DON’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE TRAMP.
“You’re not in my company, ain’t you? You didn’t speak for me but for
yourself, did you? You think you’re too fine a gentleman to be seen
loafing about with such a fellow as I am, don’t you?” growled the tramp,
when he and Huggins were alone on the platform. “I’ve the best notion in
the world to make you pay for them words, and I will, too, if I find you
hanging about here after the agent has gone to bed.”
There was no doubt that the man was in earnest when he said this. The
light from the agent’s window shone full upon his face and the runaway
could see that there was an evil look in it.
“If you had stood by me I would have given you a good place to sleep, for
I know where there is a nice warm hay-mow with plenty of blankets and
buffalo robes to put over you,” continued the tramp. “I slept there last
night, and I’m going there now, after I see you start for Carbondale. Go
on, be off with you!”
“I’m not going there,” replied Huggins, who was so badly frightened by
the man’s vehemence that he was afraid to show any of the indignation
he felt at being ordered about in this unceremonious way. “I shall stay
right here on this platform until daylight.”
“No, you won’t. I’m not going to have you staying around here watching
for a chance to follow me to my warm bed. You went back on me, and now
you can look out for yourself.”
“I have no intention of following you,” said Huggins.
“I’ll believe that when I see you dig out for Carbondale. Go on, I say,
or I’ll help you!”
The man took his hands out of his pockets, and Huggins believing that
he was about to put his threat into execution, jumped off the platform,
and started up the railroad track at a rapid pace, the tramp standing in
the full glare of the light from the agent’s window, and keeping a close
watch over his movements.
“That was a pretty good idea,” said he to himself, as he saw the boy’s
figure growing dim in the distance. “He said he was able and willing to
pay liberal for somebody to take him to Carbondale, and that proves that
he’s got money. I’ll just look into that matter when he gets a little
farther away. I’ll take that fine cap, muffler, and them gloves of his’n,
too. They’ll keep me warm while I have ’em, and I can trade ’em off or
sell ’em before the police can get wind of me.”
So saying the man stepped down from the platform and moved leisurely up
the track in the direction in which Huggins had disappeared, shuffling
along in a supremely lazy and disjointed way, that no one ever saw
imitated by anybody except a professional tramp.
“The insolent fellow!” thought Huggins, looking back now and then to make
sure that the man was still standing on the platform. “What right had he
to tell me to go on to Carbondale if I wanted to stay at the depot until
morning? He must think I am hard up for a night’s rest if he imagines
that I would be willing to sleep in a hay-mow. I’ll have a good bed while
I am about it, for now that I am on the road to Carbondale, I shall keep
moving until I get there. How lonely and still it is out here, and how
gloomy the woods look! I wish I had somebody to talk to.”
When the darkness had shut the station-house, the tank, the upright,
motionless figure of the tramp and every thing else except the light in
the agent’s window out from his view, Huggins broke into a run, and flew
along the track at the top of his speed. He kept up the pace as long as
he could stand it, and then settled down into a rapid trot which carried
him easily over one of the three miles he had to cover before he could
find a roof to shelter him and a bed to sleep in.
“I think I am all right now,” soliloquized the runaway, slackening his
pace to a walk and unbuttoning his heavy muffler, which felt too warm
about his neck. “I tell you I am glad to see the last of that tramp, for
I didn’t at all like the looks of him. I believe he’d just as soon——”
The runaway’s heart seemed to stop beating. He faced quickly about, and
there was the tramp whom he hoped he had seen for the last time, close
behind him. He had easily kept pace with the boy, stepping so exactly
in time with him that the sound of his feet upon the frosty snow had
not betrayed his presence. He held some object in his hand which he
flourished over his head, and Huggins, believing it to be a pistol, stood
trembling in his tracks and waited for him to come up. The object was
not a pistol, but it was a murderous looking knife, which made the boy
shudder all over as he looked at it.
“I’ve concluded to make you pay for going back on me so fair and square
while you were talking to the agent,” were the tramp’s next words. “Put
your hands above your head while I go through your pockets and see what
you’ve got in ’em.”
“Do you want my money?” asked Huggins, who could hardly make himself
understood, so frightened was he. “If you do I will give it to you, but
don’t hurt me.”
He carried his money in two places. The greater portion of it was in
Lester Brigham’s pocket-book; and in one of his vest pockets he had the
small amount of change the conductor gave him when he paid his fare. As
it was all in small bills and made a roll of respectable size, he hoped
he could satisfy the robber by handing it over, but he was doomed to be
disappointed. When he made a move as if he were about to unbutton his
overcoat, the man raised his knife threateningly.
“None o’ that!” said he, in savage tones. “You can’t draw a barker on me
while I am within reach of you, and it will be worse for you if you try
it. Put your hands above your head, and be quick about it.”
