"Well, as long as he doesn't do any fire-drinking maybe he'll be all right," said the old clown.
"I haven't noticed any lapse," said Joe. "I have great hopes of him."
But that very afternoon, during the performance, Joe felt doubt beginning to creep over him. He caught Ham in several mistakes—slight ones—but enough, if not noticed in time, to have spoiled the act.
"I wonder what the matter is with him?" mused Joe. "He doesn't seem to have been drinking, and yet he acts queer. I wonder if he can be using drugs."
It was at the close of the act and the wind-up of the circus for the afternoon that Joe told Ham to put away some of the apparatus until evening. Joe was called away from his dressing room for a moment and when he came back he saw Ham hastily throw away a dark brown bottle which struck on a stone and broke. Immediately a queer odor filled the air.
"I wonder if that was liquor he was taking, and if he threw away the empty bottle," thought Joe quickly. "I'm going to find out, I've got to stop this thing at the start."
He hurried to the place where Ham had tossed the bottle. The fragments lay there, and the queer odor was more pronounced.
"Don't touch that! Let that bottle alone!" suddenly cried Ham Logan, as he became aware of Joe's intention. "Don't touch it!"