d.

"I'd have smothered if I hadn't kept my mouth close to that vent hole,"
explained Andy. "Is it all right for me to show myself now?"

"Yaw," declared the fat musician. "You see dot sign?"

He pointed back a few yards. Andy recognized the four-armed semaphore
set where a narrow road intersected the highway they were traversing.

"Oh, yes," said Andy quickly, "that shows the State line."

"Yaw, dot vas so. No one can arrest you now, Marco says, and Marco vas
like a lawyer, hey?"

"Will I see Mr. Marco soon again?" asked Andy.

"For sure dot vas. He toldt me vot to do. Vhen we reach dot Cliftons,
you vill go mit Billy Blow. He vill takes care of you till morning. Den
you goes to dot Empire Hotel und sees Miss Stella Starr."

"Oh, I understand," exclaimed Andy brightly and hopefully. "And who is
Billy Blow, please?"

"Him," explained Hans, pointing to the sleeping man with the sad, tired
face--"dot is Billy Blow, the clown."

"Eh, what--clown? Not the one who rides the donkey and tells such funny
stories?"

"Oh, yaw," declared the musician in a matter-of-fact way.

Andy was naturally surprised. He could hardly realize that the person he
was looking at could ever make up as the mirth-provoking genius who was
the life and fun of the big circus ring.

"Poor Billy!" said Hans, shaking his head solemnly. "First his vife
falls from a horse. She vas in dot hospitals. Den his little poy,
Midget, is sick. Poor Billy!"

Andy suddenly remembered something. He craned his neck and looked
steadfastly along the road.

"I want to leave the wagon when we get a little further along," he said.

"I likes not dot," answered Snitzellbaum. "Maybe you gets in droubles,
so?"

"No, it's when we reach an old barn," explained Andy. "I left something
there earlier in the evening. I won't be a minute getting it."

In about half-an-hour, as they approached the hay barn where Andy had
overheard the conversation between Daley and Murdock, he slipped down
from the wagon. He ran ahead, went up among the hay bales, found the
coat containing the marble bag holding his little stock of money, and
speedily rejoined the musician.

Hans finished his pipe and sank into a doze. Andy could not sleep. He
had gone through too much excitement that day to readily
compose himself.

He lay listening dreamily to the jolty clatter of the wagons, the shouts
of the drivers, and the commotion of the animals in the menagerie cages.
Meanwhile he was t