arly choked to death
with laughter, and couldn't have run if he had espied them.

"Guess we won't get licked, after all," whispered Little Tim. "Not if we
keep dark, we won't. Danny's going on with the show up the state. He
told Jimmy Nolan, his cousin, and Jimmy told me. 'You'd never guessed he
wasn't an Injun,' says Jimmy to me, 'unless I'd told yer. Don't you ever
let on,' he says--and I like to died--hello, who's that coming?"

Looking in the direction pointed out by Tim Reardon, Young Joe beheld an
old wagon, drawn by a lean horse, the seat of the wagon nearly bent
down to the axles on one side by the weight of the occupant.

"Well, if it isn't Colonel Witham!" exclaimed Young Joe. "Didn't suppose
he'd pay to go to a circus."

It seemed, however, that Colonel Witham had no immediate intention of
entering the main tent, for he proceeded to walk along the line of
smaller pavilions, where the side-shows proclaimed their many and
monstrous attractions. The canvas of one of these presently attracted
the colonel's attention, for he paused in front of it and stood studying
it contemplatively.

Little Tim and Young Joe, stealing around in the rear of Colonel Witham,
beheld the object of his curiosity. There was a full length portrait on
the canvas, painted in brilliant colours, of a woman standing before an
urn from which vague vapours were arising. She held in one hand a wand,
with which she seemed in the act of conjuring forth a shadowy figure
from within the vapours. A little black satanic imp peered coyly over
her right shoulder. The inscription beneath her portrait read:

Lorelei, the Sorceress.
Your Future Foretold--All Mysteries Explained--Your
Fate Read by the Stars--Hidden Things Revealed--Lost
Property Recovered.

Something about the gaudy and pretentious sign seemed to fascinate
Colonel Witham. He walked past it once, reading it out of the corner of
one eye; but he went only a little way beyond, then turned and stopped
and surveyed it once more. He edged up to the canvas, sidled into the
entrance and disappeared.

"Cracky!" cried Young Joe. "Isn't that rich? The colonel's going to have
his fortune told. Wow! wow! Suppose he's fallen in love?"

"Not much," said Little Tim. "He wants to know where he's lost a dollar,
probably. Hello, Allan, come over here."

Little Tim, in high glee, bawled out a greeting to a comrade, Allan
Harding, and conveyed the great ne