“Take your hand off me. What do you want?”
At the same moment he gave an adroit twist, an old football trick, and in a shake had freed himself from the other’s detaining hand.
“You needn’t crow quite so loudly, my young rooster,” exclaimed the man in the tramp’s dress, “I merely wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“Well,” demanded the boy.
“What were you doing up there in the woods while we were talking?”
Lathrop didn’t know whether or not the men were armed, so that he decided that it would be folly to tell them the facts; he therefore took refuge in strategy.
“What do you mean?” he asked with an expression of blank amazement.
“Oh, come,” said the other, but there was a note of indecision in his tones, that showed that he was not as sure of his ground as he had been, “you don’t mean to say that you weren’t lying hidden while we were talking up yonder and heard every word?”
“As I told you,” replied Lathrop, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I am on my way home through these woods and you have stopped me in this unceremonious fashion. If there was a constable within call I would have you arrested.”
“Oh, come on, Bill,” struck in the nattily dressed one of the pair, who had hitherto remained silent, “the kid doesn’t know anything—that’s evident, and we are wasting time here.”