Without thinking what he was doing, Tom darted into the doorway whence the voice had come. Hardly had he entered it, before he was seized, and received a brutal blow on the side of the head, hard enough to stun him.
"What a bit of luck!" exclaimed one of the men who had lured the lad into the doorway.
"It sure is that," was the rejoinder from his companion, who, if the reader has not already guessed it, was none other than Walstein, with his partner, Dampier. Tom, unfamiliar with Rockport, had actually doubled on his own tracks, and thus, the two men on their way up a narrow alley, had spied him just dashing into it. In a flash their minds were made up, and they slid hastily into the doorway in which they had trapped poor Tom.
They had tracked the two lads to the station, but as they neared it, the nerve of the two rascals had failed them.
"We don't want to run our heads into a halter," Dampier had said. "We'll have to let the lad go for the present."
Walstein was quite willing to agree with him in this, having no better liking for the vicinity of the law than his companion.
Naturally, they were considerably mystified as to the cause of Tom's sudden appearance; but Dampier, who had a shrewd mind, partially unraveled the solution, when he said:
"I reckon the police were not quite as willing to listen to his story as he thought they'd be. Maybe he got mad and gave 'em impudence!"
"In that case they'll be right after him," said Walstein. "We'd better be getting out of here on the jump."
"I think so, too. Here, help me with the boy. See, this alley-way runs right through to another street. We'll hurry down it and then get back to the tug as fast as we can. Come on. There's no time to lose."