NOT ON THE PROGRAMME.
You have perhaps read of Ben Hur and the famous chariot race, and
remember how General Wallace describes the staring crowds about that
amphitheatre. There was no one there a bit more thrilled and
interested than the spectators of Smithers’ World Renowned Circus at
this supreme moment. They were leaning forward, some of them having
even risen to their feet; they were staring with open mouth, scarcely
breathing.
The sympathies of every one were with that strange and outlandishly
costumed stranger who seemed to have so much money and nerve.
Texas meanwhile was proceeding with a businesslike cautiousness. He
examined the saddle girth and the stirrups and tightened both. Then
after another survey he concluded that they didn’t suit him, and flung
them off altogether.
“He’s going to ride bareback!” gasped the crowd.
That was the stranger’s purpose, evidently. He next examined the
bridle, giving Smasher’s head a vigorous shake incidentally and making
that wicked animal open one eye in surprise. And after that Texas was
ready.
He stood at the horse’s head regarding him just one moment, and then
seizing him by the mane, swung himself into the air and landed with a
thud upon the pony’s back.
As usual, Smasher never moved. Texas did not wait for him to get ready
to start, but dug his heels into his side with a crash that made the
bronco leap two feet into the air, and gave a yank at the bit that
made his head snap back. And then there was all the fun the most
fastidious could want. The center of the ring was a perfect whirl of
legs and bodies. The pony flung his hind feet into the air and then
danced about on them; Texas simply dug his knees into his side and his
heels into his ribs and sat up straight as an arrow, yelling in Texas
dialect meanwhile.
Then Smasher reared himself upon his hind legs; he bit and plunged,
and he kicked; he whirled around in a circle; he flung himself on the
sawdust and rolled about the ring.
At this last move Texas had slipped off quick as lightning and stood
calmly by, still holding the reins and yelling at the pony. The pony
struggled to his feet again; while he was still on his knees Texas had
thrown himself on his back and was once more kicking and shouting:
“Git up, thar, you vile critter, you! Git up, thar!”
Smasher got, and he started around that ring at breakneck speed,
tossing his head and plunging, his body leaning at an angle of thirty
degrees and the sawdust flying in clouds. Around and around he went.
Smithers was staring in horror, the crowd was roaring with delight,
and as for Texas, he was waving his hat and shouting triumphantly.
“Get up, thar, you ole Smasher! I’ll smash you! That the fastest you
kin go? Whoop!”
Smasher tried a little faster yet, until the crowd got dizzy watching
him. Then he tried one last resort more, stopped short as if he’d hit
a stone wall. Texas simply clung and then gave him a whack that set
him off for dear life again. Texas knew that he’d conquered then.
“Wow!” he roared. “Got any more ov ’em to break? Ain’t had so much fun
in a year! Whoop! You circus folks think you kin ride, don’t you? I’ll
show ye something!”
Suiting the action to the word, Texas, still lashing the horse to keep
him going and still roaring to keep him straight, got upon his knees
and then on his feet. Having stood on one leg for a couple of turns he
dropped the reins turned over and flung his heels into the air. After
that he dropped his hat and swept it up on the next turn around. Then
seizing hold of the horse’s mane, he slid under his belly and a moment
later appeared on the other side, and jerked himself up, Smasher
meanwhile going at railroad speed. Nobody in the crowd saw how he did
it, but they roared with delight all the same, and Smithers gritted
his teeth with rage.
But Texas was by no means through yet. All his cowboy ingenuity had
gone into the task of thinking up a suitable punishment for “that
fresh circus feller” who had ventured to insult the nationality of
cowboys. And Texas was getting ready to put a scheme into practice,
while he still thumped merrily on the ribs of the dizzy bronco. He was
fumbling about the pockets of his voluminous trousers, and suddenly
the crowd, divining his intentions, let out a roar of delight.
“He’s got a lasso!”
Texas did have a lasso, a “rope,” he would have called it; if there
was anything on earth he prided himself on it was his skill at
“throwin’ a rope.” He had an arm half a foot thick as a result, and
had half murdered several venturesome yearlings with it, as our old
readers know. Texas was going to show some of the dexterity of that
arm right now.
Of course the crowd was simply wild with expectation and curiosity.
