The eating place was a good one, and Tom's predictions about their being taken for strangers was verified, for, no sooner had they given their orders than the pretty, white girl, who waited on the table remarked:
"Ah reckon yo' all are from th' no'th; aren't yo'?" She smiled, as she spoke, and Tom smiled back as he acknowledged it.
"Have you a paper—a newspaper I could look at?" he asked.
"Ah guess Ah can find one," went on the girl. "Ah reckon yo' all are from N' York. N' Yorkers are so desperant bent on readin' th' news." Her tones were almost like those of a colored person.
"Yes, we're from a part of New York," was Tom's reply.
When a newspaper was brought to him, after they had nearly finished their meal, the young inventor rapidly scanned the pages. Something on the front sheet, under a heading of big, black type caught his eye. He started as he read it.
WANTED FOR ROBBERY!
BANK LOOTERS ESCAPE IN RED AIRSHIP—FIRED AT
BUT DISAPPEAR
"Great Jehosophat!" exclaimed Tom, in a low voice. "What on earth can this mean?"
"What?" inquired Mr. Damon. "Has anything happened?"
"Happened? I should say there had," was the answer. "Why, we're accused of having robbed the Shopton Bank of seventy-five thousand dollars the night before we left, and to have taken it away in the Red Cloud. There's a general alarm out for us! Why this is awful!"