feel sick. Had it not been for Gwen, he would have refused to attempt this stunt.

“Oh, well!” he sighed, “here’s the top; now I can grab the rope and come down. Rope’s more certain than these balloons.”

Hardly had the thought passed through his brain than there came a loud report. So close it was that it hurt his ear drums. It was followed almost instantly by a second explosion.

“The balloons,” Johnny groaned. “They’re bursting!”

For a second his head whirled. To drop from those dizzy heights meant death. Then his mind cleared. The rope was to his right. Already he was beginning to shoot downward. Could he reach it? With one wild leap in mid-air, he thrust out a hand. He grasped the rope with his left, then lost his hold. With his right, he secured a firmer grip. At that same instant the last balloon burst. For one sickening moment, he clung there, swinging backward and forward, madly groping for the rope with his free hand. At last, he found it, and, with a sigh of relief, began sliding down the rope.

The crowd was standing up cheering. The band was playing. Even the performers thought it part of the act.

For a minute or two after he had reached the ground, Johnny rested on a mat. As he rose to go he noticed something lying in the sawdust. Carelessly he picked it up, examined it, then gave a low whistle. It was an arrow-like affair. The shaft was of steel wire, the head of wood. The head had been discolored, part yellow and part dark brown.

“Sulphur!” he murmured. “Dipped in burning sulphur, then shot at my balloons! No wonder they exploded. Now, who played that dirty trick?”

He examined the thing carefully. “Couldn’t have been shot from a bow, no groove for the bow string. Now I wonder. An air rifle, that’s what it was.”

Quickly there flashed before his mind a picture of a midget clown chasing a huge elephant around the ring. The clown was dressed in equatorial hunting garb and carried an air rifle.

“Tom Stick!” Johnny murmured. “Tom Stick and his air rifle! I wouldn’t have thought he’d do it.”

Slowly he walked back through the alleyway that led to the dressing room.

He had discarded his clown suit and had walked out into the open air, when a shrill young voice called his name:

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