There was honor
among them.
A scant hour before the three men came to the "showgrounds" their
quarry arrived there. That Blake and his companion were man-hunters
goes without saying, but that the person for whom they searched should
be a hungry, wan-faced, terrified boy of eighteen seems hardly in
keeping with the relentless nature of the chase.
The ring performance in the main tent had been in progress for fifteen
or twenty minutes when the fugitive, exhausted, drenched and
shivering, crept into the protected nook which marks the junction of
the circus and dressing tops. Here it was comparatively dry; the wind
did not send its thin mist into this canvas cranny. Not so dark as he
may have desired, if one were to judge by the expression in his
feverish eyes as he peered back at the darkness out of which he had
slunk, but so cramped in shadow that only the eye of a ferret could
have distinguished the figure huddled there. Chilled to the bone, wet
through and through, this white-faced lad, with drooping lip and
quickened breath, crouched there and waited for the heavy footstep and
the brutal command of the canvasman who was to drive him forth into
the darkness once more.
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