well, you'll get over that. Let's see what's up."
By this time the aisle of the car was filled with excited men performers. They all wanted to know what had happened, their location and various other bits of information.
"The train jumped the track," said Joe, who appeared the coolest of the lot. "We don't seem to have hit anything, though at first I thought we had. We're right side up, if not exactly with care."
"Where are we?" demanded Tonzo Lascalla.
"We ought to be near Far Hills, according to the time table," Joe answered. "If I could get a look out I could tell."
He went to the end of the car and peered out. It was a bright moonlight night, and Joe was able to recognize the locality. As a boy he had tramped all around the country within twenty-five miles of Bedford, in the vicinity of which they now were, and he had no difficulty in placing himself. He found that he had guessed correctly.
By this time there was an excited crowd of trainmen and circus employees outside the coaches which had left the rails. Joe and some of the others slipped on their clothes and went out to see what had happened.
Joe's first glance was toward the coach in which he knew Helen rode. He was relieved to see that though it had also left the rails it was standing upright. In fact, none of the cars had tilted more than was to be expected from the accident.
"Well, this is a nice pickle!" exclaimed Jim Tracy, bustling up. "This means no parade, and maybe no afternoon show. How long will it take you to get us back on the rails?" he asked one of the brakemen.
"Hard to say," was the answer. "We'll have to send for the wrecking crew. Lucky it's no worse than a delay."
"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the ring-master. It was only one train of the several that made up the circus which had left the rails. The animal cars were on ahead, safe, and the sections following the derailed coaches had, by a fortunate chance, not left the rails.
"What caused us to jump?" asked Benny.
"There was a fish plate jammed in a switch," answered one of the brakemen. "We found it beside the track where we knocked it out, and that saved the other trains from doing as we did."
"A fish plate in the switch?" repeated Joe. "Did it get there by accident?"
"Ask me something easier," quoted the brakeman. "It might have, and again it might not. I understand you discharged a lot of men at your last stop, and it may be some of them tried to get even with you."
It was true that a number of canvasmen had been allowed to go because they were found useless, but none of the circus men believed that these individuals would do so desperate a deed as to try to wreck the train.
Joe thought of the threatening letter he had received—Sim Dobley was the writer, he was sure—but even Sim would hardly try anything like this. He might feel vindictive against Joe, and try to do him some harm or bring about Joe's discharge.
But to wreck a train——
"I don't believe he'd do that," reasoned Joe. "I won't mention the letter—it would hardly be fair. I don't want to get him into trouble, and I have no evidence against him."
So Joe kept quiet.
The circus trains ahead of the derailed one could keep on to their destination. After some delay those in the rear were switched to another track, and so passed around the stalled cars.
Then the wrecking crew arrived, and just as the first gray streaks of dawn showed the last of the cars was put back on the track.
"Well, we're off again," remarked Joe, as, with Benny and some of their friends, they got back in their berths.
"Not much more chance for sleep, though," the "human fish" remarked, dolefully enough.
"Oh, I think I can manage to get some," said, Joe, as he covered up, for the morning was a bit chilly.
"I hope my glass tank didn't get cracked in the mix-up," remarked Benny. "It wouldn't take much to make that leak, and I've had troubles enough of late without that."
"Oh, I guess it's perfectly safe," remarked Joe, sleepily.
The excitement caused by the derailing was soon forgotten. Circus men are used to strenuous happenings. They live in the midst of excitement, and a little, more or less, does not bother them. Most of them slept even through the work of getting the train back on the rails.
Of course the circus was late in getting in—that is the derailed train with its quota of performers was. Early in the morning, when they should have been on the siding near the grounds, the train was still puffing onward.
Joe arose, got a cup of coffee in the buffet car, and went on ahead to inquire about Helen and some of his friends in the other coach.
"Oh, I didn't mind it much," Helen said, when Joe asked her about it. "I felt a few bumps, and I thought we had just struck a poor spot in the roadbed."
"She hasn't any more nerves than you have, Joe Strong," declared Mrs. Talfo, "the fat lady."
"Did you mind it much?" Joe asked.
"Did I? Say, young man, it's a good thing I had a lower berth. I rolled out, and if I had fallen on anybody—well, there might have been a worse wreck! Fortunately no one was under me when I tumbled," and Mrs. Talfo chuckled.
"And you weren't hurt?" asked Joe.
The fat lady laughed. Her sides shook "like a bowlful of jelly," as the nursery rhyme used to state.
"It takes more than a fall to hurt me," said Mrs. Talfo. "I'm too well padded. But we're going to get in very late," she went on with a look at her watch. "The performers should be at breakfast at this time, to be ready for the street parade."
"We may have to omit the parade," said Joe.
"I wouldn't care," declared the fat lady with a sigh. "It does jolt me something terrible to ride over cobble streets, and they never will let me stay out."
"You're quite an attraction," said Joe, with a smile.
"Oh, yes, it's all right to talk about it," sighed Mrs. Talfo, "but I guess there aren't many of you who would want to tip the scales at five hundred and eighty pounds—advertised weight, of course," she added, with a smile. "It's no joke—especially in hot weather."
The performers made merry over the accident now, and speculated as to what might happen to the show. Their train carried a goodly number of the "artists," as they were called on the bills, and without them a successful and complete show could not be given.
"We may even have to omit the afternoon session," Joe stated.
"Who said so?" Helen demanded.
"Mr. Tracy."
"Well, it's better to lose that than to have the whole show wrecked," said the snake charmer. "I remember being in a circus wreck once, and I never want to see another."
"Did any of the animals get loose?" asked Joe.
"I should say they did! We lost a lion and a tiger, and for weeks afterward we had to keep men out hunting for the creatures, which the excited farmers said were taking calves and lambs. No indeed! I don't want any more circus wrecks. This one was near enough."
This brought up a fund of recollected circus stories, and from then on, until the train stopped on the siding near the grounds, the performers took turns in telling what they had known of wrecks and other accidents to the shows with which they had been connected. Joe listened eagerly. It was all new to him.
"I only hope my glass tank isn't cracked," said Benny again. He seemed quite worried about this.
"Well, if it's broken they'll have to get you another," Joe told him. The tank was carried in one of the cars of the derailed train.
"They might, and they might not," said Benny. "My act hasn't been going any too well of late, and maybe they'd be glad of a chance to drop it from the list. I only hope they don't, though, for I need the money."
Benny spoke wistfully. He seemed greatly changed from the boy Joe had known at first. Benny had grown thinner, and he often put his hand to his head, as though suffering constant pain. Joe and Helen felt sorry for him.
Still there was little they could do, except to cheer him up. Benny had to do his own act—which was a unique one that he had evolved after years of practice. It was not alone the staying under water that made it popular, it was the tricks that the lad did.
"Well, we're here at last," said Joe, as he and his friends alighted from their sleeping car. "Better late than never, I suppose."
Men were busy on the circus grounds, putting up tents, arranging the horses and other animals, putting the wagons in their proper places and doing the hundred and one things that need to be done.
"I wonder what's going on over there," said Helen, as she pointed to a group of men about the place where the canvas for the main tent had been spread out in readiness for erection. "It looks like trouble."
"It does," agreed Joe, as he saw Jim Tracy excitedly talking to the canvasmen. "I'm going to see what it is."
He approached the ring-master, who was also one of the owners of the show.
"Anything wrong?" Joe asked.
"Wrong? I should say so! As if I didn't already have troubles enough here, the tent-men go on a strike for more money. I never saw such luck!"