itself. Not too stout, not too thin; strong, yet not masculine, she was indeed a queen. About the tent, when off duty, she wore a short blue skirt and a blue middy blouse open at the neck and tied with a dark red ribbon. Twice Johnny had seen her boxing with the Italian. Each time the blood had rushed to his temples. To think of such a queen taking her exercise with so coarse a creature filled him with inward rage.

“Oh, well, he’s of the caste,” Johnny had grumbled. “No matter; so shall I be in time. I don’t know just how, but I will.”

Pant, too, had puzzled him greatly. He had not forgotten his friend’s uncanny power of seeing in the dark. He had heard of the strange appearance and disappearance of the crimson flash in the animal tent and elsewhere, and suspected that Pant was at the bottom of it, but just what his game was, or what strange secret of the power of light Pant possessed, he could not guess.

Johnny had at last succeeded in buying the five bonds which Pant had wanted. He had obtained two of them for $39 each. These he had bought from a fat, red faced man who was a guard at the entrance to the big top. He was even now waiting to deliver them to Pant.

Presently that individual came shuffling by, and, motioning Johnny to follow him, continued down the beach until they had found a secluded spot in a turn of a breakwater.

“Got ’em?” Pant whispered.

“Sure.”

“Good! Let’s see!”

“Good! Fine!” he exclaimed, after he had glanced over the bonds. “Now can you tell me who sold you these two together?”

“I don’t know his name; a fat, red faced fellow at the entrance of the big top.”

“Good! That’s one of them. They’re the right kind, I’ll wager. Let’s see!”

Pant spread the bonds out on a broad plank.

“No, only one!” he mused. “Getting careful, I’d say, Johnny.” He turned suddenly. “Would you risk much for an old friend?”

“I’d do a lot for you, Pant.”

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