"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.