"No, no!" replied the old man, with sudden, unlooked for vehemence.
"I've been robbed, I tell you—-my money stolen!"
"Money?" asked Tom in surprise. "How much was taken from you?"
"Four hundred and eighteen dollars," replied the old man, with a lack of reserve that testified to his confidence in these unknown but respectful and sympathetic high school boys.
"All that money?" cried Dick. "How did you ever come to have so much about you?"
"I owe some bills for goods, over at Hillsboro," replied Reuben
Hinman, "and this trip was to take me toward Hillsboro. But now——-"
He broke off, the strange, rending sobbing returning.
"Perhaps we can help you, bad as the case looks," Tom suggested.
"Try to tell us all about it, sir."
"Where did you have the money?" inquired Dick.
"In a wallet, in this inside coat pocket," replied the peddler, holding his frayed coat open at the right side.
"You carried your wallet as conspicuously as that when traveling over lonely country roads?" cried Prescott in amazement.