Sometimes they had trouble with the wagons; they were old.  Sometimes they got stuck in the mud.  You never could tell.  Yes, the show business was fascinating, but very uncertain.  Mr. Mildini was chatty and not a bit stand-offish, as one might think a talented person would be.

So, when that old fall sun sank down toward the west, it outlined two shabby wagons, crawling along the lonely prairie.  Near one rode an eager white boy, occasionally leaning over and drinking in the wisdom that fell from the lips of a little Irishman; near the other, a pink-shirted Indian lad, stolid and silent, but in his breast burning the fever that stirs every boy who is going to a show.

CHAPTER XVIII

WONDERS

Perhaps if you were born in, or have visited, a great Eastern city you have sat in an enormous amphitheater, a fifth of a mile in length, with tiers and tiers of private boxes, and rows and rows of seats.  In the sawdust arena you have seen three circus rings, a performance going on in each; acrobats, bare-back riders, trained animals, what not; and around the edge of it all a procession of clowns, doing their merry stunts.  And you have craned, strained, and twisted your neck, trying to take it all in.  And that is your idea of a show.

In such a place sat Whitey, for that was what a show recalled to his mind, but when he opened his eyes, and came away from that mind circus, he was in a very different place.

Large it was and barren, with rough-boarded sides; with lofts, and stalls, and racks, and farming implements crowded into corners, and an earthen floor, and—­well, perhaps you have seen a big Western barn, which answers the purpose of housing many things and animals.  Such was the setting in which the Mildini Troupe performed; the Pride of the West!

Each individual of the audience sat on whatever he, or she, could get to sit upon; a saddle, a blanket, a box, a rare chair or two.  Perhaps that audience would have proved to you almost as interesting as the performance, for it was made up of many sorts of men that the threshing had brought together—­farm-hands, cowpunchers, store-keepers, blacksmiths, bartenders, hold-up men, but no sheepherders.  Sheepherders were not welcome among threshers, nor in any other Western community.  Of women there were two—­the wife of the foreman of the ranch, and one who helped her.

No person on the ranch was absent, for before the performance the Mildinis had given a sort of sample of their talent; of what all were to expect.  A tight-rope had been stretched across the Yellowstone River, and on this, clad in pink tights, balance-pole in hand, Signor Antolini had walked, high over the more or less raging flood.

Do you ever tire of shows?  I hope you don’t.  I don’t, and offhand I can’t think of many people who do.  So I’ll assume that, with Injun and Whitey, you’d like to see a bit of this poor little troupe’s efforts, which were pathetic in a way, though no one thought of that.