Charlie whistled.
"I had no idea you were so rich," he said. "Why, I haven't got five dollars."
"You might have. You are paid enough."
"Oh, it goes some way. I guess I'll begin to save, too."
"I wish you would. Then if you want to leave the circus at the end of the season we'll go somewhere together, and look for a different kind of work. We can take a room together in Boston or New York, eat at the restaurants, and look for something."
"I don't know but I should like going to New York," said Charlie.
By this time they had reached the edge of the woods, and were probably a mile or more from the town. There was no underbrush, but the trees rose clear and erect, and presented a cool and pleasant prospect to the boys, who had become warm with walking. So far as they knew, they were alone, but in this they were mistaken. Mr. Tarbox had some wood-land near by, and he had gone out to look at it, when, alike to his surprise and gratification, his eyes rested on the two boys, whom he at once recognized as belonging to the circus, having seen them ride the evening before. He didn't care particularly for Charlie Davis, but Robert Rudd had been with Anak when he inflicted upon him so mortifying personal chastisement, and he looked upon the boy as an accomplice of the man.
"That's the very boy I wanted to see," said Tarbox to himself, with a cruel smile. "I can't manage that overgrown brute, but I can manage him. I'll give the boy a lesson, and that'll be better than nothing."
Tarbox was naturally a tyrant and a bully, and, like most men of his character, was delighted when he could get hold of a person of inferior strength.