Adventure, December 1914 — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

170 that his bar was higher than the tower and twenty feet beyond it. When Collins let go, he came down in a straight foot-dive for the top of the tower itself, where Pitkin stood waving his hands and beginning a sort of fiendish clog-dance, right on the edge. Pitkin’s back was toward Tom and he didn’t see him coming. I did. I saw him leave the bar and come down like an arrow, holding both feet together. Right in the middle of Pitkin’s insane dancing Tom hit the tower, tried to straighten up, and stag- gered, lurching full into the Russian’s back. Pitkin yelled out once. He screamed like a wounded animal sometimes will—a wild, hoarse, unhuman-like screech. ‘Then, thrown completely off his feet by Collins’ impact, he plunged out from the tower’s edge and fell over and over into the ring below, to lie awfully still with his black head bent back under his shoulders. Collins paid no attention to that. He was at the switch. When he bumped into Pitkin it stopped his own fall and straight- ened him up. In one leap he reached the switchboard and pulled out the lever. The lamps sputtered and died, and poor little Mitchi relaxed in the net. I think everybody in the tent sighed at once. It sounded like a gust of wind. Two of the tent-men were already swarm- ing up ropes to the net, and Tom was racing down the tower. By the time they lowered Mitchi over the edge of the net, he was there to take her in his arms. He caught her and cuddled her up on his breast and kissed her before the whole tent. Then he turned and raced for the exit. The band was still playing and the other acts started again at the ringmaster’s sig- nal. Two hands picked Pitkin up and lug- ged him out to the trap-room. Collins with Mitchi in his arms passed me at the fly. There was a wild, fierce look in the boy’s eyes. Just for that once I saw the old primitive, human-wolf strain look out. He gave me a glance and ran on into the wom- an’s section of the dressing-tent, without so much as by your leave. I think he’d forgotten everything on earth but the woman rolled in against his heart. He laid her down and began pumping her arms up and back and down again, like you do those of a man who has drowned. All at once he spoke: Adventure “‘Get a doctor—a doctor—for God’s sake! Ain’t anybody got any sense? Get a doctor! She ain’t dead! She won’t die! I won’t let her, I tell you! Get a doctor—quick!” Some of the girls and Mother Boone tried to get him to let them take charge, but he wouldn’t. As it happened, though, there was a doctor in the crowd, and by that time he was coming into the dressing-tent door. He came in and took hold in good shape as soon as Tom would let him. At first the boy was so rattled he wouldn’t let anybody touch her; just knelt there be- side her little pink body and snarled, and worked her arms up and down. I went up and told him the man was a physician, and because he knew me he lis- tened. He looked up at the doctor; then staggered to his feet. “Take me away, Bill,’’ he mumbled. I took him by the arm and led him out- side the door of the girls’ section. There he balked. He wouldn’t go a step farther. We hung around for a good two hours, and though everything else was load- ed up for the jump, we didn’t strike that tent till Mitchi could be moved. Old Bar- naby sure acted white about that. A delay means a lot to show-folks; but Barnaby sure did the handsome. I guess he felt sort of guilty about having let Pitkin fix up the act in the first place, for he paid Mitchi’s hospital-bill. Be the doctor came out and says he = thinks she’ll pull through with good care, and that he’s going to call an ambu- lance. When he heard that, Tom began to laugh all at once. “IT told you she wouldn’t die!”’ he said be- tween chuckles to me. ‘I wouldn’t let her! She’s mine! But Pitkin died, didn’t he, Bill? I told him I’d break his neck!” And with that Tom dropped to the floor in a genuine faint. He stayed behind, too, when the show went on. All the four weeks Mitchi was in the hospital he hung around. By the time she was ready to come back to the show, the two had decided to sign each other up for a life-engagement. They went off and got married, and Mitchi came back as Mrs. Col- lins. But they work under her name. They bill as a brother-and-sister act, and Tom Collins handles the switch. IT WAS about one o’clock when DOOLK (©