Joe waved his hand to Helen in passing, and then he began to ascend to his high platform. When he reached it and stood poised ready for his act, there came a shrill whistle from Jim Tracy, the ringmaster, who wore his usual immaculate shirt front and black evening clothes--rather incongruous in the daytime.
The whistle was the signal for the other acts to cease, that the attention of all might be centered on Joe. This is always done in a circus in the case of "stars," and Joe was certainly a star of the first magnitude.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried Jim Tracy, with the accented drawl that carried his voice to the very ends of the big tent. "Calling your attention to one of the most marvelous high trapeze acts ever performed in any circus!"
He pointed dramatically to Joe, who stood up straight, ready to do his act.
"Are you ready?" asked the man who was to release the trapeze, which was caught up at one side of the platform opposite Joe.
The man pulled a rope which released a catch, letting the trapeze start on its long swaying swing. The man pulled it by means of a long, thin cord, until it was making big arcs, like some gigantic pendulum.
Joe watched it carefully, judging it to the fraction of an inch. He stood poised and tense on the gayly decorated platform, himself a fine picture of physical young manhood. The band was blaring out the latest Jazz melody.
Suddenly, from his perch, the young acrobat gave a cry, and Jim Tracy, on the ground below, hearing it, held up his white-gloved hand as a signal for the music to cease.
Then Joe leaped. Full and fair he leaped out toward the swinging bar of the big trapeze, the snare drum throbbing out as he jumped. He was dimly conscious of thousands of eyes watching him--eyes that looked curiously and apprehensively up. And he realized that Helen was also watching him.
As true as a die, Joe's hands caught and gripped the bar of the swinging trapeze. So far he was safe. The momentum of his jump carried him in a long swing, and he at once began to undulate himself to increase his swing. He must do this in order to get to the second platform.
As the young performer began to do this, he looked up at the wire ropes of his trapeze.
It was a look given instinctively and for no particular purpose, as Joe's eyes must rest, most of all, on the second platform where he needed to land, to save himself from a bad fall.