ONE MORE HUNGRY BOY
"We may as well turn on the lights!" Will said. "If any one comes in
here to steal Tommy's necktie," he added with a wink at his chum, "we
want to see what he looks like."
"Why didn't you stay here and watch, then?" demanded Tommy. "Why did
you go off and leave the camp all alone? I heard people moving
around, and I thought it was you."
Will and George sat down on the edge of their cots and laughed.
"Yes, you thought it was me!" Will said directly. "You never heard a
thing! You'd better look and see if the midnight visitors didn't
steal your pajamas. Or they might have taken your pillow."
Tommy threw a shoe at his tormentor and turned on the electric light.
"Now that I'm awake," he said with a sly grin, "I think that I'll get
myself something to eat. Seems to me I'm always hungry."
While the boy rattled among canned goods and candled eggs to see if
they were fit for a four-minute boil, Sandy turned to George.
"What did you find in the mine?" he asked.
"We found that bum detective nosing around. We've got his number now,
all right," the boy went on, "and there's something in the mine that
he wants to find and he doesn't know where to look for it. He isn't
looking for Jimmie and Dick any more than we're looking for a pot of
gold at the end of a rainbow. I don't believe he was ever sent here to
make a search for the missing boys!"
"What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Sandy.
"Poking around in worked-out chambers with a pick!"
"Did he see you?"
"You bet he didn't! Do you think we're going to walk six miles in
from the country in order to dodge the detective, and then let him run
across us in the mine?"
"Yes, but what's he looking for?" insisted Sandy.
"That, me son," George replied with a wink, "is locked in the bosom of
the future! We may be able to find out what he's doing here when we
find out who struck Billy Patterson."
"Don't get gay now!" grinned Sandy.
"Well, if you insist upon it," George continued with a smile, "Ventner
was digging in refuse heaps for something which he didn't find!"
"Did you meet the boys who stole our provisions?" was the next
question. "I wish you'd got hold of them!"
"We are certain that one of them passed us while we were returning,"
George answered.
"The nerve of him!" shouted Sandy.
"The idea of his coming here and swiping our provisions!" Tommy cut
in. "If I ever get hold of that gink, I'll beat his head off!"
"You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George.
"Not me!" answered Sandy. "Me for ham and eggs."
"What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?"
Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from
somewhere just outside the door.
"That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy.
"You've had your share!" shouted Sandy.
"It has now been nine day's since I've tasted food!" came the answer
from the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a
chuckle between the words.
"All right!" replied Tommy. "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine
days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be
hungry. Go on away tonight, anyhow!"
"Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the
door. "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!"
"Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy.
"You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door. "I haven't
had a thing to eat in forty or fifty days. Come on, now," he added,
"be good fellows and open up. I'm so hungry I could eat a brass
cylinder."
"Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy. "He'll stand there chinning all
night if we don't! We've got enough to eat for the present anyway."
Will unfastened the door and a tall slender young fellow of perhaps
seventeen stopped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under
the strong, electric light. His face was streaked with coal dust and
his clothing was ragged and dirty. Still the boy looked like anything
but a tramp. Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment.
"Where'd you come from?" he asked.
"Off the rods!" was the reply.
"And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll
by starlight and just happened to walk into this mine."
"Sure," answered the other with a provoking grin.
"Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy
that had a mix-up with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were
trying to invite you to supper. What do you know about that?"
"Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!"
"If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute,"
Will suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants. Do you
mean to say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this
kid while returning to the mine from the tracks?"
"Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy. "I thought I did. We
found him in a mix-up with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!"
"And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the
tramp tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob
me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't
get anything! The tramp who got a hold of me night before last
stripped me clean! And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money
to buy provisions with. And also that's the reason why I'm hungry."
The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic
course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory
answers.
"And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some
minutes before, "that's why two boys are hungry just about this time.
I got rolled for my wad plenty."
"That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy.
"That's Bowery!" corrected the other.
"What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy.
"I said that's why two other boys are hungry."
"They ain't hungry any more," declared Tommy with a wink.
"That listens good!" the stranger said.
"Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and
stole everything they could get their hands on."
"Brave boys!" laughed the other.
"You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!"
declared Tommy. "Here, these boys come here and steal our grub and you
seem to think they did a noble thing! What's your name anyhow?"
"Buck!" was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue,
N.Y.C. Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just
about ready to scrap for something to eat!"
"Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice
of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter
and canned tomatoes before the young man.
"How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked
Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!"
"How do you know that?"
"Because if you had bumped into them, they would fed you out of the
provisions they stole from us!"
"I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried
to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when
you left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the
darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for
things to quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think
I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a
jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind."
"That must have been Ventner," suggested Will.
"Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine
again? Does he know you're here?"
"He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone
away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the
refuse cast aside by the miners."
"Well, you've got him into the mine, at last," Will suggested. "What
is the next move you are thinking of making?"
"After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered with a nod at the
great stack of food which Tommy had piled on his plate, "I'm going to
give you boys the surprise of your lives!"
"You're pretty well done now," laughed Will.
"And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of
the Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize
for stealing your grub!"
"If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!"