“If R. F. wants to hear of something to his advantage, come to the old railroad bridge right away.”
There was no signature to the scrawl, but Ralph quite naturally thought of Ike Slump and his crowd. That did not, however, deter him from going to keep the appointment. He cut a stout cudgel and proceeded to the old railroad bridge named in the note.
The young fireman glanced keenly about him, but for some time did not get a view of anybody in the vicinity. Finally from a clump of bushes up the incline a handkerchief waved. Ralph climbed the embankment to find himself facing Ike Slump.
The latter was ragged and starved-looking. To Ralph it appeared that the ex-roundhouse boy had been having a decidedly hard time of it recently.
“You needn’t carry any stick around here,” said Slump, sullenly. “You needn’t be afraid of me.”
“Not at all,” answered Ralph, “although your 185 actions in the past would warrant my having a whole battery around me.”
“That’s done with,” asserted Slump, quite meekly. “Bemis is up there a little ways. You needn’t be afraid of him, either.”
“What are you getting at with all this talk, Ike?” inquired Ralph.
“Why, we want to be friends.”
“What for?”