Joe Strong The Boy Fire Eater - Vance Barnum
But now that he did a trapeze act, as well as working the
sleight-of-hand mysteries, his time was pretty well occupied. He had
not, as yet, done the big swing in public since that act was abandoned
on the death of the man who had been injured while doing it. But Joe had
been perfecting himself in it. He had had a new set of trapezes made,
and had ornamented them and the two platforms in a very striking manner.
In other words, the trick had a new "dress," and Joe, as one of the
circus proprietors, hoped it would go well and attract attention.
This was from a business standpoint, and not only because Joe was
himself the performer. Of course it was natural that he should like
applause--all do, more or less. But Joe was one of the owners of the
circus--the chief owner, in fact--and he wanted to make a financial
success of it. Nor was this a purely selfish reason. Many persons owned
stock in the enterprise, and Joe felt it was only fair to them to see
that they received a good return for their investment. Any trick he
could do to draw crowds he was willing to attempt.
So, while the parade was being gotten ready, Joe went inside the main
top, which by this time was erected, to see about having his platforms
and trapeze put in place. In this he was always very careful, as is
every aerial performer. The least slip of a rope may cause disaster, and
no matter how careful the attendants are, the performers themselves
always give at least a casual look to their apparatus.
"All right, Harry?" asked Joe of one of the riggers who had charge of
putting up the platforms and the big swing.
"Sure, it's all right, Mr. Strong!" was the answer. "I should say so! I
don't make no mistakes when I'm putting up trapezes. You'll find
everything shipshape and proper. Going to have a big crowd to-day, I
guess."
Joe looked at Harry Loper closely. The young man had never talked so
much before, being, on the whole, rather close-mouthed. As the man
passed Joe, after giving a pull on the last rope, the young magician
became aware that Harry had been drinking--and something stronger than
pink lemonade.
"I'm sorry about that!" mused Joe, as the rope rigger passed on. "If
there's any place a man ought not to drink it's in a circus, and
especially when he has to rig up high flying apparatus for others. It
was drink that put Bill Carfax out of business. I didn't know Harry was
that kind, I never noticed it before. I'm sorry. And I'll take extra
precautions that my ropes won't slip. You can't trust a man who drinks."
Joe shook his head a bit sadly. He was thinking of Bill Carfax, and of
the fact that he had had to discharge the man because, while under the
influence of liquor, he had insulted Helen. Then Bill had tried to get
revenge on Joe.
"I hope it doesn't turn out this way with Harry Loper," mused Joe, as he
began climbing up a rope ladder that led to one of the high platforms.
And as Harry had to do with the placing of this ladder, Joe tested it
carefully before ascending.
"I don't want to fall and be laid up in the middle of the circus
season," mused the young circus man, with a frown.
However, the ladder appeared to be perfectly secure, and as Joe went up,
finally reaching the high platform, he felt a sense of exhilaration.
Heights always affected him this way. He liked, more than anything else,
to soar aloft on his Wings of Steel. And he liked the sensation when he
leaped from one platform toward the swinging trapeze bar, aiming to
grasp it in his hands and swing in a great arc to the other little
elevated place, close under the top of the tent.
There was a thrill about it--a thrill not only to the performer but to
the audience as well--and Joe could hear the gasps that went up from
thousands of throats as he made his big swing.
But, for the time being, he gave his whole attention to the platform and
its fastenings. The platforms were not very likely to slip, being caught
on to the main tent poles, which themselves were well braced.
The real danger was in the long trapeze. Not only must the thin wire
ropes of this be strong enough to hold Joe's weight, but an added
pressure, caused by the momentum of his jump. And not only must the
cables be strong, but there must be no defect in the wooden bar and in
the place where the upper ends of the ropes were fastened to the top of
the tent.
"Well, this platform is all right," remarked Joe, as he looked it over.
"Now for the other and the trapeze."
He went down the rope ladder 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 just this. There are a great many more people in the main
top now than there are admission prices in the treasurer's cash box. The
books don't balance, as it were."
"More people in the tent than have paid their way?" asked Joe. "Well,
that always happens at a circus. Small boys will crawl in under the
canvas in spite of clubs."
"Oh, it isn't a question of the small boys--I never worry about them,"
returned Mr. Moyne. "But there are about a thousand more persons at the
performance which will soon begin than we have admission prices for. In
other words there are a thousand persons occupying fifty cent seats that
haven't paid their half dollar. It isn't the reserve chairs that are
affected. We're all right there. But fully a thousand persons have come
into the show, and we're short five hundred dollars in our cash."
