the performance," said Joe, as he quickly prepared to get into his
aerial costume. "We'll have to go on with the performance now; it's
getting late. If we're swamped by people coming along who hold our
regular tickets we'll have to sit 'em anywhere we can. If we lose five
hundred dollars we'll make it up by having a smashing crowd, which is
always a good advertisement. I'll see you directly after the show, Mr.
Moyne."

"I wish you would," said the harassed treasurer. "Something must be done
about it. If this happens very often we'll be in a financial hole at the
end of the season."

He departed, looking at some figures he had jotted down on the back of
an envelope.

Joe Strong was puzzled. Nothing like this had ever come up before. True,
there had been swindlers who tried to mulct the circus of money, and
there were always small boys, and grown men, too, who tried to crawl in
under the tent. But such a wholesale game as this Joe had never before
known.

"Well, five hundred dollars, for once, won't break us," he said grimly,
as he fastened on a brightly spangled belt, "but I wouldn't want it to
happen very often. Now I wonder what luck I'll have in my big swing. I
haven't done it in public for some time, but it went all right in
practice."

Joe looked from his dressing room. He was all ready for his act now,
but the time had not yet come for him to go on. He saw Helen hastening
past on her way to enter the ring with her horse, Rosebud, which a groom