given these three their fame includes a swing, a leap,
and a catch, which seems simple enough until one learns the length and
drop of that swing, and how the leapers turn in the air, and what
momentum their bodies have as they shoot toward the man hanging for the
catch from the last bar. It is Weitzel who catches the other two. He was
"understander" in a "brother" act before he learned the trapeze; and the
man who earns his living by holding two or three men on his head and
shoulders while they do tricks of balancing is pretty sure to build up a
strong body. And Weitzel needs all his strength when Danny springs from
the pedestal over there at the tent-top fifty-two feet away, and,
swinging through a half-circle thirty-six feet across, comes the last
sixteen feet flying free, and turning twice as he comes. For all his
brawny arms, Weitzel would be torn away by the clutch of that hurling
mass, were not the strain eased by the stretch of fourteen thongs of
rubber, seven on a side, that support his bar cords. And sometimes, as
the leapers catch, the bar sags full four feet, and then, as they
"snap off" down to the net, springs nine feet up, so that Weitzel's head
has many a time bumped the top support.

The catcher-man must hold himself ready for a dozen different leaps,
must watch for the safety clutch where the four hands grip first at the
elbows, then slide down the forearms to the wrists and hold there where
the tight-bound handkerchiefs jam; he must know how to seize Zorella by
the ankles when he shoots at him feet up after a backward double; he
must know how to land Danny when he comes turning swiftly with eyes
blindfolded and body bound in a sack.

All these feats are hard enough to do, yet still harder, one might say,
is the mere starting to do them. There are scores of acrobats, well
skilled in doubles and shoots and twisters, who would not for their
lives go up on the pedestal whence Ryan and Zorella make their spring,
and simply take the first long swing hanging from the trapeze. Nothing
else, simply take the swing!

The fact is, there is an enormous difference between working on
horizontal bars say ten feet above ground, and on the same bars thirty
feet above ground, or between a trapeze act with leaps after a moderate
swing, and the same act with leaps after a long swing. Often I have
watched Ryan and Zorella poised on the pedestal just before the swing
and holding the trapeze bar drawn so far over to one sid