Andy went about the circus grounds until he discovered the clown.  Billy was quite taken with the chicken, and finally decided to try and place the boy with his freak.

He and Luke went away together.  When he came back the clown was alone.  He told Andy that one of the side shows had agreed to try Luke and his wonderful chicken for at least a week for the food and keep of both.

Andy went on with the jockey riders in the evening performance.  The last performance at Clifton was the next forenoon.  He had only a glimpse of Marco and others of his acquaintance meantime, with everything on a rush.

“You see, Tipton is a regular vacation for us folks,” Billy Blow explained to him.  “Country around isn’t populous enough for more than one day’s performances, and then only when the county fair is on.  We rest two days, and play Saturday.  Then is your chance.  There’s a good deal of shifting and taking on new hands.  We’ll watch out for you.  You’ll see some fun, too.  All the new aspirants have been told to show up at Tipton.”

“Are there many?”

“About five to every town we’ve played in,” declared Billy.  “They all want to break in, and it’s policy to give them a show.”

Andy was sent off by the manager to the superintendent of the moving crew about noon.  There was considerable lifting to do.  Andy was tired when, about six o’clock in the evening, he climbed up on a loaded wagon for the well-earned ride to Tipton.

He had met one of the circus detectives that morning, who told him they had so far discovered no trace of Jim Tapp, or his colleagues, or the stolen mail bag.

They got to Tipton about eight o’clock in the evening.  Andy was “told off” to help in the construction work the next morning, and had now twelve hours of his own time.

He was hungry, and knowing that it would be difficult to get much to eat until late, when the cook’s quarters had been re-established, he left the wagon as it reached the principal street in Tipton.

Andy went to a restaurant and got a good meal.  He decided to stroll about a bit, and then join the clown in his new quarters.

Andy had been to Tipton before.  His aunt had some acquaintances there.  He walked up and down the principal street, looking in the store windows, and studying the country people who had come to visit the county fair.

Suddenly Andy drew back into the shadow of a doorway.  Leaning against a curb hitching post was a person who enchained his attention.

“It’s Tapp—­Jim Tapp,” said Andy.  “I’d know that slouch of his shoulders anywhere.”

The person under his inspection was swinging a light bamboo cane and smoking a cigarette.  He wore a jet black moustache and a jet black speck of a goatee.  Moustache and goatee were unmistakably of the variety Andy had seen a circus fakir selling for twenty-five cents, back at Clifton.

Their wearer kept his back to the lighted windows, so that his face was in partial shadow.  He also kept taking sidelong glances up and down the curb, as if expecting some one.