Even Smithers, from his position in the center of the ring, forgot
about his lost twenty, and began turning around and around to see what
the rider was doing. The rider was unwinding the lariat from his body.
That did not take him very long, and then he flung it into the air and
began to whirl it gracefully about his head.
“Whoop!” he roared, getting faster and faster, and driving Smasher at
a perfect tear. “Whoop!”
“Hooray!” howled the crowd. “Hooray!”
And then suddenly, having gotten his distance and aim, Texas let drive
that lasso. The result electrified and horrified every person in the
place. For the noose sailed through the air, and before the amazed
Smithers could even raise an arm it settled comfortably over his
shoulders and the momentum of the pony jerked it tight as a vise.
The circus proprietor let out a yell that drowned even the roars of
the Texan. He imagined himself hurled to the ground and dragged head
first about the place. That was what the frightened crowd thought,
too, as they sprang up shouting. But Texas had arranged things more
wisely than that.
He had gauged the length of the lasso just so that the proprietor felt
himself jerked forward and obliged to run to maintain his equilibrium.
Onward rushed Smasher in a big circle, and onward also the reluctant,
indignant, vociferously protesting Smithers in a little circle near
the center of the ring. He could not stop; he could do nothing but run
around and around with might and main, while the crowd fairly went
into spasms of delight, and Texas roared whoops by the bucketful.
This delicious game continued until the proprietor stopped from sheer
exhaustion. He stood still, panting, and before he could move again
Texas had worked one more scheme. Around and around he swept in a fast
narrowing circle of rope, while Smithers found, to his horror, that
his arms were bound tight to his sides, he being swiftly reduced to
the state of a mummy or an Indian totem pole. In vain he howled. Texas
had the hilarious crowd with him, and he didn’t care. He finished the
job neatly and then brought Smasher to a halt, and, dismounting, bowed
with mock ceremony to the imprisoned proprietor. Then he pocketed his
money with a flourish and marched back to his seat, the cynosure of
every eye in the place. The sputtering victim he left to be unwound by
one of the circus hands.
It was fully ten minutes before the show could go on. Texas was
obliged to get up and bow to an encore three times, while Smithers
shook his fist in impotent rage. Smasher was led off meekly. As to
him, it may be said here that he never again went on the stage; the
poor beast was sold to an itinerant peddler, for he was so docile that
a child might ride him after that. But meanwhile, there was more
excitement at the circus.
Texas having satiated the applauding multitude, turned to receive the
congratulations of his delighted friends. To his surprise, he found
that two of them, Mark and Dewey, were missing.
“Whar’s Mark?” he cried, anxiously.
“Mark!” echoed the other four, in just as much surprise.
They had not noticed that in the excitement Mark and his friend, the
prize story-teller, had gotten up and slipped away. But gone they
were, after some fun, so Texas surmised, and vowed it was mean in them
to leave him. As if he hadn’t had fun enough already!
We shall follow the mischief-makers, for they were destined to meet
with some interesting adventures before they returned to their
companions.
Mark had a definite reason for stealing away thus unceremoniously. He
had a scheme he meant to put into effect; but as it happened, all
thought of it was driven from his mind by something he chanced to
notice a few minutes later.
At the rear of the circus tent was Smithers’ “Magnificent Menagerie.”
Persons who had tickets to the circus were allowed to visit that
menagerie and gaze upon its treasures――these included a single lean
buffalo which was subsequently led out into the ring to perform; a
single elephant which did likewise; the aforementioned laughing hyena,
whose laugh had been somewhat embittered by bad treatment; and the
world-famous “Smasher.”
Toward this part of the show Mark and Dewey were leisurely strolling,
chatting merrily as usual. And then suddenly from inside the tent the
band struck up a tune.
Now there was nothing startling about that. The band was accustomed to
herald the entrance of each performer in that way. It was a very
unmusical band; Dewey said it was cracked――“cracked into four pieces,
b’gee!” he added. The band apparently knew only three or four tunes,
one of them being “The Girl I Left Behind Me”――the song of Custer’s
famous Seventh. That was where the excitement came in.
The West Point band had often played that tune and the cadets were
used to marching to it. Mark had noticed four young fellows strolling
just ahead of him; at the very first notes of that tune the four
straightened up as one man and stepped forward――left! left! A moment
later they recollected where they were and resumed their former gait.
