Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/158

 and in a very bad wreck or fire small circuses often go bankrupt.

Freckles had heard little about train wrecks up to the time of the wreck at Cedar Bend. This will go down in history as the worst wreck in the annals of circus people. These people rarely speak of their dangers, but bluff them away with smiling faces. Many of the trapeze men and tumblers look death in the face each day, but they soon learn to cover up their fear and smile at danger.

Freckles had always felt as safe upon the train as he did off. He could sleep as well to the sound of rattling car-wheels and clicking rails, as he could to the night sounds in the country.

So the great wreck at Cedar Bend, to his boyish mind, came out of a clear sky. It might not have occurred, had not the American railroads been handling a very heavy consignment of United States troops.

It was during the first year that we were