he had picked the other corner--the
left instead of the right--he would have had me. But luck was with us."

"I'm glad," said Helen. "But how did he happen to select any corner?
Some one must know more about your trick box than you think."

"I'm afraid so," admitted Joe ruefully. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised
but what this was some of the work of Bill Carfax."

"Has he been around again?" asked Helen, and there was a note of
annoyance in her voice.

"He hasn't been seen," said Joe. "But this man may have been in
communication with him. Bill may have been studying the trick out since
his last failure, and I must admit that he's on the right trail--that
is, if it was Bill who put this man up to making the claim."

"What makes you think Bill had anything to do with it?" asked Helen.

"Well, for the reason that this is just the kind of town where Bill
would be likely to have friends--I mean in a big manufacturing center.
Bill may have found a man who is willing to act to help pull down the
reward for him. But this time they failed."

"He may succeed next time," remarked Helen.

"No, I'll take care of that," Joe said. "I'm going to make a change in
the box."

As the mechanism of the trick box has been explained in the preceding
volume, it will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that Joe's
method of getting out of the box could be changed, so that if a person
thought he had discovered the secret panel it could be shifted to
another part of the case.

It was two or three days after this, and Joe had made a change in his
box which satisfied him that the secret would not soon be discovered,
that Helen, coming over to where he sat in his private tent, saw him
making what seemed to be torches.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "Do you think our electric lights or
gasoline flares are going to fail?" she went on jokingly. The Sampson
Brothers' Show was a modern one, and carried a portable electric light
plant.

"Oh, no, I'm not worrying about that!" answered Joe. "But I have a new
idea for my wire act, and I want to see if it will work out."

That night, at the proper time, when Joe was introduced as about to
perform his wire act, Helen noticed Ham Logan come out with the young
fire-eater, carrying a number of the torches Joe had made.

Joe started across the high, slack wire, and on it performed many of his
usual feats. They were not specially sensational, and Helen wondered
what he had planned.

But, after