he ain't much good no more. None
of the other riders can get used to his gait like you was. There ain't
nobody with the show what can touch you ridin', there never will be.
Say, mebbe you think Barker won't let out a yell when he sees yer comin'
back." Jim was jubilant now, and he let out a little yell of his own at
the mere thought of her return. He was too excited to notice the look
on Polly's face. "Toby had a notion before he died that you was never
a-comin' back, but I told him I'd change all that once I seed yer, and
when Barker sent me over here to-day to look arter the advertisin',
he said he guessed you'd had all you wanted a' church folks. 'Jes' you
bring her along to Wakefield,' he said, 'an' tell her that her place
is waitin' for her,' and I will, too." He turned upon Polly with sudden
decision. "Why, I feel jes' like pickin' yer up in my arms and carryin'
you right off now."

"Wait, Jim!" She put one tiny hand on his arm to restrain him.

"I don't mean--not--to-day--mebbe"--he stammered, uncertainly, "but
we'll be back here a-showin' next month."

"Don't look at me now," Polly answered, as the dog-like eyes searched
her face, "because I have to say something that is going to hurt you,
Jim."

"You're comin', ain't yer, Poll?" The big face was wrinkled and
care-worn with trouble.

"No, Jim," she replied in a tone so low that he could scarcely hear her.

"You mean that you ain't NEVER comin' back?" He tried to realise what
such a decision might mean to him.

"No, Jim." She answered tenderly, for she dreaded the pain that she must
cause the great, good-hearted fellow. "You mustn't care like that," she
pleaded, seeing the blank desolation that had come into his face. "It
isn't because I don't love you just the same, and it was good of Barker
to keep my place for me, but I can't go back."

He turned away; she clung to the rough, brown sleeve. "Why, Jim, when I
lie in my little room up there at night"--she glanced toward the window
above them--"and everything is peaceful and still, I think how it used
to be in the old days, the awful noise and the rush of it all, the
cheerless wagons, the mob in the tent, the ring with its blazing lights,
the whirling round and round on Bingo, and the hoops, always the hoops,
till my head got dizzy and my eyes all dim; and then the hurry after the
show, and the heat and the dust or the mud and the rain, and the rumble
of the wheels in the plains at night, and the shrieks