l us, please," broke in Bunny, unable to wait any longer for the
question he wanted answered. "Tell us if your banjo player is really
colored?"

"Oh yes, he's really _colored_ all right," said the medicine man, "but
not by Mother Nature."

"What's that mean?" asked Sue.

"That means, little girl," said Dr. Perry as he put away the unsold
bottles of his medicine, "that my banjo player blackens his face and
hands himself, and reddens his lips, to make him look like a negro."

"Can you tell us who he really is?"

"No, I am sorry to say I can not," said Dr. Perry, and he bowed
respectfully to Mrs. Brown, who had asked the question. "But I'll let
you ask him yourself. He usually goes in back there," and he nodded
toward his wagon, "to wash the black off after the show each night. No
doubt he is in there now scrubbing himself, for I must say he is a very
clean person, is John Lane."

"John Lane! Is that what he calls himself?" asked Mr. Brown.

"He has since he has been with me, which, however, is only the last few
days. I called him professor just for fun, as it sounds better with the
public. But I'll let you ask him yourself. He must be through washing by
now. It may be he is a runaway boy. It wouldn't be the first time I've
had 'em join me. Sometimes they get sorry and run back home again, and
sometimes they drift away and I don't see 'em again. But we'll soon find
out if this is the boy you want."

He opened a door leading off the back platform. It seemed to give
admittance to the middle of the medicine van.

"Here you, John! John Lane!" called Dr. Perry. "There are some folks out
here who want to see you. They want to see how you look when you have
the black off. You ought to be washed now, for it's almost time to go to
the hotel for the night. Come on out."

There was no answer to the medicine man's call. He stepped inside the
wagon, called again, and then, lighting a lamp, which stood in a
bracket, looked around inside the van.

"John seems to have gone," the medicine man said. "I guess he finished
washing off the black, and then slipped out the front way to go to the
hotel. He did that once before, without waiting for me to count up my
money and come along. You see I travel only by day, putting up the
horse, that draws my van, at a hotel stable each night.

"Then John, or whomever I have with me to make the music to draw a
crowd, and I, go to the hotel to stay all night. In the morning, after
breakfast,