Joe Strong the Boy Fire-Eater | Page 8

and climbed up another to the second
platform. The show would not start for several hours yet, and the tent
was filled with men putting in place the stage for Joe's magic tricks and
other apparatus for various performers. The parade was just forming to
proceed down town.
Joe found that Harry Loper had done his work well, at least as far as the
platforms were concerned. They were firmly fastened. The one to
which Joe leaped after his swing needed to be considerably stronger
than the one from which he "took off."
The next act of the young circus performer was to climb up to the very
top of the tent, and there to examine the fastenings of the trapeze ropes.
He spent some time at this, having reached his high perch by a third
rope ladder.
"I guess everything is all right," mused Joe. "Perhaps I did Harry an
injustice. He might have taken some stimulant for a cold--they all got
wet through the other night. But still he ought to be careful. He was a
little too talkative for a man to give his whole attention to fastening a
trapeze. But this seems to be all right. I'll do the big swing this
afternoon and to-night, in addition to the box trick and the vanishing
lady. Helen works exceedingly well in that."
Having seen that his aerial apparatus was all right, Joe next went to his
tent where his magical appliances were kept. Many stage tricks depend
for their success on special pieces of apparatus, and Joe's acts were no
exception.
Joe saw that everything was in readiness for his sleight-of-hand work,

and then examined his Box of Mystery. As this was a very special piece
of apparatus, he was very careful about it. His ability to get out of it,
once he was locked and roped in, depended on a delicate bit of
mechanism, and the least hitch in this meant failure.
But a test showed that it was all right, and as by this time it was nearly
the hour for the parade to come back and the preliminaries to begin, Joe
went over to the circus office to see if any matters there needed his
attention.
As he crossed the lot to where the "office" was set up in a small tent,
the first horses of the returning parade came back on the circus grounds.
Following was a mob of delighted small boys and not a few men.
"Looks as if we'd have a big crowd," said Joe to himself. "And it's a
fine day for the show. We'll make money!"
He attended to some routine matters, and then the first of the afternoon
audience began to arrive. As Joe had predicted, the crowd was a big
one.
The young performer was in his dressing room, getting ready for the
big swing, which he would perform before his mystery tricks, when Mr.
Moyne, the circus treasurer, entered. There was a queer look on Mr.
Moyne's face, and Joe could not help but notice it.
"What's worrying you?" asked Joe. "Doesn't this weather suit you, or
isn't there a big enough crowd?"
"That's just it, Joe," was the unexpected answer. "There's too big a
crowd. We have too many people at this show, and that's what is
worrying me a whole lot!"
Joe Strong looked in surprise at the treasurer. What could Mr. Moyne
mean?
CHAPTER IV

THE RUSTED WIRE
"Yes," went on the circus treasurer, as he rubbed his chin reflectively,
"it's a curious state of affairs, and as you're so vitally interested I came
to you at once. There's going to be trouble!"
"Trouble!" cried Joe with a laugh. "I can't see that, Mr. Moyne. You
say there's a big crowd of people at our circus--too much of a crowd, in
fact. I can't see anything wrong in that. It's just what we're always
wanting--a big audience. Let 'em fill the tent, I say, and put out the
'Straw Seats Only' sign. Trouble! Why, I should say this was good
luck!" and Joe hastened his preparations, for he wanted to go on with
the big swing.
"Ordinarily," said Mr. Moyne, in the slow, precise way he had of
speaking, brought about, perhaps, by his need of being exact in money
matters, "a big crowd would be the very thing we should want. But this
time we don't--not this kind of a crowd."
"What do you mean?" asked Joe, beginning to feel that it was more
than a mere notion on the part of the treasurer that something was
wrong. "Is it a rough crowd? Will there be a 'hey rube!' cry raised--a
fight between our men and the mill hands?"
"Oh, no, nothing like that!" the treasurer hastened to assure Joe. "The
whole thing is