He was the picture of what a regular tramp should be, there could be no getting around that, Hugh determined. He rather believed that, like most of his kind, this fellow also had a history back of him, which would perhaps hardly bear exploiting. Doubtless there were pages turned down in his career, things that he himself seldom liked to remember, giving himself up to a life of freedom from care, and content to take things each day as they came along, under the belief that there were always sympathetic women folks to be found who would not refuse a poor wanderer a meal, or a nickel to help him along his way.
Apparently he had been just about ready to sit down and make way with his meal at the time the boys arrived on the scene; for he now took both tin carts from their resting places over the red embers of his fire, and opening the package produced the bread and the bologna. This latter looked big enough to serve a whole family of six; but then a tramp's appetite is patterned very much on the order of a growing boy's, and knows no limit.
Having spread his intended food around him as he squatted there, the hobo gave the boys a queer look.
"You'll excuse me if I don't ask you to join me, youngsters," he went on to say. "I'd do the same in a jiffy if the supply wasn't limited; besides, I don't know just what sort of a reception I'm going to meet with in your town."
"Oh! no apologies needed, old chap," said Thad, quickly. "We had our lunch only an hour or so ago and couldn't take a bite to save us now. But say everything seems mighty good, if the smell counts for much. So pitch right in and fill up. We'll continue to sit here and chat with you, if you don't mind, Bill."
"That's all right, governor, only my name don't happen to be Bill, even if I belong to the tribe of Weary Willies. I'm known far and wide as Wandering Lu; because, you see, I've traveled all over the whole known world, and been in every country the sun shines on. Just come from the oil regions down in Texas, because, well, my health is failing me, and I'm afraid I'm going into a decline."
At that he started to coughing at a most tremendous rate. Thad looked sympathetic.
"You certainly do seem to have a terribly bad cold, Lu," he told the tramp, as the other drew out a suspicious looking red handkerchief that had seen better days, to wipe the tears from his eyes, after he had succeeded in regaining his breath, following the coughing spell.
The man put a dirty hand in the region of his heart and winced.
"Hurts most around my lungs," he said, "and mebbe I've got the con. I spent some time in a camp where fifty poor folks was sleeping under canvas down in Arizona, and I'm a whole lot afraid I may have caught the disease there. So, being afraid my time would soon come I just made up my mind to look up a sister of mine that I ain't heard a word from for twenty years or more, and see if she was in a position to support me the short time I'd have to live."