ected it aloft. Bang! Crash! went
the orchestra, and from a box suspended over the trapezes the bottom
suddenly dropped out.

Following, an agile youthful form shot down through space. Quick as
lightning the Benares Brothers swung by their feet, joined hands in
mid-air, and the descending form--Andy Wildwood--catching at the wrists
of Thacher, was swung back in a twenty foot circle. Crash! again the
orchestra. Andy was flung through space across to old Benares, a
plaything in mid-air, Benares catching at the feet of Thacher, Andy
tailing on in a graceful descent, thrilling the delighted audience.

The act was not so difficult, but it was neat, rapid, unique. Andy
Wildwood felt that at last he was a full-fledged acrobat.

The manager came back to compliment him. Billy Blow looked delighted.
Miss Stella Starr said:

"Andy, we are all proud of you."

The next morning's papers gave him special notice. Luke Belding
whispered to him to demand double salary.

Andy walked from his boarding house the next morning feeling certain
that he had made very substantial progress during his sixty days of
circus life.

He was passing a row of houses on a side street when a cab drove up to
the curb. Andy casually glanced at the passenger as he crossed the
sidewalk. Then he gave a great start.

"It can't be!" he ejaculated. Then he added instantly: "Yes, I'd know
him among a thousand--Sim Dewey."

The man entered an open doorway, and Andy ran after him. He heard the
fellow ascend a pair of stairs and knock at a door.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Vernon."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Andy--"Aunt Lavinia!"

Here was a stirring situation. There could be no mistake. Despite a
false moustache and a pair of dark eyeglasses, Andy had recognized the
defaulting cashier of the disbanded circus. Beyond dispute he had
recognized the welcoming tones above as belonging to his aunt, Miss
Lavinia Talcott.

"It's like dreaming," mused Andy. "All this happening together, and here
in New York City! Why, what ever brought Aunt Lavinia here? Where did
she ever get acquainted with that scamp?"

Andy felt that he had an urgent duty to perform. Here was a mystery to
explore, a villain to capture.

He went softly up the stairs. The place was a respectable boarding
house, he concluded. Stealing softly past a door, he went half-way up a
second pair of stairs.

Not five feet away from an open transom, Andy could now look into a room
containing three persons