"I shouldn't wonder if I had scared him off——"
Just then a soft step roused him, and turning his head, he saw that the very tramp of whom he was thinking and of whom he believed he was happily rid, had entered the room, and was standing within a few feet of him.
CHAPTER V. BRAVE WORK.
When Fred Sheldon turned on his heel and saw the outlines of the tramp in the room behind him he gave a start and exclamation of fear, as the bravest man might have done under the circumstances.
The intruder chuckled and said in his rasping, creaking voice:
"Don't be skeert, young man; if you keep quiet you won't get hurt, but if you go to yelping or making any sort of noise I'll wring your head as if you was a chicken I wanted for dinner."
Fred made no answer to this, when the tramp added, in the same husky undertone, as he stepped forward in a threatening way:
"Do you hear what I said?"