“Will he live?” asked Helen.

“Just a chance,” was the answer.  “Say, if I had to get my living eating fire I’d starve,” confided the policeman.  “It must be some stunt!  I always thought it was a fake, but this fire burned real enough.”

“Oh, it isn’t all fake,” said Joe, “though of course there’s a trick about it.”

“You seem to know,” said the policeman, and he smiled at Joe and Helen.  His chief troubles were about over with the departure of the ambulance and the knowledge that filtered through the crowd that the most of the excitement was over.

“Oh, I’m in the circus business,” confessed Joe.  “I never ate fire,” he went on, “but—­”

“Oh, I know you now!” cried the officer.  “I was on duty out at the circus grounds this afternoon, and I went into the tent when you did that box act.  Say, that’s some stunt!  Do they really pay ten thousand dollars to the fellow who tells how it’s done?”

“Well, we’ve never paid out the money yet,” said Joe, with a smile.  “But it’s there, waiting for some one to claim it.”

“Then I’m coming to-night to watch you,” said the officer, who appeared delighted that he had recognized one of the “profesh.”

“Come along,” replied Joe.  “Here, wait a minute!  There are a couple of passes.  Come and bring a friend.  If you tell how I do the trick you’ll get the ten thousand.  Only you’ll have to post a hundred dollars as a forfeit to the Red Cross in case you don’t guess right.  That’s included in the offer.”

“Oh!” The officer did not seem quite so pleased.  “Well, I’ll come anyhow,” he went on, accepting the passes Joe handed him.  The policeman had allowed Joe and Helen to stay in an advantageous place where they could watch the fire.

“Where are they taking the man who did the dangerous trick that caused all the trouble?” asked Helen, as she prepared to walk on with Joe.

“To the City Hospital, Miss.  He’s a bad case, I understand.”

“Poor fellow,” murmured Helen.  “Do you think we could go to see him, and do something for him, Joe?” she asked solicitously.  “He’s in almost the same line of business as ourselves.”

“Well, I don’t know,” was the slow answer.

“I can fix it up if you want to see him—­that is, if the doctors and nurses will let you,” said the policeman.  “I know the hospital superintendent.  You just tell him that Casey sent you and it will be all right.”

“Thanks; perhaps we will,” said Joe.

There was a little time after supper before the performers had to go on with their acts, and Helen prevailed on Joe to take her to the hospital whither the injured fire-eater had been removed.  They found him swathed in bandages, no objection being made to their seeing him after the magic name of “Casey” had been mentioned to the superintendent.

“We came in to see if you needed any help,” said Joe to the pathetic figure in the bed.  “We’re in the same line of business, in a way.”