CHAPTER VIII
HELEN'S LETTER
"Now I wonder," mused Joe as he leaped out of the net, "what they said to each other. I'm sure it was about me. Well, let it go. I did the trick, and I guess he won't pull his legs away again. If he does he'll have to pull 'em so far that it will be noticed all over, and he can't say it was an accident. I'll take care to make a high jump."
Joe practised the trick again and again, until he felt he was perfect in it. Tonzo seemed to have given up the idea of spoiling it, if that had been his intention, and he and Joe worked at it until they could do it smoothly.
"When are you going to put it on?" Jim Tracy inquired, when told there was a new feature to the Lascalla Brothers' act.
"Oh, in a couple of nights now," Joe answered.
"You sure are making good, all right," the ring-master informed him. "I didn't make any mistake booking you. I didn't know whom to turn to in a hurry when Sim Dobley went back on me, and then I happened to think of you. Got your route from one of the magazines, and sent you the wire."
"I was mighty glad to come," confessed Joe.
The new act created more applause than ever for the Lascalla Brothers when it was exhibited, but the louder applause seemed to come to Joe, though he did not try to keep his fellow performers from their share. And, as might be expected, there was not a little professional jealousy on the part of some of the other performers.