ered Mr. Fleet, and with a bark the dog started up the
ladder. Reaching the platform, he sat there in a "begging position,"
waiting for the sign to jump.

"Down, Toto!" called Mr. Fleet, but instead of jumping, as he had
always done at the word, Toto only whined and moved about uneasily on
the little platform.

"Come on! Come on!" cried the trainer, but the little dog would not.

"He's afraid of the water," said Joe. "He's used to seeing a blanket
under him."

"I guess that's right," agreed the trainer.

"Well, let's hold a blanket over the tank," suggested Joe. "We can hold
it high enough at first so it won't touch the surface of the water.
Gradually we can lower it until we have a little water showing as it
seeps through the blanket. In that way perhaps we can get him used to
it."

"We'll try that," assented Mr. Fleet. Four men held a blanket which was
stretched over the top of the tank of water.

"Down, Toto!" commanded his master, and down the little dog jumped with
a bark of satisfaction.

"That's our plan!" cried Joe.

They kept on with the experiment until they had the dog leaping into
the blanket as it sagged down in the water, a quantity of which was
held in the depression of the cloth. Toto seemed to like the new trick.
He was eager for the leap, and splashed about joyously in the water.

An hour's practice was considered enough for one day.

"To-morrow we'll go at it again," said Mr. Fleet.

The more Joe thought of the new trick the better he liked it.

"To work with a diving dog will surely create a sensation," he mused.

"What's this I hear about you, Joe?" asked Jim Tracy at the evening
performance. "Trying some new stunt?"

"Well, yes, just trying it. You mean about the dog?"

"Yes."

"I don't know that we can work it," went on Joe; "but if we can it
ought to make a hit."

"That's the idea!" said the ring-master. "We've got to keep working for
new hits in the circus business all the while."

For several days after that, whenever opportunity offered, Joe and Mr.
Fleet put Toto through the jumping rehearsal, using the blanket.
Finally, when they thought the dog would no longer be afraid, they took
it away. But at first Toto refused to jump, and his master would not,
of course, use force.

Finally, however, patience won, and when another dog, a little water
spaniel, was put in the tank Toto seemed to think it was all right, and
made his first leap from the high platform into the tan