ndy made a rush, intent on getting under the canvas at all hazards. He
checked himself. If he succeeded in eluding the watchman outside, he
would have difficulty in getting to the manager. He might be captured
inside at once. He stood staring at the tent top in extreme anxiety
and suspense.

Shadows aloft enlightened him as to-what was going on. The Benares
Brothers were mounting aloft. He made them out bowing gracefully, pulled
up on the toe coils. He saw their outlines, trapeze-seated. The
orchestra struck up a new tune. The act was about to commence.

"I must stop them--I will warn them!" panted Andy with resolution. "If I
got to the manager he might not understand me or believe me. It might be
too late--there is not a minute to spare."

Andy was quivering with excitement, his eyes flashing, his face flushed.

He ran towards a guy rope, sprang up, caught at it, and hand over hand
rapidly ascended it.

Where it tapped the lower dip of the upper canvas, he transferred his
grasp.

A seam was here, held together by hook and ring clear to the gap at the
centre pole. This seam, Andy discerned, ran right over to the trapezes.

Andy scaled the course of the seam with the agility of a monkey, hooking
the rings with his fingers and pulling himself up. The canvas quivered,
shook and gave, but he did not heed that.

He came to the open gap around the centre pole, seized the bound edge of
the canvas, and gazed down.

Ten feet across was old Benares, just getting ready for some evolutions.
Directly under Andy was the trapeze holding the man he supposed to be
Thacher. Over his head swung a smaller trapeze.

Andy lay flat along the sloping canvas and stuck his head further down.

"Mr. Thacher! Mr. Thacher!" he shouted.

"Eh, why, hello! Who are you?"

In wonderment the trapezist gazed up at the earnest, agitated face
gazing down at him.

At that juncture there was an ominous rip. Andy's weight it seemed had
pressed too forcibly down upon a rotted section of the canvas.

A strip about a foot wide tore free, binding and all, from the edge
nearest the centre pole. It split six feet sheer. Andy's feet went over
his head, but he kept a tight grip on the end of the strip.

Dangling in mid air sixty feet above the saw-dust ring, Andy swung in
space dizzy-headed, his first appearance before the circus public.

CHAPTER XI

SAWDUST AND SPANGLES

Andy stared down at a sea of faces. They seemed far away. The circus