"You don't tell me!" cried Joe. He saw that Mr. Moyne was very much in
earnest. "Have the ticket men and the entrance attendants been working a
flim-flam game on us?"
"Oh, no, it isn't that," said the treasurer. "I could understand that.
But the men are perfectly willing to have their accounts gone over and
their tickets checked up. They're straight!"
"Then what is it?" asked Joe.
"That's what we've got to find out," went on Mr. Moyne. "In some way the
thousand people have come in without paying the circus anything. And
they didn't sneak in, either. A few might do that, but a thousand
couldn't. They've come in by the regular entrance."
"Did they force themselves past without tickets?"
"No, each one had the proper coupon."
"Has there been a theft of our tickets?" demanded the young magician and
acrobat.
"No, our ticket account is all right, except there are a thousand extra
entrance coupons in the box--coupons taken in by the entrance
attendants. It's a puzzle to me," confessed the treasurer. "There is
some game being played on us, and we're out to the tune of five hundred
dollars by it already."
"Is there any way of finding out who these persons are who have come in
without paying us and having them ejected?" asked Joe.
"I don't see how," admitted Mr. Moyne. "If they were in reserved seats
it could be done, but not in the ordinary un-numbered fifty cent
section. The whole situation is that we have a thousand persons too many
at the show."
"Well, we'll have a meeting of the executive body and take it up after
the performance," said Joe, as he quickly prepared to get into his
aerial costume. "We'll have to go on with the performance now; it's
getting late. If we're swamped by people coming along who hold our
regular tickets we'll have to sit 'em anywhere we can. If we lose five
hundred dollars we'll make it up by having a smashing crowd, which is
always a good advertisement. I'll see you directly after the show, Mr.
Moyne."
"I wish you would," said the harassed treasurer. "Something must be done
about it. If this happens very often we'll be in a financial hole at the
end of the season."
He departed, looking at some figures he had jotted down on the back of
an envelope.
Joe Strong was puzzled. Nothing like this had ever come up before. True,
there had been swindlers who tried to mulct the circus of money, and
there were always small boys, and grown men, too, who tried to crawl in
under the tent. But such a wholesale game as this Joe had never before
known.
"Well, five hundred dollars, for once, won't break us," he said grimly,
as he fastened on a brightly spangled belt, "but I wouldn't want it to
happen very often. Now I wonder what luck I'll have in my big swing. I
haven't done it in public for some time, but it went all right in
practice."
Joe looked from his dressing room. He was all ready for his act now,
but the time had not yet come for him to go on. He saw Helen hastening
past on her way to enter the ring with her horse, Rosebud, which a groom
held at the entrance for her.
"Good luck!" called Joe, waving his hand and smiling.
"The same to you," answered Helen. "You'll need it more than I. Oh,
Joe," she went on earnestly, "won't you give up this big swing? Stick to
your box trick, and let me act with you in the disappearing lady stunt.
Don't go on with this high trapeze act!" she pleaded.
"Why, Helen! anybody would think you'd been bitten by the jinx bug!"
laughed Joe. "I thought you were all over that."
"Perhaps I am foolish," she said. "But it's because--"
She blushed and looked away.
"I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you are so interested
in my welfare," said Joe, with a smile. "And, believe me, I am. But,
Helen, I can't back out of this act now. It's been advertised big. I've
got to go on!"
"Then do be careful, won't you?" she begged. "Oh, do be careful!
Somehow, I have a feeling that--Oh, well, I won't set you to worrying by
telling you," she said quickly, with a laugh, in which, however, there
was no mirth. She smiled again, trying to make it a bright one; but Joe
saw that she was under a strain.
"I'll be careful," he promised. "Really, there's no danger. I've done
the stunt a score of times, and I can judge my distance perfectly.
Besides there's the safety net."
"Yes, I know, but there was poor--Oh, well, I won't talk about it! Good
luck!" and she hurried on, for it was time for her act--the whistle of
the ringmaster having blown.
Joe looked after the girl he loved. He smiled, and then a rather serious
look settled over his face. Like a flash there had come to him the
memory of the too loquacious Harry Loper, who had fitted up his aerial
apparatus.
"There can be nothing wrong with that," mused Joe. "I went over every
inch of it. I guess Helen is just nervous. Well, there goes my cue!"
He hurried toward the entrance, and then he began to ponder over the
curious fact of there being a thousand persons too many at the
performance.
"We'll have to straighten out that ticket tangle after the show," mused
Joe. "It's likely to get serious. I wonder--" he went on, struck by a
new thought. "I wonder if--Oh, no! It couldn't be! He hasn't been around
in a long while."
