d the stout gentleman.

"Want an extra hand?" he asked. "Anything from a ballyhoo to a
rough-rider?"

The stout man wheeled and surveyed him in momentarily speechless wrath
at the interruption. Then his eyes narrowed appraisingly as he noted the
tall, lean, well-knit figure before him, and he demanded:

"How the h--l did you know that the Wild West act was all knocked to
pieces?"

"It isn't now," Jim smiled. "Lend me a horse and a pair of chaps, and
I'll show you in five minutes what's going to be your star act
to-night."

"You're no circus man, nor a Westerner, neither." The boss still stared.
"And you don't look like a bum. What's your game, anyway?"

"To pick up a little loose change and get a horse between my knees
again."

The thought of the forlorn little figure which he had left by the
roadside kept Jim's smile steady, and added a desperate artificial
buoyancy to his tired tones:

"Never mind who I am or where I came from; I can ride, and that's what
you want, isn't it?"

There was an instant's pause, and then the boss bawled a stentorian
order and grabbed him by the arm.

"Come on. I'll give you a chance to show me what you can do, but if
you're takin' up my time on a bluff I'll break every bone in your ----
---- body!"

He led Jim to an open space behind the tents where presently there
appeared a living convulsion in the shape of a bucking, squealing bronco
seemingly held down to earth by two sweating, shirtless men.

As Jim surveyed that wickedly lowered head with its small eyes rolling
viciously, his heart misgave him for a moment. What if he should fail?
It was long since he had practiced those rough-riding stunts that had
made him in demand for those society circuses of the ante-bellum days,
and longer yet since he had learned to break a bronco on the ranch,
which had been Bill Hollis's hobby for a season.

What if that devil of a pony should best him in the struggle, and he
should be thrown ignominiously from the lot before the eyes of the girl
who was waiting patiently for him?

The next instant he had vaulted lightly into the high, Western saddle,
the two men had jumped back, and the fight was on. The bronco lashed out
viciously with his heels, leaped sidewise, and then, after a running
start, attempted to throw his rider over his head, but Jim clung to him
like a burr; he flung himself down and rolled over, but the young man
jumped clear and was back into the saddle as the enraged ani