At the end of the tent was a long board, which sprang up and down like a teeter tauter.  It was called a spring-board, and some of the boys had made their jumps from it, turning somersaults in the air, and falling down in a pile of soft hay.

Ben asked some of the boys to stand in a line at the end of the spring board.

“I’ll just pretend these boys are elephants and camels,” said Ben, “as it’s hard to get real camels and elephants this summer.  But I will now make my big jump.”

Ben went to the far end of the spring board.  He gave a run down it, and then jumped off the springy end.  Up in the air he went, and, as he shot forward, over the heads of the boys standing in a line, Ben turned first one, then two, and then three somersaults in the air.

“Oh, look at that!”

“Say, that’s great!”

“How did he do it?”

“He must be a regular circus performer!”

“Do it again!  Do it again!”

Everyone was shouting at once, it seemed.  Ben landed on a pile of soft hay.  He stood up, made a low bow, and kissed his hand to the audience, as performers do in the circus.

A strange man, who had come into the circus a little while before, started toward Ben Hall.  Ben stood there bowing and smiling until he saw this man.

“Come here a minute, Ben.  I want to talk to you,” said the man.

But Ben, after one look at the stranger, gave a jump, crawled under the tent and ran away, all dressed as he was in the clown suit.

“Why—­why!  What did he do that for?” asked Bunny Brown, very much surprised.

CHAPTER XXIV

BEN’S SECRET

Everyone was looking at the place where Ben Hall had slid out under the edge of the tent and run away.  Why he had done it no one knew.

Then all eyes were turned toward the strange man who had come into the tent just in time to see Ben’s big jump, and his three somersaults.  The man was a stranger.  No one seemed to know him.

This man stood for a moment, also looking at the place where Ben had slipped under the tent.  Then he cried out: 

“Well, he’s got away again!  I must catch him!”

Then the man ran out of the tent.

“What is it all about?” asked Mother Brown.  “Is this a part of the circus, Bunny?”

But Bunny did not know; neither did his sister Sue.  They were as much surprised as anyone at Ben’s strange act.  And they did not know who the man was, at the sight of whom Ben had seemed so frightened.

“I’ll see what it’s about,” said Grandpa Brown.

He hurried out of the tent, but soon came back again.

“Ben isn’t in sight,” Grandpa Brown said, “and that queer man is running across the fields.”

“Is he chasing after Ben?” asked Bunny.

“Well, he may be.  But if I can’t see Ben, I don’t see how the man can, either.  I don’t know what it all means.”