Chapter 12

us."

"Do you remember any one taking you away?" asked the beautiful lady who was now his mother.

"No'm," replied Jerry.

"Say, Mother, Gary," pleaded her low, beautiful voice close to his ear.

"No, Mother," Jerry repeated obediently.

"Try to think awfully hard," said Whiteface; "was there a man with a big mark across his forehead--"

"A red mark?" interrupted Jerry eagerly.

"Yes!" cried his mother. "Robert, it was John Rand! I knew it was that low creature."

"I feared it," said the clown.

"What did he do to you, Gary? Was he kind to you?" asked his mother.

Jerry seemed to see in a flash a man with a red mark across his forehead cuffing him over the head and twisting his arm till he cried out from the pain.

"I'll pull your arm right out if you ever tell any one you ain't my brat," a coarse, thick voice seemed to be saying in his ear, "or if you ever let on as how I ever hurt you in anyway at all."

Jerry cowered down in his mother's arms and hid his face against her breast. He did not answer her questions. His heart was galloping with fear. The man with the red scar might come back.

"Why don't you answer, Gary?" asked the clown gently. "Don't you remember?"

Jerry felt the lady who was his mother holding him tighter in her arms and then she gave a sudden start. He did not answer. He was afraid to.

"Robert!" she cried. "His heart is beating as though it would burst! The memory of that beast must frighten him terribly."

"He can never hurt you again, Gary," Whiteface assured him. "You will always be with us from now on and we won't let him ever come near you again. Did he ever hurt you?"

Jerry, remembering now vividly what the man had done to him, became more frightened than ever and, instead of answering, began to cry.

"We must not hurry him into confidence," said Whiteface.

"Oh, my boy!" wailed the elephant lady. "How terribly you must have suffered when my heart was aching so to know you were safe and to comfort and love you!"

She kissed him passionately and squeezed him so hard that his breath went entirely out of his body for a moment.

"Has Gary ever told you anything about the man who stole him?" asked Whiteface of Danny.

"No," he replied, "but Jerry ran away from him."

"How do you know that?"

"He said he had when he was going to run away from us."

"Why was he going to run away from you?"

Danny swallowed rapidly but didn't answer.

"Because Danny wouldn't let him be el'funt in our play circus," Chris explained for his brother.

Mr. Bowe took Chris' words up so quickly that Jerry thought his father was angry with Chris.

"Wouldn't let him be the elephant!" he exclaimed. "Why did Gary want especially to be the elephant?"

"I don't know," Chris answered.

"Remember, if you can," urged Whiteface. "It will help me to prove to every one that Gary is our boy."

"I guess it was because he knew something about el'funts," Danny ventured. "He knew that el'funts' tails are small and round like a rope, but he didn't know how he knew."

"I see," said the clown. "That is an important fact. I'm glad you told me."

"An' he said 'O Queen' when he saw the picture of the el'funt jumping the fence!" cried Danny excitedly. "Just the same as he did at the circus when the band stopped playin' an' before the el'funt picked him up."

"He didn't know he said it," Chris added, "an' he couldn't tell Danny what he meant by it, could he, Danny?"

"No," Danny replied.

"That clinches it!" exclaimed Whiteface, and took Jerry from his mother's arms. "Don't you cry any more, Gary-boy. Nobody shall hurt you again. O'Queen was what you used to call Sultana, the elephant--'Sult Anna O'Queen,' as though that were her name. It was the way you said a part of one line in my elephant song: 'Great Sultana, Oh, Queen of the jungle!"

"Carryin' water for the ellifants," said Jerry, through his tears.

"Do you remember any of the chorus?"

Jerry thought hard, but finally shook his head. Whiteface then started to repeat the chorus:

"'Ho, ye drowsy drones! The Queen is a-thirst; A penny for him who brings a pail first. Hurry and scurry--'"

Jerry suddenly found that he did remember what came next and interrupted his father:

"'--an' go at a prance!'"

"That's it!" cried Mrs. Bowe.

"'Run to the spring,'" quoted Mr. Bowe and Jerry finished:

"'--an' back at a dance. Bringing water for the ellifants!'"

Jerry felt so proud of himself for having remembered so much that he forgot all about the man with the red scar and being afraid of him.

"I 'membered it, didn't I, Whiteface?"

"Yes," answered the clown, "you did, and it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are my lost little son and you've got the right to call me father."

"Father," said Jerry experimentally, trying to see how it sounded. And then "Father!" he cried exultantly.

"And not mother, too?" asked the elephant-lady in a reproachful tone.

"And Mother!" cried Jerry, sliding out of his father's arms and running to her. He climbed upon her lap and buried his face on her shoulder and gave her neck a very hard hug, just to show how much he was going to love her.

"Oh, you are my own darling, loving Gary!" she cried in a voice that was tearful, but very joyful through the tearfulness, while she almost squeezed the breath out of Jerry again. "And now we must go at once and thank kind, good Mrs. Mullarkey for caring for our boy."

"Yes," said her husband. "The circus is out and we will have time before the evening performance."

"Mother 'Larkey will be awful glad to see the circus," Jerry remarked. "She ain't seen none since just after she was married. An' so will Nora and Celia Jane."