ugh tales came
down to Blowout of how the contractors were working night and day
shifts, and shipping men from the East in order to have the road through
in time, though the Wagon-Tire House had entertained many squads of
engineers and even occasional parties of the contractors' men, the
railroad was not through on the Fourth.

Something much more important was arranged by Providence, however--at
least, more important in the eyes of the children of the Wagon-Tire
House. Frosty La Rue's grand aggregation of talent was to be in Blowout
for a week, and the human performers were stopping at Huldah Sarvice's
hotel.

If one can go far enough back to remember the awe and mystery
surrounding a circus, and then imagine a circus coming bodily to lodge
in one's own dwelling, to eat with the knives and forks at one's
table--a circus which could swallow fire and swords, and things of that
sort, just eating off plates in the ordinary manner, with Sissy waiting
on the table behind its chairs--if one can get back to this happy time,
it will be possible to comprehend some of the rapture the twins, Gess
and Tell, experienced while Frosty La Rue's show abode at the Wagon-Tire
House.

They lorded it over every other child in Blowout, shining with reflected
splendor. They were the most sought after of any of the boys in school,
for Romey was too young to afford information. La Rue himself looked
upon them and said that they were "likely little fellers," and that he
"wouldn't mind having them to train." Think of that! To train!

Aunt Huldah, with bat-like blindness to their best advantages, had
stated to Mr. La Rue that their father was in--well--in Kansas, and had
only left them with her, as it were, "on demand."

For one dreadful moment the twins envied Aunt Huldah's real orphans.
Then, realizing that Aunt Huldah would no more give up Sissy or Ally
than she would give up them, they reflected that the ambition of boys is
apt, in this cold, unsympathetic world, to be thwarted by their elders,
and settled down to the more active and thorough enjoyment of what they
might have.

The company consisted of old La Rue; his second wife, who figured upon
the bill as Signorina Ippolita di Castelli, an ex-circus rider of very
mature years; Frosty's factotum, a Mexican by the name of Jose Romero;
little Roy, the Aerial Wonder, son of Frosty and the Signorina; and last
and most important of all, Minnie La Rue.

The show was well known in the Tex