Figures were seen upon the top of the Wagon-Tire House (both roofs were flat) and Frosty strained his eyes eagerly toward that end of the big wire. The wondering children drew back and refrained even from whispering among themselves—Troy's caution was not needed. Strange doings, indeed, were going forward about the end of the wire. Troy Gilbert was apparently pushing a reluctant figure toward it—it looked as though the person were tied, and he laughed and struck her when she seemed unwilling.
Finally, Columbia began to move out slowly along the wire. She was everything that audience or proprietor could desire. The spiked tiara was on her head, blazing with violet light. Down her back hung her fair curling hair; in her hands was the long balancing pole—Columbia's scepter of power; and her white draperies were illuminated with fires of blue and crimson and violet.
The children stared, silent, motionless, expectant. They were nearer than those in the street and had had opportunity to observe the irregularity of Columbia's launching.
There was a little outburst of applause when she first appeared. But as she moved out over the wire, the silence was so complete that the coughing of one of the patient ponies on the outskirts of the crowd was plainly audible.
Those in the secret were silent, in ecstasies of admiration. The children kept still because they had been told to—whatever they saw. Those not instructed were mute with amazement—a sort of creeping awe.
Most of the audience had seen Minnie that afternoon in the tent-show, her slender girlish form clad in spangled gauze, her delicate blonde prettiness enhanced by the attire, doing her trapeze act. She had then moved with the lithe grace of a young deer; her face had been all eager animation. What sort of thing was this, that seemed to advance along the wire as though it were on casters—that was never seen to take a step? What face was this, strange, staring, immobile as a face carved in wood?
"Gee!" murmured one of the X Q K boys, who had come in late and was uninformed. "Gee, I ain't been a-drinkin' a thing—what in the name o' pity ails that gal!"
"Great Scott; she gives me the mauley-grubs! Ugh!" and his companion shivered. But save for these murmured comments, the crowd was intensely still.
Suddenly, about the middle of the street, Columbia's forward movement slackened, checked altogether. This was not unexpected, for midway the rockets fastened about her waist, and upon her crown were to be discharged. The manner in which these latter went off brought shrieks and groans from the crowd below. They fizzed up into Columbia's face, they burned against her bodice, they struck her arms. "Oh! oh! Poor soul! she'll have her eyes put out! She'll be killed!" cried a woman's voice from the street.
"I might 'a' known better than to trust that fool Gilbert with them fireworks," groaned old Frosty. "That there girl is worth more'n a hundred dollars a month to me. If I was to take her East I could hire her out for two hundred, easy, an' here she's likely to get all crippled up, so's't she won't never be no account."