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.