And now Ruddy was being taken away in the junk wagon.
"Drive along!" ordered the sailor. "I want to get off this street. Too many kids here would know this dog if they saw him; he won't stay covered up!" he exclaimed, for Ruddy was struggling, trying to get his head loose and to work the ropes off his legs, and these struggles disturbed the old sacks the sailor had thrown over the dog to hide him in the bottom of the wagon. "Drive on, fast!" said the sailor.
"But I should must stop and buy things!" declared the junk man. "All right it is for you to say a red dog he brings you luck. He brings no such to me. I of got to buy paper and rags and bottles and old auto tires, and I of got to sell 'em to make money."
"All right, but hurry all you can!" growled the ragged man—in fact they were both ragged men. "I want to get out of town and back to a ship," he added. "Then I'll have some luck!"
And so the ramshackle old wagon rattled down the street, stopping only at Mrs. Blake's candy store, where Rick and his chums received their first clue or information.
Then the junk wagon drove out of Belemere, just as the boys had been told, and as evening was coming on the junk man headed his outfit toward the old log cabin.
"What are you going to do here?" asked the sailor in the gruff, growling voice that seemed natural to him.
"I can leave my horse and wagon here for the night," was the answer. "I do so—lots of times. Nobody ever here comes along—the place is too lonesome."
"Going to leave your horse and wagon here, eh?" spoke the sailor. "What are you going to do? What am I going to do—and the dog?"
"For me, I should go on a little further to a friend of mine in the same business," said the junk dealer. "I can sleep there for the night, and he will make room for you and the dog—cheap, too. You do not of need to feed the dog."