“Oh,” remarked the other lad. “Well, come on up, and I’ll drive ye there. I thought maybe ye was jokin’.”
“No, it’s far from being a joke. I hope I get it out. I need the clothes that are in it, though by the time I get them they may look as badly as this suit does,” and he glanced down at the one he wore, which was wrinkled and dirty from his ride in the freight car.
Jack got up on the seat beside the farmer lad, and briefly told the circumstances of his loss, saying nothing, however, about having run away.
He said he was traveling in the freight car because he could not afford any other means of transportation, which was true enough.
“I’ll help ye look,” volunteered the boy. “I’ve got lots of time. I started fer th’ dairy early this mornin’. Did yer satchel have anything heavy in it, so’s it would sink?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m afraid it wouldn’t float very well, after the clothes got water-soaked. Is the river very deep?”
“’Tain’t a river, I tell ye. It’s a creek.”
“It looked like a river to me, and a mighty big one, when I saw my case fall into it. Is the creek very deep?”
“Not very; only in spots. It’s kinder deep where th’ railroad bridge is.”
During the ride that followed, the two lads conversed on various topics, Jack asking many questions about the country in that vicinity. He made cautious inquiries as to whether there was any alarm out for his arrest, and found, to his relief, that there was not.