CHAPTER XVII
THE CIRCUS BOYS WIN NEW LAURELS
"Bareback riders out!" shouted the callboy, poking his headinto the dressing tent.
"Get out!" roared a clown, hurling a fellow performer's bathbrush at the boy, which the youngster promptly shied backat the clown's head, then prudently made his escape to callLittle Dimples in the women's dressing tent.
Phil Forrest, proud and happy, bounded out into the paddock,resplendent in pink tights, a black girdle about his loins,sparkling with silver spangles.
Little Dimples ran out at about the same time.
"How do I look?" he questioned, his face wreathed in smiles.
"If you ride half as well as you look today, you will make thehitof your life," twinkled Dimples merrily. "There, don't blush.Run along. The band is playing our entrance tune. Mr. Ducrowill be in a fine temper if we are a second behind time."
For that day, and until Phil could break in on another animal,Little Dimples had loaned her gray to him, for Phil did notdare to try the experiment of riding a new horse at hisfirst appearance. Altogether too much depended upon his firstpublic exhibition as a bareback rider to permit his taking anysuch chances.
Dimples owned two horses, so she rode the second one this day.
As Phil walked lightly the length of the big top, which hewas obliged to do to reach ring No. 1 in which he was to ride,his figure, graceful as it was, appeared almost fragile.He attracted attention because of this fact alone, for the peopledid not recognize in him the lad who had that morning stayed thestampede of the herd of huge elephants.
"Now keep cool. Don't get excited," warned Dimples as she lefthim to enter the ring where she was to perform. "Forget allabout those people out there, and they will do the rest."
Phil nodded and passed on smiling. Reaching his ring he quicklykicked off his pumps and leaped lightly to the back of his mount,where he sat easily while the gray slowly walked about thesawdust arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the equestrian director."You see before you the hero of the day, the young man who,unaided, stopped the charge of a herd of great elephants,saving, perhaps many lives besides doing a great service forthe Sparling Combined Shows."
"What did you do that for?" demanded Phil, squirming uneasilyon the slippery seat where he was perched.
"Unfortunately," continued the Director, "our principal malebareback rider was slightly injured in that same stampede.The management would not permit him to appear this evening onthat account, for the Sparling Combined Shows believe intreating its people right. Our young friend here has consentedto ride in the regular rider's place. It is his first appearancein any ring as a bareback rider. I might add that he has beenpracticing something less than three weeks for this act;therefore any slips that he may make you will understand.Ladies and gentlemen, I take pleasure in introducing to youMaster Phillip Forrest, the hero of the day--a young man who iswinning new laurels on the tanbark six days in every week!"
The audience, now worked up to the proper pitch of enthusiasm bythe words of the director, howled its approval, the spectatorsdrumming on the seats with their feet and shouting lustily.Phil had not had such an ovation since the day he first rodeEmperor into the ring when he joined the circus in Edmeston.
The lad's face was a few shades deeper pink than his tights,and nervous excitement seemed to suddenly take possession of him.
"I wish you hadn't done that," he laughed. "I'll bet I fall offnow, for that."
"Tweetle! Tweetle!" sang the whistle.
Crash!
At a wave of the bandmaster's baton, the band suddenly launchedinto a smashing air.
The ringmaster's whip cracked with an explosive sound, at whichthe gray mare, unaffected by the noise and the excitement,started away at a measured gallop, her head rising and fallinglike the prow of a ship buffeting a heavy sea.
Phil was plainly nervous. He knew it. He felt that he was goingto make an unpleasant exhibition of himself.
"Get up! Get going! Going to sit there all day?" questionedthe ringmaster.
Phil threw himself to his feet. Somehow he missed his footing inhis nervousness, and the next instant he felt himself falling.
"There, I've done it!" groaned the lad, as he dropped lightly onall fours well outside the wooden ring curbing, which he tookcare to clear in his descent.
"Oh, you Rube! You've gone and done it now," growledthe ringmaster. "It's all up. You've lost them sure."
The audience was laughing and cheering at the same time.
Feeling her rider leave her back the gray dropped her gallop andfell into a slow trot.