Huggins was afraid to refuse or to utter a word of remonstrance. He
raised his hands in the air, and the robber, after dropping the knife
into his coat-pocket, so that it could be readily seized if circumstances
should seem to require it, proceeded to “go through” him in the most
business-like way. He turned all the boy’s pockets inside out, and when
he had completed his investigations, Huggins’s money was all gone and he
stood shivering in the tramp’s hat and thread-bare coat, while the tramp
himself looked like another person. He had appropriated the runaway’s
cap, coats, muffler and gloves, and would have taken his boots and
Arctics too, if they had been big enough for him.
“Now, then,” said he, as he buttoned the muffler about his neck and drew
on the gloves, “I believe I am done with you, and you can dig out.”
“But where can I go?” cried Huggins. “I have no money to pay for a
night’s lodging, and I am almost a thousand miles from home.”
“You are better off than I am, for I have no home at all,” answered the
tramp. “It won’t hurt you to sleep out of doors; I’ve done it many a
time. Now skip, for I have wasted words enough with you. Not that way,”
he added, as Huggins reluctantly turned his face toward Carbondale. “Go
back to the station. Step lively now, for if you don’t, I shall be after
you.”
The boy dared not wait for the command to be repeated, believing, as
he did, that it would be emphasized by a prod with the knife which the
robber still held in his hand. Scarcely realizing what he was doing he
hurried along the track toward the station, and when he ventured to look
behind him, the tramp was nowhere in sight.
“Now what am I going to do?” said Huggins to himself; and it was a
question he pondered all the way to the station, and which he could not
answer even when daylight came. The station-agent was just locking up as
he stepped upon the platform, and he resolved to make another effort to
obtain a seat by one of his fires.
“Won’t you please let me sit in the waiting-room until morning?” said the
boy, in a pleading voice.
“No, _no_!” was the angry response. “Clear out! You are the third one
who has asked me that question to-night. I don’t keep a hotel. If I did,
I’d have a sign out.”
“That man who followed me into your office a little while ago, has robbed
me,” gasped Huggins, choking back a sob.
“Well, I should say he had!” exclaimed the agent, after he had taken
a sharp look at Huggins. “I thought I knew your voice, but I didn’t
recognize you in those clothes. If I had had the chance I should have
told you to shake him as soon as possible. He has been hanging around
here all day, and I was afraid he would be up to something before he
left. Why didn’t you call for help?”
“He was armed and savage and I was afraid to say a word,” replied the
runaway. “Besides it would have done no good, for I was a long distance
up the track when he overtook me.”
“Did he take all your money?”
“Every red cent. He didn’t even leave me my pocket-knife or note-book.”
“Your case is a hard one, that’s a fact, and I will do what I can for
you,” said the agent. “You may sit in this room to-night. That fellow
will probably go to Oxford, and if I can get the operator there to
respond to my call, I’ll tell him to put the police on the look-out.
To-morrow I will send an alarm all along the line.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said Huggins, gratefully. “I may some day be
able to repay you for your kindness.”
“That’s all right. Good night.”
The agent went out, and the runaway drew one of the chairs up in front of
the stove and sat down in it. He was provided for for the night, but what
should he do when morning came? Should he stay there at the tank-station
and look for work, or would it be better for him to start for Oxford on
foot, begging his meals as he went like any other tramp? That was what
he intended to do when he first made up his mind to desert the academy,
and he could not see that there was any other course open to him now.
While he was thinking about it, he fell asleep. He did not know when
the lightning express and the fast freight went through, but he heard
the whistle of the morning train, and hurried to the door to see the
accommodation approaching. He saw something else, too—something that put
life and energy into him, and sent him around the corner of the building
out of sight.
“They are after me already,” said he, as he hurried along a road that led
from the station into the woods. “I saw their uniform caps sticking out
of the window.”
If he had waited a few minutes longer he would have seen Captain Mack and
Sergeant Gordon step upon the platform and run toward the agent’s office.
“Did you say he was a tall young fellow with a little mustache, and
that he wore a dark-blue overcoat, Arctic shoes and seal-skin furs?
He’s the very chap. Come with me. He was fast asleep in a chair in the
waiting-room not more than half an hour ago. There is his chair,” said
the agent, as he opened the door, “but he has skipped out, as sure as the
world.”
“Have you any idea where he is?” asked the young captain.
“I think he must have gone to Carbondale,” replied the agent. “But see
here, boys: you needn’t waste any time in looking for a fellow in a blue
overcoat and seal-skin furs, for the police will take care of him. You
want to keep your eyes open for a chap in a patched and torn broad-cloth
coat and a slouch hat without any brim to it. You see——”
Here the agent went on to tell how Huggins had been robbed and compelled
to exchange clothes with the tramp. The boys listened attentively, and
when the agent finished his story, they hastened back to the train to
report to the professor. Captain Mack did the talking, and wound up with
the request that he might be permitted to take a couple of men and go up
the wagon-road toward Carbondale to see if Huggins had gone that way.
