THE DISAPPEARING ACT
The Chief’s announcement that an escaped convict was in their
neighborhood fell like a bombshell in the midst of the campers assembled
at lunch.
“All boys are forbidden to go out of sight of camp, unless a councilor
is along,” he ended. “We must take precautions until this dangerous man
is captured. Now, to-night we will assemble here in the lodge, for Stunt
Night. Every tent-group will be expected to have an act or other stunt
prepared, and prizes will go to the winners. Dismissed!”
The groups scattered from the mess-hall to their respective tents to
pass the daily siesta hour which was set aside as a period of rest and
quiet from the brisk, noisy turmoil of the camp’s activity. Mr. Jim
Avery cocked his long legs up on the end of his bunk in Tent Ten. “We
have the whole afternoon to get ready,” he observed to his followers.
“That should give us plenty of time to work up a first-class stunt that
will bring home the prize. Anybody got any ideas?”
Wild Willie Sanders spoke up. “We’ve got an edge on the other tents,
haven’t we? Here we are with Chink Towner, the most famous Mandarin
Magician in captivity. Say, I’ll bet we can put over a magic show that
will knock the rest of the tents silly!”
“How about it, Chink?”
“Sure, that’s right,” Chink Towner agreed modestly. “We could do it, all
right. I’ve got a lot of new tricks up my sleeve that nobody ever saw
before. The best one, though, needs to have Jerry Utway, and that means
we’d have to take Tent Eight into partnership with us.”
“That can be arranged, I think,” said Mr. Avery. “I’ll speak to Dr.
Cannon about it. He knows it’s next to impossible to separate the twins.
And with fourteen campers on the job, it ought to be some show. Well,
what’s your trick?”
“Yes, what is it?” asked the Utway twins together.
“Well, it’s this way,” began the Mandarin Magician; “Wild Willie can
announce a big display of old Chinese hocus-pocus. We fix up a place on
the stage where I sit, and a crowd of you guys come around and want to
see some tricks. Then Fat Crampton comes along, and then I do a few easy
ones, just to show my stuff, and then——” He lowered his voice as his
comrades gathered about to hear the plan. Lefkowitz was sent over to
Tent Eight to bring in the other participants, who listened and agreed
to the scheme for a combined stunt that would make a most amusing
addition to the vaudeville program that night. As soon as Recall
sounded, the two groups of actors made for the Council Ring, where they
rehearsed excitedly most of the afternoon.
Sherlock Jones did not join in the preparations for Stunt Night. He
retired alone to the dark-room, where he stared at a photograph and
pondered plans of his own. The announcement that a reward had been
offered for the capture of the escaped criminal had set his mind working
furiously on the problem of the Tattooed Arm. Indeed, the Chief’s
startling news was a leading topic of conversation in Lenape that
afternoon; but when supper-time brought no further information, the
subject was temporarily forgotten in anticipation of the evening’s
entertainment.
No sooner had the dessert dishes been cleared away than the space in
front of the blackened fireplace was transformed into a stage. Benches
were ranged in rows for the seating of the camper audience, and a
makeshift curtain of bed-sheets strung on a wire was hung across that
end of the lodge. Darkness had just fallen when a boisterous crowd of
leaders and boys took their seats, awaiting the drawing of the curtain
on the opening act, announced by Sax McNulty, master of ceremonies, as
“Captain Colby’s Army,” a Tent Fifteen Feature Production.
Joey Fellowes, who with his brother Ted made up the Lenape bugle corps,
sounded Reveille on his muted instrument. The curtains parted to reveal
a morning scene in Tent Fifteen. A great fuss was made by Ollie
Steffins, dressed in a scout uniform with many medals and much gold
braid, who in the person of Mr. Colby himself, went about getting the
snoring sleepers to waken for morning drill. The drowsy boys were
finally put on their feet and each armed with a broom-stick gun, with
which they went through a series of clumsy maneuvers, knocking each
other over the head, facing the wrong way, and otherwise tangling
themselves in a travesty of a squad of rookies at drill. The concluding
evolution brought them into line facing the audience, singing off key
their rallying song:
“_We are Mr. Colby’s army,
Mr. Colby’s army we,
We cannot shoot, we won’t salute,
What earthly good are we?_”
The curtains closed amid cheers, boos, and stamping of feet, during
which Mr. Colby sat with a self-conscious smile on his disciplinarian’s
face.
