their addresses.

Helen's attention was so taken up with the affairs of her inheritance
that she forgot about the queer actions of Sid and Tonzo until after
the performance that night.

Then, as she and Joe were going to the train to take the sleeping cars
for the next stop, Helen asked:

"Joe, did you ever hear of ripening trapeze ropes?"

"Ripening trapeze ropes?" he repeated. "No. What do you mean?"

Helen then told what she had seen and heard in the dressing tent.

Joe shook his head.

"It may be some secret process they have of treating ropes to make them
tougher, so they'll last longer," Joe said. "They may call it
ripening, but I never heard of it. I'll ask them."

"Don't tell them I saw them," Helen cautioned him.

"Of course not," Joe answered. "Perhaps it may be a professional
secret with them, and they won't tell me anyhow. But I'll ask."

But when Joe, as casually as he could, inquired of Sid and Tonzo what
they knew of ripening trapeze ropes, the two Spaniards shook their
heads, though, unseen by Joe, a quick look passed between them.

"I sometimes oil my ropes, to make them pliable," Tonzo admitted.
"Olive oil I use. But it does not make them ripe."

"I guess that must have been it," thought Joe. "Helen was probably
mistaken. It might have been a word that sounded like ripening."

So he said no more about it then, though when he reported to Helen the
result of his questioning, she shook her head.

"I'm sure I heard aright," she declared. "And they were pouring
something from a bottle on the trapeze rope from which they had pushed
the silk covering."

"It might have been olive oil," Joe said.

"It might," Helen admitted, '"but I don't believe it was. They don't
handle any of your ropes, do they?"

"I always look after my own. Why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know," and that was all the answer Helen would
give.

As Joe went to his dressing room for that afternoon's performance he
passed Senor Bogardi, the lion tamer. Something in the man's manner
attracted Joe's attention, and he asked him:

"Aren't you feeling well to-day, Senor?"

"Oh, yes, as well as usual. It is my Princess who is not well."

"Princess, the big lioness?"

"Yes. I do not know what to make of her actions. She is never rough
with me, but a little while ago, when I went in her cage, she growled
and struck at me. I had to hit her--which I seldom do--and that did
not improve her temper. I do not know