Everyone was shouting at once, it seemed. Ben landed on a pile of soft hay. He stood up, made a low bow, and kissed his hand to the audience, as performers do in the circus.

A strange man, who had come into the circus a little while before, started toward Ben Hall. Ben stood there bowing and smiling until he saw this man.

"Come here a minute, Ben. I want to talk to you," said the man.

But Ben, after one look at the stranger, gave a jump, crawled under the tent and ran away, all dressed as he was in the clown suit.

"Why--why! What did he do that for?" asked Bunny Brown, very much surprised.

CHAPTER XXIV

BEN'S SECRET

Everyone was looking at the place where Ben Hall had slid out under the edge of the tent and run away. Why he had done it no one knew.

Then all eyes were turned toward the strange man who had come into the tent just in time to see Ben's big jump, and his three somersaults. The man was a stranger. No one seemed to know him.

This man stood for a moment, also looking at the place where Ben had slipped under the tent. Then he cried out:

"Well, he's got away again! I must catch him!"

Then the man ran out of the tent.

"What is it all about?" asked Mother Brown. "Is this a part of the circus, Bunny?"

But Bunny did not know; neither did his sister Sue. They were as much surprised as anyone at Ben's strange act. And they did not know who the man was, at the sight of whom Ben had seemed so frightened.

"I'll see what it's about," said Grandpa Brown.

He hurried out of the tent, but soon came back again.

"Ben isn't in sight," Grandpa Brown said, "and that queer man is running across the fields."

"Is he chasing after Ben?" asked Bunny.

"Well, he may be. But if I can't see Ben, I don't see how the man can, either. I don't know what it all means."

"Maybe the man was a Gypsy," said Sue, "and he wants to catch Ben, same as the Gypsies took grandpa's horses."

"Gypsies don't take boys and girls," said Mrs. Brown. "Besides, that man didn't look like a Gypsy. There is something queer about it all."

"I always said that boy, Ben, was queer," a.s.serted Grandpa Brown. "He has acted queerly from the time he came here so hungry. But he was a good boy, and he worked well, I'll say that for him. I hope he isn't in trouble."

"Will he--will he come back?" Sue wanted to know.

"I don't know, my dear," answered her grandfather. "I hope so."

"I hope so, too!" declared Sue. "I like Ben."

"He ran as soon as he saw that man," observed Bunker Blue.

"Did he ever tell you anything about himself?" asked Mr. Brown. "You were with Ben most of the time, Bunker."

"No, sir, he never told me anything about himself. But he seemed to know a lot about circuses. I asked him if he was ever with one, but he would never tell me."

"Well, I don't know that we can do anything," said grandpa. "If Ben comes back we'll treat him right, and if he is in trouble we will help him. But, since he is gone, there is no use trying to find him."

The circus was over. The boys who had brought their pets to the show took them home again. It was now late afternoon, and Grandpa Brown said the boys could leave the tents up until next day, as there was no sign of a storm.

"You can take them down then," he said to Bunker Blue. "My tent we'll store away in the barn, until Bunny and Sue want to give another circus.

The big fair tent can also be taken down to-morrow and put away. But everyone is too tired to do all that work to-night."

That evening, in grandpa's farmhouse, after supper, nothing was talked of but the circus, and what had happened at it. Everyone said it was the best children's circus they had ever seen.

"But poor Ben!" exclaimed Bunny. "I wonder where he is?"

"Did he have his supper?" asked Sue.

No one knew, for Ben had not come back. It was dark now. The cows and horses had been fed. The chickens had had their supper, and gone to roost long ago. Bunny, Sue and all the others had had a good meal. But Ben was not around. Everyone felt sad.

"I wonder why he ran away," pondered Bunker Blue, over and over again, "I wonder why he ran away, as soon as he saw that man."

No one knew.

Early the next morning Bunny Brown and his sister Sue arose and came down stairs to breakfast.

"Did Ben come back?" was the first question they asked.

"No," said Grandma Brown. "He didn't come back."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue.

"It's too bad!" said Bunny. Then he crooked and wiggled one of his fat little fingers at Sue. She knew what that meant. It meant Bunny had something to whisper to her.

"What is it?" she asked, when grandma had gone out into the kitchen to get some more bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Hush! Don't tell anyone," whispered Bunny. "But we'll go and look for him and bring him back."

"Bring who back?"

"Ben Hall. We'll go look for him, Sue."

"But we don't know where to find him."