Here the agent went on to tell how Huggins had been robbed and compelled to exchange clothes with the tramp. The boys listened attentively, and when the agent finished his story, they hastened back to the train to report to the professor. Captain Mack did the talking, and wound up with the request that he might be permitted to take a couple of men and go up the wagon-road toward Carbondale to see if Huggins had gone that way. To his great surprise as well as delight the request was granted, the professor adding that he and the rest of the squad would keep on with the train until he thought they had got ahead of the runaway, and then they would get off and come back on foot.
“If you seen any dings of Hukkins or de veller vot robbed him, you will gatch all two of dem and rebort to me py delegraph,” said the professor, in concluding his instructions. “I shall pe somveres along de road, and as lightning can dravel so much fasder dan shteam, you can easy gatch me.”
“Very good, sir. I wish I could take you with me, Bert,” he added, in a whisper, “for I am bound to carry off the honors of this scout; but you will have to stay and act as lackey to the professor. Gordon, you and Egan come with me.”
The boys obeyed with alacrity, smiling and kissing their hands to Hopkins and Curtis, who frowned fiercely and shook their fists at them in return. They stood upon the platform until the train moved off, and then Captain Mack said:
“Business before pleasure, boys. I move that we go somewhere and get a good, old-fashioned country breakfast. I speak for a big bowl of bread and milk.”
The others were only too glad to fall in with this proposition. Having left the academy almost as soon as they got up, they began to feel the cravings of hunger, and their appetites were sharpened by the mere mention of bread and milk. They held a short consultation with the station-agent, and then started leisurely down the wagon road in the direction of Carbondale, stopping at every house along the route with the intention of asking for a bowl of bread and milk, but always, for some reason or other, coming away without doing it. They were not inclined to be fastidious. When it came to the pinch they could eat pancakes or bacon that were seasoned with nothing but ashes and cinders with as much zest as anybody; but they had become so accustomed to the strict and rigidly enforced rules regarding personal cleanliness, that any violation of these rules shocked them. To quote from Don Gordon, who generally expressed his sentiments in the plainest possible language, they had no use for children whose faces and hands were covered with molasses, nor could they see anything to admire in an unkempt woman who went about her cooking with a well-blackened clay-pipe in her mouth.
“There’s the place we are looking for,” said Egan, directing his companions’ attention to a neat little farm-house a short distance in advance of them. “If we can’t find a breakfast there, we’ll not find it this side of——”
At that instant the front door of the house was suddenly opened, and a lady appeared upon the threshold. She looked anxiously up and down the road, and, seeing the students approaching, beckoned to them with frantic eagerness, at the same time calling out, “Help! help!” at the top of her voice.
“Come on, boys,” cried Captain Mack. “Her house is on fire.”