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About this time Billy Worth made his appearance again at headquarters, for he had been scurrying around taking a look at the various attractions, from the building devoted to women’s home work, to the fat hogs and the fancy fowls.

Possibly Billy had also strayed into the amusement zone, where there were a few concessions allowed to showmen, with various tents in which freaks held forth; for Billy had a weakness in the way of such things. The smart patter of fakirs who had Brazilian diamonds or patent kindling wood for sale interested him, and whenever one of this type of gentry came to town of a Saturday night, to hold forth on some street corner under a blazing gasoline torch, Billy Worth could be counted on to make one of the spellbound audience.

Billy always explained that he was “taking stock of human nature,” and that those glib-tongued spell-binders were worth studying.

He now came up to Hugh with a decided frown visible on his round face. It was an unusual thing for good-natured Billy to appear discontented, or even serious for that matter; so that Hugh immediately asked:

“What ails you, Billy? Something gone wrong, or are you bothering because supper time is so far off?”

“Oh, gee! it isn’t anything that concerns me, Hugh,” the other replied.

“Then has anything happened to one of our crowd?” continued the scout master, a little vein of anxiety in his tone.

“Hugh, I’m only bothered about a boy I happened to run across,” explained Billy, evidently determined to make a clean breast of it, and take Hugh into his confidence.

“What sort of boy do you mean, and what has he been doing?”

“Why, you see he seems to be connected with one of those fakirs they’ve allowed to sell their wares in the grounds. This chap is a slick-looking article with the blackest eyes you ever saw, and such a queer light in them, too. Every time I felt them fixed on me it gave me the most awful feeling I ever knew. He saw me talking with Cale and must have guessed that he was starting to tell me how he wanted to break away from the fakir, but just couldn’t do it nohow. All at once Cale broke off in what he was saying, his voice drawled as if he was going to sleep, and would you believe it, he just turned his back on me and walked straight up to that fellow, who spoke to him fiercely in a low tone.”

“That sounds interesting, anyway, Billy,” remarked Hugh.

“I tell you,” asserted Billy, with sudden vigor in his voice, “that sneaky fakir has got some unnatural influence over that boy, so as to make him do whatever he wants. I don’t know much about it, but Hugh I honestly believe he’s hypnotized Cale!”

CHAPTER IV.
THE FAKIR AND HIS DUPE.

Hugh Hardin elevated his eyebrows at hearing Billy say this.

“I don’t take very much stock in anything of that sort, Billy,” he went on to remark, “though of course I know that one strong mind can gain more or less control over a weaker one, so as to make the other obey his will. But hypnotism is going further than that.”

“Well,” returned Billy, “you just wander around that way with me as if we wanted to look the freaks over, or listen to the patter of the fakirs who’re selling patent medicine and such things to the crowd, as well as telling them funny stories to keep them in good humor.”

“I’ll take you up on that in a minute,” said the scout master, “when Alec Sands comes along, for I see him heading this way right now. I can leave the camp in his charge, you know, while we walk around for a change.”

“But Hugh, be careful not to stare at that man too hard,” urged Billy. “Gee! but he has got the most piercing black eyes you ever saw in your life. They seem to go right through you, and cause a shiver as if somebody had doused a bucket of ice-water all over you.”

Hugh laughed at the vivid description given, and then said:

“If there is such a thing as being hypnotized, Billy, you’re in a fair way to find yourself obeying the superior will of that owner of the piercing black eyes, and keeping poor Cale company. How did you happen to run across the boy?”

“Oh! I couldn’t help noticing how he seemed to be under the thumb of that man,” Billy explained. “You see, he’s useful to the fakir as a stool pigeon. When sales get slack it’s the business of the boy to hold up a dollar bill, and ask for a bottle of the wonderful remedy, and say it cured his grandmother of every ailment under the sun. Then he goes away, and gets rid of the bottle, to bob up again later on, watching for his cue to break in again with a purchase.”

“That’s the game, is it, as old as the hills; and yet I suppose the rubes never catch on to it,” remarked Hugh. “I’m surprised at the management of this Fair allowing such frauds to exhibit here, and sell their stuff.”

“Oh! they’re mad about it already, but you see they went and made contracts so they have to stick it out; but the like will never happen at Oakvale again, I’m telling you.”

“But tell me about the boy Cale,” urged Hugh.

“Why, I guess he was attracted by my khaki suit, for we got to chatting over on one side of the moving crowd. He told me his name was Cale, but nothing more than that. He acted so queer that I began to take notice, because, you see, I like to study human nature.”

“Yes, we all know that, Billy; but go on, please.”

“He would look in the direction of that man on the soap box every minute or so while I was explaining some of the things scouts enjoy, for he had asked me to tell him about that. Every time he would give a start, and draw a long breath. I saw something ailed him, and after a while I asked him plainly what made him go around to fairs and harvest homes with a fakir like that? He turned as white as anything, and looked at me as if it was on the tip of his tongue to say that he’d gone and hitched up with the man, and couldn’t break away. Then it happened, Hugh.”

“You mean he felt the influence of those black eyes, and suddenly left you without an explanation?” demanded the scout master.

“All he muttered as he moved away was something that sounded to me like this: ‘Wisht I could tell you, but I just can’t; he won’t let me; I have to do what he wants me to. If you could only break——’ and that was all I caught, for he had gone.”

Hugh rubbed his chin reflectively.

“There may be more about this than appears on the surface,” he told Billy, much to the gratification of that worthy. “Perhaps it may pay us to take an interest in this Cale. There are lots of ways in which other fellows can be helped, and if he’s held tight in the clutches of a bad man, the sooner we get some people interested in him the better.”

“Bully for you, Hugh; I’m tickled to have you say that. But here’s Alec, so now suppose you browse around a little with me while he stands guard at the camp.”

The leader of the Otters was only too pleased to be given this temporary responsibility, and so the others sauntered off.

They did not head directly toward the amusement zone, for that might excite the suspicion of the fakir, did he happen to see them making for his stand. By degrees, however, the two scouts approached the spot, apparently interested in the pratter of the spell-binders in front of the several tents containing freaks and curiosities.

Although the races were going on, and crowds had gathered to witness the horses