CHAPTER XXII
IN A LIVELY BLOW-DOWN
>From that moment on, until the close of the season, Phil Forrestretained his place on the aerial trapeze team, doubling up withhis other work, and putting the finishing touches to whatMr. Sparling called "a great career on the bars."
But Phil, much as he loved the work, did not propose to spendall his life performing above the heads of the people. He feltthat a greater future was before him on the ground at the frontof the house.
Only a week remained now before the show would close forthe season. Even in Texas, where they were showing, thenights had begun to grow chilly, stiffening the muscles ofthe performers and making them irritable. All were lookingforward to the day when the tents should be struck for thelast time that season.
"What's the next stand?" asked Phil in the dressing tent a fewnights after his triumphal performance on the trapeze.
"Tucker, Texas," answered a voice.
"What's that?" shouted a clown.
"Tucker, I said."
"Any relation to Teddy Tucker?"
"I hope not," laughed the head clown.
"A place with that name spells trouble. Anything by the name ofTucker, whether it's Teddy or not, means that we are in for somekind of a mix-up. I wish I could go fishing tomorrow."
All in the dressing tent chuckled at the clown's sally.
"I know what you'd catch if you did," grumbled Teddy.
"Now, what would I catch, young man?" demanded the clown.
"You'd catch cold. That's all you can catch," retorted Teddy,whereat the laugh was turned on the clown, much to thelatter's disgust.
Tucker proved to be a pretty little town on the open plain.There was nothing in the appearance of the place to indicatethat they might look for trouble. However, as the clown hadprophesied, trouble was awaiting them--trouble of a naturethat the showman dreads from the beginning to the end of thecircus season.
The afternoon performance passed off without a hitch, the tentbeing crowded almost to its capacity, Phil Forrest throwinghimself into his work in the air with more spirit and enthusiasmthan he had shown at any time since he took up his new work.
At Mr. Sparling's request, however, the lad had omitted histriple somersault from the trapeze bar. The showman consideredthe act too dangerous, assuring Phil that sooner or later hewould be sure to break his neck.
Phil laughed at the owner's fears, but promised that he would trynothing beyond a double after that. He remembered how quickly hehad lost himself when he attempted the feat before. Few men areable to do it without their brains becoming so confused that theylose all sense of direction and location.
The evening house was almost as large as that of the afternoon,as usual the audience being made up principally of town people,the country spectators having returned to their homesbefore night. The night set in dark and oppressive.
Soon after the gasoline lights were lighted the animals begangrowling, pacing their cages restlessly, while the lions roaredintermittently, and the hyenas laughed almost hysterically.
It sent a shiver down the backs of nearly everyone who heard it--the shrill laugh of the hyenas reaching clear back to thedressing tent.
Teddy Tucker's eyes always grew large when he heard the laughof the hyena.
"B-r-r-r!" exclaimed Teddy.
"You'll 'b-r-r-r' worse than that before you get through,"growled a performer.
"Why?"
" 'Cause it means what somebody said the other night--trouble."
"What kind of trouble does it mean?" asked Phil.
"I don't know. Some kind of a storm, I guess. You can'talways tell. Those animals know more than we human beings,when it comes to weather and that sort of thing," broke inMr. Miaco the head clown.
"Well, you expected something would happen in a town calledTucker, didn't you?"
"Are you going to be with this show next season, Teddy?"questioned the clown who had taunted him before.
"I hope to."
"Then I sign out with some other outfit. I refuse to travel witha bunch that carries a hoodoo like you with it. I feel it in mybones that something is going to happen tonight, and just as soonas I can get through my act I'm going to run--run, mind you,not walk--back to the train as fast as my legs will carry me.That won't be any snail's pace, either."
The performers joked and passed the time away until the bandstarted the overture, off under the big top. This means thatit is about time for the show to begin, and that the music isstarted to hurry the people to their seats.
All hands fell silent as they got busy putting the finishingtouches to their makeup.
"All acts cut short five minutes tonight," sang the voice ofthe ringmaster at the entrance to the dressing tent.
