"Well, we don't want to get out of sight just yet," said Claus. "That red-faced man kept his eyes on us, didn't he? Let us see what he will make of it now."
"Why, Claus, you are not going in there?" queried Casper, when his companion led the way toward the waiting-room. "Julian and Jack went in there, and they will be certain to discover us."
"No, they won't. You follow me, and do just as I do."
Casper turned his eyes and looked back at the train. There was the red-faced man, sitting by the car window, closely watching all their movements, and when he saw them enter the waiting-room into which Julian and Jack had gone a few moments before, his suspicions, if he had any, were set at rest, and he settled back in his seat and picked up a newspaper which he had just purchased. Claus kept on to the waiting-room, but he did not stop when he got there. He kept right on through and went out at the other door, and after walking briskly for a few minutes, and turning several corners until he was sure that the depot had been left out of sight, he seated himself on the steps of a deserted house, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead.
"It was not such an awful thing to get those valises, after all," said he. "When that train goes, we will go and get our breakfast."
"But I would like to know what is in those valises first," said Casper. "I tell you, you are fooled. I have felt this valise all over on the outside, and there is nothing in it that feels like a box."
"I don't suppose you could feel anything of that kind in it, because I don't believe the box was put in there," said Claus. "My only hope is that they took the papers out of the box and put them in here; consequently they left the box at home."
"Good enough!" exclaimed Casper, catching up his valise and feeling the outside of it, to see if he could feel anything that seemed like papers that were stowed away on the inside of it; "I never thought of that. Now, how shall we go to work to get the valises open? I haven't a key in my pocket that will fit them."
"I haven't, either; but as soon as we get our breakfast we will go up the road a little distance and cut them open. These gripsacks will never be worth anything to anybody after we get done with them."
Even while they were talking in this way they heard the shriek of the whistle twice, followed by the ringing of the bell, and knew that their train was getting ready to start on again; whereupon Claus got up and said he was as hungry as a wolf, and that he must procure a breakfast somewhere.