In a little less than half an hour they had arrived at the circus lot, and true to his word, the advertising man carried Dick round to the ticket wagon and introduced him to the manager and owner.
It took Dick but a short time to convince the owner that he could dive, particularly when he offered to give an exhibition for him before the show started. The only thing that the manager insisted on was that Dick sign a statement relieving the circus from any responsibility in case any accident occurred.
Dick readily signed this, and then promising to be back in a short time to get some tights and get dressed, they wandered around the lot. They left their rifles and knapsacks in the ticket wagon, but Garry kept his lariat with him.
“What’s the idea?” asked Phil.
“There’s very little chance of anything happening, but I don’t want any of those riders to walk off with this lariat by mistake,” he replied.
This decided the boys to keep theirs with them also, and accordingly they slung them over one shoulder. Several curious glances were cast at them as they wandered from show to show. The owner had given them passes to everything, and they didn’t waste any of them.
Soon a bugle was heard blowing and in a moment they met the advertising man who informed them that called all the performers to be ready in a few moments. “Your act will be the fourth on the program, so you’d better go and get your togs on and be ready,” he told Dick.
Garry and Phil elected to go to their seats and watch their chum do his act with the rest of the spectators.
“I’ll come and hunt you up as soon as I do the dive and collect that twenty-five good old dollars. I can use it very nicely one of these days,” Dick said as he turned to follow the circus man to the dressing place.
While the circus was a small one, it boasted of rather better things than the average road circus, and among other things was a fairly good menagerie. Garry and Phil looked at all the animals as they passed through to the “big top.”