Chapter 16

THE REGISTERED MAIL

Andy hurried back to the circus grounds the happiest boy on earth. He went straight to the clown's tent.

Billy Blow was making up for the morning parade. Dressed up as a way-back farmer, he was to drive a hay wagon, breaking into the procession here and there along the line of march. Finally, when he had created a sensation, he was to drop his disguise and emerge in his usual popular ring character.

While Billy was putting the finishing touches to his toilet he conversed with Andy, congratulating him on his success in getting a job with the show.

"Wait about half-an-hour till the parade gets off the grounds," he advised Andy. "Scripps, the manager, will be busy till then. You'll find him in the paper tent."

Andy knew what that was--the structure containing the programmes and general advertising and posting outfits of the show. He had noticed it earlier in the day. A wagon inside the tent, with steps and windows, comprised the manager's private office.

Little Midge was sitting up playing with some show children who had brought in a lot of toys. Andy went outside with Billy.

"See here," said the clown, as he hurried off to join the parade. "Tell Scripps that you bunk with me. Any objection?"

"I should say not."

"You're welcome. The general crowd they'd put you with is a bit too rough for a raw recruit. Just stand what they give you till we reach Tipton. You've got friends enough to pull you up into the performers' rank. We'll fix you out there."

"Thank you," said Andy.

He strolled about with a happy smile on his face. Prospects looked fine, and Andy's heart warmed as he thought of all the good friends he had made.

"They're a nice crowd," he thought--"Miss Starr, Marco, the Benares Brothers, the clown. How different, though, to what I used to think! It's business with them, real work, for all the tinsel and glare. It's a pleasant business, though, and they must make a lot of money."

There was a shrill, whistling shriek from the calliope wagon. The various performers scampered from their dressing rooms at the signal.

Each person, vehicle and animal fell into line in the morning caravan with a promptness and ease born of long practice.

Soon there was a fluttering line of gay color, rich plush hangings, bullion-trimmed uniforms, silken flags and streamers.

Zeno, the balloon clown, eating "redhots," i.e. peanuts, led the procession, bouncing up and down on a rubber globe in the advance chariot. The bands began to play. The prancing horses, rumbling wagons, screaming calliope, frolicking tumblers, tramp bicyclists weaving in and out in grotesque costumes, often on one wheel, the Tallyho stage filled with smiling ladies, old Sultan, the majestic lion, gazing in calm dignity down from his high extension cage--all this passed, a fantastic panorama, before Andy's engrossed gaze.

"It's grand!" decided Andy--"just grand! A fellow can never get lonesome here, night or day. I'm going to like it. Now for the manager. Hope I don't have any trouble."

When Andy came to the paper tent he found a good many people inside. There were several performers and canvas men on crutches or bandaged up. There were village merchants with bills, newspaper men after free passes and persons seeking employment.

They were called in turn up the steps of the wagon that constituted the manager's office.

Mr. Scripps was a rapid talker, a brisk man of business, and he disposed of the cases presented in quick order.

Andy saw four or five dissipated looking men discharged at a word. The applicants for work were ordered to appear at Tipton, two days later.

Several were after an advance on their salary. Some farmers appeared with claims for foraging done by circus hands. Finally Andy got to the front and tendered the card Mr. Harding had given him.

"All right," shot out Scripps sharply, giving the lad a keen look. "You're the one who blocked the game on Benares? Good for you! We'll remember that, later."

Scripps glanced over a pasteboard sheet on his desk, first asking Andy his name and age, and writing his answers down in a big-paged book.

"Half-a-dollar a day and keep, for the present," he said.

"All right," nodded Andy--"it's a start."

"Just so. Let me see. Ah, here we are. Report to the Wild Man of Borneo side top at twelve."

"Yes, sir."

"Hammer the big triangle there till two. Then--let me see again. Know how to ride a horse?"

"Oh, yes," replied Andy eagerly.

"All right, at two o'clock report for the jockey ring section at the horse tent. They'll hand you a costume."

Scripps wrote a number on a red ticket and handed this to Andy--his pass as an employee. Just then a newcomer bundled up the steps unceremoniously, a red-faced, fussy old fellow.

"Mail's in," he announced. "Give me the O.K."

Scripps fumbled in a drawer of his desk and brought out a rubber stamp and pad.

"Mind your eye, Rip," he observed, casting a scrutinizing look over the intruder.

"Which eye?" demanded the old fellow.

"The one that sees a bottle and glass the quickest."

"H'm!" grumbled Ripley, or "Rip Van Winkle," as he was familiarly known by the show people. "My eyes are all right. Don't fret. I've been twenty years with this here show, man and boy--"

"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Scripps. "You're seasoned, right enough. Don't leave the rig to come home without a driver, though, and money letters aboard, as you did last week. Here is a new hand. Break him in to keep his time employed."

Ripley viewed Andy with some disfavor. Evidently he regarded him as a sort of guardian.

Andy, however, silently followed him outside. Ripley soon reached a close vehicle, boarded up back of the seat and with two doors at the rear.

A big-boned mottled horse, once evidently a beauty, was between the shafts. As Andy lifted himself to the seat beside Ripley, the latter made a peculiar, purring: "Z-rr-rp, Lute!"

