“It’s no use, I guess,” remarked Fred at last, as they turned back from the outskirts of the town. “He may be miles away by this time.”
“Getting ready to break into some other store, perhaps,” suggested Teddy. “The loot he got in Oldtown won’t last him forever.”
“There’s a pretty tough looking customer going down that lane,” exclaimed Bill Garwood, as they came to a corner in a poor part of the town.
The boys followed his glance and saw a tall, roughly dressed man slouching along a hundred yards away and making toward the open country. He was alone and seemed to be in no hurry.
“It’s the same fellow we saw yesterday,” said Teddy excitedly. “I’m sure of it. How about it, Lester?”
“It surely looks like him,” replied Lester Lee. “The same walk and the same clothes and–yes, the same face,” as the man gave a careless look behind him.
“You get down to the constable’s office, quick, Teddy,” directed Fred. “Run every step of the way. Tell him we’ve got this fellow located. We’ll try to keep him in sight until you get back. Hustle.”
Teddy was off like a shot.
But the tramp seemed to know that something was in the air. He looked around again and then quickened his pace. The boys, too, walked faster, and, noting this with another backward glance, the man in front made certain that they were following him with a purpose. What that purpose was he did not know, but his guilty conscience told him that it might be for any one of half a dozen offences.
At the first corner he turned sharply, and when the boys reached it, they saw him loping along at a pace that carried him rapidly over the ground. The houses had thinned out, and there was no one to intercept him as he made for the woods that lay a little way ahead.