The question startled me. I looked up. It seemed to me, as he eyed me, that he had addressed it particularly to me. I blushed. Some strange country girls on either side of me began to t.i.tter. I blushed more decidedly. The motley chap in the ring must have seen it. He grinned from ear to ear, walked up to the very edge of the rope, and repeated:

"Were you ever in love, young man?"

There were young men all round me; he might have looked at Knickerbocker, or any one of a dozen others; if I had not been supersensitive I never should have imagined that he meant to be personal.

If I had not retained the self-possession of an egotist, I should have reflected that it was not the thing to notice the vulgar wit of a circus-clown. Unfortunately self-possession is the last possession of a bashful man. I half rose from my seat, demanding fiercely:

"Are you speaking to me, sir?"

"If the shoe fits, you can wear it," was the grinning answer; and then there was a shout from the whole audience--hooting, laughter, clapping of hands--and I felt that I had made a Dundreary of myself.

"We beg parding," went on the rascal, stepping back and bowing. "We had no intentions of being personal--meant no young gentleman in partikilar. We _always_ make a point of asking a few questions in general. Here comes mademoiselle, the celebrated tight-rope dancer,"

etc., etc., and the thousand eyes which had been glued to my scarlet face were diverted to a new attraction.

"I'll thrash that scoundrel within an inch of his life," I said to young Knickerbocker, who was sitting behind me beside his sister.

"You will have to whip the whole circus, then; these fellows all stand by each other. Your policy is to let the matter drop."

"I'll whip the whole circus, then," I retorted, savagely.

"Please don't," said a soft voice, and I wilted under it.

"It maddens me to be always made ridiculous before _you_," I whispered. "I'm a dreadfully unfortunate man, Miss Knick----"

"_Fire_!"

A frightful cry in such a place as that! Something flashed up brightly--I saw flames about something in the ring--the crowd arose from the benches--women screamed--men yelled.

"Sit still, Flora!" I heard young Knickerbocker say, sternly.

I thought of a million things in the thousandth part of a second--of the flaming canvas, the deadly crush, the wild beasts, terrified and breaking from their cages. It was folly, it was madness, to linger a moment in hopes of the fire being subdued. I looked toward the entrance--it was not far from us; a few people were going quickly out.

I was stronger than her brother; I could fight my way through any crowd with that slight form held in one arm.

"_Fire_!"

I dallied with fate no longer. Grasping Flora by her slender waist, I dragged her from her seat, and hurried her along through the thickening throng. When she could no longer keep her feet. I supported her entirely, elbowing, pushing, struggling with the maddest of them.

I reached the narrow exit--I fought my way through like a tiger.

Bleeding, exhausted, my hat gone, my coat torn from my back, I at last emerged under the calm moonlight with my darling held to my panting heart. Bearing her apart from the jostling crowd, I looked backward, expecting to see the devouring flames stream high from the combustible roof. As yet they had not broken through. I set my treasure gently down on her little feet. Her bonnet was gone, her wealth of golden hair hung disheveled about her pale face.

"Are we safe?" she murmured.

"Yes, thank Heaven, your precious life is saved!"

"Oh! where is my brother?"

"Here!" said a cold voice behind us, and young Knickerbocker coolly took his sister on his own arm. "What in the name of folly did you drag her off in that style for? A pretty-looking girl you are, Flora, I must say!"

"But the fire!" I gasped.

"Was all out in less than a minute. A lamp exploded, but fortunately set fire to nothing else. I never saw anything more utterly ridiculous than you dragging my sister off through that crowd, and me sitting still and laughing at you. I don't know whether to look on you as a hero or a fool, Mr. Flutter."

"Look on me as a blunderer," I said meekly.

But the revulsion of feeling was too great; I felt myself turning sick and faint, and when I knew anything again I was home in bed. And now I owe Miss Flora a new bonnet as well as a little dog.

CHAPTER XII.

A LEAP FOR LIFE.

It is impossible to make an ordinary person understand the chaos of mingled feelings with which I heard, two days after the circus performance in which I had so large a share, that Blue-Eyes and Company had departed for a tour of the watering-places--feelings of anguish and relief mixed in about equal proportions. I madly loved her, but I had known from the first that my love was hopeless, and the thought of meeting her, after having made myself so ridiculous, was torture. Therefore I felt relief that I was no longer in danger of encountering the mocking laughter of those blue eyes, but I lost my appet.i.te. I moped, pined, grew pale, freckled, and listless.

"What's the use of wasting harvest apples making dumplings, when you don't eat none, John?" asked my aunt, one day at dinner, after the hands had left the table.

"Aunt," replied I, solemnly, "don't mock me with apple dumplings; they may be light, but my heart is heavy."

"La, John, try a little east on your heart," said she, laughing--by "east" she meant yeast, I suppose.

"No, aunt, not 'east,' but west. My mind is made up. I'm going out to Colorado to fight the Indians."

She let the two-tined steel fork drop out of her hand.

"What will your ma say to that?" she gasped.

"I tell you I am going," was my firm reply, and I went.

Yes, I had long sighed to be a Juan Fernandez, or a Mount Washington weatherologist, or something lonesome and sad, as my readers know.

Fighting Indians would be a terrible risky business; but compared to facing the "girls of the period" it would be the merest play. I was weary of a life that was all mistakes. "Better throw it away," I thought, bitterly, "and give my scalp to dangle at a redskin's belt, than make another one of my characteristic and preposterous blunders."

I had heard that Buffalo Bill was about to start for the Rocky Mountains, and I wrote to New York asking permission to join him. He answered that I could, if I was prepared to pay my own way. I immediately bade my relatives farewell, went home, borrowed two hundred dollars of father, told mother she was the only woman I wasn't afraid of, kissed her good-bye, and met Buffalo Bill at the next large town by appointment, he being already on his way West. I came home _after dark_, and left again _before daylight_, and that was the last I saw of my native village for some time.

"You don't let on yer much of a fighter?" asked the great scout, as he saw me hunt all over six pockets and blush like a girl when the conductor came for our tickets, and finally hand him a postal-card instead of the bit of pasteboard he was impatiently waiting to punch.

"Oh, I guess I'll fight like a rat when it comes to that," I answered.

"I'm brave as a lion--only I'm bashful."

"Great tomahawks! is that yer disease?" groaned Bill.

"Yes, that's my trouble," I said, quite confidentially, for somehow I seemed to get on with the brave hunter more easily than with the starched minions of society. "I'm bashful, and I'm tired of civilized life. I'm always putting my foot in it when I'm trying the hardest to keep it out. Besides, I'm in love, and the girl I want don't want me.

It's either deliberate suicide or death on the plains with me."

"Precisely. I understand. _I've been thar!_" said Buffalo Bill; and we got along well together from the first.

He encouraged the idea that in my present state of mind I would make a magnificent addition to his chosen band; but I have since had some reason to believe that he was leading me on for the sole purpose of making a scarecrow of me--setting me up in some spot frequented by the redskins, to become their target, while he and his comrades scooped down from some ambush and wiped out a score or two of them after I had perished at my post. I _suspect_ this was his plan. He probably considered that so stupid a blunderer as I deserved no better fate than to be used as a decoy. I think so myself. I have nothing like the extravagant opinion of my own merits that I had when I first launched out into the sea of human conflict.

At all events, Buffalo Bill was very kind to me all the way out to the plains; he protected me as if I had been a timid young lady--took charge of my tickets, escorted me to and fro from the station eating-houses, almost cut up my food and eating it for me; and if a woman did but glance in my direction, he scowled ferociously. Under such patronage I got through without any accident.