"
For that day, and until Phil could break in on another animal,
Little Dimples had loaned her gray to him, for Phil did not
dare to try the experiment of riding a new horse at his
first appearance. Altogether too much depended upon his first
public exhibition as a bareback rider to permit his taking any
such chances.
Dimples owned two horses, so she rode the second one this day.
As Phil walked lightly the length of the big top, which he
was obliged to do to reach ring No. 1 in which he was to ride,
his figure, graceful as it was, appeared almost fragile.
He attracted attention because of this fact alone, for the people
did not recognize in him the lad who had that morning stayed the
stampede of the herd of huge elephants.
"Now keep cool. Don't get excited," warned Dimples as she left
him to enter the ring where she was to perform. "Forget all
about those people out there, and they will do the rest."
Phil nodded and passed on smiling. Reaching his ring he quickly
kicked off his pumps and leaped lightly to the back of his mount,
where he sat easily while the gray slowly walked about the
sawdust arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the equestrian director.
"You see before you the hero of the day, the young man who,
unaided, stopped the charge of a herd of great elephants,
saving, perhaps many lives besides doing a great service for
the Sparling Combined Shows.
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