“It is a good idea,” commented Jerry. “Glad you mentioned it, Bob. We’ll send word home.”
They inquired the location of the telegraph office, and, as it was in the centre of town, Ned and Bob remained with the airship, while Jerry took the dispatches.
The telegraph office was in the railroad station, and while Jerry stood on the platform, chatting with the agent, a freight train rumbled in, and stopped, while the engine got water at a distant tank.
Jerry, having accomplished his errand, was about to turn away, to go back to his chums, when, from the shadows of a freight car that was on a siding, he observed a man run quickly out, and cling to the break-beams of one of the refrigerator cars of the freight.
“Some tramp going to steal a ride,” reflected the lad, but, just then, the gleam from a switch lamp, for it was now getting dusk, fell upon the tramp’s face. Jerry started and could hardly repress an exclamation.
“Bill Berry!” he murmured to himself. “Bill Berry, that town good-for-nothing—that crony of Noddy’s! What can he be doing here? I wonder if he is following us?” For Bill Berry, as my readers know, had, more than once, been the cause of much trouble to the motor boys.
Bill was now out of sight under the car, well hidden from view. Jerry first thought he would speak to the agent about it, and then he reflected that this would do little good.
“Where is that freight bound for?” he asked, as carelessly as he could.
“That? Oh, that’s a through freight for the West,” answered the telegraph operator. “It goes right through to California, just as it is. Right across the Rockies.”
Jerry could not repress a start.