“An’ say, Boss, what’s dem colored fellers sayin’ ’bout a wreck? Don’ mean that ere circus train’s gwine wreck? Man, that’d be some kind of a wreck! Tigers fightin’ b’ars, lions eatin’ elephants, snakes a-crawlin’ loose, wild cats a-clawin’, an monkeys screamin’! Man! Oh, man!” For a full minute Snowball sat silent, wild-eyed and staring at the mental picture he had conjured up. Then a sudden thought struck him. “Say, Boss, dis am circus day ain’t it? An’ I got two dollars I jes’ earned and ain’t spent, ain’t I? Boss, I’se gone right now!” And he was. For a long time Pant sat there in contemplative silence. Finally, with one hand he smoothed out the sand before him. On this, with his finger, he spelled out the name: BLACKIE McCREE. Then, with a quick glance about him, as if afraid it had been seen, he erased the letters. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * When Johnny Thompson had been introduced to the stable boss and had been given his assignment, he lost no time in getting on a suit of unionalls and was soon at work sleeking down his three broad backed dapple grays. It was a long task, painstakingly done, for Johnny loved horses and these three were among the finest in the circus. His mind, however, was not always on his brush and cloth. In the grand parade, which, in Chicago did not leave the tent, but circled about in the mammoth enclosure, while the vast crowds cheered, Millie Gonzales rode standing on these three fat chargers, that, with tossing manes and champing bits, seemed at every moment ready to break her control and go rushing down the arena. Johnny was to take the horses to the entrance of the big tent. That much he had been told. Would he there turn them over to Millie? And would she be wearing the missing ring? The answers to these questions he could only guess. It was with a wildly beating heart that he at last led his three horses down the narrow canvas enclosure which led to the great tent. Already the procession was forming. Here a group of clowns waited in silence. Here a great gilded chariot rumbled forward, and here a trained elephant was being fitted with his
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