fearful that, after all, Joe's secret was discovered. It would
mean an end of the box trick.

Then Joe smiled, and stepped forward. And there was something in the
smile that reassured Helen.

"Has he guessed it?" she asked in a low voice, as Joe passed her.

"No. But it was a narrow escape," was the answer.

CHAPTER XIX

JUGGLING WITH FIRE

Smilingly the man who had made claim to the ten thousand dollars waited
for Joe Strong. The fellow seemed already to have the money in his
grasp.

"You say there is a sliding panel in that corner?" asked Joe.

"Positive."

"And that I get out that way?"

"Yes."

"Well, I say you are wrong, and I am going to prove it," returned Joe
easily, and also smiling. "Now I'm going to let you, and any one you may
select from the audience, paste sheets of paper over that corner. Then
I'll do the trick over again. If I get out of the box, and the paper you
paste on remains unbroken, you'll have to admit that I didn't come out
through the place where you say is a sliding panel, won't you?"

"Well, if you don't break the paper, I guess I'll have to admit you
didn't get out that way," said the man, with a grin. "But I want to see
you do it first."

"Very well. I'll send for some paste and paper," went on Joe. "Meanwhile
call upon any of your friends you like to help."

"Come on up here, Bill!" called out the man.

For an instant Joe, and Helen also, as she admitted later, feared it
might be Bill Carfax to whom he referred. But an altogether different
individual shuffled up to the stage.

"We'll paste paper over this end where the trick panel is," went on the
man who had claimed the reward. "He won't get out then!"

"Sure he won't," agreed his companion. "Do we get the ten thousand
then?"

"Naturally, if you have guessed right," said Joe. "But that remains to
be seen."

There was no trouble in getting paste and paper. That is part of a
circus, for, even though it is old-fashioned, paper hoops are still used
for the clowns and some bareback riders to leap through.

A plentiful supply of large, white sheets and a pail of paste with a
brush were brought up to the stage. Then the men were invited to begin
their work, which was to seal up the corner the man had picked out as
the location of the secret panel.

Before pasting on the paper the men looked closely at the joinings of
the box. They seemed rather puzzled in spite of the cock-sureness of
the first individual.