Chapter XIV: At the Circus

All eyes were turned on Neale O'Neil as he said this, and it would be difficult to say who was the more astonished. As for the Corner House girls, they simply stared at their friend. Hank Dayton looked surprised, and then he glanced from the mule in question to the man who had offered to dispose of the animal. Mr. Howbridge looked very much interested. As for the strange tramp--for that is what he was--he seemed very angry.

"What do you mean?" he cried. "This mule isn't any trick mule!"

"Oh, isn't he?" asked Neale quietly. "And I suppose he never was in a circus, either?"

"Of course not!" declared the man. "Who are you, anyhow, and what do you mean by talking that way?"

"I advise you to be a little more respectful in tone," said Mr. Howbridge in his suave, lawyer's voice. "If we do any business at all it will be on this boy's recommendation. He knows about mules. I do not. I shall hear what he and Hank have to say."

"Well, it's all foolish saying this mule was in a circus," blustered the man. "I've had him over a year, and I want to sell him now because he hasn't any mate. I can't pull a canal boat with one mule."

"Especially not a trick mule that never hauled a boat in his life," put in Neale.

"Here! You quit that! What do you mean?" demanded the man in sullen tones.

"I mean just what I said," declared Neale. "I believe this is a trick mule that used to be in my uncle Bill's show--in Twomley and Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie, to be exact. Of course I may be mistaken, but if not I can easily prove what I say."

"Huh! I'd like to see you do it!" sneered the man.

"All right, I will," and Neale's manner was confident. "I recognize this mule," he went on to Mr. Howbridge, "by that mark on his off hind hoof," and he pointed to a bulge on the mule's foot. "But of course that may be on another mule, as well as on the one that was in my uncle's circus. However, if I can make this mule do a trick I taught old Josh in the show, that ought to prove what I say, oughtn't it?"

"I should think so," agreed the lawyer.

"You can't make this mule do any tricks," sneered the tramp. "He's a good mule for pulling canal boats, but he can't do tricks."

"Oh, can't he?" remarked Neale. "Well, we'll see. Come here, Josh!" he suddenly called.

The mule moved his big ears forward, as though to make sure of the voice, and then, looking at Neale, slowly approached him.

"Anybody could do that!" exclaimed the man disdainfully.

"Well, can anybody do this?" asked the boy. "Josh--dead mule!" he suddenly cried. And, to the surprise of all, the mule dropped to the towpath, stretched out his legs stiffly and lay on his side with every appearance of having departed this life.

"There!" exclaimed Neale. "That's the trick I taught him in the show, before I left it."

The other mules were sniffing at their prostrate companion.

"Oh, isn't he funny!" cried Dot, as Josh opened one eye and looked straight at her.

"I'd rather have a mule than Billy Bumps for a pet!" declared Tess.

"Did you really make him do it, Neale?" asked Ruth.

"Yes, and I can do it again!" declared the lad. "Up, Josh!" he commanded, and the mule scrambled to his feet. "Dead mule--Josh!" cried Neale again, and down the animal went a second time.

"Well, what have you to say to that?" the boy turned to ask the tramp. But the man did not stay to answer. Off he ran, down the towpath, at top speed.

"Shall I get him?" cried Hank, throwing the reins on the back of one of his mules, while Josh, in response to a command from Neale, stood upright again.

"No, let him go," advised Mr. Howbridge. "It is very evident that he had no legal claim to this mule, and he either took him away from the circus himself, or received him from some one who did. Neale, I congratulate you."

"Thanks. I thought I recognized old Uncle Josh, but the trick proved it. He hasn't forgotten that or me; have you, old fellow?" he asked as he rubbed the mule's velvety nose. And the animal seemed glad to be near the boy.

"Pretty slick, I call that," said Hank admiringly. "Guess you'll have to teach my mules some trick, Neale."

"It takes too long!" laughed the lad.

"Is this our mule now?" asked Dot, as she approached the new animal, which was quite gentle and allowed the children to pet him.

"Well, I don't know just who does own him," said Mr. Howbridge, not wanting to give a legal opinion which might be wrong. "But he certainly does not belong to that man," and he looked after the retreating figure, now far down the towpath.

"'Cause if he's our mule I'd like to give my Alice-doll a ride on his back," went on Dot.

"I'd like a ride myself!" exclaimed Tess.

"Oh, don't try that!" sighed Ruth.

"Josh wouldn't mind," put in Neale. "I used to ride him in the circus. Look!"