Out into the tent, filled with a record-breaking crowd, went Joe to the
place where his high trapeze was waiting for him. The band was playing
lively airs, on one platform some trained seals were juggling big balls
of colored rubber, and on another a bear was going about on roller
skates. In one end ring Helen was performing with Rosebud, while in
another a troupe of Japanese acrobats were doing wonderful things with
their supple bodies.
Joe waved his hand to Helen in passing, and then he began to ascend to
his high platform. When he reached it and stood poised ready for his
act, there came a shrill whistle from Jim Tracy, the ringmaster, who
wore his usual immaculate shirt front and black evening clothes--rather
incongruous in the daytime.
The whistle was the signal for the other acts to cease, that the
attention of all might be centered on Joe. This is always done in a
circus in the case of "stars," and Joe was certainly a star of the first
magnitude.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried Jim Tracy, with the accented drawl that
carried his voice to the very ends of the big tent. "Calling your
attention to one of the most marvelous high trapeze acts ever performed
in any circus!"
He pointed dramatically to Joe, who stood up straight, ready to do his
act.
"Are you ready?" asked the man who was to release the trapeze, which
was caught up at one side of the platform opposite Joe.
"Ready," answered the young acrobat.
The man pulled a rope which released a catch, letting the trapeze start
on its long swaying swing. The man pulled it by means of a long, thin
cord, until it was making big arcs, like some gigantic pendulum.
Joe watched it carefully, judging it to the fraction of an inch. He
stood poised and tense on the gayly decorated platform, himself a fine
picture of physical young manhood. The band was blaring out the latest
Jazz melody.
Suddenly, from his perch, the young acrobat gave a cry, and Jim Tracy,
on the ground below, hearing it, held up his white-gloved hand as a
signal for the music to cease.
Then Joe leaped. Full and fair he leaped out toward the swinging bar of
the big trapeze, the snare drum throbbing out as he jumped. He was dimly
conscious of thousands of eyes watching him--eyes that looked curiously
and apprehensively up. And he realized that Helen was also watching him.
As true as a die, Joe's hands caught and gripped the bar of the swinging
trapeze. So far he was safe. The momentum of his jump carried him in a
long swing, and he at once began to undulate himself to increase his
swing. He must do this in order to get to the second platform.
As the young performer began to do this, he looked up at the wire ropes
of his trapeze.
It was a look given instinctively and for no particular purpose, as
Joe's eyes must rest, most of all, on the second platform where he
needed to land, to save himself from a bad fall.
As his eyes glanced along the steel cables on which his life depended,
he saw, to his horror, a spot of rust on one. And at the spot of rust
several of the thin strands of twisted wire were loose and frayed.
The cable seemed about to give way!
CHAPTER V
A FIRE SENSATION
Joe Strong had to think quickly. Every acrobat, every person who does
"stunts" in a circus, must; for something is always happening, or on the
verge of taking place. And when Joe looked up and saw the rusted wire
and noted the fraying strands, several thoughts shot through his mind at
once.
"That rust spot wasn't there this morning when, I looked at the
trapeze," he mused. "And it hasn't rained since. How did it get there?"
He thought of the too talkative Harry Loper, and an ugly suspicion
associated itself with him. But Joe had no time for such thoughts then.
What was vital for him to know was whether or not the thin wire cable
would remain unbroken long enough for him to reach the maximum of his
swing, and land on the platform. Or would he fall, spoiling the act and
also endangering himself?
True he might land in the net in such a way as to come to no harm, as he
had done many times, and as many performers before him had done. But
the danger was that in a sudden and unexpected drop downward he might
not be able to get his limbs in the proper landing position.
Joe Strong had nerve. If he had lacked it he would never have been so
successful. And at once he decided on a courageous proceeding.
"I'll bring all my weight suddenly on that left hand cable," he mused,
as he swung to and fro, from side to side of the big tent. "If it's
going to break it will do so then. And I'll be ready for it. I'll then
keep hold of the trapeze bar, which will be straight up and down instead
of crosswise, and swing by that. The other cable seems all right." This
was a fact which Joe ascertained by a quick inspection.
There was no time for further thought. As he swung, Joe suddenly shifted
his weight, bringing it all on the frayed and strangely rusted cable. As
he half expected, it gave way, and he dropped in an instant, but not
far.
