structions; now with the set of fireworks which
was to have dazzled and delighted the residents of Antelope, he made
practical experiment of the knowledge so gained. The little show,
witnessed only by the naked walls of the canon and such prairie-dogs and
jack-rabbits as had been untimely aroused from their slumbers, went off
fairly well--which is to say that most of Gilbert's fingers and nearly
all of his features went back to Blowout sound and entire.

"Oh, I got the hang of the business," he declared again and again, as
they rode along through the soft Texas night; "I got the hang of it. I
can make the whole first part go all right. The thing now is to get that
Columbia act fixed so as to give the boys a run for their money, and
leave a chance for Minnie and Kid."

The two rode home, and later Jose went to bed in Gilbert's back room,
where work was going forward upon a mysterious-looking structure.

II

"In our village hall a Justice stands:
A neater form was never made of board."

Frosty La Rue's grand aggregation of talent had given two shows in a
tent on the third of July.

On the Fourth there would again be two tent-shows, one in the afternoon
and one at night; and at the close of the night performance, when the
"concert" of an ordinary circus takes place, there was to be "a grand
open-air spectacle," as Frosty himself put it.

For this purpose a platform had been erected, upon which Frosty and the
Signorina could do a knife-throwing turn; and where the Aerial Wonder
could give an infantile exhibition with a small bicycle.

A wire had been stretched across Comanche Street from the top of the
Roundup to the top of the Wagon-Tire House, and upon this was to be
given the most ambitious performance of the evening, "Columbia
Enlightening the World."

All day long on the Fourth, the town was full of rejoicing young Texas
masculinity, mounted upon Texas ponies, careering about the streets in
conspicuously full enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. And all day long Frosty La Rue's tent-show did a land-office
business.

Poor old Frosty! Many of the cowboys could shoot better than he; but
they didn't shoot at colored glass balls. The bareback riding also came
under some contempt; but the spangles and pink fleshings carried much
weight, the Signorina painted most artistically, and, as Aunt Huldah
said, "When she was a-goin' right fast on that fat white hoss, with the
little platform on