“You are better off than I am, for I have no home at all,” answered the tramp. “It won’t hurt you to sleep out of doors; I’ve done it many a time. Now skip, for I have wasted words enough with you. Not that way,” he added, as Huggins reluctantly turned his face toward Carbondale. “Go back to the station. Step lively now, for if you don’t, I shall be after you.”
The boy dared not wait for the command to be repeated, believing, as he did, that it would be emphasized by a prod with the knife which the robber still held in his hand. Scarcely realizing what he was doing he hurried along the track toward the station, and when he ventured to look behind him, the tramp was nowhere in sight.
“Now what am I going to do?” said Huggins to himself; and it was a question he pondered all the way to the station, and which he could not answer even when daylight came. The station-agent was just locking up as he stepped upon the platform, and he resolved to make another effort to obtain a seat by one of his fires.
“Won’t you please let me sit in the waiting-room until morning?” said the boy, in a pleading voice.
“No, no!” was the angry response. “Clear out! You are the third one who has asked me that question to-night. I don’t keep a hotel. If I did, I’d have a sign out.”
“That man who followed me into your office a little while ago, has robbed me,” gasped Huggins, choking back a sob.
“Well, I should say he had!” exclaimed the agent, after he had taken a sharp look at Huggins. “I thought I knew your voice, but I didn’t recognize you in those clothes. If I had had the chance I should have told you to shake him as soon as possible. He has been hanging around here all day, and I was afraid he would be up to something before he left. Why didn’t you call for help?”
“He was armed and savage and I was afraid to say a word,” replied the runaway. “Besides it would have done no good, for I was a long distance up the track when he overtook me.”
“Did he take all your money?”