“Digging for bait?” Fuller asked pleasantly.
The stranger seemed greatly disconcerted. “Yere, but I don’t find any,” he said.
“Maybe you’re digging too deep?” said Ray. “Anybody tell you that this is the only place to find bait?”
“I ain’t hurtin’ nobody, am I?” asked the man.
“No, but you’re trespassing,” said Fuller quietly. He glanced about, casually inspecting the immediate vicinity. He squinted his eyes at the tree under which they stood. Then he leaned against the tree in an offhand manner.
“I was wondering whether this nail in the tree meant anything to you,” he asked in a friendly way. Ray fancied that he could catch a certain unexpressed meaning in his friend’s tone. “Sometimes they mark spots where there is good bait,” Fuller said. “You’re a stranger in town, aren’t you?”
“Am I doin’ any harm?” the stranger asked, reaching for his coat that hung on a limb of the tree. Like a flash of lightning, Fuller reached for the coat, quickly went through the pockets in which he found nothing, then flung the coat in the man’s face.
“The best thing for you to do is to get out of here double quick,” he said briskly. “You’re either an escaped convict or an ex-convict. Oh, you needn’t be afraid, we haven’t got anything on you. Only if you’re caught here it might be bad for you. If there’s any good fishing bait here we’ll find it. Now get out of here, quick. There’s a freight train leaving about now, and we’re very much obliged to you for calling.”
The stranger hesitated for just a moment. It seemed as if he could not bring himself to go. Then he departed.
He had dug all around the tree; he must have been at work long before Pee-wee saw him. Fuller sat down on the edge of the irregular excavation; the others followed.