Chapter 31

CONCLUSION

"Bravo!"

"Clever!"

Amid deafening applause, old Benares and Thacher retired from the sawdust ring, bowing profusely with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction.

Between them, hands joined in the group of three, Andy Wildwood imitated their graceful acknowledgment of the plaudits of the vast concourse in the great metropolitan amphitheatre.

"Wildwood," declared Thacher, as they backed towards the performers' room, "you've made a hit."

"It is so!" cried old Benares, with sparkling eyes. "We are a three now--The Three Benares Brothers."

Andy was dizzy with exultation and delight. It was the first night of the Biggest Show on Earth in New York City.

For a week he had been in training for the fantastic trapeze act which had won thunders of approbation.

The Benares Brothers had appeared in the amphitheatre dome on a double trapeze.

After several clever specialties, the ringmaster suddenly stepped forward. He lifted his hand. The orchestra stopped playing.

Raising a pistol, the ringmaster directed it aloft. Bang! Crash! went the orchestra, and from a box suspended over the trapezes the bottom suddenly dropped out.

Following, an agile youthful form shot down through space. Quick as lightning the Benares Brothers swung by their feet, joined hands in mid-air, and the descending form--Andy Wildwood--catching at the wrists of Thacher, was swung back in a twenty foot circle. Crash! again the orchestra. Andy was flung through space across to old Benares, a plaything in mid-air, Benares catching at the feet of Thacher, Andy tailing on in a graceful descent, thrilling the delighted audience.

The act was not so difficult, but it was neat, rapid, unique. Andy Wildwood felt that at last he was a full-fledged acrobat.

The manager came back to compliment him. Billy Blow looked delighted. Miss Stella Starr said:

"Andy, we are all proud of you."

The next morning's papers gave him special notice. Luke Belding whispered to him to demand double salary.

Andy walked from his boarding house the next morning feeling certain that he had made very substantial progress during his sixty days of circus life.

He was passing a row of houses on a side street when a cab drove up to the curb. Andy casually glanced at the passenger as he crossed the sidewalk. Then he gave a great start.

"It can't be!" he ejaculated. Then he added instantly: "Yes, I'd know him among a thousand--Sim Dewey."

The man entered an open doorway, and Andy ran after him. He heard the fellow ascend a pair of stairs and knock at a door.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Vernon."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Andy--"Aunt Lavinia!"

Here was a stirring situation. There could be no mistake. Despite a false moustache and a pair of dark eyeglasses, Andy had recognized the defaulting cashier of the disbanded circus. Beyond dispute he had recognized the welcoming tones above as belonging to his aunt, Miss Lavinia Talcott.

"It's like dreaming," mused Andy. "All this happening together, and here in New York City! Why, what ever brought Aunt Lavinia here? Where did she ever get acquainted with that scamp?"

Andy felt that he had an urgent duty to perform. Here was a mystery to explore, a villain to capture.

He went softly up the stairs. The place was a respectable boarding house, he concluded. Stealing softly past a door, he went half-way up a second pair of stairs.

Not five feet away from an open transom, Andy could now look into a room containing three persons.

A motherly, dignified old woman sat in a big arm chair. Near her was Andy's aunt, smiling and simpering up at Dewey. The latter, dressed "to kill," was bowing like a French dancing master.

Dewey sat down. The chaperone, who seemed to be the landlady, did not engage in a brief conversation that ensued within the room.

At its conclusion Andy saw his aunt hand Dewey a folded piece of paper. The defaulting circus cashier gallantly bowed over her extended hand and came out of the room.

"Hold on, Mr. Sim Dewey," spoke Andy, down the stairs in a flash, and seizing Dewey's arm on the landing.

"Eh? Hello--Wildwood!"

"Yes, it's me," said Andy. "A word with you, sir, as to what business you have with my aunt. Then--the stolen eleven thousand dollars, if you please."

Dewey had turned deadly white. He glared desperately at Andy, and tried to wrench his arm free.

"Shall I arouse the street?" demanded Andy sternly. "It's jail for you--"

Crack! The treacherous Dewey had slipped one hand behind him. He had drawn a slung shot from his pocket. It struck Andy's head, and he went down with a sense of sickening giddiness.

"Stop him!" shouted Andy, half-blinded, crawling across the landing.

Dewey made a leap of four steps at a time.

"Out of my way!" he yelled at some obstacle.

"Hold on, mister!"

Andy arose to his feet with difficulty. He clung to the banister, descending the stairs as a frightful clatter rang out.

A boy about his own age, coming up the stairs, had collided with Dewey. Both tripped up and rolled to the front entry.

The boy got up, unhurt. Dewey, groaning, half-arose, fell back, and lay prostrate, one limb bent up under him.

Andy was still weak and dizzy-headed, but he acted promptly for the occasion.

He saw that Dewey had broken a limb, and was practically helpless. He glanced out at the driver of the cab. He was an honest-faced old fellow. Andy ran out to him and spoke a few quick words.

