“Let’s follow the road back to town,” another proposed.
Some who did not care to regale themselves thought it would be well to do that in the forlorn hope that some clew or information might come to them along the road. Since they had no clew, one way was as good as another.
Roy, Pee-wee, Connie and several others decided to get something to eat at Mike’s before returning through the woods, where they would make a supplementary search. What else could they do? The whole thing seemed so hopeless. It was in Hamburger Mike’s that Pee-wee’s party encountered Toby Ralston.
Toby lived in North Bridgeboro. He was a quiet, easy-going, country boy, familiar in the thoroughfare of the larger town some two or three miles below; one of those boys who seemed never to go home, notwithstanding that he was not in the least adventurous or wayward. He was the kind of boy (and there are many such) who attaches himself to some place of doubtful interest and makes it his accustomed headquarters.
Now and then, a boy is found who likes to hang out in a garage, or perhaps at a fire house, and identify himself with the place as a cat does. Usually he renders much gratuitous service for no comprehensible reason. Such boys may be said to have the local habit.
Toby Ralston was one of those boys. Why he had never joined the scouts is an interesting question. The scene of his altogether innocent lounging was Hamburger Mike’s lunch wagon. Hamburger Mike never closed up. Trains might come and trains might go, the stores might close, the villagers go to bed, the neighborhood of the station become a deserted wilderness; but the light always burned in the dirty stained-glass windows of Hamburger Mike’s lunch wagon. Surely, on the day of judgment, Hamburger Mike would be the last to turn out his lights.
It is not on record that Mike ever gave Toby Ralston a cent for helping to wash dishes and drawing coffee out of his nickel cylinders, or putting new menu cards in the greasy menu card frame. But Toby did these things every day and usually until midnight. And while he was thus engaged his side partner, Robin Hood, waited patiently for him.
Robin Hood was a magnificent police dog. His noble posture as he sat in the dingy place made the lunch wagon look squalid and mundane enough. Robin Hood disdained the place with the disdain of a true aristocrat. It was perfectly evident that he did not approve of his young master’s attachment to this greasy, smoky, stuffy emporium. Hour in and hour out, he would lie waiting patiently, and when his lord went forth, he would slowly rise, stretch his legs and go too.
Robin Hood’s gray wolfish hair and wild eyes and upright ears were familiar on the streets of Bridgeboro and the staring admiration which he aroused seemed a matter of no concern to him whatever. He was oblivious to every one but Toby. He received petting from others as if it bored him; and occasionally, when it was excessive, he showed resentment.
He paid not the slightest attention to these scouts as they entered and lined up on the row of revolving stools before the greasy counter.