To his great surprise as well as delight the request was granted, the
professor adding that he and the rest of the squad would keep on with the
train until he thought they had got ahead of the runaway, and then they
would get off and come back on foot.
“If you seen any dings of Hukkins or de veller vot robbed him, you will
gatch all two of dem and rebort to me py delegraph,” said the professor,
in concluding his instructions. “I shall pe somveres along de road, and
as lightning can dravel so much fasder dan shteam, you can easy gatch
me.”
“Very good, sir. I wish I could take you with me, Bert,” he added, in a
whisper, “for I am bound to carry off the honors of this scout; but you
will have to stay and act as lackey to the professor. Gordon, you and
Egan come with me.”
The boys obeyed with alacrity, smiling and kissing their hands to Hopkins
and Curtis, who frowned fiercely and shook their fists at them in return.
They stood upon the platform until the train moved off, and then Captain
Mack said:
“Business before pleasure, boys. I move that we go somewhere and get a
good, old-fashioned country breakfast. I speak for a big bowl of bread
and milk.”
The others were only too glad to fall in with this proposition. Having
left the academy almost as soon as they got up, they began to feel the
cravings of hunger, and their appetites were sharpened by the mere
mention of bread and milk. They held a short consultation with the
station-agent, and then started leisurely down the wagon road in the
direction of Carbondale, stopping at every house along the route with the
intention of asking for a bowl of bread and milk, but always, for some
reason or other, coming away without doing it. They were not inclined
to be fastidious. When it came to the pinch they could eat pancakes or
bacon that were seasoned with nothing but ashes and cinders with as much
zest as anybody; but they had become so accustomed to the strict and
rigidly enforced rules regarding personal cleanliness, that any violation
of these rules shocked them. To quote from Don Gordon, who generally
expressed his sentiments in the plainest possible language, they had no
use for children whose faces and hands were covered with molasses, nor
could they see anything to admire in an unkempt woman who went about her
cooking with a well-blackened clay-pipe in her mouth.
“There’s the place we are looking for,” said Egan, directing his
companions’ attention to a neat little farm-house a short distance in
advance of them. “If we can’t find a breakfast there, we’ll not find it
this side of——”
At that instant the front door of the house was suddenly opened, and a
lady appeared upon the threshold. She looked anxiously up and down the
road, and, seeing the students approaching, beckoned to them with frantic
eagerness, at the same time calling out, “Help! help!” at the top of her
voice.
“Come on, boys,” cried Captain Mack. “Her house is on fire.”
The officer and his men broke into a run, discarding their heavy
overcoats as they went, but before they had made many steps they
discovered that it was something besides fire that had occasioned the
lady’s alarm. All on a sudden a back door was jerked violently open, and
a man bounded down the steps and ran across a field toward the railroad
track.
“He’s been doing something in there,” shouted Captain Mack. “Take after
him, boys.”
“That’s one of the fellows we want,” observed Egan. “He’s got Huggins’s
overcoat on.”
“So he has,” said the captain. “Never mind the lady, for she is safe now.
Catch the tramp, and we’ll find out what he had been doing to frighten
her.”
Don Gordon, who had already taken the lead of his companions, cleared the
high farm gate as easily as though he had been furnished with wings, and
ran up the carriage-way. He lingered at a wood-rack he found in front of
the barn long enough to jerk one of the stakes out of it, and having
thus provided himself with a weapon, he continued the pursuit.
The tramp, who had about fifty yards the start, proved himself to be no
mean runner. His wind was good, his muscles had been hardened by many
a long pedestrian tour about the country, and Don afterward admitted
that for a long time it looked as if the man were going to beat him; but
when the latter got what school-boys are wont to call his “second wind,”
he gained rapidly. Another hundred yards run brought him almost within
striking distance of the fugitive, and while he was trying to make up his
mind whether he ought to halt him or knock him down without ceremony to
pay him for frightening the lady, the tramp suddenly stopped and faced
about. Then Don saw that he carried a knife in his hand.
“Keep away from me,” said he, in savage tones, “or I’ll——”
“You’ll what?” demanded Don, leaning on his club and casting a quick
glance over his shoulder to see how far his companions were behind.
“Do you see this?” said the tramp, shaking the knife threateningly.
“Yes, I see it,” answered Don, coolly. “You had better throw it away. You
might hurt yourself with it.”
The tramp was astonished. Here was a boy who could not be as easily
frightened as Huggins was, and he began to stand in awe of him. He was
old enough to know that a cool, deliberate antagonist is much more to
be feared than one who allows himself to go into a paroxysm of rage and
excitement.
