Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/49

 "‘Not anything with equators in it,' I groaned, as the head sheik fell on our necks and joyously proclaimed he had had seven we-never-sleep sleuths trailing us for a month. 'I'm a quitter unless it's mild,' I insisted.

"In response, the main-spring patted me lovingly on the back and led us to a big map and asked us to guess. I held my hat over Patagonia, for two years before Tib and I had visited that joint and with fly-paper had tried to catch a few of the rollicking sprites who longed to eat Magellan and the other early press-agents. They had proven great sprinters and had caught us before we covered the first quarter, and it was only with painful memories and a broken collar-bone we had torn ourselves away and gained the coast.

"‘Something with blondes in it,' I begged, for I saw Tib's eyes sparkling as he cocked his head in the old way and benevolently studied the chart.

"Our would-be employer in soothing tones reminded how we had distanced all other collectors in picking up circus truck. He showed us ten-foot posters of our cannibals and sacred goats and lion-faced boys; and with this gentle lead began to spring the trap. To cut it short, the circus wanted giants.

"To sustain his statement he produced cablegrams and terse letters written in red ink in which