"Have another lesson, Lorenzo!"
"I guess I'll go back to farmin'," answered Jotham, picking himself up and finding to his relief that none of his limbs were broken.
"Oh, nonsense! Try it again!"
"No, I guess not; I never would make a rider," and the boy left the tent completely cured of his wish to be a rider. He had received a rough but a wholesome lesson.
In the evening the performance began at the usual time. There was no change in the bill, and everything was expected to go on as usual.
In due time Robert came out for his equestrian act. In the course of it he had to jump through a hoop and over a banner. While he was doing this, suddenly a stone, as large as a base ball, hurled from the spectators' seats, struck the horse, and he swerved. The result was that Robert, instead of lighting on his back, fell to the ground in such a way that he turned his ankle, while the horse dashed by.
He was picked up, his face pale with the pain in his ankle, and was helped from the ring by some of the attendants.
"Shame! Shame! Lynch him!" rose from fifty indignant spectators. "Where's the man that threw the stone?"
But no one knew, except one. In one of the rear seats sat Carden, the discharged canvas man, smiling with malignant triumph at the mischief he had done.