THE WRECK OF THE CIRCUS
That night, as Johnny listened to the chant of the negroes as they went
about their tasks of breaking camp and loading, he fancied that there was
a weird and restless tone to it, foretelling some catastrophe brooding
over all.
The night was dark, with black, rainless clouds hurrying across the sky.
Johnny shivered as he walked toward his sleeping car. His hand was on the
rail when someone touched his arm. It was Pant.
"Johnny," he whispered, "how'd you like to ride with me in the gondola
to-night?"
"Oh, all right," Johnny answered, a note of impatience in his voice.
"If it's going to be a bother, don't come."
"I'll come along."
"Thought you might like to be in on something big."
"I've been in on something big twice to-day. The first came near to being
my funeral, and the second will be, if I don't get those twins back to
their grandfather's pretty quick."
Johnny told Pant of the day's experiences, as they made their way back to
a tent car.
"Oh, you'll come out all right with the twins," said Pant. "I only hope
we don't get into things that'll muss us up to-night, but we'll go
careful."
"Of course," he whispered, as they settled down among the piles of
canvas, "it's that Liberty bond business. I've been scouting 'round in
the towns we've been in, and the way they've been spreading the 'queer'
about is nothing short of a super-crime.
"I've been running up a blind trail for a long time. Thought I had
something on that conman with the ragged ear and two of his pals. I
followed them down to the river in Chicago twice, and the second time
came near catching them; would have, too, if it hadn't been for a rat
that tried to eat my hand off. I got 'em the other night--outfit and
everything, and it turned out to be only a mimeograph kit for making fake
telegrams, announcing results of races, baseball games, and the like. I
was sore when I found it was nothing; might have been a blind, at that.
But I had to start all over again, and last night when we were on the
way, I made a mighty important discovery. There was a light in the rear
end of one of the horse cars most of the night. That's as far as I got.
It was moonlight. They might see me if I came spying around. Besides, I
wanted someone else along; someone with a strong arm. Didn't want to get
pitched off the train just when I had my hand on the trick. Of course, it
may be just an all night crap game, but I don't think so. Anyway, we'll
see. We'll let them get under way, then when we're clipping it up at a
lively rate, and the moon's under, we'll have a look."
Pant fell silent, apparently lost in his intricate problem. Johnny
yawned.
A quarter of an hour later Johnny was just dropping off into a doze, when
Pant gripped his arm and whispered:
"C'mon. Let's go!"
Having climbed over two gondolas and the top of a one-time express car,
they dropped cat-like from the roof of the express car to the platform of
a second express car.
Here they stood silent, listening for fully two minutes. At first
everything appeared dark, but presently Johnny caught a faint gleam of
light that apparently came through a crack in a lower panel of the
express car door.
"What'll we do if they come out at us. It's a rotten place," he
whispered. Just then the car gave a lurch which almost threw him from the
narrow platform.
"Duck and jump."
"Mighty risky."
"Only chance. Too many of 'em. Probably guns and everything."
"All right. Get busy."
Pant dropped on his knee and, bracing himself to avoid being thrown
against the door by a sudden lurch, peered through the crack.
What he saw drew forth a whispered exclamation:
"It's the real gang!"
For some time all was silent. Johnny's heart was doing time and a half.
What if they were forced to stand and fight or jump? He shivered as he
tried to make out the embankment through the darkness. They were racing
down grade.
"We've got 'em! It's the gang!" Pant whispered again. "Look!"
He rose and stepped aside. With muscles set for action, Johnny dropped on
his knees, and, shutting one eye, peered through the narrow opening.
What he saw astonished him. In a brilliantly lighted room, the width of
the car, and some ten feet deep, four men were working rapidly, and
apparently with great skill. What surprised him most of all was that all
four men wore heavily smoked glasses, such as Pant himself wore. He saw
at a glance that neither the steam kettle cook nor the midget clown was
with them. He was glad the cook was not there. His feeling regarding the
midget, after the events of the previous day, was not unmixed.