The acts followed swiftly after that. Tent Twelve put on a pirate play,
Tent Three showed to advantage in a lady-like game of basketball, in
which each side begged the other to kindly accept the ball on pain of
being slapped on the wrist. Tent Four gave a ventriloquist act, with
Peanut Westover as the talking dummy.
“The Mysterious Mandarin Magician,” with an all-star cast from Tents
Eight and Ten, was the next to the last number on the evening’s program.
At the parting of the curtain, Wild Willie Sanders in a high, battered
black silk hat, wearing the curling mustache of a circus ringmaster,
pointed out the main attraction to a gaping crowd of boys from the
participating tents, dressed in wild garbs of every description.
“Laydeez and gen-tul-men! The _one_ and _only_ Chinese magician, brought
at great expense from the Flowery Kingdom to mystify you to-night!”
Chink Towner, his naturally oriental cast of countenance exaggerated by
a line of grease-paint above each slanting eye, and dressed in a pair of
colorful silk pajamas borrowed from Councilor Lane, sat cross-legged
above the crowd on a blanket-draped table, his features masked in
Chinese calm. “Step right up, laydeez and gen-tul-men, and see the _one_
and _only_!”
Fat Crampton, tittering sweetly, walked by, dressed as a beautiful
damsel in a skirt fashioned from Howard Chisel’s spare kitchen apron.
The Mysterious Mandarin descended from his throne and expertly drew
half-dollars from the hat, sleeve, and nose of the “lady.” He then gave
an exhibition of sleight-of-hand, at which he was an adept of no mean
skill—making a collection of red balls appear and disappear between his
nimble fingers, shaking a flying pack of cards from his fan, collecting
the cards in a neat pile and drawing forth at one flip the card desired
by any of the nondescript crowd about him.
When he returned to his elevated throne once more, Wild Willie announced
that the Mandarin would now display the powers of his X-ray eye. Chink
turned his back to the audience, and Happy Face Frayne, one of the
judges who would later award the prizes for the best performance of the
night, adjusted a bandage over the magician’s eyes to make sure there
was no deception. Jake Utway now walked out into the ranks of the
audience, and touched a sweater worn by one of the listeners.
“What is the color of the object I am touching, Mandarin?” he called
out.
“Blue,” answered the blindfolded Chink promptly.
“Correct. Now what color am I touching?” Jake held up Soapy Mullins’
neckerchief.
“Orange.”
“And now?”
“White.”
“Correct,” answered Jake, putting Slim Yerkes’ sailor hat back on the
astonished boy’s head. All about him were faces wonder-stricken at the
accuracy of the magician’s responses. Jake, however, was not astonished,
for he was in on the secret. The series of colors had been arranged with
Chink ahead of time, and all Jake had to do was to find and point to an
object of the required hue. “And now, what is the color of the thing I’m
pointing at?” He held a finger to his damaged left eye.
“Rainbow!”
A hearty laugh arose, for Jake’s “shiner” had indeed developed the color
of a sunset, and was by now one of the sights of the camp.
“Here—I bet you my life I can do that, too!” broke in Spaghetti Megaro
of Tent Eight, now assuming his role in the show.
“All right,” agreed Jake, returning to the stage.
From his capacious bathrobe, Spaghetti drew forth a spreading assortment
of vegetables. “Now, Mandarin,” he said loudly, “I’m going to see if you
cheat me, huh? Tell me quick—what color is this spinach?”
“Green.”
