THE REGISTERED MAIL
Andy hurried back to the circus grounds the happiest boy on earth. He
went straight to the clown's tent.
Billy Blow was making up for the morning parade. Dressed up as a
way-back farmer, he was to drive a hay wagon, breaking into the
procession here and there along the line of march. Finally, when he had
created a sensation, he was to drop his disguise and emerge in his usual
popular ring character.
While Billy was putting the finishing touches to his toilet he conversed
with Andy, congratulating him on his success in getting a job with
the show.
"Wait about half-an-hour till the parade gets off the grounds," he
advised Andy. "Scripps, the manager, will be busy till then. You'll find
him in the paper tent."
Andy knew what that was--the structure containing the programmes and
general advertising and posting outfits of the show. He had noticed it
earlier in the day. A wagon inside the tent, with steps and windows,
comprised the manager's private office.
Little Midge was sitting up playing with some show children who had
brought in a lot of toys. Andy went outside with Billy.
"See here," said the clown, as he hurried off to join the parade. "Tell
Scripps that you bunk with me. Any objection?"
"I should say not."
"You're welcome. The general crowd they'd put you with is a bit too
rough for a raw recruit. Just stand what they give you till we reach
Tipton. You've got friends enough to pull you up into the performers'
rank. We'll fix you out there."
"Thank you," said Andy.
He strolled about with a happy smile on his face. Prospects looked fine,
and Andy's heart warmed as he thought of all the good friends he
had made.
"They're a nice crowd," he thought--"Miss Starr, Marco, the Benares
Brothers, the clown. How different, though, to what I used to think!
It's business with them, real work, for all the tinsel and glare. It's a
pleasant business, though, and they must make a lot of money."
There was a shrill, whistling shriek from the calliope wagon. The
various performers scampered from their dressing rooms at the signal.
Each person, vehicle and animal fell into line in the morning caravan
with a promptness and ease born of long practice.
Soon there was a fluttering line of gay color, rich plush hangings,
bullion-trimmed uniforms, silken flags and streamers.
Zeno, the balloon clown, eating "redhots," i.e. peanuts, led the
procession, bouncing up and down on a rubber globe in the advance
chariot. The bands began to play. The prancing horses, rumbling wagons,
screaming calliope, frolicking tumblers, tramp bicyclists weaving in and
out in grotesque costumes, often on one wheel, the Tallyho stage filled
with smiling ladies, old Sultan, the majestic lion, gazing in calm
dignity down from his high extension cage--all this passed, a fantastic
panorama, before Andy's engrossed gaze.
"It's grand!" decided Andy--"just grand! A fellow can never get lonesome
here, night or day. I'm going to like it. Now for the manager. Hope I
don't have any trouble."
When Andy came to the paper tent he found a good many people inside.
There were several performers and canvas men on crutches or bandaged up.
There were village merchants with bills, newspaper men after free passes
and persons seeking employment.
They were called in turn up the steps of the wagon that constituted the
manager's office.
Mr. Scripps was a rapid talker, a brisk man of business, and he disposed
of the cases presented in quick order.
Andy saw four or five dissipated looking men discharged at a word. The
applicants for work were ordered to appear at Tipton, two days later.
Several were after an advance on their salary. Some farmers appeared
with claims for foraging done by circus hands. Finally Andy got to the
front and tendered the card Mr. Harding had given him.
"All right," shot out Scripps sharply, giving the lad a keen look.
"You're the one who blocked the game on Benares? Good for you! We'll
remember that, later."
Scripps glanced over a pasteboard sheet on his desk, first asking Andy
his name and age, and writing his answers down in a big-paged book.
"Half-a-dollar a day and keep, for the present," he said.
"All right," nodded Andy--"it's a start."
"Just so. Let me see. Ah, here we are. Report to the Wild Man of Borneo
side top at twelve."
"Yes, sir."
"Hammer the big triangle there till two. Then--let me see again. Know
how to ride a horse?"
"Oh, yes," replied Andy eagerly.
"All right, at two o'clock report for the jockey ring section at the
horse tent. They'll hand you a costume."
Scripps wrote a number on a red ticket and handed this to Andy--his pass
as an employee. Just then a newcomer bundled up the steps
unceremoniously, a red-faced, fussy old fellow.
"Mail's in," he announced. "Give me the O.K."
Scripps fumbled in a drawer of his desk and brought out a rubber stamp
and pad.
"Mind your eye, Rip," he observed, casting a scrutinizing look over the
intruder.
"Which eye?" demanded the old fellow.
"The one that sees a bottle and glass the quickest."
"H'm!" grumbled Ripley, or "Rip Van Winkle," as he was familiarly known
by the show people. "My eyes are all right. Don't fret. I've been twenty
years with this here show, man and boy--"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Scripps. "You're
seasoned, right enough. Don't leave the rig to come home without a
driver, though, and money letters aboard, as you did last week. Here is
a new hand. Break him in to keep his time employed."
Ripley viewed Andy with some disfavor. Evidently he regarded him as a
sort of guardian.
Andy, however, silently followed him outside. Ripley soon reached a
close vehicle, boarded up back of the seat and with two doors at
the rear.
A big-boned mottled horse, once evidently a beauty, was between the
shafts. As Andy lifted himself to the seat beside Ripley, the latter
made a peculiar, purring: "Z-rr-rp, Lute!"