He did not even take up the reins. The horse, with a neigh and a frisky dance movement of the forefeet, started up.

"Right, left, slow, Lute. Turn--now go"--Ripley gave a dozen directions within the next five minutes. He was showing off for Andy's benefit. The latter was, in fact, pleased. The animal obeyed every direction with a precision and intelligence that fairly amazed the boy.

Finally getting to a clear course outside the circus tangle, Ripley took up the reins.

He set his lips and uttered two sharp whistles, ending in a kind of hiss.

Andy was very nearly jerked out of his seat He had to hold on to its side bar. For about five hundred yards the horse took a sprint that knocked off his cap and fairly took his breath away.

"Say, he's great!" Andy exclaimed irrepressibly, as Ripley slowed down again.

"I guess so," nodded the latter, aroused out of his crustiness by Andy's enthusiasm. "That Lucille was famous, once. Past her prime a little now, but when her old driver has the reins, she don't forget, does she?"

Ripley took a turn into a side street and finally halted, giving Andy the reins.

"Got to order something," he said.

Andy saw him enter a store, but only to leave it by a side door and cross an alley into a saloon.

Ripley tried to appear very business-like when he came back to the wagon, but Andy caught the taint of liquor in his breath.

Twice again the circus veteran made stops in the same manner. He became quite chatty and confidential.

Ripley explained to Andy that he went regularly for the circus mail at each town where the show stopped.

"Postmasters kick, with five hundred strangers calling for their mail," he explained, "so we always forward a list of the employees. This mail, just before pay day, when the crowd is usually hard up, brings a good many money letters from friends. That rubber stamp you saw the manager give me O.K.'s all the registered cards at the post office. Once the wagon was robbed. The looters made quite a haul. Not when I was on duty, though."

At a drug store Ripley got several packages and some more at a general merchandise store. Finally they reached the post office, and Ripley drove around to a sort of hitching alley at its side.

"Come with me to see how we do things," he invited Andy. "Bring along those two mail bags."

Andy had already noticed the bags. One was quite large. It was made of canvas, with a snap lock. The other was of leather, and smaller in size.

Swinging these over his shoulder, Ripley entered the post-office. He showed his credentials from the circus, and was admitted behind the letter cases of the places.

Andy watched him receive over a hundred letters and packages, receipting for the same on registry delivery cards. This lot he placed in the small leather bag.

The ordinary mail lay sorted out for the circus on a stamping table. This went into the big canvas pouch.

The circus newspaper mail was ready tagged in a hempen sack. Ripley carried this out to Andy.

"Toss it in the wagon," he ordered, following with the letter pouches.

Andy opened the back doors of the wagon and tossed in the newspaper bag.

"Say, back in a minute," observed Ripley, depositing his own burdens on the front wagon seat.

Andy stood watching him. Ripley rounded a corner in the alley where a wooden finger indicated a side entrance to a hotel bar. Ripley's failing was manifest, and Andy decided that he did, indeed, need a guardian.

The wagon stood on a space quite secluded from the street. Near the entrance to the alley several men were lounging about.

Andy carried the leather pouch with him as he went around to the open doors at the rear of the wagon.

He climbed in, and stowed the newspaper bag and what packages they had already collected in a tidy pile. Ripley had indicated that there was quite a miscellaneous load to pick up about town before they returned to the circus.

Andy was thus employed when the rear doors came together with a sharp snap.

They shut him in a close prisoner, for they were self-locking, on the outside only.

Andy, in complete darkness, now groped back to the doors. He heard quick, suppressed tones outside.

The vehicle jolted. Some one had jumped to the front seat. A whip snapped. Old Lute started up with a bound, throwing Andy off his footing. "Send her spinning!" reached him in a muffled voice from the front seat.

"Jump with the bag when we turn that old shed," answered other tones. "Why, say! There's only one mail bag."

"I saw them bring out two. I am dead sure of it."

"And this is only common letters."

"How do you know?"

"Jim Tapp described them--'get the leather one,' he says. 'It's got the money mail in it.'"

"Then where is it?"

"The kid must have it."

"Inside the wagon?"

"Yes."

"Whoa."

With a sharp jerk the horse was pulled to a halt.

Andy heard the two men on the seat jump to the ground. He knew that their motive was robbery. He knew further that this was another plot of bad Jim Tapp, the friend and associate of criminals.

In another minute the men would open the wagon doors, pull him out, perhaps assault him, take the registered mail and fly.

Andy had only a second to act in. He theorized that the wagon, following the alley, was now probably halted in some secluded side lane.

To escape the clutches of the would-be robbers was everything. Andy, having no weapon of defence, was no match for them.

"If the rig once reaches the crowded streets, I'm safe," thought Andy.

Then he carried out a speedy programme. Forming his lips in a pucker, as he had seen Ripley do, Andy uttered two sharp whistles, then a clear, resounding hiss.

"Thunder!" yelled a voice outside.

"Ouch!" echoed a second.

The horse had given one wild, prodigious bound at hearing the familiar signal.

The vehicle must have grazed one of the thieves. Its front wheels knocked the other down.

"My! I'm in for it," instantly decided Andy.

For, swayed from side to side, he realized that the circus wagon was dashing forward at runaway speed.