“Well, what color is this lemon?”
“Yellow.”
“Right again. Now, I ask you, what color is this orange?” The Italian
boy held the fruit high in the air.
“Orange.”
“Plenty smart, all right.” Spaghetti shook his head and began eating the
orange. “No can foola da majish’!”
This bit of comedy was greeted with high amusement by the audience.
Again Wild Willie stepped forward.
“Laydeez and gen-tul-men, the Mysterious Magician will end his
exhibition with a death-defying display of his great powers. Never
before has this breath-taking miracle been performed on any stage! The
Mandarin will make a person vanish, and then make him appear again
somewhere else!”
These words were Jake’s cue to move again. He glanced quickly overhead,
and made sure that Jerry was in his place, ready for the disappearing
act that would give a climax to their stunts. He was rewarded by a nod
from Jerry, who sat perched on the rafters high above the floor of the
lodge and the rows of watchers in the camp audience. This was Chink’s
great idea—a disappearing act in which the twins would take part. Jake,
dressed in his camp uniform, would be selected from the crowd to enter a
large packing-box on the stage, and at Chink’s command, a flashlight
would be thrown aloft, and Jerry dressed in a like costume, would swing
down from his high position and drop to the stage and there, his hidden
twin’s exact counterpart, would receive the applause due to this
miraculous reappearance.
“Who wishes to disappear into thin air, laydeez and gen-tul-men?” cried
out Wild Willie.
A chorus of voices rose on the stage, Jake’s among them. “I do!” “Me!”
“No, take me!”
“You’ll do.” Wild Willie, according to plan, pointed out Jake, who
stepped forward. “You will now enter this large chest. No deception,
folks!” The boy in the high silk hat lifted the box to show that there
were no false bottoms or secret exits. “That’s right! Pretty soon you’ll
disappear, and come back from somewhere else. Now, step inside, and
you”—he pointed to Fat Crampton—“you sit on the lid. All set, Mandarin!”
Chink again descended to the level of the stage, his blindfold now
removed. Calmly and impressively he took his hands from his sleeves.
“Heap hard trick!” the magician grunted. “Make ’um white boy no-see,
plitty soon come-see some place else, velly smart!” He waved his arms
over the box, upon which Fat Crampton sat. “Hocus-pocus. Come _high_!”
The audience was bent forward in silence. Jake, crouched within the
narrow darkness of the box, pictured to himself the scene outside. At
the magic words, a flashlight would shoot upward toward the rafters
where Jerry had taken his station, and Jerry would drop to the stage and
finish the act amid the plaudits of the crowd.
“Hocus-pocus. Come _high_!” repeated Chink, in a nervous tone. Jake
wished he could see out of his tight prison, and wondered at the delay.
Titters came from the smaller boys in the front of the audience. Why
didn’t Jerry come down?
“Come _high_!” Chink sounded disgruntled. “Maybe so white boy no come,
no can fly out. That’s all—goo’-bye!”
The rings of the curtain rattled as they were drawn together to cut off
the scene. The big act had failed. There was a half-hearted clapping
from the audience, who of course did not see any point in the sudden
ending of the act. With such an anti-climax, the Magician sketch could
scarcely hope to win a prize.
Jake squirmed in a frantic effort to get out of the box. “Get up, Fat!”
he called urgently, and felt the heavy boy’s weight removed from the
lid. Jake sprang out like a Jack-in-the box, alive with eagerness to see
why their carefully-laid scheme had fallen through. He met a disgusted
look from the grease-painted face of the Mysterious Mandarin.
“Fine brother you’ve got!” muttered Chink. “I thought he was going to be
all ready up there when the time came!”
“But—but he was!” stammered Jake. “I—I saw him up there just a minute
ago!”
“Well, he’s not there now,” Chink growled, turning away. Jake cast his
eyes aloft.
The beam of a flashlight still slanted upward toward the raftered corner
under the roof. But Jerry Utway was nowhere in sight!