CHAPTER VIII THE DISAPPEARING ACT

The Chief’s announcement that an escaped convict was in their neighborhood fell like a bombshell in the midst of the campers assembled at lunch.

“All boys are forbidden to go out of sight of camp, unless a councilor is along,” he ended. “We must take precautions until this dangerous man is captured. Now, to-night we will assemble here in the lodge, for Stunt Night. Every tent-group will be expected to have an act or other stunt prepared, and prizes will go to the winners. Dismissed!”

The groups scattered from the mess-hall to their respective tents to pass the daily siesta hour which was set aside as a period of rest and quiet from the brisk, noisy turmoil of the camp’s activity. Mr. Jim Avery cocked his long legs up on the end of his bunk in Tent Ten. “We have the whole afternoon to get ready,” he observed to his followers. “That should give us plenty of time to work up a first-class stunt that will bring home the prize. Anybody got any ideas?”
76

Wild Willie Sanders spoke up. “We’ve got an edge on the other tents, haven’t we? Here we are with Chink Towner, the most famous Mandarin Magician in captivity. Say, I’ll bet we can put over a magic show that will knock the rest of the tents silly!”

“How about it, Chink?”

“Sure, that’s right,” Chink Towner agreed modestly. “We could do it, all right. I’ve got a lot of new tricks up my sleeve that nobody ever saw before. The best one, though, needs to have Jerry Utway, and that means we’d have to take Tent Eight into partnership with us.”

“That can be arranged, I think,” said Mr. Avery. “I’ll speak to Dr. Cannon about it. He knows it’s next to impossible to separate the twins. And with fourteen campers on the job, it ought to be some show. Well, what’s your trick?”

“Yes, what is it?” asked the Utway twins together.
77

“Well, it’s this way,” began the Mandarin Magician; “Wild Willie can announce a big display of old Chinese hocus-pocus. We fix up a place on the stage where I sit, and a crowd of you guys come around and want to see some tricks. Then Fat Crampton comes along, and then I do a few easy ones, just to show my stuff, and then——” He lowered his voice as his comrades gathered about to hear the plan. Lefkowitz was sent over to Tent Eight to bring in the other participants, who listened and agreed to the scheme for a combined stunt that would make a most amusing addition to the vaudeville program that night. As soon as Recall sounded, the two groups of actors made for the Council Ring, where they rehearsed excitedly most of the afternoon.

Sherlock Jones did not join in the preparations for Stunt Night. He retired alone to the dark-room, where he stared at a photograph and pondered plans of his own. The announcement that a reward had been offered for the capture of the escaped criminal had set his mind working furiously on the problem of the Tattooed Arm. Indeed, the Chief’s startling news was a leading topic of conversation in Lenape that afternoon; but when supper-time brought no further information, the subject was temporarily forgotten in anticipation of the evening’s entertainment.
78

No sooner had the dessert dishes been cleared away than the space in front of the blackened fireplace was transformed into a stage. Benches were ranged in rows for the seating of the camper audience, and a makeshift curtain of bed-sheets strung on a wire was hung across that end of the lodge. Darkness had just fallen when a boisterous crowd of leaders and boys took their seats, awaiting the drawing of the curtain on the opening act, announced by Sax McNulty, master of ceremonies, as “Captain Colby’s Army,” a Tent Fifteen Feature Production.

Joey Fellowes, who with his brother Ted made up the Lenape bugle corps, sounded Reveille on his muted instrument. The curtains parted to reveal a morning scene in Tent Fifteen. A great fuss was made by Ollie Steffins, dressed in a scout uniform with many medals and much gold braid, who in the person of Mr. Colby himself, went about getting the snoring sleepers to waken for morning drill. The drowsy boys were finally put on their feet and each armed with a broom-stick gun, with which they went through a series of clumsy maneuvers, knocking each other over the head, facing the wrong way, and otherwise tangling themselves in a travesty of a squad of rookies at drill. The concluding evolution brought them into line facing the audience, singing off key their rallying song:
79

“We are Mr. Colby’s army,

Mr. Colby’s army we,

We cannot shoot, we won’t salute,

What earthly good are we?”

The curtains closed amid cheers, boos, and stamping of feet, during which Mr. Colby sat with a self-conscious smile on his disciplinarian’s face.

The acts followed swiftly after that. Tent Twelve put on a pirate play, Tent Three showed to advantage in a lady-like game of basketball, in which each side begged the other to kindly accept the ball on pain of being slapped on the wrist. Tent Four gave a ventriloquist act, with Peanut Westover as the talking dummy.
80

“The Mysterious Mandarin Magician,” with an all-star cast from Tents Eight and Ten, was the next to the last number on the evening’s program. At the parting of the curtain, Wild Willie Sanders in a high, battered black silk hat, wearing the curling mustache of a circus ringmaster, pointed out the main attraction to a gaping crowd of boys from the participating tents, dressed in wild garbs of every description. “Laydeez and gen-tul-men! The one and only Chinese magician, brought at great expense from the Flowery Kingdom to mystify you to-night!” Chink Towner, his naturally oriental cast of countenance exaggerated by a line of grease-paint above each slanting eye, and dressed in a pair of colorful silk pajamas borrowed from Councilor Lane, sat cross-legged above the crowd on a blanket-draped table, his features masked in Chinese calm. “Step right up, laydeez and gen-tul-men, and see the one and only!”