"You see," said the clown, nodding his head at Teddy.
"No, I hear," grumbled Teddy. "What's it all about?"
"Don't ask me. I don't know. I'm not running this show."
"Lucky for the show that you aren't," muttered the Circus Boy.
"What's that?"
"I was just thinking out loud, I guess."
"It's a bad habit. Don't do it when I'm around. All hoodoostalk to themselves and in their sleep."
The show was started off with a rush, the Grand Entry having beencut out again, as is frequently the case with a show where thereis a long run ahead, or a storm is expected. That night those inthe dressing tent could only surmise the reason. The hyena'swarning was the only thing to guide the performers in theirsearch for a reason for the haste. But they took the situationphilosophically, as they always had, and prepared for theperformance as usual.
The performance had gotten along well toward the end, and withoutthe slightest interruption. All hands were beginning to feel acertain sense of relief, when the shrill blasts of the bosscanvasman's emergency whistle were heard outside the big top.
Phil had just completed his trapeze act and was dropping intothe net when the whistle sounded.
He glanced up and made a signal to the others in the air.They dropped, one by one, to the net and swung themselves tothe ground, where they stood awaiting the completion of thepiece that the band was playing.
"Wind, isn't it?" questioned Mr. Prentice.
Phil nodded.
He was listening intently. His keen ears caught a distant roarthat caused him to gaze apprehensively aloft.
"I am afraid we are going to have trouble," he said.
"It has been in the air all the evening," was the low answer."Wonder if they have the menagerie tent out of the way?"
It was being taken down at that moment, the elephants having beenremoved to the train, as had part of the cages.
All at once there was a roar that sent the blood from thefaces of the spectators. The boss canvasman's whistletrilled excitedly.
"There go the dressing tents," said Phil calmly as a ripping andrending was heard off by the paddock. "I hope it hasn't takenmy trunk with it. Glad I locked the trunk before coming intothe ring."
The band stopped playing suddenly. The tent was inabsolute silence.
"It's a cyclone!" shouted a voice among the spectators.
A murmur ran over the assemblage. In a moment they would bein a mad rush, trampling each other under foot in their effortsto escape.
Phil bounded toward the band.
"Play! Play!" he shouted. "They'll stampede if you don't.Play, I tell you!"
The bandmaster waved his baton and the music of the band drownedout the mutterings of the storm for the moment.
Suddenly the roaring without grew louder. Ropes were creaking,center and quarter poles lifting themselves a few inches from theground, dangerously.
"It's blowing end on," muttered Phil, running full speed down theconcourse in his ring costume.
"Keep your seats!" he shouted. "There may be no danger. If thetent should go down you will be safer where you are. Keep yourseats, everybody."
Phil dashed on, shouting his warning until he had gotten
halfwayaround the tent. Mr. Prentice had taken up the lad's cry on theother side.
Then the blow fell.
The big top bent under the sweep of the gale until the centerpoles were leaning far over to the north. Had the wind notstruck the tent on the end it must have gone down under thefirst blast. As it was, canvas, rope and pole were holding,but every stitch of canvas and every pole was trembling underits burden.
"Sit steady, everybody! We may be able to weather it."
Phil saw that, if the people were to run into the arena and thetent should fall, many must be crushed under the center andquarter poles.
Up and down he ran shouting words of encouragement, and he wasthus engaged when Mr. Sparling worked his way in from the padroom, as the open enclosure between the two dressing tentsis called. Phil had picked up the ringmaster's whip and wascracking it to attract the attention of the people to what hewas trying to tell them.
Somehow, many seemed to gain confidence from this plucky, slenderlad clad in silk tights, who was rushing up and down as cool andcollected as if three thousand persons were not in deadly peril.
Nothing but Phil Forrest's coolness saved many from deaththat night.
A mighty roar suddenly drew every eye in the tent to thesouth end where the wind was pressing against the canvaswith increasing force.