The watching crowd gasped. It looked like an accident. And it was, in a
way, but Joe had purposely caused it. As the wire broke Joe held tightly
to the wooden bar, which was now upright in his hands instead of being
horizontal. And though it slipped through his fingers, perhaps for the
width of his palm, at last he gripped it in a firm hold and kept on with
his swing.
And then the applause broke forth, for the audience thought it all a
part of the trick--they thought that Joe had purposely caused the cable
to break to make the act more effective.
To and fro swung Joe, nearer and nearer to the second platform, and
then, reaching the height of the long arc, he turned his body and
stepped full and fair on the little square of velvet-covered boards.
With a lithe contortion, Joe squirmed to an upright position, recovering
his balance with a great effort, for he had been put out in his
calculations of distance, and then, turning, he bowed to the crowds,
revolving on the platform to take in every one.
Again the applause broke forth, to be drowned in the boom and ruffle of
the drums as the band began to play. There is little time in a circus,
where act follows act so quickly, for long acknowledgments.
The other performers came into the rings or on to the raised platforms,
and Joe descended by means of the rope ladder. Helen met him, and they
walked toward the dressing rooms.
"That was a wonderful trick, Joe," she said. "But I didn't see you
practice that drop."
"I didn't practice it," he remarked dryly. "I did it on the spur of the
moment."
"Joe Strong! wasn't it dangerous?"
"Well, a little."
"What made you do it?"
"I couldn't help it."
"You couldn't help it? Joe--do you mean--?" She sensed that something
was wrong, but walking around the circus arena, with performers coming
and going, was not the place to speak of it. Joe saw that she
understood.
"I'll tell you later," he said. "We have to get ready for the trick box
and the vanishing lady stunt now."
"Oh, Joe! were you in much danger?" she asked in a low voice.
"Oh, not much," he answered, and he tried to speak lightly. Yet he did
not like to think of that one moment when he saw the rusted and broken
wire.
While Joe and Helen are preparing for the box act, which has been
treated fully in the previous volume, the explanation of how the
vanishing lady trick was accomplished will be given, though that, too,
has been explained in an earlier volume.
A large newspaper is put on the stage and the chair set on the paper,
thus, seemingly, precluding the possibility of a trap door being cut in
the stage through which the lady in the chair might slip. The word
"seemingly" is used with a due sense of what it means. The newspaper was
not a perfect one. On one of its sides which was not exhibited to the
audience, there was cut an opening, or trap, that exactly corresponded
in size with a trap door on the stage. The paper, as explained in the
previous book, is strengthened with cardboard, and the trap is a double
one, being cut in the center, the flaps being easily moved either way.
The audience thinks it sees a perfect newspaper. But there is a square
hole in it, but concealed as is a secret trap door.
When Joe laid the paper on the stage he placed it so that the square,
double flap in it was exactly over the trap in the stage floor. He then
drew the page of the paper that he had held out to the audience toward
himself, exposing the trap for use, but because it was so carefully
made, and the cut was so fine, it was not visible from the front.
Helen took her place in the chair, which, of course, was a trick one. It
was fitted with a concealed rod and a cap, and it was over this cap,
brought out at the proper moment, that Joe carefully placed the black
veil, when he was pretending to mesmerize Helen. There was a cross rod,
also concealed in the chair, and on either end of this, something like
the epaulettes of a soldier, so that when these ends were under the veil
and the cap was in place it looked as though some one sat in the chair,
when, really, no one did.
Helen was in the chair at the start. But as soon as she was covered by
the veil she began to get out The seat of the chair was hinged within
its frame As Helen sat on it, and after she had been covered with the
veil, she rested her weight on her hands, which were placed on the
extreme outer edges of this seat frame. She pulled a catch which caused
the seat to drop, and at the same time the trap beneath her, including
the prepared newspaper, was opened by an attendant. The black veil all
about the chair prevented the audience seeing this.
Helen lowered herself down through the dropped seat of the chair,
through the trap, and under the stage. And while she was doing this it
still looked as if she were in the chair, for the false cap and the
extended cross rod made outlines as if of a human form beneath the black
veil.
As soon as Helen was out of the chair and beneath the stage an attendant
closed the newspaper and wooden floor traps. Joe then suddenly raised
the veil, taking in its folds the false cap and the cross piece which
had represented Helen's shoulders. They were thin and light--these
pieces of trick apparatus--and no one suspected they were in the veil.
The hinged seat of the chair snapped back in place by means of a spring,
and when Joe stepped aside, holding the veil, there was the empty chair;
and the newspaper, which he picked up, seemed to preclude the
possibility of there having been a trap in the stage. But Joe was
careful how he exhibited this paper to his audience.