The giant stood up and made an elaborate bow, drawing his immense height erect. He was fully eight feet tall, and extended an arm almost as large as Joan’s body. Epworth weighed 160 pounds, and mentally compared his weight with the appearance of the giant. He was willing to wager that the giant would weigh 350 pounds, and that there was not an ounce of surplus fat about the man’s red-haired body. He thought of red hair all over the man because the giant’s shirt was open at the throat and a huge mat of red hair was visible. In addition to this he had a mass of tousled red hair on his head and a long red beard, which came almost to his waist. He was, in fact, a Man Mountain Dean, beard and all.
He smiled at Epworth and Joan, and they thought of horse teeth, and the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac.
As Joan stepped in front of him he leaned forward, and gave her a hard stare out of his small, twinkling pale blue eyes. At first there was a slight pucker of puzzlement around his big mouth. Then he spoke in good English in a small shrill voice. His voice was so small and sharp that it was all Joan could do to keep from laughing. Epworth saw that she was about to smile, and punched her lightly in the side, shaking his head vigorously in the negative.
“It will never do to laugh at him,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Our lives are in his hands.”
“Ah, ha! The beautiful Miss Joan Epworth, flying sister of the noted air man, Julian Epworth,” the giant exclaimed. “I think that she walks like a fly into our trap.”
He opened a drawer in the mahogany table and pulled out a Los Angeles magazine. Opening the magazine at a certain page he whirled the sheet around so that she could see. Then he stared at her again. Joan shrank back from that stare. There was something dangerous about it that she could not understand.
But she understood the picture in the magazine. It was her own picture.
“My lady,” continued the giant with distinguished courtesy of speech but with a sarcastic stare in his eyes, “that magazine is a year old. I have been keeping it for a purpose. I planned in the near future to visit Los Angeles with one of my fastest airships, and kidnap you. That picture told me that you were a very charming and fascinating young lady. Now that I see you I realize that the magazine did not tell half of the truth.”
“Just what do you mean by that speech?” Epworth demanded sharply. “I will have you to understand this girl is my sister, and is not to be hurt or insulted.”
“I am not going to hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt her for a million dollars. All I am going to do is to make her my wife. We are a little short of women up here in the colony, and I have known for a year that she would fit in admirably.”