One evening toward sundown, he met a Kittim traveller on the stony mountain path. The shorter fellow was bright red in face and hair, wore very worn leather britches and could talk the ears off a brass dragon. They shared a fire together, and through the evening Jacque managed to squeeze in about three questions; Parm Potter, as the Kittim insisted he be called, handled the rest of the conversation.

That night, Jacque learned more of local, Kittim and Potter family history than he really cared to know. At one point, however, Parm mentioned a nearby giant.

"Hill trash?" interrupted Jacque.

"Well, some may call him that, but I don't be know. He be rough and he be crude, and he be takin' what you got if he be want it. But he talk and he wear dressed hides and he be know how to cook, though some times he be cook a sheep that be n't his, and rumor be that some times travellers be in his stew pot. But hill trash, oh, I don't be know. He be not like the hill trash giants that live near the village where I be a boy. Them be hill trash! I be remember once time -"

Parm was on a roll. Jacque let him. He would get directions to the giant when the Kittim paused for breath.

"What!?" bellowed a semi-human voice from inside the cave. "What?! Noise!" The slap of bare giant feet echoed off the cave walls as the monster emerged to meet Jacque. It was a smelly thing, if more human that the `hill trash' giant. It rose well over twelve feet high, wore bear hides sewn together with rough cord, had a long sword strapped to its waist like a knife and carried a large rock drawn back as if to throw. There would be no sneaking up on this creature, for it sported two large, warty heads on two stumpy necks. All four eyes spotted Jacque. "What?!" The creature stretched the word.

"Good morning to you, sir." Jacque bowed slightly, never lowering his eyes. "I am a traveller. I have heard that you set a good table. I have come to beg a bit of breakfast." Jacque kept close watch on the hand that held the rock.

"What? You want eat with me?" The monster yelled at Jacque. "No people want eat with me. Dwarves want fight me 'cause what I eat." One head grinned while the other spat. "You want eat with me?" The creature was plainly confused, and yelling seemed the only way it knew to talk.

"If you will have me," answered Jacque. With a phony courage he hoped he could maintain, The Toad walked past the giant and into the cave. "What have you on this morning?"

The giant still seemed confused, but Jacque walked boldly into the cave, so he followed the smaller man. The creature finally said, "You eat with me. Then I eat alone, huh?" One of the heads eyed Jacque and the other laughed.

"Oh, we'll see," said Jacque. He knew now it was escape or get eaten. "You haven't said. What have we for breakfast?"

"Stew!" The giant threw a large bowl of cold, soupy mess into Jacque's hands. There were grease and hairs floating on the surface. Red hairs.

Jacque choked back a gag. "Looks good," he lied and sat on a rock to dine.

The giant grunted and fetched the stew pot in front of himself; he only owned one bowl, but that was better than most of his kind. He grunted again, plunged a hand into the mess and began to feed one of his faces.

It was hard for Jacque to pretend to eat the mess in his bowl. With two heads, the giant was able to chew with one and watch with the other. However, the monster's attention wandered from time to time and Jacque was able to empty the bowl, not down his throat, but into the leather water bag he carried under his cloak. When the bag was full, The Toad threw the bowl to one side.

"Bleh! Filling, but nasty. Is that all you have?"

Both heads stared at him. "You eat and not want?" The giant grabbed another gob of goo from the pot. "Now I eat and you not want, huh?" One head chewed and the other laughed.

"Why don't we both eat? How about if we eat, oh, a pile of roast duck as big as me? And potatoes? And a barrel of wine?"

The giant head that wasn't chewing licked its lips. "Wine?"

"Sure," answered Jacque. He pulled out an ordinary silver penny out of his pocket and held it up for the giant to see. "This coin has magick," he lied. "With it, I can wish for anything I want to eat or drink."

"Wine!" Both huge heads nodded. "Sheep! Dwarves!"

"Sounds great," Jacque lied again. "I'll wish us up a mound of sheep and dwarves."

"Wine!"

"And a barrel or two of wine. First, though, I'm too full to eat anything else. I ate too much of your stew. I need to empty my stomach and get hungry again." With that, Jacque drew the knife from his boot, jabbed it through his cloak, and stuck the blade into the leather bag. The giant's rotten stew gushed out onto the floor of the cave. "Ah," said Jacque, smiling. "That's much better. Now I've got room for some wine!"

Both giant heads grunted. Four giant eyes stared in amazement at the stew spattering onto the ground. With one giant-clumsy movement, the creature snatched out the sword it wore on its belt and thrust the blade into its gut. The giant's stomach emptied onto the stone floor, but since the monster didn't know the trick, he soon lay cold and dead on that same floor.

Jacque threw up. Then he stumbled from the cave into the warm, clean sunlight of the late morning and threw away the punctured leather bag that had been his `stomach.' He was still alive, so he had won. He had saved farmers and miners and assorted Kittim families from having their livestock (and relatives) snatched away by the giant, so he had done good. Since he tricked the giant into killing himself, he hadn't even got hurt. But as he stomped away from the mouth of the foul cave, sick and pale, Jacque didn't feel heroic.