The things the men were doing interested him immensely. Two of them
appeared to be putting little squares of paper through a wash, such as a
photographer uses. A third was drying them before a motor-driven,
superheated electric fan. The fourth was stamping them in a small press.
Each time he stamped one, he appeared to change the type.
Presently, the two who were handling the baths appeared to come to the
end of their tasks. Hardly had they spoken a word to their companions
than each man stepped to a corner, and, turning his back from the center
of the room, stood there motionless.
"Wha--" Johnny's lips formed the word. There was not time to finish. The
next instant he dropped limply back upon the platform, as if he had been
shot.
"What is it, Johnny?" Pant whispered in alarm. Johnny's hands covered his
face.
"The flash! My eyes! They're blind!"
Pant pushed him roughly to one side.
"Let's see."
Johnny slid back to the other car platform. Still dazed by the sudden
flood of light that had struck his eye, but fast recovering, he watched
Pant with interest, not unmingled with awe. By the sudden spurts of light
that shot through the crack, he knew that the flashes were being
continued, yet Pant did not remove his eye. He still crouched there
before the crack. Gazing intently within, he uttered now and then a
stifled "Ah!" and "Oh!" at the marvels which he was viewing.
Finally he dropped back to a seat beside Johnny.
"Eyes all right now?" he asked.
"Sure. What was it?" queried Johnny, forgetting his aching eyes.
"Color photography."
"Color photography?"
"Sure. One of the great inventions of the age, and they are using it for
making counterfeit bonds!"
Johnny was silent.
"You see," whispered Pant, "great inventors have been experimenting with
color photography for years. They got so they could do color work on
negatives--that is, the photographic plate--very well. They have used
these for the purpose of photographing the stages of certain diseases,
and a few things like that; but when it came to getting the color on the
positive--the picture itself--that could not be done. These fellows _can
do it_, and are doing it. The bonds are printed in brown and black. They
catch these colors perfectly, only in a little paler hue. Their paper is
nearly perfect, but whatever defects it has are counteracted by this
color photography which reproduces the very tints of the paper."
For some time they sat there in silence.
"Now that we know their game," whispered Pant at last, "how are we going
to get them? One of the fellows is a ticket seller. He sold Snowball some
bonds when we were in Chicago. I might have known he was in it. Another
is a guard at the entrance of the big top."
"Sold me some bonds once."
"That's right. The other two I don't know. Let's have another look."
Pant had just put his eyes to the crack; Johnny was standing behind him,
when there ran through the train a sickening shiver. The next instant
there followed a deafening crash, as car jammed upon car, and, leaping
high upon one another, left the track.
It was a wreck--such a wreck as is seldom witnessed--the wreck of a
circus train; a head-end collision with a bob-tailed freight running like
mad.
At the moment previous to the first shock of the wreck, Gwen might have
been seen sitting in her own compartment talking earnestly with the
millionaire twins. None of the three had yet undressed for retiring. The
things the twins were telling Gwen had much to do with Johnny Thompson,
and appeared to interest her very much, for now and then there came an
amused, and again a surprised, twinkle in her eye. At one time, a close
observer might have seen her slip a ring from her finger, a ring that had
been covered by the folds of her dress. The ring she crowded deep into
the pocket of her blouse beneath her handkerchief.
When the wreck occurred, the car they were in, a staunch steel affair,
leaped high in air, then wholly uninjured, left the track to topple over
on one side and lay there quite still.
Gwen had been shaken from her seat and jammed beneath the one before her.
The twins, gripping the sides, held on as if riding a fractious broncho,
and were not shaken loose.
"Oh!" cried Marjory, as the car settled to rest, "Johnny Thompson and our
ponies! We must find them. They may be killed."
The pair of them, sliding from their seats, had crawled through a window,
and were away before Gwen could sufficiently recover her breath to call
them back. She wrung her hands in real distress.
"They'll be killed!" she cried frantically. "Half the lions and tigers in
the circus must be loose!"
Then she scrambled out of the car to find Johnny Thompson. He would know
what to do!