With a spring he reached the mule's back, and then, at the word of command, Josh trotted up and down the towpath.

"Oh, do let me try!" begged Tess.

"Shall I put her on?" Neale asked, and, at a nod from Ruth, he lifted the little girl up on the mule's back, and the delighted Tess was given a ride.

"Oh, it's ever so much nicer'n Scalawag!" she cried as she was lifted down. "Try it, Dot!" Scalawag was the circus pony that Neale's uncle had given to Tess and Dot.

"I will if I can hold my Alice-doll!" stipulated the youngest Kenway.

"Sure!" assented Neale, and the fun was continued.

"I wish I dared to do it!" exclaimed Agnes, with a look at Ruth. But Ruth shook her head, and Agnes, after a moment's hesitation, yielded to Ruth's sense of the fitness of things.

"Well, the question now arises," said Mr. Howbridge, "what shall we do with this mule, which seems to have been stolen?"

"I say take him along with us," answered Hank. "One of our critters might get hurt, and we'd have to lay up if we didn't have an extra one."

"I don't believe Uncle Josh would pull in harness with another mule," said Neale. "He has always been a trick mule, and has worked alone. He is quite valuable."

"Do you suppose your uncle sold him?" asked the lawyer.

"I don't believe so," said the boy. "I believe he was stolen, and I know, in that case, that Uncle Bill would be glad to get him back."

"Well, then let's take him back," suggested Hank. "I can drive him along with my mules for a spell until we come to the place where the circus is playing. He'll drive, I guess, if he won't pull a boat, and he'll be company for my mules." Hank was fond of animals, and treated them kindly.

"How does that plan appeal to you, Minerva?" asked Ruth's guardian. "This is your trip, as well as mine. Do you want to be bothered with an extra mule?"

"Oh, I don't see that he would be any bother," she said. "If Hank looks after him, we shan't have to. And if it's Neale's uncle's mule he ought to be returned."

"That settles it," said Mr. Howbridge. "We'll take the mule with us."

"I'm sure Uncle Bill will be glad to get him back," declared Neale. "And I'm pretty sure he never sold him."

So it was arranged. Once more the _Bluebird_ was under way, the two harnessed mules towing her and Uncle Josh, the trick animal, wandering along at his own sweet will.

For a time the Corner House girls, with Neale and Mr. Howbridge, walked along the towpath. Then they went back to the boat as Mrs. MacCall, blowing on a horn, announced meal time.

The trip along the canal continued in leisurely fashion. Now the _Bluebird_ would be lifted up at some water-foaming lock, or lowered in the same fashion. Twice they were lifted over inclined planes, and the young folks, especially Dot and Tess, liked this very much.

The weather had been all that could be desired ever since they started, except the rain storm in which the girls were robbed. But now, about four days after leaving Milton, they awoke one morning to find a disagreeable drizzle. But Hank and the mules did not seem to mind it. In fact they rather liked splashing through the rain and mud.

Of course getting out and strolling along the towpath was out of the question for the voyagers, and they found amusements enough on board the houseboat.

It rained all day, but it needed more than this to take the joy out of life for the Corner House girls.

"Fair day to-morrow!" cried Neale, and so it proved.

They approached a small town early the next day, and as they tied up at a tow-barn station to get some supplies Dot cried:

"Oh, look at the elephant!"

"Where?" demanded Tess.

"I mean it's a picture of it on that barn," went on the mother of the "Alice-doll," and she pointed.

"Oh, it's a circus!" exclaimed Tess. "Look, Ruth--Agnes!"

And there, in many gay posters was the announcement that "Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie" would show that day in Pompey, the town they had then reached.

"It's Uncle Bill's show!" cried Neale. "Maybe I'll hear some news of my father."

"And shall we have to give back Josh mule?" asked Tess, who had taken quite a liking to the animal.

"Well, we'll see," said Mr. Howbridge. "But I think we may as well, all of us, go to the circus," he added.

And, that afternoon, the trick mule having been left in the towpath barn with Hank's animals, almost the whole party, including the driver, went to the circus. Only Mrs. MacCall decided to stay on the houseboat.

On the way to the circus the party passed the post-office. Ruth remembered that this was a town she had mentioned in a letter to Luke Shepard and ran in to see if there was any mail.

"Ruth Kenway," said the clerk, in answer to her question, and a moment later passed out a fine, fat letter, addressed in the hand she knew so well.

"I'll read it to-night--I haven't time now," she told herself, and blushed happily. "Dear Luke--I hope everything is going well with him."