mance was about to start.

"They're here again!" cried the treasurer.

"Who?" asked Joe.

"The ticket swindlers!"

CHAPTER XVI

RINGS OF FIRE

Instantly Joe Strong lost interest in the "tramp fire-eater," as he
afterward came to call the man. All the attention of the young magician
was centered on what the treasurer had said.

"Are you certain of this?" asked Joe.

"Positive!" was the answer. "We've been keeping careful watch, paying
special attention to the red serial numbers, and some duplicates have
been taken in at the main entrance. The swindlers are at work again."

"But our new tickets!" exclaimed Joe. "The new style of paper and the
precautions we have taken! What of that?"

In answer Mr. Moyne held out two tickets, both bearing the same serial
number in red ink.

"Which is the bogus and which is the genuine?" he asked.

Joe looked carefully at the two. He examined them for a full minute.

"I can't tell!" he admitted.

"And no one else can, either," declared the treasurer. "We're up
against it again! Those fellows are too clever for us. Now we'll lose a
lot of money!"

"Well, it won't break us," said Joe easily. "Though, of course, no one
likes to be cheated. The only thing to do is to get the detectives busy.
Let them know the new turn affairs have taken, and I'll send these two
tickets to our chemist friend. He can tell which is printed from our
regular stock, and which is the counterfeit.

"Then, too, it ought to be easier to catch the rascals now than it was
at first. You see, we didn't know how long the old tickets had been
counterfeited. Now we're warned, first shot out of the box, about the
new ones. And since the paper mill hasn't been supplying our printer
with the new kind of paper very long, it ought to be easy to trace where
the new and clever counterfeit supply is coming from."

"Well, I hope they can catch the scoundrels," said Mr. Moyne. "I
certainly hate to see money lost."

Mr. Moyne was an ideal treasurer. He always had the interests of the
circus at heart, and one would think that the money came out of his own
pocket to hear him talk about the counterfeit tickets. In a way he did
lose, personally, since he was one of the owners of the show, and the
less money that came in the less his stock dividends would amount to.

"I'll write to Mr. Waldon to-night," said Joe, as he took the two
tickets. "And we'll notify the detectives. Now I must get ready for my
act. Tha