"Oh, you Rube! You've gone and done it now," growled the 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 and fell into a slow trot.
Phil scrambled to his feet very red in the face, while Mr.Sparling, from the side lines, stood leaning against a quarter pole with a set grin on his face.His confidence in his little 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 the front now.His eyes were flashing and he gripped the little riding whip as if he would vent his anger upon it.
The ringmaster's whip had exploded again and the gray began to gallop.Phil paused on the ring curbing with head slightly inclined forward, watching the gray with keen eyes.
Phil had forgotten that sea of human faces out there now.He saw only that broad gray, rosined back that he must reach and cling to, but without a slip this time.
All at once he left the curbing, dashing almost savagely at his mount."He'll never make it from the ground," groaned Mr.Sparling, realizingthat Phil had no step to aid him in his effort to reach the back of the animal.
The lad launched himself into the air as if propelled by a spring.Helanded fairly on the back of the ring horse, wavered for one breathless second, then fell into the pose of the accomplished rider.
"Y-i-i-i--p! Y-i-i-i-p!" sang the shrill voice of Little Dimples far down in ring No.1.
"Y-i-i-i-p!" answered the Circus Boy, while the spectators broke into thunders of applause.
Mr.Sparling, hardened showman that he was, brushed a suspicious hand across his eyes and sat down suddenly.
"Such grit, Such grit!" he muttered.
Phil threw himself wildly into his work, taking every conceivable position known to the equestrian world, and essaying many daring feats that he had never tried before.It seemed simply impossible for the boy to fall, so sure was his footing.Now he would spring from the broad back of the gray, and run across the ring, doing a lively handspring, then once more vault into a standing position on the mare.
Suddenly the band stopped playing, for the rest that is always given the performers.But Phil did not pause.
"Keep her up!" Forrest shouted, bringing down his whip on the flanks of his mount and, in a fervor of excitement and stubborn determination, going at his work like a whirlwind.
Mr.Sparling, catching the spirit of the moment scrambled to his feet and rushed to the foot of the bandstand, near which he had been sitting.
"Play, you idiots, play!" shouted the proprietor, waving his arms excitedly.
Play they did.
Little Dimples, too, had by this time forgotten that she was resting, and now she began to ride as she never had ridden before, throwing a series of difficult backward turns, landing each time with a sureness that she never had before accomplished.
Tweetle!Tweetle!
The act came to a quick ending.The time for the equestrian act had expired, and it must give way to the others that were to follow.But Phil, instead of dropping to the ground and walking to the paddock along the concourse, suddenly brought down his whip on the gray's flanks, much tothat animal's surprise and apparent disgust.
Starting off at a quicker gallop, the gray swung into the concourse, heading for the paddock with disapproving ears laid back on her head, Phil standing as rigid as a statue with folded arms, far back over the animal's hips.
The people were standing up, waving their arms wildly.Many hurled their hats at the Circus Boy in their excitement, while others showered bags of peanuts over him as he raced by them.
Such a scene of excitement and enthusiasm never had been seen under that big top before.Phil did not move from his position until he reached the paddock.Arriving there he sat down, slid to the ground and collapsed in a heap.
Mr.Sparling came charging in, hat missing and hair standing straight up where he had run his fingers through it in his excitement.
He grabbed Phil in his arms and carried him into the dressing 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 boosting the lad to their shoulders, the painted clowns began marching about the dressing tent with him singing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.""All out for the leaping act," shouted the callboy, poking his grinning countenance through between the flaps."Leapers and clowns all out on the jump!"
