"You took it," finished Helen. "That's just like you, Joe."
Joe went through his trapeze work in the big tent that afternoon with as much vim and vigor as though he had not, an hour before, taken such a chance with his life. And he followed that up by doing his tank act with his usual success. He did not stay under water quite so long, however, as he found that he was tiring a little, and he wanted to save himself for the night's performance, when a bigger crowd would be present.
And at night Joe went two seconds ahead of his previous best record.
"You'll crowd the world's record yet," predicted Jim Tracy.
The show moved on, and at the next town it received an unexpected bit of advertising. For a reporter in the town where Joe had started on his sensational trestle ride had been given the facts by some of the eyewitnesses, to whom Joe had given his name.
The reporter wrote a thrilling story, and it was published in the paper of the city where the circus was billed the following day.
It was not until then that most of Joe's fellow performers heard about his feat, and it made a great sensation.
"Why didn't you save that act for the circus?" asked Jim Tracy. "It would have made a big hit and brought a crowd."
"I didn't have time to stage it properly," Joe said. "I was thinking of saving myself a fine for being late at the show."
But an unusually big crowd came to the show anyhow, brought by having read of Joe's thrilling ride. He was a sort of center of attraction as he went through his trapeze and tank acts.