It was at this juncture that Adam Forepaugh lost, in a great measure, the respect and admiration of the cowboy fraternity, and proved, as I have observed, that noble emotions and lofty ideals cannot always rise supreme in the circus business. The cowboys, with many strange oaths and threats, presented their damning narrative, confident that the hour of retribution was at hand and that the owner of the show would express sympathy and gratitude for the disclosure. Wagner, they thought, would be clubbed off the lot. Mr. Forepaugh listened intently to the story of the imposition. He, too, I know, had been as thoroughly deceived as the rest of us, but he wasn’t willing the show should suffer. “What do I care,” he remarked quickly, and the expectant faces of the cowboys blanched, “whether the fellow’s a fakir or not? He looks the part better than any of you, he’s got a wooden leg to confirm it, he’s the finest liar under the tent and he’s made a big hit. He stays with the troupe.” “Sergeant” Wagner continued as hero, guide, and scout until the season’s close, when he disappeared and the Wild West department heard of him no more. The memory of his dare-devil appearance, long golden locks floating in the wind, wide sombrero, buckskin breeches and protruding guns will not be effaced for many years. * * * * * The gnawing fear of attachments is never absent from the circus owner’s mind, and with all his mental wealth of resource, acquired by hard experience, he cannot always escape imposition. The sheriff becomes an object of hate and dread. His appearance with a levy, the showman knows, is a portend of extortion. So it is that sometimes he submits to injustice rather than bring about a conflict with the law. Unscrupulous people appreciate this, with its fine opportunity for blackmail, but sometimes the instigator comes as a shock and a surprise to the circus owner and helps to shake his faith in the general honest impulses accredited to human nature. We were playing the Ohio towns. Business was big, weather fine and everybody was happy. One day a negro preacher, hat in hand and apologetic in manner, approached the owner and explained a grievance. His church edifice, eight miles outside the town, had been posted with our glaring show bills, the congregation was angry and mortified and threatening to go over in a body to another parish, and the church receipts had fallen to nothing. One hundred dollars would set things right. A lawyer who fingered a bunch of legal papers ominously was with the outraged clergyman. The circus compromised for fifty dollars and got a release.