The officer and his men broke into a run, discarding their heavy overcoats as they went, but before they had made many steps they discovered that it was something besides fire that had occasioned the lady’s alarm. All on a sudden a back door was jerked violently open, and a man bounded down the steps and ran across a field toward the railroad track.
“He’s been doing something in there,” shouted Captain Mack. “Take after him, boys.”
“That’s one of the fellows we want,” observed Egan. “He’s got Huggins’s overcoat on.”
“So he has,” said the captain. “Never mind the lady, for she is safe now. Catch the tramp, and we’ll find out what he had been doing to frighten her.”
Don Gordon, who had already taken the lead of his companions, cleared the high farm gate as easily as though he had been furnished with wings, and ran up the carriage-way. He lingered at a wood-rack he found in front of the barn long enough to jerk one of the stakes out of it, and having thus provided himself with a weapon, he continued the pursuit.
The tramp, who had about fifty yards the start, proved himself to be no mean runner. His wind was good, his muscles had been hardened by many a long pedestrian tour about the country, and Don afterward admitted that for a long time it looked as if the man were going to beat him; but when the latter got what school-boys are wont to call his “second wind,” he gained rapidly. Another hundred yards run brought him almost within striking distance of the fugitive, and while he was trying to make up his mind whether he ought to halt him or knock him down without ceremony to pay him for frightening the lady, the tramp suddenly stopped and faced about. Then Don saw that he carried a knife in his hand.
“Keep away from me,” said he, in savage tones, “or I’ll——”
“You’ll what?” demanded Don, leaning on his club and casting a quick glance over his shoulder to see how far his companions were behind.
“Do you see this?” said the tramp, shaking the knife threateningly.