CHAPTER V
GEORGY, THE GIANT
Victor Collins had not yet arrived at an age when a circus loses its power to thrill the heart with joy. Each gilded chariot, each gaudy menagerie wagon or gorgeous trapping still awoke within his breast a responsive chord.
“They’re driving in stakes, Brandon,” he exclaimed. “See—there’s a wagon—a four-horser, and lots of others back. We’re just in time to watch ’em put up the tent.”
Over on the lot an odor of rank weeds and grasses filled the air. It was all very black and forbidding, unpleasantly suggestive of treacherous pitfalls or deep, stagnant pools of water, save where the rays of flaring light streamed through the gloom.
Heavy wagons drawn by four horses rumbled their way across the bumpy, uneven field, occasionally becoming stuck in the yielding turf, whereupon the yells of drivers and cracking of whips came sharply to their ears.
“Working like the dickens, aren’t they?” remarked Victor. “Let’s skip around a bit.”
The two, steering a course around various obstructions, made their way toward the busy scene. Soon they caught a glimpse of a faint grayish mass of canvas spread out over the ground, while towering aloft like the masts of a ship were a number of poles.
“That’s the big top, or main tent,” said Dave.
“Heads up there—look out!”
Above the sound of the jolting and creaking of a big red wagon and crisp jingle of harness came the deep-throated warning. The leaders of a four-horse team swerved sharply around.