your trail."

"Have you heard from him?"

"No, and that's what makes me all the more suspicious. If he'd come
out and fight me in the open it wouldn't be so bad. But this
underhand business gets on my nerves. I don't know what he's up to."

"Maybe he isn't up to anything," suggested Ned. "He may not even
know you are going to make another try for the giants."

"Oh, yes, he does," replied the circus man. "He didn't succeed in
beating me when poor Jake was after them, for the simple reason that
it was a snap case, and even I didn't know that Poddington was
trying for the giants until he had started. But Waydell was soon
after him, and he knows that when I once set out for a freak or a
certain kind of animal I keep on until I get it. So he has probably
already figured out that I'm making new plans to get a giant."

"But how will he know that I am going?" inquired Tom.

"I don't know how he will know, but he will. We circus men have
queer ways of finding out things. I shouldn't be a bit surprised but
what he was already plotting and scheming to send an expedition on
my trail, to take advantage of anything you may learn."

"Well, we'll try and fool him, the same as we did the Mexicans when
we hunted for the city of gold," spoke Tom; and then putting aside
that worry, he and the others labored hard to get matters in shape
for a departure to South America.