That little incident was not lost to Mark’s sharp eyes, however. He
turned and nudged Dewey on the arm.
“Did you see that, old man?” he cried.
“Yes, b’gee, I did,” responded Dewey, “and I know what it means, too.”
The four were cadets!
Our two friends fairly gasped with delight as they realized that. The
strangers had disappeared in the tent by that time and quick as a wink
Mark sprang forward.
“Let’s see who they are,” he cried.
The two hurried up to the tent door and peered cautiously around the
edge of the canvas. They could plainly see the backs of the others as
they strolled away. An instant later Mark started back with a cry of
delight. One of the four had turned around and shown his face for one
instant. It was Bull Harris! And the rest were his “gang!”
Mark and Dewey stole away to a safe corner and sat down to consult. Of
course there was but one thought in the minds of both of them. It was
a chance for a joke, a superb one. Bull was in disguise, and would run
for his life at the least suspicion of discovery. It was a golden
opportunity, and such a one must not be allowed to pass, for anything
in the world.
Our readers of course understand what were Mark Mallory’s feelings
toward Bull Harris, the yearling. Bull was Mark’s deadliest enemy in
West Point; Bull hated him with a concentrated hatred that had grown
with each unsuccessful attempt to outwit Mark, to disgrace him, to get
him expelled. As for Mark, he did not hate Bull, but he loved to worry
that ill-natured and malignant youth with all kinds of clever schemes.
That was the reason why, the very instant Mark recognized the
yearling, the thought flashed over him――what a chance for some fun.
“We mustn’t let him see us,” Mark whispered to Dewey. “He’d recognize
us in spite of our disguise. What shall we do?”
“Let’s go in and follow them,” chuckled Dewey. “See what they’re
doing, b’gee!”
This suggestion was acted upon instantly. The two conspirators got up
and stole over to the tent door, slid in, and dodged behind one of the
wagons.
It was a very small tent, and they could almost have touched their
victims with an umbrella. Yet the victims had not the least suspicion
of any danger.
“They are feeding the elephant,” whispered Mark. “’Sh!”
Bull and his three friends had their Dockets stuffed with peanuts and
were amusing themselves immensely. The single elephant was chained to
the back of the tent; there was a small railing in front of him to
keep people from going too near. That did not prevent them from
throwing peanuts, however. It is a lot of fun to get a big elephant to
raise his trunk in eager expectation and then to torment him by not
giving him anything to eat. It is fun, at any rate, if you like to
tease; Bull liked to, and the madder the elephant got the better he
liked it.
An elephant is a peculiarly intelligent-looking animal. He can
indicate his feeling very well with those twinkling little eyes of
his. And the two conspirators chuckled as they noticed the way the
animal was regarding his four tormentors. And then suddenly Dewey,
chancing to put one hand in his pocket, gave a gasp of delight.
“By jingo!” he cried. “I’ve got it!”
Mark stared at him in surprise as he drew forth from his pocket a
small bottle of whitish substance.
“What is it?” he inquired, whispering low.
“Something I got for the Parson,” chuckled Dewey. “It’s caustic
potash! Watch!”
Dewey took the cork out of the innocent little bottle and sprang out
from behind the wagon. It was all done so quickly that Mark scarcely
had time to realize what was up.
There was no one else in the tent to see; the four were too intent
upon their fun. Dewey crept up behind them, and with as much deftness
as if he had been a pickpocket, dumped the contents of the bottle into
Bull’s “peanut” pocket.
A moment more and the excitement began.
Bull did not notice the substance when he reached for another peanut.
He took it out and deftly “chucked” it into the elephant’s mouth.
Concerning the action of caustic potash when moistened there is no
room to write a treatise here. If Parson Stanard had been there he
would doubtless have explained how the latent heat of the substance is
released by decomposition, etc., a process known as “slaking,” and so
on. Suffice it to say that it gets hot.
Bull noticed the elephant look funny, he didn’t know why. There was a
pail of water at the infuriated animal’s side, and he thrust his trunk
into it and drank a huge draught to relieve the pain.
And then he raised his trunk, full of water as it was, and to Bull’s
horror and consternation, deliberately blew a heavy column of it
straight into his tormentor’s face!