CHAPTER XVII
THE CIRCUS BOYS WIN NEW LAURELS
"Bareback riders out!" shouted the callboy, poking his head into the dressing tent.
"Get out!" roared a clown, hurling a fellow performer's bath brush at the boy, which the youngster promptly shied back at the clown's head, then prudently made his escape to call Little Dimples in the women's dressing tent.
Phil Forrest, proud and happy, bounded out into the paddock, resplendent in pink tights, a black girdle about his loins, sparkling with silver spangles.
Little Dimples ran out at about the same time.
"How do I look?" he questioned, his face wreathed in smiles.
"If you ride half as well as you look today, you will make the hit of your life," twinkled Dimples merrily. "There, don't blush. Run along. The band is playing our entrance tune. Mr. Ducro will be in a fine temper if we are a second behind time."
For that day, and until Phil could break in on another animal, Little Dimples had loaned her gray to him, for Phil did not dare to try the experiment of riding a new horse at his first appearance. Altogether too much depended upon his first public exhibition as a bareback rider to permit his taking any such chances.
Dimples owned two horses, so she rode the second one this day.