how to do it. I learned, in a rudimentary way, when I was with Professor
Rosello--the first man who taught me sleight-of-hand. He had one
fire-eating act, but it didn't amount to much. He told me the secret of
it, such as it was.

"But if I put on that stunt I'm going to make it different. I'm going to
dress it up, make it sensational so that it will be the talk of the
country where circuses are exhibited."

"And won't you run any danger?" questioned the girl quickly.

"Oh, I suppose so; just as I do when I work on the high trapeze or ride
my motor cycle along the high wire. But it's all in the day's work. And
now let's talk about something pleasant--I mean let's get off the shop."

Helen sighed. She was plainly disturbed, but she did not want to burden
Joe with her worries. She knew he must have calm nerves and an
untroubled mind to do his various acts in the circus that night.

After supper and before the evening performance Joe made a careful
examination of his trapeze apparatus. Beyond the place where the acid
had eaten into the wire strands, causing them to become weakened so that
they parted, the appliances did not appear to have been tampered with.
Nor were there any clews which might show who had done the deed. That it
could have happened by accident was out of the question. The acid could
have gotten on the wire rope in one way only. Some one must have climbed
up the rope ladder to the platform and applied the stuff.

"But who did it?" asked Jim Tracy, when Joe had told him of the
discovery of the acid-eaten cable.