With Dewey writhing, moaning and resisting, this man, Andy and the strange boy carried him to the cab. Andy directed the boy to get up with the driver, He got inside the cab with Dewey.

A hysterical shriek rang out at the street doorway. Andy saw his aunt wildly wringing her hands. The maiden lady was held back from pursuing the cab by the landlady.

Within ten minutes the cab delivered Dewey at a police station, and Andy told his story to the precinct captain.

They found in a secret pocket on the defaulting cashier certificates of deposit to the amount of ten thousand dollars, issued in a false name. The amount was a part of the stolen circus funds.

In another pocket was discovered a draft for three thousand dollars, made over to the same false name by Miss Lavinia Talcott on the bank at Fairview.

The police at once locked the prisoner up in a cell, sent for a surgeon, and asked Andy to telegraph to Mr. Giles Harding, the circus owner, at once.

When Andy came out of the police station, he found the boy who had assisted him waiting for him.

He was a bright-faced, pleasant-mannered lad, but his appearance suggested hard luck.

Andy gave him a dollar, and got his name. It was Mark Hadley. Andy was at once interested when the boy told him that his dead father had been a professional sleight-of-hand man in the west.

Mark Hadley had come to New York on the track of an old circus friend of his father. This man, it turned out, was a relative of Dewey, masquerading now under the name of Vernon.

The man had told him that Dewey could help him out. He did not know where Dewey was living, but understood he was about to marry a lady living at the boarding house where Mark had gone, to meet the fellow in a most sensational manner, indeed.

Andy invited Mark to call upon him later in the day, gave the youth his present address, and proceeded back to the boarding house to find his aunt.

The hour that followed was one of the strangest in Andy's life.

There were reproaches, threats, cajolings, until Andy found out the true state of affairs.

It was only after he had proven to his humiliated and chagrined aunt that Dewey was a villain, that Miss Lavinia broke down and confessed that she had been a silly, sentimental woman.

It seemed that the letter Jim Tapp and Murdock had secured was from Mr. Graham, back at Fairview.

Graham had discovered in a secret bottom of the box Andy had left with him, a paper referring to a patent of Andy's father.

As time had brought about, this paper entitled the heirs of the old inventor to quite large royalties on a new electrical device which had come into practical use after Mr. Wildwood's death.

The plotters had gone at once to Miss Lavinia. Her cupidity was aroused. She quieted her conscience by giving Andy ten dollars at Tipton, and deciding to take charge of the royalty money "till he was of age."

This was her story, told amid contrite tears and shame as Andy proved to her that Dewey was after her three thousand dollars, and would have escaped with it only for his decisive action.

Murdock had introduced her to Dewey. The latter had pretended to be in love with her, had promised to marry her, and that day had induced the weak, silly old spinster to trust him with her little fortune.

"I have been a wicked woman!" Miss Lavinia declared. "I will make amends, Andy. You shall have your rights. Come home with me."

"Not till my engagement is over, aunt," replied Andy, "and then only for a visit, if you wish it. I love the circus life, and I seem to find just as many chances there to be good and to do good as in any other vocation."

Miss Lavinia was given back her three thousand dollars the next day, and Sim Dewey was sent to prison on a long term.

Mr. Harding came on to the city the following day. He recovered all except a trifle of the stolen circus money. That evening he sent a sealed envelope by special messenger to Andy. It contained five one hundred dollar bills--Andy's reward for capturing the embezzling circus cashier.

The next afternoon Andy invited five of his special friends and several of his acquaintances to a little dinner party.

Miss Starr, Billy Blow the clown, Midget, old Benares, Thacher, Luke Belding and Mark Hadley were his guests of honor.

Andy had found a starting place in the circus for Mark, whose ambition was to become a great magician.

They were a merry, friendly party. They jollied one another. They saw nothing but sunshine in the sawdust pathway before them.

"You are a grand genius!" declared old Benares to Andy. "My friends, one thought: in six weeks up from Andy the school boy, to Andy the acrobat."

"Hold on now, Mr. Benares," cried Andy, smilingly. "That was because of my royal, good friends like you."

"And your own grit," said Marco. "You assuredly deserve your success."

And the other circus people agreed with Marco.

For the time being Andy heard nothing more of Tapp, Murdock and Daley. The days passed pleasantly enough. He did his work faithfully, constantly adding to his fame as an acrobat.

Between Andy and Luke Belding a warm friendship sprang up. Luke had much to tell about himself. As time passed the lad who loved animals had many adventures, but what these were I must reserve for another volume, to be named, "Luke the Lion Tamer; or, On the Road with a Great Menagerie," In that we shall not only follow brave-hearted Luke but also Andy, and see what the future held in store for the boy acrobat.

"Andy, are you glad you joined the circus?" questioned Luke, one day, after a particularly brilliant performance in the ring.

"Glad doesn't express it," was the quick answer. "Why, it seems to be just what I was cut out for."

"I really believe you. You never make work of an act--like some of the acrobats."

"It must be in my blood," said Andy, with a bright smile. "Anyway, I expect to be Andy the Acrobat for a long while to come."

And he was.

THE END.