"All right," replied Arthur. "We'll be there directly. It was that jolly, good-natured face of his that deceived the author of our road-book, and made him think Kane was a bully landlord," he added, as the man turned away to hurry up the breakfast. "If we had a piece of bread as big as a walnut I'd see him happy before I would show my face inside the house he keeps locked against belated wheelmen. No one will ever come this route by my advice."
But after he had bathed his hands and face in the cold water that came from the spring behind the house, drank two big cups of coffee, and eaten two boys' share of the excellent breakfast that was placed before him, Arthur did not feel quite so much disposed to growl at old man Kane. He voted him a number one caterer, and that was more than could be said of every boarding-house keeper.
While they were at the table they heard a train stop at the station-house, and after what seemed a long delay, they saw the horse-car pass the window with a lot of passengers aboard; but they thought nothing of it until they went into the office, which was also the sitting and loafing room, and stepped up to the desk to pay their bill.
"Put that back! Put that money back," exclaimed the landlord, almost fiercely. "Bless my heart! I've a good notion to come out from behind the desk and shake the last one of you boys, and I can do it too, old as I am. I've just heard about it. Why didn't you wake me up last night, instead of going to bed there on the platform?"
Roy tried to explain that they did not want to disturb him after he had gone to bed (he didn't say why), and that their blankets afforded them as soft a bed as they cared for, but the old man did so much talking himself that Roy finally gave it up. He listened while the landlord told that the men on the up-train, as well as the passengers they had seen go by the dining-room window, had brought a full report of last night's doings, and he wanted to give them a breakfast to pay them for it, because he would have felt bad if that train had run into the rock and been smashed up.
"I always did look upon wheelmen as a nuisance," said he, with refreshing candor. "They eat you out of house and home, and the fifty cents you charge 'em for it don't begin to pay for the damage they do; but now I know that they ain't a nuisance. I've seen that trestle, and I say that the boy who can ride over it in the dark has got the right kind of pluck to make a man out of him some of these days. No, sir, I won't tax you a cent for that breakfast; but I want to see the chap that went over that plank. Which one was it?"
"It's nothing to make a fuss about," answered Joe, who knew that if he did not speak Roy and Arthur would. He thought the man would have something complimentary to say to him; but instead of that he pushed the register toward him with the request that Joe would draw a line under his name so that he (Kane) would know it the next time he saw it.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" said he, when the boy handed back the pen. "I'm going to show that name to every wheelman who comes along, and double-dare him to go up to the trestle and ride over that plank. If he'll do it, and prove that he does it, I'll give him all he can eat as long as he has a mind to stay."
It was right on the point of Roy Sheldon's tongue to inquire: "And will you expect him to sleep on the platform of nights?" But instead of that he said: "Then you will be bankrupt in less than six months if many wheelmen come this way."