Without hesitation, young Jenison counted off five hundred dollars. Mrs. Braddock closed her eyes in pain as he laid the notes in her husband's hand. Grinaldi turned away, suppressing the bitter imprecation that rose to his lips.
"I'll tell those scoundrels that you haven't been near the show." He did not count the money. He had counted it with greedy eyes as David told off the bills in his nervous, clumsy fingers. "Now, you lay low. Stick close to me. Don't let anybody see much of you till we're over in Ohio. I'll guarantee to get you off safe. Don't you worry. Just lay low. I'll find work for you to do. We're headed for Indiana and Illinois. They'll never get you out there. By thunder! I've got an idea, Joey, that girl of yours is right. You do need a bit of help. We'll make a clown of him. We'll have two clowns. How is that, Mary?"
She did not reply. He looked away hastily.
"I couldn't be a clown," began David in consternation.
"Sure you can," interrupted the boss. "It's as easy as fallin' off a log. Joey can tell you all the tricks. He's the best in the world, Joey Grinaldi is. That's what I've got him for. We've got the best show in the world, too. Barnum ain't in the same class with us. Forepaugh and Van Amberg? They are second rate aggre—But, say, I'd better go out and steer those fellows away." He started off, but stopped suddenly as if struck by a serious doubt.
"Perhaps you'd better let me take the rest of that money and put it in the safe in the ticket-wagon," he said encouragingly. "It's likely to be nipped by some of these crooks that follow the show. 'T ain't safe with you, let me tell you that."
"No!" cried his wife, her voice shrill with decision.
Braddock did not insist. He was too wise for that.
"Well, if it's stolen, don't blame me," he said. "Remember, I told you so. I don't give a damn personally. It's your money, kid."
"I reckon I'll keep it," said David, suddenly acute. He began wrapping the string around the broken package, which he had kept sacredly inviolate for so long. "I'll stay with the show and do anything I can, if you'll only help me to get away. I—I don't want to be taken back there. Some day, I expect to go back, but not right now. I'm not afraid. But I can't go back until I've found the man that knows."
"There is a man who—knows?" murmured Mrs. Braddock.
"Yes. I must find him. He—he doesn't want to be found. That's why it is going to be so hard. But I will find him!" His eyes were flashing, his teeth were set.
"So much the better," said Braddock. "You can throw 'em off the track for awhile, then take your money and go to New York. You'll find him there, all right. They all go there."
"He is a nigger," said David.
"Umph!" grunted Braddock. "That's bad. You mustn't expect any jury in Virginia to believe a nigger in these days."
"Oh, yes, they will. They'll have to," declared David firmly.
"Say," said the proprietor, his voice sinking to tones of caution. He addressed the three of them. "Better keep this quiet about the five hundred. It won't help any of us if it gets out that you've been bribing me, boy. I'll just say that I refused to take the wad. That will go, too. Don't let anybody know. Understand, Mary?" He looked at her with lowering eyes.
"I will not tell Christine, Tom," she said evenly, meeting the look with a gaze so steady that he bristled for a moment, but gave way before it. He felt the scorn and laughed shortly in his attempt to convince himself, at least, that he did not deserve it.
"And just to show you that I'm honest in this business," he went on hurriedly, "I'm going to begin by paying you the fifty I still owe on your salary, Joey. That's the kind of a man I am. I do what I say I'll do. Here's your fifty, Joey."
"Not that kind of money for me, thank you," said Grinaldi, with a scowl that brought his painted eyebrows together. He turned on his heel and hurried into the dressing-room, unable to restrain the words that would have cut the heart of the man's wife to shreds.
An attendant came in from the circus tent just as Christine Braddock emerged from the dressing-room alone. David was stuffing the purse inside the loose shirt that he wore. The girl hurried to her mother's side.
"Are they going to—to take him?" she whispered fearfully.
David saw the sweet, clean lips tremble. Her eyes were wide and dry with trouble. Somehow his heart swelled with a strange new emotion: he could not have ascribed it to joy, or to self-pity, or to gratitude. It was something new and pleasant and warm; a glow, a light, an uplifting. This sweet, wonderfully pretty girl was his friend! She believed in him.
"No, dear," replied Mrs. Braddock, lowering her eyes in sudden humiliation.
The attendant was speaking. "Mr. Braddock, that feller out at the door has got tired waitin'. He says he's comin' back yere to see you. What'll I say to 'im? He's got a warrant an' he's got some of the town marshal's men with 'im now."
"I'll go out and see him right away. The boy ain't with this show."
With a slow, meaning look at his wife, he turned to follow the man. Over his shoulder he called to David:
"Go in there with Joey. He'll tell you where to hide if you have to. Be quick about it."
He was gone. The tumblers began to pour in from the main tent.
Christine clutched her mother's arm in the agony of desperation.
"Did—did he take the money from—him?" she demanded tremulously.
Mrs. Braddock looked at David, an abject appeal in her eyes. He smiled blandly and lied nobly, like a true Virginia gentleman.
"No, Miss Braddock. Instead of that, he has hired me to go with the show."
"Oh, I am so glad," she cried. "I knew he would not take your money."
David swallowed hard; and then, fearing to speak again or to meet her radiant eyes, he hastened after Grinaldi.
A moment later he was in the center of an excited, whispering group of performers, in various conditions of attire, but singularly alike in their state of mind. They were softly but impressively consigning Thomas Braddock to the most remote corner in purgatory. They plied David with questions. He reported the impatience of the officers, and Braddock's decision to protect him for the time being.
"I saw them chaps out there, standin' by the menagerie doors," said the contortionist. "Spotted 'em right away, I did."
A bareback rider looked in. His horse already had started for the ring.
"Lay low!" he whispered. "One of the boys says they won't be put off by Brad. They're going to search the tent with the town marshal."
Grinaldi, who had been deep in thought, suddenly slapped his knee and uttered a cackle of satisfaction.
"I've got it! We'll pull the wool over their eyes, by Jinks! Follow me, boy, and do just wot I tells you. I'm—I'm going to take you into the ring with me. By Jupiter, they won't think of looking for you there."
Attended by a chorus of approval, he shoved the stupefied David out before him and hustled him across the space that lay between them and the main top, all the while whispering eager instructions in his ear.
"You just follow behind me, keeping step all the time—about three steps behind me. Don't look to right or left. Keep your eyes on the middle of my back. Nobody knows you, so don't go into a funk, my lad. It's life or death for you, mebby. I'll get a word to Briggs, the ringmaster. He'll help you out, too. Just follow me around the ring, three steps behind. Stop when I stop, walk when I do. Look silly, that's all. I'll think of something else to tell you to do after we're out there. And we'll stay out there till the show's over."
Trembling in every