“Well, Casey, you were not up here alone,” said Hugh, steadily. “We know from the signs you had a pal along with you, and that he’s been a pretty sick man lately, though he must be on the mend if he could go away from here in a hurry, and with only a cane to help him along.”
The man looked surprised to hear Hugh say all this. Like many other people, possibly, Casey may have entertained a contempt for the ability of boys, who dressed in khaki and called themselves scouts, to read signs, and figure out things accurately without once seeing those whom they were following.
“Sure, that’s so!” he exclaimed, in wonderment; “though I don’t know how ye guessed it.”
“Your companion’s name was Sam, wasn’t it?” asked Hugh immediately.
“Just what it was,” came the reply, while the increased look of astonishment on the man’s face caused several wrinkles to cross his forehead.
Possibly his guilty conscience was giving him cause for alarm. If this boy could tell so many things that were supposed to be secret, how was a fellow to know about keeping his own private affairs hidden?
“Well,” continued Hugh, “we have come up here on purpose to find Sam, I don’t mind telling you. He used to live not forty miles away from here before he took to the life of a hobo. Perhaps you knew this, and then again it may be he never whispered a word of it to you. But this boy here is his younger brother, Gus, and your pal’s real name is Sam Merrivale.”
Casey seemed to be impressed with the sincerity in Hugh’s tone. He looked again at the eager Gus, now hanging over him with an expression that could not be mistaken on his drawn face.
“Is that so?” he finally asked, as though convinced that Hugh spoke the truth. “Then I’m sorry we didn’t get on to it before we flew the coop here. If we’d just made up our minds to face the music and stick it out, I’d be feelin’ a heap easier in my body right now, and pore Sam wouldn’t ’a’ been a goner!”
At hearing the tramp say these dismal words Gus gave a low groan, and put his hand up across his eyes as though he feared the worst.