Phil stood near the entrance, the flap of which had been quicklylaced and staked down when the canvasmen saw the gale comingupon them.
He turned quickly, for the roar had seemed to be almost athis side. What he saw drew an exclamation from Phil that,at other times, might have been humorous. There was nohumor in it now.
"Gracious!" exclaimed the lad.
There, within twenty feet of him stood a lion, a huge, powerfulbeast, with head up, the hair standing straight along its back,the mane rippling in the breeze.
"It's Wallace," breathed the lad, almost unable to believehis eyes. The biggest lion in captivity, somehow in theexcitement had managed to escape from his cage.
"Now there'll be a panic for sure! They've seen him!"
"Sit still and keep still! He won't hurt you!" shouted Phil."Now, you get out of here!" commanded Phil, starting towardWallace and cracking the ringmaster's whip in the animal's face.
Just for the briefest part of a second did Wallace give way, thenwith a terrific roar, he bounded clear over the Circus Boy'shead, bowling Phil over as he leaped, and on down to the centerof the arena.
Phil had not been hurt. He was up and after the dangerous beastin a twinkling. The audience saw what he was trying to do.
"Keep away from him!" bellowed Mr. Sparling.
"Throw a net over him!" shouted Phil.
However, between the storm and the escaped lion, none seemed tohave his wits about him sufficiently to know what was best to do.Had the showmen acted promptly when Phil called, they might havebeen able to capture the beast then and there.
Seeing that they were not going to do so, and that the lion waswalking slowly toward the reserved seats, Phil sprang in front ofthe dangerous brute to head him off.
The occupants of the reserved seats were standing up. The panicmight break at any minute.
"Sit down!" came the command, in a stern, boyish voice.
Phil faced the escaped lion, starting toward it with athreatening motion of the whip.
"Are you ever going to get a net?"
"Get a net!" thundered Mr. Sparling. "Get away from him, Phil!"
Instead of doing so, the Circus Boy stepped closer to the beast.No one made the slightest move to capture the beast, as Philrealized might easily be done now, if only a few had the presenceof mind to attempt it.
Crack!
The ringmaster's whip in Phil's hands snapped and the leatherlash bit deep into the nose of Wallace.
With a roar that sounded louder than that of the storm outsidethe lion took a quick step forward, only to get the lash on hisnose again.
Suddenly he turned about and in long, curving bounds headed forthe lower end of the tent. Mr. Sparling sprang to one side,knowing full well that it would be better to lose the lion thanto stir up the audience more than they already were stirred.
Phil was in full pursuit, cracking his whip at every jump.
Wallace leaped through the open flap at the lower end of the tentand disappeared in the night.
Just as he did so there came a sound different from anything thathad preceded it. A series of reports followed one another untilit sounded as if a battery of small cannon were being fired,together with a ripping and tearing and rending that sent everyspectator in the big tent, to his feet yelling and shouting.
"The tent is coming down! The tent is coming down!"
Women fainted and men began fighting to get down into the arena.
"Stay where you are!" shouted Phil. Then the Circus Boydid a bold act. Running along in front of the seats he letdrive the lash of his long whip full into the faces of thestruggling people. The sting of the lash brought many ofthem to their senses. Then they too turned to help holdthe others back.
With a wrench, the center poles were lifted several feet up intothe air.
"Look out for the quarter poles! Keep back or you'll be killed!"shouted Phil.
"Keep back! Keep back!" bellowed Mr. Sparling.
And now the quarter poles--the poles that stand leaning towardthe center of the arena, just in front of the lower row ofseats--began to fall, crashing inward, forced to the north.
The center poles snapped like pipe stems, pieces of them beinghurled half the length of the tent.
Down came the canvas, extinguishing the lights and leavingthe place in deep darkness. The people were fairly besidethemselves with fright. But still that boyish voice washeard above the uproar:
"Sit still! Sit still!"
The whole mass of canvas collapsed and went rolling northwardlike a sail suddenly ripped from the yards of a ship.
The last mighty blow of the storm had been more than canvas andpainted poles could stand.