Page:Sawdust & Spangles.djvu/105

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MOVING THE BIG SHOW
79

so that it could not slip and cut him in two. By that time a team of horses had been hitched to the other end of the rope.

"All right! Easy, now!" came the order from Hickey, and the team was carefully started. Watching those horses strain on the rope made me hold my breath in expectation that the poor fellow would be actually drawn in two. But, finally, the grip of the mire loosened and he was hauled out to safety.

AN UNEXPECTED MIDNIGHT BATH

Perhaps the most disheartening of all bad-road experiences is that of losing the way—a thing which happened with perverse frequency. Just imagine yourself a member of such a caravan. You have slept four hours out of sixteen and are crawling along in the face of a drenching, blinding rainstorm—soaked, hungry and dazed. The caravan has halted a dozen times in the forepart of the night to pull out wagons and repair breakdowns. But it halts again, and the word "lost" is passed back along the line of wagons. This means retracing the route back to the forks of the road miles in the rear. Many an old circus man has wished himself dead on