ef
performers. They were taking advantage of the two-days' stay, and were
meeting old friends and making some new acquaintances.

Of these Joe inquired for news of Ham, but no one had seen him. The old
fire-eater had endeared himself to more than one member of the Sampson
Brothers' Show, for he was always ready to do a favor. So more than Joe
were interested in seeing that Ham kept on the good road along which he
had started. But all of Joe's efforts were of no avail.

It was after midnight when he ended his search, and, rather than go back
to the sleeping car where the other performers spent their night, Joe
put up at a hotel, sending word to Jim Tracy of what he intended to do.

"I want to find Ham," Joe wrote in the note he sent to the ringmaster by
a messenger boy, "and I've asked the police to be on the quiet lookout
for him. If I stay at the hotel I can help him more quickly, in case
he's found, than if I am away out at the railroad siding where the
circus train is. I'll see you in the morning."

But Joe's night at the hotel was spent in vain, for there was no word of
Ham Logan, and the morning which Joe put in, making inquiries, was
equally fruitless.

"I guess Ham is gone for good," sighed Joe, and his regret was genuine,
and almost as much for the sake of the man himself as for his own loss
of a good assistant.

For Ham Logan was that and more to Joe. The former tramp had much
valuable information regarding the old style fire-eating tricks, and
though he was not up to the task of doing them himself, he gave Joe good
advice. It was by his help and advice that Joe had staged the blazing
banquet scene, which was such a success and which the newspapers
mentioned constantly.

True, Joe did not actually need Ham to go on with his acts. He could
break in another man to help him, to hand him the proper article at just
the right time, to see to the mixing of the fire-resisting chemicals and
to the preparation of the viands that seemed to be composed of fire
itself.

"And that's what I'll have to do," mused Joe, when he became convinced
some days later that Ham was not to be found.

He wished that Helen was able to act as his assistant in the fire
scenes, as she did in the box trick and the vanishing lady act. But she
could spare no more time from her own act with Rosebud, since she was
billed as one of the "stars." Then, too, Helen had a fear of fire, and
though she had succeeded in overcoming part of it, sti