it.

"I make him climb dis!" he said.

"Is the pole strong enough to hold him?" asked Grandpa Brown. "The bear
is pretty heavy, I think."

"Oh, dat pole hold him! I make Alonzo climb very easy," the Italian
bear-trainer said. "Up you go, Alonzo!"

The bear stuck his long sharp claws in the pole. It was part of a tree
trunk, for the regular tent pole had been broken when the tent was
carried away in the flood.

Up and up went the bear, until he was half way to the top. The children
looked on with delight and even the old folks said it was a good trick.

And then, all of a sudden, something happened. The big centre pole,
half way up which was the bear, began to tip over. Some of the ropes
that held it began to slip, because they were not tied tightly enough to
hold the pole and the bear too.

"Look out!" called Daddy Brown. "The tent is going to fall! Run out
everybody!"

"They haven't time!" said Grandpa Brown. "The tent will come down on our
heads."

Bunny Brown stood right beside one of the ropes that held up the pole.
Bunny saw the rope slipping, and he knew enough about ropes and sails to
be sure that if the rope could be held the pole would not fall.

"I've got to hold that rope!" thought Bunny. Then, like the brave little
fellow he was, he reached forward, and grasped the rope with both hands.
He knew he could not hold it from slipping that way, however, so he
wound the rope around his waist as he had seen his father's sailors do
when pulling in a heavy boat. With the rope around his waist, brave
Bunny found himself being pulled forward as the pole swayed over more
and more, with the bear on it.

CHAPTER XXIII

BEN DOES A TRICK

"Look out!"

"Run, everybody!"

"Somebody help that little boy hold up the pole! He's doing it all
alone!"

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny Brown! You'll be hurt!"

It was Bunny's mother who called this last. It was some of the farmers
in the circus tent who had shouted before that, not seeming to know what
to do. Daddy Brown and grandpa were hurrying from the other side of the
tent to help Bunny hold the rope.

The pole was slowly falling, the tent seemed as if it would come down,
and the Italian was calling to his bear. As for the bear, he seemed to
think that he ought to climb higher up on the pole. He did not seem to
mind the fall he was going to get.

Bunny Brown, small as he was, knew what he was doing. He had seen that
the rope, which help up the pole, ran aroun