Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/50

 the owner said he hankered only for a dozen high men, who would scare the village nags into the Methodist church when passing on parade. And they must be lofty enough to do this without recourse to high-heeled boots and two-foot shakos.

"‘Of course, if he wants giants,' murmured Tib, and a light not of sea or land gleamed in his brown eyes as he formally agreed to try his dangdest. I knew there was no use in endeavoring to dissuade him, and heedless of the threatening gongs I slouched along in his wake, unwittingly on my way to a dramatic situation that for pure intensity of emotion was to render Friday's dimpled foot-print a merely pretty climax.

"As ill-luck would have it, the manager possessed a slight tip from a Moravian missionary, who had been doing a lecture stunt after a long stop in the edge of the Arctic Circle. Armed with this shadow of a hint, my patron now led the way to Brooklyn and unfortunately landed the lecturer. It required a deep display of heart interest in the flat-faced, stubby fat-eaters back home before our man would veer around and answer indiscriminate questions. Then he opened up and told us of the lost race of Anakim, and Tib murmured in my off-ear, 'There were giants in the earth in those days.'

"The missionary hastened to explain he had never met any of these big people, but half-asserted