"Hie! Have you seen an old tramp going this way?" "Yes. Into that wood," said the man, and pointed to a small copse of trees in the distance. The boys ran there,
and looked about among the trees and tangled undergrowth.
They smelt the smoke of a fire, and their noses and eyes soon guided them to it. By it3 on a fallen tree, sat the dirty old tramp, his hat of! now, showing his tangled, straggly hair. He was cooking something in a tin over the fire.
When he saw Larry he scowled. "What! You here again?" he said. "You get away. What do you mean, following me about like this? I haven't done nothing."
"Well," said Larry boldly, "you tried to steal eggs from Mr. Hick's hen-house the other day. We know that! But that's nothing to do with us."
"Mr. Hick! So that's his name," said the old tramp, sticking a skewer in whatever it was that he was cooking. "I didn't steal his eggs! I didn't steal nothing at all. I'm an honest old fellow, I am, and everybody will tell you the same!"
"Well - what were you doing hiding in the ditch at the bottom of his garden?" said Larry. The tramp looked astonished.
"I never hid in no ditch," he said. "I wasn't the one that did the hiding. Ho, dear me no! I could tell you something, I could - but I'm not going to. You put that policeman after me, didn't you?"
"No," said Larry. "He came along unexpectedly and went over to you. He didn't know we were anywhere about."
"Well, I don't believe you," said the old tramp. "You set that bobby after me. I know you did. I'm not going to be mixed up in anything that don't concern me. But there was funny goings-on that night, ho yes, I should think there were."