“But don’t you think he’ll come back?” asked Jim Tracy, when, after the performance, Joe had spoken of the missing Ham.

“I wish I could think so,” was the reply.  “I sure will hate to lose him.  I depend a lot on him in my fire tricks.”

“What makes you think you will lose him?” asked Tracy curiously.

“Well, his going off this way, for one,” declared Joe.  “What I’m really afraid of is that he may have gone back to his bad habits.  You know how it is.  A man starts to reform, and he keeps the pledges he makes until he meets some of his boon companions who used to help him on the downward road.  They invite him to come along for a good time, and he goes.”

“And you think that’s what’s happened to Ham?”

“I’m afraid so.  I’m going down town and see if I can get any trace of him.”

And this Joe did as soon as he was relieved of his duties in the circus.  The show was to remain in town over night, and this gave him just the chance he wanted.

It was an unpleasant errand, but Joe went through with it.  He had to call at many places that were distasteful to him, but in none of them did he get a trace of Ham Logan.  Joe saw in the more brilliant parts of the city a number of the circus men, including some of the chief performers.  They were taking advantage of the two-days’ stay, and were meeting old friends and making some new acquaintances.

Of these Joe inquired for news of Ham, but no one had seen him.  The old fire-eater had endeared himself to more than one member of the Sampson Brothers’ Show, for he was always ready to do a favor.  So more than Joe were interested in seeing that Ham kept on the good road along which he had started.  But all of Joe’s efforts were of no avail.

It was after midnight when he ended his search, and, rather than go back to the sleeping car where the other performers spent their night, Joe put up at a hotel, sending word to Jim Tracy of what he intended to do.

“I want to find Ham,” Joe wrote in the note he sent to the ringmaster by a messenger boy, “and I’ve asked the police to be on the quiet lookout for him.  If I stay at the hotel I can help him more quickly, in case he’s found, than if I am away out at the railroad siding where the circus train is.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

But Joe’s night at the hotel was spent in vain, for there was no word of Ham Logan, and the morning which Joe put in, making inquiries, was equally fruitless.

“I guess Ham is gone for good,” sighed Joe, and his regret was genuine, and almost as much for the sake of the man himself as for his own loss of a good assistant.

For Ham Logan was that and more to Joe.  The former tramp had much valuable information regarding the old style fire-eating tricks, and though he was not up to the task of doing them himself, he gave Joe good advice.  It was by his help and advice that Joe had staged the blazing banquet scene, which was such a success and which the newspapers mentioned constantly.