“He might, that’s so,” muttered the disturbed Hiram uneasily.
“And then the idea would become a conviction that you must be carrying something very valuable in that inner pocket. You see, if the parties chanced to be crooked, that would make them figure how they could get hold of your property. So the very movement which you meant to be a safeguard would prove your undoing.”
“Rob, I’ll try and quit that, if you think it best,” promised the other, apparently more or less impressed with the logic the scout leader had brought to bear on the subject.
“That’s all very well, Hiram, but I’m afraid your repentance comes too late to do much good,” Rob told him, at which the inventor gave a start, and into his eyes there crept a look of concern.
“Whatever can you mean by saying that, Rob?” he asked in a troubled voice.
“I’ll tell you,” said Rob. “I’m afraid that you’ve already attracted the attention you wanted to avoid.”
“What! here on this train, in this sleeper?” whispered Hiram, appalled.
“Don’t look up now, when I mention the matter, because they might see you, for I expect they’re watching us. Both of you have undoubtedly noticed two men who sit back of you, and at the end of the car, one of them small and stout, the other tall and slim?”
“Yes,” Andy admitted, “the tall one nodded when he passed, and acted like he wanted to open up a talk with me, but I turned to the window again as if I was too much taken up with the scenery here to bother.”
“And the stout one nodded to me when he caught my eye,” said Hiram. “’Course I nodded back, but made out not to look that way again.”