p.
What's up?"

"Lots, dad? I'm going after giants this time!"

"Giants, Tom? Are you joking?"

"Not a bit of it, Mr. Swift," answered Mr. Damon. "Bless my check
book! I believe if some one wanted the moon Tom Swift would try to
get it for them."

Then Mr. Swift noticed the stranger present, and was introduced to
the circus man.

"Is it really true, Tom," asked the aged inventor, when the story
had been related, "are you going to have a try for giant land?"

"That's what I am, dad, and I wish you were going along."

"No, Tom, I'm getting too old for that. But I did hope you'd stay
home for a while, and help me work on my gyroscope invention. It is
almost completed."

"I will help you, dad, as soon as I get back with a giant or two.
Who knows? maybe I'll get one myself."

"What would you do with one?" asked Ned with a laugh.

"Have him help Eradicate," answered the young inventor. "Rad is
getting pretty old, and he needs an assistant."

"But are these giants black?" asked Mr. Swift.

"That's a point I don't know," answered the circus man frankly.
"Jake didn't say in his letter. They may be black, white or midway
between. That's what Tom has got to find out for us."

"And I'll do it!" exclaimed our hero. "Now let's see. I suppose the
best plan would be to take a ship right to the Rio de la Plata,
landing say at Buenos Ayres or Montevideo, and then organize an
expedition to strike into the interior."

"Why don't you do just as Mr. Poddington did?" asked Ned, "start
from the Amazon and work south?"

"It would take too long," declared Tom. "We know that the giants are
somewhere in the northern part of Argentina, or in Paraguay or
Uruguay. Or they may be on the other side of the Uruguay river in
Brazil. It's quite a stretch of territory, and we've got to take our
time exploring it. That's why I don't want to waste time working
down from the Amazon. We'll go right to Buenos Ayres, I think."

"That's what I'd do," advised the old circus man. "Now I can give
you some points on what to take, and how to act when you get there.
The South Americans are a queer people--very nice when treated
right, but very bad if not," and then he told some of his
experiences as a circus man in South America, for he had traveled
there.

"I'd go again, if my business didn't keep me here," he concluded,
"for I'd ask nothing better than to hunt for giant land, or try to
rescue poor Jake. But I can't. I'm depending on you, Tom Sw