“Now I wonder,” mused Joe as he leaped out of the net, “what they said to each other. I’m sure it was about me. Well, let it go. I did the trick, and I guess he won’t pull his legs away again. If he does he’ll have to pull ’em so far that it will be noticed all over, and he can’t say it was an accident. I’ll take care to make a high jump.”

Joe practised the trick again and again, until he felt he was perfect in it. Tonzo seemed to have given up the idea of spoiling it, if that had been his intention, and he and Joe worked at it until they could do it smoothly.

“When are you going to put it on?” Jim Tracy inquired, when told there was a new feature to the Lascalla Brothers’ act.

“Oh, in a couple of nights now,” Joe answered.

“You sure are making good, all right,” the ring-master informed him. “I didn’t make any mistake booking you. I didn’t know whom to turn to in a hurry when Sim Dobley went back on me, and then I happened to think of you. Got your route from one of the magazines, and sent you the wire.”

“I was mighty glad to come,” confessed Joe.

The new act created more applause than ever for the Lascalla Brothers when it was exhibited, but the louder applause seemed to come to Joe, though he did not try to keep his fellow performers from their share. And, as might be expected, there was not a little professional jealousy on the part of some of the other performers.

If Sid and Tonzo were jealous of him they took pains to hide that fact from Joe, but some of the others were not so careful. A few of the other gymnasts openly declared that the Lascalla Brothers were getting altogether too much public attention.

“They detract from me,” declared Madame Bullriva, the “strong woman,” whose star feat was to get beneath a board platform on which stood twelve men, and raise it from the saw-horses across which it lay. True, she only raised it a few inches, but the act was “billed big.”

“I don’t get half the applause I used to,” she complained to Jim Tracy. “You let those ‘Spanish onions’ have too much time in the ring, and give that Joe Strong a ruffle of drums and the big boom every time he makes the long jump.”

“But it’s worth it,” said the ring-master. “It’s a big drawing card.”

“So’s my act, but I don’t get a single drum beat. Can’t I have some music with my act?”

“I’ll see,” promised the ring-master, but he had many other things to think of, and the act of Madame Bullriva went unheralded, to her great disgust.

“Talk about footlight favorites,” she complained to Helen Morton, as they dressed together for a performance, “that Joe Strong is getting all that’s coming to him.”

“Oh, I don’t think he tries to take away from any of us,” Helen answered.

“No, he doesn’t personally. He’s a nice boy. But Tracy makes too much fuss over him. I like Joe, but he and his partners are ‘crabbing’ my act, all right.”

“Perhaps if you spoke to him ”

“What! Me? Let him know I cared? I guess not! I’ll join some other circus first.”

“You might put another man on the platform, and lift thirteen,” the young trick rider suggested.

“What! Lift thirteen? That would be unlucky, my dear. I did it once when I was on the Western circuit in a Wild West show, and believe me never again! I strained a shoulder muscle, and I had to lie up in a hospital five weeks. Twelve men are enough to lift at once, take it from me! But Joe is a nice boy, I’ll say that. Don’t you like him?”

Helen’s answer was not very clear, but perhaps that was because she was fixing her hair in readiness for the entrance into the ring with her trained horse, Rosebud.

Joe, Helen and Benny Turton seemed to have formed a little group among themselves. They sat together at the circus table, and when they were not “on,” they were much in the company of one another.

They were about the same age, and they enjoyed each other’s society greatly, being congenial companions. Joe was “introduced” to Rosebud and, being naturally fond of animals, he made friends with the intelligent horse at once, which pleased Helen.

She and Joe were getting very fond of one another, though perhaps neither of them would have admitted that, if openly taxed with it. But, somehow or other, Joe seemed naturally to drift over near Helen when they were both in the tent, awaiting their turns. And when their acts were over they either took walks together in and about the town where the circus was playing, or they sat in their dressing tent talking. Often Benny Turton would join them, always being made welcome.

But Benny did not have much time. His shimmering, scaly, green suit was quite elaborately made, and it took him some time to get into it. It took equally as long to get out of it, and after his act he was always more or less exhausted and had to rest.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he said one day to Helen and Joe, as he joined them after having been in the big glass tank. “But I feel so tired after I come out that I want to go to bed.”

“Maybe you stay under water too long,” Helen said sympathetically.