He did not even take up the reins. The horse, with a neigh and a frisky
dance movement of the forefeet, started up.
"Right, left, slow, Lute. Turn--now go"--Ripley gave a dozen directions
within the next five minutes. He was showing off for Andy's benefit. The
latter was, in fact, pleased. The animal obeyed every direction with a
precision and intelligence that fairly amazed the boy.
Finally getting to a clear course outside the circus tangle, Ripley took
up the reins.
He set his lips and uttered two sharp whistles, ending in a kind of
hiss.
Andy was very nearly jerked out of his seat He had to hold on to its
side bar. For about five hundred yards the horse took a sprint that
knocked off his cap and fairly took his breath away.
"Say, he's great!" Andy exclaimed irrepressibly, as Ripley slowed down
again.
"I guess so," nodded the latter, aroused out of his crustiness by Andy's
enthusiasm. "That Lucille was famous, once. Past her prime a little now,
but when her old driver has the reins, she don't forget, does she?"
Ripley took a turn into a side street and finally halted, giving Andy
the reins.
"Got to order something," he said.
Andy saw him enter a store, but only to leave it by a side door and
cross an alley into a saloon.
Ripley tried to appear very business-like when he came back to the
wagon, but Andy caught the taint of liquor in his breath.
Twice again the circus veteran made stops in the same manner. He became
quite chatty and confidential.
Ripley explained to Andy that he went regularly for the circus mail at
each town where the show stopped.
"Postmasters kick, with five hundred strangers calling for their mail,"
he explained, "so we always forward a list of the employees. This mail,
just before pay day, when the crowd is usually hard up, brings a good
many money letters from friends. That rubber stamp you saw the manager
give me O.K.'s all the registered cards at the post office. Once the
wagon was robbed. The looters made quite a haul. Not when I was on
duty, though."
At a drug store Ripley got several packages and some more at a general
merchandise store. Finally they reached the post office, and Ripley
drove around to a sort of hitching alley at its side.
"Come with me to see how we do things," he invited Andy. "Bring along
those two mail bags."
Andy had already noticed the bags. One was quite large. It was made of
canvas, with a snap lock. The other was of leather, and smaller in size.
Swinging these over his shoulder, Ripley entered the post-office. He
showed his credentials from the circus, and was admitted behind the
letter cases of the places.
Andy watched him receive over a hundred letters and packages, receipting
for the same on registry delivery cards. This lot he placed in the small
leather bag.
The ordinary mail lay sorted out for the circus on a stamping table.
This went into the big canvas pouch.
The circus newspaper mail was ready tagged in a hempen sack. Ripley
carried this out to Andy.
"Toss it in the wagon," he ordered, following with the letter pouches.
Andy opened the back doors of the wagon and tossed in the newspaper bag.
"Say, back in a minute," observed Ripley, depositing his own burdens on
the front wagon seat.
Andy stood watching him. Ripley rounded a corner in the alley where a
wooden finger indicated a side entrance to a hotel bar. Ripley's failing
was manifest, and Andy decided that he did, indeed, need a guardian.
The wagon stood on a space quite secluded from the street. Near the
entrance to the alley several men were lounging about.
Andy carried the leather pouch with him as he went around to the open
doors at the rear of the wagon.
He climbed in, and stowed the newspaper bag and what packages they had
already collected in a tidy pile. Ripley had indicated that there was
quite a miscellaneous load to pick up about town before they returned to
the circus.
Andy was thus employed when the rear doors came together with a sharp
snap.
They shut him in a close prisoner, for they were self-locking, on the
outside only.
Andy, in complete darkness, now groped back to the doors. He heard
quick, suppressed tones outside.
The vehicle jolted. Some one had jumped to the front seat. A whip
snapped. Old Lute started up with a bound, throwing Andy off his
footing. "Send her spinning!" reached him in a muffled voice from the
front seat.
"Jump with the bag when we turn that old shed," answered other tones.
"Why, say! There's only one mail bag."
"I saw them bring out two. I am dead sure of it."
"And this is only common letters."
"How do you know?"
"Jim Tapp described them--'get the leather one,' he says. 'It's got the
money mail in it.'"
"Then where is it?"
"The kid must have it."
"Inside the wagon?"
"Yes."
"Whoa."
With a sharp jerk the horse was pulled to a halt.
Andy heard the two men on the seat jump to the ground. He knew that
their motive was robbery. He knew further that this was another plot of
bad Jim Tapp, the friend and associate of criminals.
In another minute the men would open the wagon doors, pull him out,
perhaps assault him, take the registered mail and fly.
Andy had only a second to act in. He theorized that the wagon, following
the alley, was now probably halted in some secluded side lane.
To escape the clutches of the would-be robbers was everything. Andy,
having no weapon of defence, was no match for them.
"If the rig once reaches the crowded streets, I'm safe," thought Andy.
Then he carried out a speedy programme. Forming his lips in a pucker, as
he had seen Ripley do, Andy uttered two sharp whistles, then a clear,
resounding hiss.
"Thunder!" yelled a voice outside.
"Ouch!" echoed a second.
The horse had given one wild, prodigious bound at hearing the familiar
signal.
The vehicle must have grazed one of the thieves. Its front wheels
knocked the other down.
"My! I'm in for it," instantly decided Andy.
For, swayed from side to side, he realized that the circus wagon was
dashing forward at runaway speed.