“Drop that knife,” commanded Don, who had suddenly made up his mind that
the tramp ought to be disarmed before his companions came up; and as he
spoke, he raised his club over his head.
A year’s hard drill, added to faithful attention to the instructions
he had received from Professor Odenheimer, had made Don Gordon very
proficient in the broadsword exercise, but he had never had an
opportunity to test the value of the accomplishment until this particular
morning. Seeing that the man had no intention of dropping the knife he
proceeded to disarm him, and he did it in a way that was as surprising
to him as it was to the tramp. Bringing his club to the first position,
he made a feint with it as if he were going to give a No. 1 cut. If the
weapon had not been arrested in its progress through the air, and the
tramp had stood motionless, he would have received a sounding whack on
his left cheek; but seeing the club coming he ducked his head at the very
instant that Don changed from the first to the third cut, thus receiving
squarely between the eyes the full force of a terrific blow that was
intended for his right forearm. He fell as if he had been shot. The knife
fell from his grasp, and before he could recover it, Captain Mack had run
up and secured possession of it.
Without saying a word Egan proceeded to explore the tramp’s pockets, and
the first thing he brought to light was Lester Brigham’s money. It was
all there, too, for the tramp had had no opportunity to spend any of it.
He had reasons of his own for desiring to go to Oxford, but he did not
intend to start immediately. He slept in a barn that night, and intended,
as soon as he had begged a breakfast, to strike back into the country and
make his way to Oxford by a round-about course, avoiding the railroad
and all the villages along the route. He hoped in this way to elude the
police who, he knew, would be on the watch for him. When he reached the
farm-house from which he had taken his hurried flight, and found that
the male members of the family were absent, he began to act as though
he had a right there. He demanded a warm breakfast and a seat at the
table; and when the lady of the house objected and tried to oppose his
entrance into the kitchen, he frightened her nearly out of her senses by
producing his knife and threatening to do something terrible with it if
his demands were not complied with on the instant. Some of these things
Captain Mack and his men learned from the tramp himself, and the rest of
the story they heard from the lady, into whose presence they conducted
their prisoner without loss of time. The latter came very near meeting
with a warm reception. The farmer and his two stalwart sons had just come
in from the wood-lot where they had spent the morning in chopping, and
it was all the old gentleman, aided by his wife and Captain Mack and his
men, could do to keep the boys from punching the tramp’s head.
“What are you going to do with him?” demanded the farmer, when quiet
had been restored and Captain Mack had told what the tramp had done to
Huggins the night before.
“I am going to take him back to the station and telegraph to Professor
Odenheimer for orders,” answered the captain. “Those are my instructions.”
“Haven’t had any breakfast, I reckon, have you? I thought not. Well, I
haven’t either. Come in and sit down. It’s all ready.”
“Thank you,” said Mack. “A bowl of milk would be——”
“Oh, we’ve got something better than that.”
“You haven’t anything that would suit me better,” said Mack, with
refreshing candor. “I am a city boy.”
“Oh, ah! Well, you shall have all the milk you can drink.”
When Captain Mack and his men had satisfied their appetites and listened
to the grateful words of the farmer, who thanked them for their prompt
response to his wife’s appeals for assistance, they put on their
overcoats, which one of the boys had brought in from the road during
their absence, and set out for the station with their prisoner. The
latter’s face began to show the effect of Don’s blow, but the tramp did
not seem to mind it. He ate the cold bread and meat which the farmer’s
wife gave him just as he was about to leave the house with his captors,
and even joined in their conversation.
When the students reached the depot they were met by the agent, who
laughed all over when he saw the tramp, and drew Captain Mack off on one
side.
“You got him, didn’t you?” said he. “Some of you must have given him a
good pounding, judging by his countenance. Now, if you are at all sharp,
you can capture the other.”
“Who? Huggins?”
“Yes. He went out to the mill and got a job there at hauling wood. He was
in here not ten minutes ago, and I had a long talk with him. He saw some
of you looking out of the window when the accommodation came in, and that
was the reason he took himself off in such a hurry. I told him that you
had gone on toward Oxford. He’ll be back here with another load in less
than an hour, and then you can catch him.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said Captain Mack. “Now will you see if you
can ascertain where the professor and the rest of the boys are?”
The agent said he would; but his efforts to find them met with no
success. The operators of whom he made inquiries had all seen them, but
couldn’t tell where they were.
“They haven’t left the train yet,” said he. “The accommodation will be at
Munson in a quarter of an hour, and then I will try again.”
Of course the captain could not make his report until he knew where the
professor was, so he and his men went into the waiting-room, accompanied
by the tramp, and sat down there—all except Don Gordon, who was ordered
to hold himself in readiness to capture the deserter when he came back
with the next load of wood.