Fat Crampton, tittering sweetly, walked by, dressed as a beautiful damsel in a skirt fashioned from Howard Chisel’s spare kitchen apron. The Mysterious Mandarin descended from his throne and expertly drew half-dollars from the hat, sleeve, and nose of the “lady.” He then gave an exhibition of sleight-of-hand, at which he was an adept of no mean skill—making a collection of red balls appear and disappear between his nimble fingers, shaking a flying pack of cards from his fan, collecting the cards in a neat pile and drawing forth at one flip the card desired by any of the nondescript crowd about him.
81

When he returned to his elevated throne once more, Wild Willie announced that the Mandarin would now display the powers of his X-ray eye. Chink turned his back to the audience, and Happy Face Frayne, one of the judges who would later award the prizes for the best performance of the night, adjusted a bandage over the magician’s eyes to make sure there was no deception. Jake Utway now walked out into the ranks of the audience, and touched a sweater worn by one of the listeners.

“What is the color of the object I am touching, Mandarin?” he called out.

“Blue,” answered the blindfolded Chink promptly.

“Correct. Now what color am I touching?” Jake held up Soapy Mullins’ neckerchief.

“Orange.”

“And now?”

“White.”

“Correct,” answered Jake, putting Slim Yerkes’ sailor hat back on the astonished boy’s head. All about him were faces wonder-stricken at the accuracy of the magician’s responses. Jake, however, was not astonished, for he was in on the secret. The series of colors had been arranged with Chink ahead of time, and all Jake had to do was to find and point to an object of the required hue. “And now, what is the color of the thing I’m pointing at?” He held a finger to his damaged left eye.

“Rainbow!”
82

A hearty laugh arose, for Jake’s “shiner” had indeed developed the color of a sunset, and was by now one of the sights of the camp.

“Here—I bet you my life I can do that, too!” broke in Spaghetti Megaro of Tent Eight, now assuming his role in the show.

“All right,” agreed Jake, returning to the stage.

From his capacious bathrobe, Spaghetti drew forth a spreading assortment of vegetables. “Now, Mandarin,” he said loudly, “I’m going to see if you cheat me, huh? Tell me quick—what color is this spinach?”

“Green.”

“Well, what color is this lemon?”

“Yellow.”

“Right again. Now, I ask you, what color is this orange?” The Italian boy held the fruit high in the air.

“Orange.”

“Plenty smart, all right.” Spaghetti shook his head and began eating the orange. “No can foola da majish’!”

This bit of comedy was greeted with high amusement by the audience. Again Wild Willie stepped forward.
83

“Laydeez and gen-tul-men, the Mysterious Magician will end his exhibition with a death-defying display of his great powers. Never before has this breath-taking miracle been performed on any stage! The Mandarin will make a person vanish, and then make him appear again somewhere else!”

These words were Jake’s cue to move again. He glanced quickly overhead, and made sure that Jerry was in his place, ready for the disappearing act that would give a climax to their stunts. He was rewarded by a nod from Jerry, who sat perched on the rafters high above the floor of the lodge and the rows of watchers in the camp audience. This was Chink’s great idea—a disappearing act in which the twins would take part. Jake, dressed in his camp uniform, would be selected from the crowd to enter a large packing-box on the stage, and at Chink’s command, a flashlight would be thrown aloft, and Jerry dressed in a like costume, would swing down from his high position and drop to the stage and there, his hidden twin’s exact counterpart, would receive the applause due to this miraculous reappearance.

“Who wishes to disappear into thin air, laydeez and gen-tul-men?” cried out Wild Willie.
84

A chorus of voices rose on the stage, Jake’s among them. “I do!” “Me!” “No, take me!”

“You’ll do.” Wild Willie, according to plan, pointed out Jake, who stepped forward. “You will now enter this large chest. No deception, folks!” The boy in the high silk hat lifted the box to show that there were no false bottoms or secret exits. “That’s right! Pretty soon you’ll disappear, and come back from somewhere else. Now, step inside, and you”—he pointed to Fat Crampton—“you sit on the lid. All set, Mandarin!”

Chink again descended to the level of the stage, his blindfold now removed. Calmly and impressively he took his hands from his sleeves.

“Heap hard trick!” the magician grunted. “Make ’um white boy no-see, plitty soon come-see some place else, velly smart!” He waved his arms over the box, upon which Fat Crampton sat. “Hocus-pocus. Come high!”

The audience was bent forward in silence. Jake, crouched within the narrow darkness of the box, pictured to himself the scene outside. At the magic words, a flashlight would shoot upward toward the rafters where Jerry had taken his station, and Jerry would drop to the stage and finish the act amid the plaudits of the crowd.
85

“Hocus-pocus. Come high!” repeated Chink, in a nervous tone. Jake wished he could see out of his tight prison, and wondered at the delay. Titters came from the smaller boys in the front of the audience. Why didn’t Jerry come down?

“Come high!” Chink sounded disgruntled. “Maybe so white boy no come, no can fly out. That’s all—goo’-bye!”

The rings of the curtain rattled as they were drawn together to cut off the scene. The big act had failed. There was a half-hearted clapping from the audience, who of course did not see any point in the sudden ending of the act. With such an anti-climax, the Magician sketch could scarcely hope to win a prize.

Jake squirmed in a frantic effort to get out of the box. “Get up, Fat!” he called urgently, and felt the heavy boy’s weight removed from the lid. Jake sprang out like a Jack-in-the box, alive with eagerness to see why their carefully-laid scheme had fallen through. He met a disgusted look from the grease-painted face of the Mysterious Mandarin.

“Fine brother you’ve got!” muttered Chink. “I thought he was going to be all ready up there when the time came!”
86

“But—but he was!” stammered Jake. “I—I saw him up there just a minute ago!”

“Well, he’s not there now,” Chink growled, turning away. Jake cast his eyes aloft.

The beam of a flashlight still slanted upward toward the raftered corner under the roof. But Jerry Utway was nowhere in sight!