MAROONED IN A FREIGHT CAR
"Catch him!Catch him!Catch that man!"
The parade was just passing when Phil shouted out the words that attracted all eyes toward him.It was to a policeman that he appealed.
The lad had discovered a shock of red hair above the heads of the people, and was gradually working his way toward the owner of it, when all at once Red Larry discovered him.
Red pushed his way through the crowd and disappeared down an alleyway, the policeman to whom the boy had appealed making no effort to catch the man.
"What kind of a policeman are you, anyway?" cried Phil in disgust."That fellow is a crook, and we have been on the lookout for him for the last four weeks.""What's he done?"
"Done? Tried to poison one of the elephants, and a lot of other things.""The kid's crazy or else he belongs to the circus," laughed a bystander.
Phil Forrest did not hear the speaker, however, for the boy had dashed through the crowd and bounded into the alley where he had caught a glimpse of a head of red hair a moment before.
But Larry was nowhere in sight.He had disappeared utterly.
"I was right," decided Phil, after going the length of the alley and back."He's been following this show right along, and before he gets through he'll put us out of business if we don't look sharp."Considerable damage already had been done.Horses and other animals fell ill, in some instances with every evidence of poisoning; guy ropes were cut, and the cars had been tampered with in the railroad yards.
All this was beginning to get on the nerves of the owner of the show, as well as on those of some of his people who knew about it.Things had come to a point where it was necessary to place more men on guard about the lot to protect the show's property.
At each stand of late efforts had been made to get the police to keep an eye open for one Red Larry, but police officials do not, as a rule, give very serious heed to the complaints of a circus, especially unless the entire department has been pretty well supplied with tickets.Mr.Sparling was a showman who did not give away many tickets unless there were some very good reason for so doing.