Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1912-10-12

Silence Tell upon them once more
They swung forward into. the lower
road, their sullen eyes set on the lights
ahead. Heavy feet, dragging like hun
dredweights, carried them over the
last weary mile. Into the outskirts of
the little town they skunk. The streets
were deserted, muddy and lighted but
meagerly from widely separated oil
lamps set at the tops of as many I'M
stable posts. The rollicking quickstep
of a circus band came dancing over
the night TO meet the footsore men.
Slowly they approached the vacant
lots beyond the business section.
known as the show grounds. Now
they began to encounter struggling,
envious atoms of the populace, wan
derers who could not produce the adj
mission fee and who were not permit
ted by the rough canyasmen to ven
ture inside the charmed circle laid
down by the guy ropes. At the cor
ner of the tented common stood the
ticket wagon, the muddy plaza in
front of it torn by the footprints of
many human beings and lighted by a
great gasoline lamp swung from a pole
hard by. Beyond was the main en-
trance of the animal tent. presided
over by uniformed ticket takers.
Here and there in the gloomy back
ground stood the canvas and pole wag-
ons, shining in their wetness against
the feeble light that ooZed through
the opening between the side wall and
the edge of the tapping main top, or
glistening with sudden brightness in
response to the passing lantern or torch
in the hand of a rubber coated minion
who belonged to the circus, q vast
+
ton may have been. Costume and
baggage wagons, their white and gold
glory swallowed up in the NAV of the
night, stood backed up against the
dressing tent off to the right. The
horse tent beyond was even now being
lowered by shadowy. mystic figures
who swore and shouted to each other
across spaces wide and spaces small
without regulating the voice to either
effort Horses with their clanking trace
chains, in twos and tours, slipped in
and out of the shadows, drawing great
vehicles which rumbled and Jared
with the noise peculiar to circus wag-
ons. Tired, underfed horses that paid
little heed to the curses or the blows
of the men who handled them, so ac-
customed were they to the proddings of
life.
And inside the big tent the band
played as only a circus band can play,
jangling an accompaniment to the
laughter and the shouts of the de-
lighted multitude sitting in the blue
boarded tiers about the single ring
with it's earthern circumference, it's
sawdust carpet and its dripping lights.
The smell of the thing. Who has
! ever forgotten it? The smell of the
sawdust. the smell of the cleaning
lights, the smell of animals and the
smell of the canvas top! The smell of
the damp handbills. the programs and
the bags of roasted peanuts,
Blake and his companion, standing
apart from the lank, wide eyed guide.
We're conversing in low tones.
Wed better make the circuit of the
tents" said Blake. evidently the leader.
You go to the right and I'll take the
other way round. Well meet here
Keep your eye peeled. He may be
hiding under the wagons where it's dry
| Then be turned to the guide.
I'VE won't need you any longer" he
said This is as far as we go. Here's
your pay
"Yas, r., said the smileless guide.
A brief good night" to his employers
and the lean mountaineer purchased n
| ticket and hurried into the tent We
! do not see him again. He has served
/ his purpose.
His late employers made of on their
circuit of the tents. sharp eyed but
casual, doing nothing that might lead
/ the circus men TO suspect that they
! were searching for one among them.
In the good old days of the road circus
| there were thieves as we'll as giants;
I if a man was not thief himself he at
! least had friend who was There
was honor among them
A. scant hour before the three men
| came to the show grounds their quar-
~ arrived there That Blake and
| his companion were man hunters goes
without saying. but that the person for
| whom they searched should be a hum
I cry. wan faced. terrified boy of eigh-
4 teen seems hardly in keeping with the
relentless nature of the chase.
The ring performance in the main
tent had been in progress for fifteen
/ or twenty minutes when the fugitive,
exhausted. drenched and shivering,
crept into the protected nook which
| marks the junction of the circus and
/ dressing tops. Here it was compara-
/ lively dry: the wind did not send its
/ thin mist into this canvas Granny. Not
/ so dark as he may have desired. if one
| were to Judge by the expression in his
! fexer-iSb ewes as he peered hack aft rhe