“Closing, sure enough,” rejoined Diggeldy Dan and a minute later he was skipping away down the menagerie tent, calling a good night to his friends and assuring them he would be back on the morrow and tell them still more of the tale.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH DAN PARTS WITH OLD FRIENDS AND PREPARES TO CLAIM A REWARD
“Never, I’ll warrant you, had the greatest of woods resounded with so strange a commotion,” continued Diggeldy Dan, as he again took up the thread of his story. “Never, I’ll make bold to surmise, had so singular a carry-all with such a gayly dressed passenger boomed through the quiet of its sunset hour. For what could have proved more of a surprise to those peaceful surroundings than the approach of an elephant most as big as a house, coming onward with strides as wide as a wall, and a clown clinging fast to one foot!
“Yet, forward we crashed and we plunged, making straight for the littlest town. Far ahead the tree trunks and the low-hanging boughs showed blue-black against the russet and red of the sky that windowed the woods to the west. And from this very same spot sprang long, fan-like rays with edges of silver and edges of gold, travelling to meet us and bathing all that they passed in soft, yellow light. Straight for this light the two of us lunged—smashingly, dashingly onward—shaking the ground and the glades as we went: bound for the edge of the town. Now we came to the top of a leaf-covered slope that played floor to an open space lined on both sides with trees. And there, at the end, was the fast sinking sun, while smack up against its ruby-red face stood the spire of a church in the town.
“At sight of the steeple we slackened our pace, veered a bit to the left, and—in a half-minute more—reached the fringe of the trees for which I had sped when I first took flight to the woods. Another stride and Gray Ears had thrust his huge head through a rift in the foliage, and we looked out over the field. And then I made a most startling discovery.
“The circus was nowhere to be seen!
“Thinking I might have mistaken the spot, I sprang from my place to the ground. But, alas! there were the holes that had once held the stakes, and the tracks and the scars left by the red wagon wheels to prove what I feared to be only too true.
“As I stood there, sadly surveying the spot, Gray Ears strode across to my side.
“‘They have gone,’ I said to him, sadly, ‘gone on, leaving Diggeldy Dan.’
“‘Gone, to be sure,’ he agreed, ‘but tush, tush—what a queer tone of voice. And whoever heard of a clown with a mouth that turned down! So cheer up, for doubtless it is all for the best. And in the meantime let us again seek the trees, for I think I heard someone approaching.’