“Wasn’t the other fellow with him?” asked Fred.
“No, he was all alone this time. I was coming up from the post office with Lester Lee when I caught sight of him near the railroad track. He looked tough and slouchy, but not as ragged as when we first saw him.”
“Yes,” interrupted Fred, “he’s had money since then.”
“I thought there was something about him that reminded me of some one,” went on Teddy, “but it wasn’t till after I’d passed him that it came over me who he was. Then I turned around to go after him, with the idea of having him arrested. But he had just gone over the tracks in front of a freight train. The train was a long one and we had to wait several minutes on this side before it got by. Then it was too late. We hunted all over, but couldn’t see anything of him.”
“That was hard luck,” said Fred regretfully.
“Of course,” resumed Teddy, “he wasn’t trying to get away, because he’d never seen me before, and didn’t know that I’d ever seen him. He must have turned a corner somewhere and then melted out of sight. Maybe I wasn’t sore! Think what a satisfaction it would be to telegraph to Uncle Aaron that we’d got the fellow who stole his watch.”
“It’s certainly tough,” assented Fred, “to come so close to him and just miss getting him. I’ll ’phone down right away to the constable at Green Haven, and tell him to be on the lookout for the fellow.”
“Tell him there’s a reward out for him,” suggested Teddy. “That’ll make him keep his eye peeled.”
Fred telephoned at once, and received the assurance that the fellow would be arrested if found, and held as a suspicious character until the Oldtown authorities could send for him.
And the next day, the boys themselves, together with a number of their friends, spent all their spare time searching in that part of the town where the tramp had disappeared.