CHAPTER XV.
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."