In this fashion, keeping up a sort of a conversation—if it could be called such where one did all the talking and the other wagged his short stump of a tail—the two journeyed on until it was almost too dark to distinguish objects a short distance ahead.
Only once since the store-keeper had given him the two dollars had Tim thought of what he had said regarding Captain Babbige’s having money of his, and then he put it out of his mind as an impossibility, for surely, he thought, he would not have scolded so about what he and his dog ate if Tim had had any property of his own.
“I guess we shall have to sleep in the woods, Tip,” said Tim, disconsolately, as the trees appeared to be less thick together, but yet no signs of a house; “but it won’t be much worse than what Aunt Betsey calls a bed good enough for boys like me.”
Just at that instant Tim was frightened out of nearly all his senses, and Tip started on a barking match that threatened to shake his poor apology of a tail from his thin body, by hearing a shrill voice cry out:
“Look here, feller, where are you goin’ this time of night?”
Chapter II.
SAM, THE FAT BOY.
Tim stopped as quickly as if he had stepped into a pool of glue which had suddenly hardened, holding him prisoner, and peered anxiously ahead, trying to discover where the voice came from.
“Didn’t know there was anybody ’round here, did yer?” continued the voice, while the body still remained hidden from view.
Again Tim tried to discover the speaker, and, failing in the attempt, he asked, in a sort of frightened desperation, “Who are you, anyhow?”