“I don’t stay under as long as I used to,” Benny remarked. “In fact Jim Tracy was sort of kicking just now. Said I was billed to stay under water four minutes, and I was cutting it to three. I can’t help it. Something seems to hurt me here,” and he put his hands to his ears and to the back of his head.

“Maybe you ought to see a doctor,” suggested Joe.

“I can’t,” said Benny shortly. “In this circus business if they find out you’re sick the management begins to think of booking some one else for your act. No, I’ve got to keep on with it. But some days I don’t feel much like it.”

Joe and Helen felt sorry for Benny, but there was little they could do to aid him. It was not as if they could take some of the burden of work off his shoulders. His act was peculiar, and he alone could do it.

“Though I think,” said Joe to himself one day after watching Benny perform, “I think I could stay under water almost as long as he does after I’d practised it a bit. I’m going to try some time. I think deep breathing exercises would help. I’m going to begin on them.”

Joe had to have good “wind” for his own acts, but, as he was naturally ambitious, he started in on systematic breathing exercises. These would do him much general good even if he should never enter the water-tank.

Occasionally Joe would do some simple sleight-of-hand tricks for the amusement of Benny and Helen. He did not want to lose the art he had acquired.

“I may want to quit the circus some day and go back in the illusion business,” he said.

“Quit the circus! Why?” Helen asked him.

“Oh, I’m not thinking seriously of it, of course,” he said quickly. “But I don’t want to get rusty on those tricks.”

Joe heard occasionally from Professor Rosello, who had leased his show and was taking a much needed rest. He inquired as to Joe’s progress, and was glad, he said, to hear our hero was doing well.

One day, when the circus was playing a large manufacturing city on a two days’ date, Joe had another glimpse of the man he had supplanted. The young trapeze artist went out of the tent when his share in the afternoon performance was over, and as he paused to look at the crowd in front of the sideshow tent he heard some one addressing him.

“So you’re the chap that took my place, are you?” a vindictive voice asked. “I’ve been wanting to see you!”

Joe turned to, behold Sim Dobley, who seemed worse off than when the young performer had first met him.

“Yes, I’ve been wanting to see you!” and there was a sneer in Sim’s words.

Joe decided nothing could be gained by temporizing, or by showing that he was alarmed.

“Well, now you’ve seen me, what are you going to do about it?” he coolly asked.

“That’s all right. You wait and you’ll see!” was the threatening response. “Nobody can knock me out of an engagement and get away with it. You’ll see!”

“Look here!” exclaimed Joe. “I didn’t knock you out of your place. No one did except yourself, and you know it. And I’m not going to stand for any talk like that from you, either.”

“That’s right, give it to him!” said another voice, and Jim Tracy came up. “Don’t let him bluff you, Joe. As for you, Dobley, I’ve told you to keep away from this circus, and I mean it! I heard you’d been following us. Rode on one of the canvas wagons last night, didn’t you?”

“Well, what if I did?”

“This! If you do it again I’ll have you arrested. I’m through with you and I want you to keep away.”

“I guess this is a free country!”

“Yes, the country is free, but our circus isn’t. You keep out in the country and you’ll be all right. Keep off our wagons. Moreover, if I catch you making any more threats against our performers I’ll But I guess Joe can look after himself all right,” finished the ring-master. “Just you keep away, that’s all, Dobley.”

The man slunk off in the crowd. Joe really felt sorry for him, but he could do nothing. Dobley had thrown away his chances and they had come to Joe, who was entitled to them. Later that day Joe saw Sid and Tonzo in close conversation with their former partner, but our hero said nothing to the ring-master about it, though he was a bit uneasy in his own mind.

The next afternoon when Joe came out of his dressing room after his trapeze act, he met Helen Morton. The fancy rider held an open letter in her hand, and she seemed disturbed at its contents.

“No bad news, I hope,” remarked Joe.

“No, not exactly,” Helen answered. “On the contrary it may be good news. But I don’t exactly understand it. I wish Bill Watson were here, so I could ask his advice.”

“Who is Bill Watson?” asked Joe.

“He’s one of our clowns, one of the oldest in the business, I guess. He was taken ill just before you joined the show, but he’s coming back next week. I often ask his advice, and I’d like to now about this letter.”

“Why don’t you ask mine?” suggested Joe, half jokingly.