and Tell were bold enough to put the horror into words.

"'Tain't no use fer us to promise," Gess said huskily. "We're jest bound
to holler when the fireworks begins to go off, even if we had promised
cross-yer-heart."

And Tell piped in, after him, as usual:

"W'y, a circus is jest hollerin'--or some hollerin' is the best part of
a circus." And he added, with a suspicious tremble in his voice, "I'd
rather go downstairs an' set in the kitchen, if we can't holler."

Troy burst out laughing at sight of the dejected faces.

"Oh, holler all you want to--holler as much as you can--I don't mean
hollerin'. I expect to do some pretty considerable hollerin' myself,
and I've got a lot of the boys promised to holler at the right time.
But there's to be a little--a little extra performance up here on the
roof, and if you see anything queer about it, you mustn't let on--you
mustn't tell."

"That's all right," assured Aunt Huldah, turning to descend the narrow
little stairway. "They'll do jest as you tell 'em, Gib. Mind you don't
tip them soap boxes over an' fall off'n the roof, chil'en. Sissy, you
keep tight hold of Ally's hand--she's apt to fly when the big
performance comes;" and Aunt Huldah's rich, mellow, chuckling laugh came
back to them up the stairs.

One would have said that nothing on earth could make matters more
glorious to the children of the Wagon-Tire House on this Fourth of July
evening; but after Troy Gilbert's words, they trod not upon the earthen
roof of the hotel, but on air; they sat not upon soap boxes, but on
thrones.

Nay, kings were small people compared to them. There was to be a
mysterious extra performance, in which the sheriff was implicated; it
would take place under their very noses, and they were asked to assist,
to keep still about it!

Gilbert had said truly: the crowd was a big one, and most enthusiastic.
As a matter of fact, there were nearly a hundred cowboys on hand who had
been let into Gilbert's scheme. The fireworks were equally successful
whether they blazed splendidly or fizzled ingloriously. It was enough
for the boys that Troy Gilbert was doing the act; they whooped at every
figure, and whooped again at Troy's unaccustomed drollery.

There was a strain of intense expectancy in the audience, communicated,
though without their knowledge, to those not in the secret from those
who were; so that the crowd was wildly eager, without altogether knowing
why.

After the display of pin-