“If you had stood by me I would have given you a good place to sleep, for I know where there is a nice warm hay-mow with plenty of blankets and buffalo robes to put over you,” continued the tramp. “I slept there last night, and I’m going there now, after I see you start for Carbondale. Go on, be off with you!”
“I’m not going there,” replied Huggins, who was so badly frightened by the man’s vehemence that he was afraid to show any of the indignation he felt at being ordered about in this unceremonious way. “I shall stay right here on this platform until daylight.”
“No, you won’t. I’m not going to have you staying around here watching for a chance to follow me to my warm bed. You went back on me, and now you can look out for yourself.”
“I have no intention of following you,” said Huggins.
“I’ll believe that when I see you dig out for Carbondale. Go on, I say, or I’ll help you!”
The man took his hands out of his pockets, and Huggins believing that he was about to put his threat into execution, jumped off the platform, and started up the railroad track at a rapid pace, the tramp standing in the full glare of the light from the agent’s window, and keeping a close watch over his movements.
“That was a pretty good idea,” said he to himself, as he saw the boy’s figure growing dim in the distance. “He said he was able and willing to pay liberal for somebody to take him to Carbondale, and that proves that he’s got money. I’ll just look into that matter when he gets a little farther away. I’ll take that fine cap, muffler, and them gloves of his’n, too. They’ll keep me warm while I have ’em, and I can trade ’em off or sell ’em before the police can get wind of me.”
So saying the man stepped down from the platform and moved leisurely up the track in the direction in which Huggins had disappeared, shuffling along in a supremely lazy and disjointed way, that no one ever saw imitated by anybody except a professional tramp.
“The insolent fellow!” thought Huggins, looking back now and then to make sure that the man was still standing on the platform. “What right had he to tell me to go on to Carbondale if I wanted to stay at the depot until morning? He must think I am hard up for a night’s rest if he imagines that I would be willing to sleep in a hay-mow. I’ll have a good bed while I am about it, for now that I am on the road to Carbondale, I shall keep moving until I get there. How lonely and still it is out here, and how gloomy the woods look! I wish I had somebody to talk to.”
When the darkness had shut the station-house, the tank, the upright, motionless figure of the tramp and every thing else except the light in the agent’s window out from his view, Huggins broke into a run, and flew along the track at the top of his speed. He kept up the pace as long as he could stand it, and then settled down into a rapid trot which carried him easily over one of the three miles he had to cover before he could find a roof to shelter him and a bed to sleep in.