Phil scrambled to his feet very red in the face, whileMr. Sparling, from the side lines, stood leaning against aquarter pole with a set grin on his face. His confidence in hislittle Circus Boy was not wholly lost yet.
"Keep her up! Keep her up! What ails you?" snapped Phil.
All the grit in the lad's slender body seemed to come to thefront now. His eyes were flashing and he gripped the littleriding whip as if he would vent his anger upon it.
The ringmaster's whip had exploded again and the gray beganto gallop. Phil paused on the ring curbing with head slightlyinclined forward, watching the gray with keen eyes.
Phil had forgotten that sea of human faces out there now. He sawonly that broad gray, rosined back that he must reach and clingto, but without a slip this time.
All at once he left the curbing, dashing almost savagely athis mount.
"He'll never make it from the ground," groaned Mr. Sparling,realizing that Phil had no step to aid him in his effort to reachthe back of the animal.
The lad launched himself into the air as if propelled bya spring. He landed fairly on the back of the ring horse,wavered for one breathless second, then fell into the poseof the accomplished rider.
"Y-i-i-i--p! Y-i-i-i-p!" sang the shrill voice of Little Dimplesfar down in ring No. 1.
"Y-i-i-i-p!" answered the Circus Boy, while the spectators brokeinto thunders of applause.
Mr. Sparling, hardened showman that he was, brushed a suspicioushand across his eyes and sat down suddenly.
"Such grit, Such grit!" he muttered.
Phil threw himself wildly into his work, taking every conceivableposition known to the equestrian world, and essaying many daringfeats that he had never tried before. It seemed simplyimpossible for the boy to fall, so sure was his footing. Now hewould spring from the broad back of the gray, and run across thering, doing a lively handspring, then once more vault into astanding position on the mare.
Suddenly the band stopped playing, for the rest that is alwaysgiven the performers. But Phil did not pause.
"Keep her up!" Forrest shouted, bringing down his whip on theflanks of his mount and, in a fervor of excitement and stubborndetermination, going at his work like a whirlwind.
Mr. Sparling, catching the spirit of the moment scrambled to hisfeet and rushed to the foot of the bandstand, near which he hadbeen sitting.
"Play, you idiots, play!" shouted the proprietor, waving hisarms excitedly.
Play they did.
Little Dimples, too, had by this time forgotten that she wasresting, and now she began to ride as she never had riddenbefore, throwing a series of difficult backward turns, landingeach time with a sureness that she never had before accomplished.
Tweetle! Tweetle!
The act came to a quick ending. The time for the equestrian acthad expired, and it must give way to the others that wereto follow. But Phil, instead of dropping to the ground andwalking to the paddock along the concourse, suddenly brought downhis whip on the gray's flanks, much to that animal's surprise andapparent disgust.
Starting off at a quicker gallop, the gray swung into theconcourse, heading for the paddock with disapproving ears laidback on her head, Phil standing as rigid as a statue with foldedarms, far back over the animal's hips.
The people were standing up, waving their arms wildly.Many hurled their hats at the Circu
s Boy in their excitement,while others showered bags of peanuts over him as he racedby them.
Such a scene of excitement and enthusiasm never had been seenunder that big top before. Phil did not move from his positionuntil he reached the paddock. Arriving there he sat down, slidto the ground and collapsed in a heap.
Mr. Sparling came charging in, hat missing and hairstanding straight up where he had run his fingers throughit in his excitement.
He grabbed Phil in his arms and carried him into thedressing tent.
"You're not hurt, are you, my lad?" he cried.
"No; I'm just a silly little fool," smiled Phil a bit weakly."How did I do?"
"It was splendid, splendid."
"Hurrah for Phil Forrest!" shouted the performers. Then boostingthe lad to their shoulders, the painted clowns began marchingabout the dressing tent with him singing, "For He's a JollyGood Fellow."
"All out for the leaping act," shouted the callboy, poking hisgrinning countenance through between the flaps. "Leapers andclowns all out on the jump!"
The Circus Boys Across the Continent; Or, Winning New Laurels on the Tanbark Page 19