"I don't know about that," answered Joe. "Never is a long while. He'll have to stay in the hospital for some time, the doctor says."

"Ugh! Hospitals!" exclaimed Madame Bullriva, the strong woman.

"Deliver me from them. They mean all right--those doctors and nurses--but it's awful trying to lie on your back and want a drink of water."

"Especially if you happen to know that you could get up and lift a barrel of it, if you weren't ill," put in Tonzo Lascalla. "Yes, I, too, am sorry for Benny. But it is what will happen to all of us in this business."

"What will happen?" asked the snake charmer.

"Oh, we will be down and out some day. You may play once too often with that big constrictor which you let twine about your waist. Some day he will squeeze you too hard--Poof! You are dead!"

"Well, I must say you are not very cheerful!" exclaimed Senorita Tanlozo.

"Oh, well, what matter?" asked the trapeze performer, with a shrug of his shoulders.

The circus parade was over. The procession had returned to the grounds and dinner was being served. The afternoon performance would soon be under way.

"Well, Joe, all ready for another swim?" asked Helen, as she pa.s.sed the "boy fish" (as he had been dubbed by some) on her way to look after Rosebud.

"Yes, all ready to get wet again," he answered. "How's the nice horse?"

"All right. He was asking for you," and she laughed at her little joke.

Joe's trapeze work went off well, and, hurrying to the dressing tent, he donned the green suit. Again the ring-master made his announcement about Joe, and the youth, inflating his lungs to their capacity, plunged in.

Joe knew the value of a laugh, even in a thrilling scene, and this time he had prepared a few simple but laughable tricks to perform under water. They all worked well, and Joe brought the act to a close with his "sleep," which again won him applause.

That afternoon Joe paid another visit to the hospital where Benny was a patient. The "human fish" was in great pain, and Joe could only see him for a few minutes.

"I think we shall have to operate on him, eventually," the doctor said.

Joe wrote Benny a cheering message, and hurried back to the tent to get ready for the evening performance.

The tank act went off well, and to add to it Bill Watson, the veteran clown, rigged up a pole and line, and pretended to be fishing in the big gla.s.s box. Joe, who entered into the spirit of the occasion, caught the hook as he was lying on the sandy bottom, and fastened on it a rubber boot, which Bill pulled up and regarded with comical gravity.

When amid applause Joe came up out of the tank after an immersion of nearly three and a quarter minutes, Jim Tracy gave orders to have the water emptied out, and the tank packed for transportation. The gla.s.s sides were removable.

"I don't know whether we'll have any use for it again or not," said the ring-master. "How about it, Joe?"

"I'll tell you later," was the answer.

"Say, what about Benny Turton?" asked Tom Jefferson, the strong man, as the performance came to a close and the crowd was filing out. "Can he travel on with us?"

"No," answered Joe. "He will have to stay behind when the show goes on."

And, as the circus was to play in another town the next day, the show "moved on."

Benny Turton, the "human fish," was left behind. But it had to be so.

There was no other way.

"Poor boy," murmured Helen, as she thought of the slight figure resting in the white hospital bed. "Poor boy! I suppose they'll all forget him soon--when they have a new act in place of his."

But Joe Strong did not forget the promise which he had written on Benny's pad--the promise which was under the pillow of the "human fish."

CHAPTER VII

JOE'S OFFER

Joe Strong turned over in his berth in the circus sleeping car.

Something had awakened him from a sound sleep. At first he was not aware what it was, but as his brain cleared he realized that it was some sound of confusion outside the car.

"Where are we?" he asked, for he saw Tonzo Lascalla, his trapeze partner, peering from between the curtains of his berth across the aisle.

"I think we are in," was the answer, meaning that the circus train had reached its destination. "We are on the siding, but it isn't time to get up yet, thank goodness."

"Yes, let us sleep," begged a yawning voice. "Keep still, can't you?"

"Sounds as if something had happened," commented Joe. He looked out of the window of his berth, but it was too dark yet to see more than a confused jumble of black shapes moving about. Joe saw another train on the track alongside of the sleeping cars. It was a train of "flats,"

on which the animal cages were carried.

"Look out now! There he goes! Get after him, some of you men!" a voice ordered.

There was a crash of breaking wood, more shouts and the noise of a cracking whip.

"Or maybe shots!" exclaimed Joe, half aloud. "I wonder if any of the wild animals have escaped."

A moment later, however, there was the sound of laughter.

"Whoop!" a man yelled. "Here he comes at us! Look out! There, he's got Bill down!"

There were excited yells, and a voice, presumably Bill's, was heard to exclaim:

"Get off my leg, you big brute! Wow! If you step on me again I'll be as flat as a board seat! Here, somebody take him off me!"

There was a stir inside the sleeping car, for most of the occupants were now awake.

"For the love of Mike!" grumbled Tom Jefferson, the strong man. "Can't they let a person get his sleep? Are they giving a private rehearsal out there, or what's going on?"

"I guess some of the animals are loose," said Joe, "though it doesn't seem to be serious."

More shouts, mingled with laughter, seemed to testify to this view of it.

"I'm going out to see what it is," decided Joe. He looked off toward the east. A faint glow there told that dawn was beginning to break, though it was still very dark. "I've had enough sleep," Joe reasoned, "and I can't get any more with all that racket going on under my car window."

He quickly dressed and went out, he alone of those in his car caring to see what the trouble was. The rest of the circus men preferred to turn over for a possible "forty winks" more.