“That you, Joey?” the old man called in the high pitched, broken voice of age. The moment seemed tense though Tom did not know why.
“Joey—that you?”
But the hurrying figure neither turned nor answered.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DERELICT FINDS A PORT
For a moment Tom’s imagination pictured the stranger as the fugitive grandson and he was conscious of a certain amusement at the likeness of such a meeting to the happenings in a photo-play.
“Know him?” he asked rather anxiously.
“I thought it were Joey Ganley,” the old man said.
“His folks were neighbors of mine in the old village. He went out west, Joey did, when they stole our homes. He done well out there and sent his mother money to build a house in the new village. You didn’t happen to see that house?” The old man did not vouchsafe Tom any details by which Joe Ganley’s fine gift to his mother might be identified.
“N—not to know it,” said Tom. “I haven’t been in West Hurley much.”