One of the most troublesome of the annoyances which come to dwellers in
the country, within easy reach of the great city, is the kind of
patrolling beggar called the "tramp." He is of all sorts and sizes, and
he goes everywhere, asking for anything he wants, very much as if it
belonged to him, so long as he can ask it of a woman or a sickly-looking
man.
There had been very few of these gentry seen in that vicinity that
summer, for a wonder, and those who had made their appearance had been
reasonably well behaved. Probably because there had been so many
healthy-looking men around, as a general thing. But it came to pass, on
the very day when Ham and Miranda were expected to arrive, by the last
of the evening trains, as Dab Kinzer was coming back from the landing,
where he had been for a look at the "Swallow," to be sure she was all
right for her owner's eyes, that a very disreputable specimen of a
worthless man stopped at Mrs. Kinzer's to beg something to eat, and then
sauntered away down the road.
It was a little past the middle of the afternoon, and even so
mean-looking, dirty a tramp as that had a perfect right to be walking
along then and there. The sunshine and the fresh salt air from the bay
were as much his as anybody's, and so was the water in the bay, and no
one in all that region of country stood more in need of water than he.
The vagabond took his right to the road, as he had taken his other right
to beg his dinner, until, half-way down to the landing, he was met by an
opportunity to do more begging.
"Give a poor feller suthin," he impudently drawled, as he stared
straight into the sweet, fresh face of Annie Foster. Annie had been out
for only a short walk, but she happened to have her pocket-book with
her, and she thoughtlessly drew it out, meaning to give the scamp a
trifle, if only to get rid of him.
"Only a dime, Miss," whined the tramp, as he shut his dirty hand over
Annie's gift. "Come, now, make it a dollar, my beauty. I'll call it all
square for a dollar."
The whine grew louder as he spoke, and the wheedling grin upon his
disgusting face changed into an expression so menacing that Annie drew
back with a shudder, and was about to return her little portemonnaie to
her pocket.
"No you don't, honey!"
The words were uttered in a hoarse and husky voice, and were accompanied
by a sudden grip of poor Annie's arm with one hand, while with the other
he snatched greedily at the morocco case.
Did she scream? How could she help it? Or what else could she have done
under the circumstances? She screamed vigorously, whether she would or
no, and at the same moment dropped her pocket-book in the grass beside
the path, so that it momentarily escaped the vagabond's clutches.
"Shut up, will you!" and other angry and evil words, accompanied with
more than one vicious threat, followed thick and fast, as Annie
struggled to free herself, while her assailant peered hungrily around
after the missing prize.
It is not at all likely he would have attempted anything so bold as that
in broad daylight if he had not been drinking too freely, and the very
evil "spirit" which had prompted him to his rascality unfitted him for
its immediate consequences. These latter, in the shape of Dab Kinzer and
the lower "joint" of a stout fishing-rod, had been bounding along up the
road from the landing at a tremendous rate for nearly half a minute.
A boy of fifteen assailing a full-grown ruffian?
Why not? Age hardly counts in such a matter, and then it is not every
boy of even his "growth" that could have brought muscles like those of
Dab Kinzer to the swing he gave that four feet length of seasoned
ironwood.
Annie saw him coming, but her assailant did not until it was too late
for anything but to turn and receive that first hit in front instead of
behind. It would have knocked over almost anybody, and the tramp
measured his length on the ground, while Dabney plied the rod on him
with all the energy he was master of.
"Oh, don't, Dabney, don't; you'll kill him!" pleaded Annie.
"I wouldn't want to do that," said Dabney, but he added, to the tramp:
"Now you'd better get up and run for it. If you are caught around here
again it'll be the worse for you."
The vagabond staggered to his feet, looking savagely enough at Dab, but
the latter seemed so very ready to put in another hit with that terrible
cudgel, and the whole situation was so unpleasantly suggestive of
further difficulty, that the youngster's advice was taken without a
word.
