Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/188

 Frequently in these States the large cities were a long distance apart, so sometimes the circus people only showed every other day. They found the people of the South, both white and black, a pleasureloving folk, and easy to please. It was quite different from what it had been years before in the South, when the rowdyish element of the city would band together to break up the show. Freckles never tired of listening to Big Bill's tales of wild fights with southern gun-men. When the rowdies had fairly started a fight, the brawny canvas-men would pull up the stakes with iron rings in the end and charge them, striking to kill. Many a man was buried in the place where the three great rings had been, and the circus went on its way, telling no tales and asking no questions. If their own men were killed, they said nothing. If they had to kill their assailants, they were equally reticent.

So, by slow degrees, they worked their way up to the north. At New York they