Mr. Forepaugh was mightily pleased with the acquisition, but not so the cowboys, the true sons of the frontier. All the honors of the show were Wagner’s and they were jealous. One day one of them suggested a systematic review of their gallant comrade’s past in the hope of uncovering an act of cowardice or crime, and the proposition met general favor. They hired a lawyer to investigate and his report was received in a surprisingly short time. The man who had represented himself as cradled amid pioneer surroundings had never been out of the Ohio county in which he revealed himself until the circus adopted him, and he had lost his leg by a premature anvil explosion at a Fourth of July celebration.
It was at this juncture that Adam Forepaugh lost, in a great measure, the respect and admiration of the cowboy fraternity, and proved, as I have observed, that noble emotions and lofty ideals cannot always rise supreme in the circus business. The cowboys, with many strange oaths and threats, presented their damning narrative, confident that the hour of retribution was at hand and that the owner of the show would express sympathy and gratitude for the disclosure. Wagner, they thought, would be clubbed off the lot.
Mr. Forepaugh listened intently to the story of the imposition. He, too, I know, had been as thoroughly deceived as the rest of us, but he wasn’t willing the show should suffer.
“What do I care,” he remarked quickly, and the expectant faces of the cowboys blanched, “whether the fellow’s a fakir or not? He looks the part better than any of you, he’s got a wooden leg to confirm it, he’s the finest liar under the tent and he’s made a big hit. He stays with the troupe.”
“Sergeant” Wagner continued as hero, guide, and scout until the season’s close, when he disappeared and the Wild West department heard of him no more. The memory of his dare-devil appearance, long golden locks floating in the wind, wide sombrero, buckskin breeches and protruding guns will not be effaced for many years.
The gnawing fear of attachments is never absent from the circus owner’s mind, and with all his mental wealth of resource, acquired by hard experience, he cannot always escape imposition. The sheriff becomes an object of hate and dread. His appearance with a levy, the showman knows, is a portend of extortion. So it is that sometimes he submits to injustice rather than bring about a conflict with the law. Unscrupulous people appreciate this, with its fine opportunity for blackmail, but sometimes the instigator comes as a shock and a surprise to the circus owner and helps to shake his faith in the general honest impulses accredited to human nature.
We were playing the Ohio towns. Business was big, weather fine and everybody was happy. One day a negro preacher, hat in hand and apologetic in manner, approached the owner and explained a grievance. His church edifice, eight miles outside the town, had been posted with our glaring show bills, the congregation was angry and mortified and threatening to go over in a body to another parish, and the church receipts had fallen to nothing. One hundred dollars would set things right. A lawyer who fingered a bunch of legal papers ominously was with the outraged clergyman. The circus compromised for fifty dollars and got a release.
We showed next day in a town fourteen miles distant. Before the parade had formed, the colored minister of the day before again confronted us. He was humble and devout enough in appearance, but the same lawyer was his companion, and a man whom we knew was the sheriff hovered on the outskirts of the lot. The man of religion lamented his complaint of the preceding day without a variation, and concluded the narrative again with a demand for pecuniary balm.
“Why, I settled with you yesterday,” the astonished owner retorted. “I gave you fifty dollars, and hold your paper of satisfaction. You have no further claim.”