"Here it is. I've found my pocket-book," said Annie, as her enemy made
the best of his way off.
"He did not hurt you?"
"No, he only scared me, except that I s'pose my arm will be black and
blue where he caught it. Thank you ever so much, Dabney! You're a brave
boy. Why, he's almost twice your size."
"Yes, but the butt end of my rod is twice as hard as his head," replied
Dabney. "I was almost afraid to strike him with it, because I might have
broken his skull."
"You didn't even break your rod."
"No, and now I must run back for the other pieces and the tip. I dropped
them in the road."
"Please, Dabney, see me home first," said Annie. "I know it's foolish
and there isn't a bit of danger, but I must confess to being rather
frightened."
Dab Kinzer was a little the proudest boy on Long Island, as he marched
along in compliance with her request. He went no further than the gate,
to be sure, and then returned for the rest of his rod, but, before he
got home, Keziah hurried back from a call on Mrs. Foster, bringing a
tremendous account of Dab's heroism, and then his own pride was a mere
drop in the bucket compared to that of his mother.
"Dabney is growing wonderfully," she remarked to Samantha. "He'll be a
man before any of us know it."
If Dabney had been a man, however, or if Ham Morris or Mr. Foster had
been at home, the matter would not have been permitted to drop there.
That tramp ought to have been followed, arrested and shut up where his
vicious propensities could have been restrained for a while. As it was,
after hurrying on for a short distance and making sure that he was not
pursued, he sprang over the fence and sneaked into the nearest clump of
bushes. From this safe covert he watched Dab Kinzer's return after the
lighter joints of his rod, and then even dared to crouch along the fence
until he saw which house his young conqueror went into.
"That's where he lives, is it?" exclaimed the tramp, with a scowl of the
most ferocious vengeance. "Well, they'll have fun before bed-time, or
I'll know the reason why."
The bushes were a good enough hiding-place for the time, and he went
back to them with the air and manner of a man whose mind is made up to
something.
Ford Foster and Frank Harley were absent in the city that day, with Mr.
Foster, attending to some affairs of Frank's, and when the three came
home and learned what had happened, they were all on the point of
rushing over to the Morris house to thank Dab, but Mrs. Foster
interposed.
"I don't think I would. To-morrow will do as well, and you know they're
expecting Mr. and Mrs. Morris this evening."
It was harder for the boys than for Mr. Foster, that waiting, and they
lingered near the north fence two hours later, even though they knew
that the whole Kinzer family were down at the railway station waiting
for Ham and Miranda.
There was a good deal of patience to be exercised, for that train was
behind time, and the darkness of a moonless and somewhat cloudy night
had settled over the village and the outlying farms long before the
engine puffed its way in front of the station platform. Just at that
moment, Ford Foster exclaimed, "What's that smell?"
"It's like burning hay," replied Frank.
"Where can it come from, I'd like to know? We haven't had a light out at
our barn."
"Light?" exclaimed Frank. "Just look yonder!"
"Why, it's that old barn away beyond the Morris and Kinzer house.
Somebody must have set it on fire. Hullo! I thought I saw a man running.
Come on, Frank."
There was indeed a man running just then, but they did not see him, for
he was already very nearly across the field, hidden by the darkness. He
had known how to light a fire that would smolder long enough for him to
get away. There had been no sort of lingering at the railway station,
for Ham and Miranda were as anxious to get at the "surprise" they were
told was waiting for them as their friends were to have them come to it.
Before they were half-way home, however, the growing light ahead of them
attracted their attention, and then they began to hear the vigorous
shouts of "Fire" from the throats of the two boys, now re-enforced by
Mr. Foster himself. Dabney was driving the ponies, and they had to go
pretty fast for the rest of that short run.
"Surprise!" exclaimed Ham. "I should say it was. Did you light it before
you started, Dabney?"
"Don't joke, Hamilton," remarked Mrs. Kinzer. "It may be a very serious
affair for all of us. But I can't understand how that barn could have
caught fire."