r hero rode swiftly up to the show
grounds.

"I'm not late," was the reply.

"No. But it was getting near your time, and I wanted to make sure you
were on hand."

"Well, I am," replied Joe. But he did not tell until some time
afterward what a narrow escape he had had from being late, nor what a
risky ride he had taken.

"Oh, Joe, how dared you do it?" asked Helen, when he mentioned it to
her. "How dared you? It was so dangerous!"

"Why, I guess I just didn't think anything at all about the danger,"
said Joe with a smile. "I knew it was the only way, and so----"

"You took it," finished Helen. "That's just like you, Joe."

Joe went through his trapeze work in the big tent that afternoon with
as much vim and vigor as though he had not, an hour before, taken such
a chance with his life. And he followed that up by doing his tank act
with his usual success. He did not stay under water quite so long,
however, as he found that he was tiring a little, and he wanted to save
himself for the night's performance, when a bigger crowd would be
present.

And at night Joe went two seconds ahead of his previous best record.

"You'll crowd the world's record yet," predicted Jim Tracy.

The show moved on, and at the next town it received an unexpected bit
of advertising. For a reporter in the town where Joe had started on his
sensational trestle ride had been given the facts by some of the
eyewitnesses, to whom Joe had given his name.

The reporter wrote a thrilling story, and it was published in the paper
of the city where the circus was billed the following day.

It was not until then that most of Joe's fellow performers heard about
his feat, and it made a great sensation.

"Why didn't you save that act for the circus?" asked Jim Tracy. "It
would have made a big hit and brought a crowd."

"I didn't have time to stage it properly," Joe said. "I was thinking of
saving myself a fine for being late at the show."

But an unusually big crowd came to the show anyhow, brought by having
read of Joe's thrilling ride. He was a sort of center of attraction as
he went through his trapeze and tank acts.

Unexpected and impulsive as Joe's ride was, it formed the forerunner of
what was afterward a big feature in his life, as will appear in due
time.

For a week or more the circus moved along its mapped-out route, and
nothing of moment occurred. The usual crowds came and went, the
performers went through their acts successfully, an