that
had shone so brilliantly in and around the ring had been extinguished,
the canvas sides had been taken off, and the boards that had formed the
seats were being packed into one of the carts with a rattling sound that
seemed as if a regular fusillade of musketry was being indulged in. Men
were shouting; horses were being driven hither and thither, harnessed to
the wagons, or drawing the huge carts away as soon as they were loaded;
and everything seemed in the greatest state of confusion, while really
the work was being done in the most systematic manner possible.

Toby had not long to wait before the driver informed him that the time
for starting had arrived, and assisted him to climb up to the narrow
seat whereon he was to ride that night.

[Illustration: TOBY'S FIRST NIGHT RIDE.]

The scene was so exciting, and his efforts to stick to the narrow seat
so great, that he really had no time to attend to the homesick feeling
that had crept over him during the first part of the evening.

The long procession of carts and wagons drove slowly out of the town,
and when the last familiar house had been passed the driver spoke to
Toby for the first time since they started.

"Pretty hard work to keep on--eh, sonny?"

"Yes," replied the boy, as the wagon jolted over a rock, bouncing him
high in air, and he, by strenuous efforts, barely succeeded in alighting
on the seat again, "it is pretty hard work; an' my name's Toby Tyler."

Toby heard a queer sound that seemed to come from the man's throat, and
for a few moments he feared that his companion was choking. But he soon
understood that this was simply an attempt to laugh, and he at once
decided that it was a very poor style of laughing.

"So you object to being called sonny, do you?"

"Well, I'd rather be called Toby, for, you see, that's my name."

"All right, my boy; we'll call you Toby. I suppose you thought it was a
mighty fine thing to run away an' jine a circus, didn't you?"

Toby started in affright, looked around cautiously, and then tried to
peer down through the small square aperture, guarded by iron rods, that
opened into the cage just back of the seat they were sitting on. Then
he turned slowly around to the driver, and asked, in a voice sunk to a
whisper, "How did you know that I was runnin' away? Did he tell you?"
and Toby motioned with his thumb as if he were pointing out some one
behind him.

It was the driver's turn now to look around in search of t