Up and up went the bear, until he was half way to the top.  The children looked on with delight and even the old folks said it was a good trick.

And then, all of a sudden, something happened.  The big centre pole, half way up which was the bear, began to tip over.  Some of the ropes that held it began to slip, because they were not tied tightly enough to hold the pole and the bear too.

“Look out!” called Daddy Brown.  “The tent is going to fall!  Run out everybody!”

“They haven’t time!” said Grandpa Brown.  “The tent will come down on our heads.”

Bunny Brown stood right beside one of the ropes that held up the pole.  Bunny saw the rope slipping, and he knew enough about ropes and sails to be sure that if the rope could be held the pole would not fall.

“I’ve got to hold that rope!” thought Bunny.  Then, like the brave little fellow he was, he reached forward, and grasped the rope with both hands.  He knew he could not hold it from slipping that way, however, so he wound the rope around his waist as he had seen his father’s sailors do when pulling in a heavy boat.  With the rope around his waist, brave Bunny found himself being pulled forward as the pole swayed over more and more, with the bear on it.

CHAPTER XXIII

BEN DOES A TRICK

“Look out!”

“Run, everybody!”

“Somebody help that little boy hold up the pole!  He’s doing it all alone!”

“Oh, Bunny!  Bunny Brown!  You’ll be hurt!”

It was Bunny’s mother who called this last.  It was some of the farmers in the circus tent who had shouted before that, not seeming to know what to do.  Daddy Brown and grandpa were hurrying from the other side of the tent to help Bunny hold the rope.

The pole was slowly falling, the tent seemed as if it would come down, and the Italian was calling to his bear.  As for the bear, he seemed to think that he ought to climb higher up on the pole.  He did not seem to mind the fall he was going to get.

Bunny Brown, small as he was, knew what he was doing.  He had seen that the rope, which help up the pole, ran around a little wooden wheel, called a pulley.  If he could stop the rope from running all the way through the pulley, the pole would not fall down, and the tent would stay up.

“And if I keep the rope tight around my waist, the end of it can’t get over the pulley wheel,” thought Bunny.  He had often seen sailors do this with his father’s boats, when they slid down the steep beach into the ocean.

And then, all of a sudden, Bunny found himself jerked from his feet.  He struck against the bottom of the tent pole, and his side hurt him a little, but he still held to the rope about his waist.

“The pole has stopped falling!  The pole has stopped falling!” some one cried.

“Yes, and Bunny stopped it!” said Sue.  “Oh, Bunny, are you hurted?”