Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/216

 swinging sufficiently, the pony would make the spring to a standard or pedestal which was about three feet away. Then he would turn about and make a bow to the audience and make ready for the spring back. Again some one had to set the trapeze swinging until it would swing close enough to the standard for the return jump.

Although the trick was seemingly perfectly safe, and Sir Wilton had made it several hundred times since coming into the circus life, and also in England, yet he misjudged the distance for once and came to grief. No one knew how it happened. Perhaps something in the audience distracted his attention. The only thing they knew was that it happened.

Instead of waiting until the trapeze had swung to the end of its arc, and then springing as it receded, Dapples jumped too quickly, and his fore-leg was caught between the swinging trapeze and the edge of the standard, and broken.