“Yes, I see it,” answered Don, coolly. “You had better throw it away. You might hurt yourself with it.”
The tramp was astonished. Here was a boy who could not be as easily frightened as Huggins was, and he began to stand in awe of him. He was old enough to know that a cool, deliberate antagonist is much more to be feared than one who allows himself to go into a paroxysm of rage and excitement.
“Drop that knife,” commanded Don, who had suddenly made up his mind that the tramp ought to be disarmed before his companions came up; and as he spoke, he raised his club over his head.
A year’s hard drill, added to faithful attention to the instructions he had received from Professor Odenheimer, had made Don Gordon very proficient in the broadsword exercise, but he had never had an opportunity to test the value of the accomplishment until this particular morning. Seeing that the man had no intention of dropping the knife he proceeded to disarm him, and he did it in a way that was as surprising to him as it was to the tramp. Bringing his club to the first position, he made a feint with it as if he were going to give a No. 1 cut. If the weapon had not been arrested in its progress through the air, and the tramp had stood motionless, he would have received a sounding whack on his left cheek; but seeing the club coming he ducked his head at the very instant that Don changed from the first to the third cut, thus receiving squarely between the eyes the full force of a terrific blow that was intended for his right forearm. He fell as if he had been shot. The knife fell from his grasp, and before he could recover it, Captain Mack had run up and secured possession of it.
Without saying a word Egan proceeded to explore the tramp’s pockets, and the first thing he brought to light was Lester Brigham’s money. It was all there, too, for the tramp had had no opportunity to spend any of it. He had reasons of his own for desiring to go to Oxford, but he did not intend to start immediately. He slept in a barn that night, and intended, as soon as he had begged a breakfast, to strike back into the country and make his way to Oxford by a round-about course, avoiding the railroad and all the villages along the route. He hoped in this way to elude the police who, he knew, would be on the watch for him. When he reached the farm-house from which he had taken his hurried flight, and found that the male members of the family were absent, he began to act as though he had a right there. He demanded a warm breakfast and a seat at the table; and when the lady of the house objected and tried to oppose his entrance into the kitchen, he frightened her nearly out of her senses by producing his knife and threatening to do something terrible with it if his demands were not complied with on the instant. Some of these things Captain Mack and his men learned from the tramp himself, and the rest of the story they heard from the lady, into whose presence they conducted their prisoner without loss of time. The latter came very near meeting with a warm reception. The farmer and his two stalwart sons had just come in from the wood-lot where they had spent the morning in chopping, and it was all the old gentleman, aided by his wife and Captain Mack and his men, could do to keep the boys from punching the tramp’s head.
“What are you going to do with him?” demanded the farmer, when quiet had been restored and Captain Mack had told what the tramp had done to Huggins the night before.
“I am going to take him back to the station and telegraph to Professor Odenheimer for orders,” answered the captain. “Those are my instructions.”
“Haven’t had any breakfast, I reckon, have you? I thought not. Well, I haven’t either. Come in and sit down. It’s all ready.”
“Thank you,” said Mack. “A bowl of milk would be——”
“Oh, we’ve got something better than that.”