"What's the matter, my friend?" inquired Anak, addressing the driver of the team.

The latter stared in amazement at the gigantic querist, but his trouble overcame his surprise, and he answered, "You can see for yourself. My wagon's mired and my horse is too lazy to draw it out."

"Indeed the poor beast is unable," said Anak.

"He can do it if he wants to," said the driver, angrily. "I'll see if I can't persuade him," and he flourished a whip in a menacing manner.

"Hold there!" said Anak. "We'll see if we can't help him."

So saying he went round to the back of the wagon, and, seizing it in his powerful hands, cried, "Now start your horse!"

The driver did so, and, with Anak's powerful help, the horse had small difficulty in extricating the wagon from the mire.

"There, that's better than beating your horse," said Anak, stepping once more to the side of the road.

"You're powerful strong, sir," said the teamster, respectfully, surveying the colossal proportions of Anak.

"I ought to be, oughtn't I?" returned Anak.

"Excuse me, sir, but do you belong to the circus?"

"Yes, you'll find me there if you take the trouble to visit it."

"Are you the Norwegian giant?"

"That's what they call me," answered Anak, smiling.

"Well, at any rate, I'm obliged to you for helping me."

"And so is the horse, I'm thinking."

"Yes; you are as strong as a horse yourself," said the teamster, admiringly.

"That is convenient sometimes, my friend."

The teamster drove on, and Anak and Robert also continued their walk.

"The manager doesn't like to have me show myself for nothing," said Anak, "but I can't stay under canvas all day to oblige him. My health requires me to walk out in the open air."

"Does it require you to walk so fast, Anak?"

"Excuse me, Robert; I'm always forgetting."

"The manager has less trouble in keeping Madame Leonora in," said Robert.

"That's true; she's too fat to walk much. She weighs more than I do, though she's two feet shorter."

They had drawn out of the village, and got into the comparatively open country among the farms. They were talking of one subject and another, when suddenly their attention was drawn to a small boy who was running towards them in terror and dismay.

"What's the matter?" asked Robert, his sympathy quickly aroused; "are you hurt?"

"No," answered the boy, slackening his speed, "but Mr. Tarbox is going to whip Jimmy."

"And who is Jimmy?"

"Jimmy's my brother."

"And what have you been doing?"

"We were only cutting across his lot, when he came out and chased us, swearin' awful. I got away, but he's got poor Jimmy, and he's going to horsewhip him," and the poor boy burst into terrified tears.

Robert afterwards learned that this Tarbox was a rough, tyrannical old farmer, noted for his bad temper, who appeared to cherish a special antipathy to boys. There was a footpath around his field, which considerably lessened the distance to the main road for some of his neighbors, but in the ugliness of his disposition he forbade it to be used. Men he did not venture to attack, but woe betide the boy who ventured to enter his enclosure.

"Where is this Tarbox and your brother?" asked Anak.

The boy pointed to a house and lot a little farther on.

"We wouldn't have gone across-lots," he explained, "but mother was taken sick, and we got frightened and wanted to call the doctor as soon as we could, and we thought we might do it for once."

"Did you tell this man Tarbox the reason you went across his field?" asked Anak.

"Yes, but he said it was no excuse, and I am afraid he'll kill poor Jimmy."

The little boy fell to weeping again.

"There they are!" said Robert.

In a field, just off the road, was a strong, brutal-looking man deliberately engaged in tying a boy of twelve to a tree. The whip in his hand showed what he intended to do afterwards. He might indeed have dispensed with tying the boy, for he was quite unable to escape, but he did it on the same principle that a cat plays with a mouse, to increase the terror of the poor victim.

His back was turned, so that he did not see the approach of Anak and the two boys.

This was what the new-comer heard as they approached:

"Oh, please don't whip me, Mr. Tarbox," pleaded the poor boy, in an agony of apprehension.

"Then why did you come across my lot, you little rascal?"

"I was in a hurry to call the doctor, because mother was sick. Indeed that was the only reason."

"I've got nothing to do with your sick mother," said Tarbox. "That was no reason for coming across my field."

"I didn't hurt anything, sir; I just walked along the path."

"I'll larn you not to try it again, Jim Benton; I'm goin' to give you as good a floggin' as ever you had. You can just tell the other boys how it feels and mebbe they'll want to try it."

"Oh, please don't whip me! I ought to be goin' for a doctor. My mother may die."

"She can die for all I care," said the brutal Tarbox. "Now I've got you tied, and I'm goin' to give your jacket a good warmin'."

He raised the whip and was about to bring it down upon the shrinking limbs of the poor boy, when he was startled by a deep, stern voice only a rod behind him, "Don't touch that boy!"

Tarbox looked back and saw Anak striding towards him. He had not seen him before, but he knew who he was, for he had seen the posters of the circus. Though rather startled, he was not disposed to yield his victim easily.

"Get out of my field!" he snarled; "you're trespassin'."

"I can't help it," said Anak; "I'm not going to see a brute like you whip a poor child while I am here to defend him."

"You ain't, hey?" snarled Tarbox. "I've got the law on my side, and I'm goin' to do it. Just you clear out, you two, or I'll have the law on you."

He raised the whip, but did not get a chance to use it. Anak reached him in one stride, snatched the whip from his hand and flung it into the road; then, grasping the stalwart farmer by the collar, shook him till his teeth chattered, with as much ease as Tarbox himself would have handled the twelve-year-old boy.

"Perhaps you'll change your opinion now?" he said.

Tarbox was astonished and cowed. There wasn't a man in town that could cope with him, yet he was but a child in the hands of the Norwegian giant.

"I'll have the law of you!" he shrieked in furious anger.

"So you may, but first you've got to untie that boy."

"I won't!"

"You won't, hey?"

Again Anak seized him, and shook him vigorously in spite of his struggles.

When he let him go, Tarbox, with an evil look, called, "Here, Bruiser! come here, sir."

A large, wicked-looking bull-dog bounded over a stone wall, and rushed forward evidently bent on mischief.

"Sik him!" he exclaimed, pointing to Anak.

"Is your dog's life insured?" asked Anak, calmly.

He waited till the dog was within a foot or two, aiming to attack his leg; then he raised one of his powerful feet, aimed a tremendous kick at Bruiser, and the dog was stretched senseless at his feet.

"It's your own fault," said Anak, turning to the farmer; "your dog is probably dead. Now, untie that boy."

Tarbox by this time seemed thoroughly frightened. With dark, sullen looks he obeyed the giant, and Jimmy, overjoyed to recover his freedom, stretched his arms and legs.

"Now, go for the doctor as fast as you please," said Anak.

The two brothers quickly started on their errand, and Anak, turning to Tarbox, said, "You miserable brute, if I ever hear of your attempting to abuse a poor boy again, I'll travel five hundred miles if necessary to kick you as I have kicked your dog. Go back to your house or I may do it now."

Tarbox needed no second order. He was rather afraid that he too might feel the weight of the giant's boot, and he hurried away. Safe in his own yard, he shouted, "I'll have you punished for this, you big rascal!"

Anak only laughed.

"We may as well be going back, Robert," he said; "I don't want to get into any more fights."