“Do you want me to climb the tree and get your monkey for you?” asked the boy.  “I’ll do it, if he doesn’t bite.”

“Oh, he doesn’t bite—­Wango is very gentle,” said Mr. Winkler.  “But can you climb that high tree?”

“I’ve climbed higher ones than that,” was the answer.  “And ropes and poles and the sides of buildings.  I can climb almost anything if I can get a hold.  I’ll go up and get the monkey for you!”

As he spoke he took off his coat; and though the day was cold Bunny noticed that the strange boy wore no overcoat.  Hanging his jacket on a low limb of the tree which held Wango, the boy began to climb.  And, as he did so, Sue pulled her brother’s sleeve.

“Do you know who that is?” she whispered.

“Who?” asked Bunny Brown.

“That boy climbing the tree.  Don’t you ’member him?”

“No.  Who is he?”

“Why, he’s the boy who turned somersaults in the Opera House show!”

CHAPTER V

A COLD LITTLE SINGER

Bunny Brown was so excited in watching to see how the strange boy would climb up and get the monkey that, at first, he paid little attention to what Sue said.  The boy by this time was beginning to scramble up the trunk of the tree.  Sitting on a branch, high above the lad’s head, was Wango the monkey, eating the piece of cake.

“It’s the very same boy, I know it is!” declared Sue.

“What same boy?” asked Sadie West, while the other boys and girls watched the climber.

“The same one who was with the little girl that sang songs in the Opera House show.  Don’t you remember, Bunny?” asked Sue.

This time Bunny not only heard what his sister said, but he paid some attention to her.  And, noting that the climbing boy was half way up the tree now, Bunny turned to Sue and asked her what she had said.

“This is the number three time I told you,” she answered, shaking her head.  “That’s the boy from the show in the Opera House!”

Bunny looked closely at the climbing lad.

“Why, so it is!” he cried.  “Look, Charlie—­Harry—­that’s the acrobat from the show!”

The boy in the tree was in plain sight now, over the heads of the crowd, as he made his way upward from limb to limb, and several of Bunny’s chums were sure he was the same lad they had seen in the show.

“But what’s he doing here?” asked Bunny.  “Mother read in the paper that the same show we saw here was traveling around and was in Wayville last night.  I wonder why that boy is here?”

“And where’s his sister that sang such funny little songs?” inquired Sadie West.

“We’ll ask him when he comes down,” suggested George Watson, who used to be a mean, tricky boy, making a lot of trouble for Bunny and Sue.  But, of late, George had been kinder.

Higher and higher, up into the tree went the “show boy,” as the children called him.  Wango still was perched on the limb of the tree, eating his cake.  He did not climb higher or try to leap to another tree, as Jed Winkler said he was afraid his pet might do.