"Provided, of course, that she has a first-class weapon?"

"Oh, no. A good shot can use any kind of weapon that comes to hand ... even an old-fashioned contraption like this."

She gripped the butt of an old pistol, provided herself with six cartridges, and aimed at the card-board target cut out by the Count.

The first shot was a bull's-eye. The second cut the black circle. The third was a bull's-eye.

The Count was amazed.

"It's marvelous.... She doesn't even take the trouble to aim. What do you say to that, d'Estreicher?"

The bearded nobleman, as Dorothy called him, cried enthusiastically:

"Unheard of! Marvelous! You could make a fortune, Mademoiselle!"

Without answering, with the three remaining bullets she broke two pipe-bowls and shattered an empty egg-shell that was dancing on the top of a jet of water.

And thereupon, pushing aside her admirers, and addressing the astonished crowd, she made the announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you that the performance of Dorothy's Circus is about to take place. After exhibitions of marksmanship, choregraphic displays, then feats of strength and skill and tumbling, on foot, on horseback, on the earth and in the air. Fireworks, regattas, motor races, bull-fights, train hold-ups, all will be on view there. It is about to begin, ladies and gentlemen."

From that moment Dorothy was all movement, liveliness, and gayety.

Saint-Quentin had marked off a sufficiently large circle, in front of the door of the caravan, with a rope supported by stakes. Round this arena, in which chairs were reserved for the people of the château, the spectators were closely packed together on benches and flights of steps and on anything they could lay their hands on.

And Dorothy danced. First of all on a rope, stretched between two posts. She bounced like a shuttlecock which the battledore catches and drives yet higher; or again she lay down and balanced herself on the rope as on a hammock, walked backwards and forwards, turned and saluted right and left; then leapt to the earth and began to dance.

An extraordinary mixture of all the dances, in which 

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