"There's something wrong!" thought Joe in a flash. "Benny's in bad! I've got to help him!"
Joe knew the danger of creating a panic in a crowd. Whatever was done must be done quietly so as not to alarm the audience. Joe glanced about. Near him was Bill Watson, a veteran clown, pretending to play a game of ball all by himself.
Joe ran over to Bill and whispered in his ear:
"Quick, Bill! Benny's got a cramp in the tank! We've got to get him out in a hurry. Come on with me!"
CHAPTER II
JOE FILLS IN
For a moment Bill Watson looked as though he did not understand what Joe said to him.
"It's Ben—in the tank—something wrong," whispered Joe.
"I get you!" said Bill quickly. He dropped the big stick he was pretending to use as a bat, and hurried with Joe to the big glass tank. As yet no one else seemed to have noticed anything wrong with the "human fish." Other acts were going on around him, and the crowd, watching through the glass sides of the tank, appeared to take it all as a matter of course. Ben was still under water, but he was doing nothing save swimming about slowly—altogether too slowly, Joe thought, for it indicated that whatever ailed the "human fish" was increasing in intensity.
"What's the matter?" asked Jim Tracy of Joe, as the young acrobat and Bill hurried across the tent. "Why aren't you two going on with your acts?"