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Page 36
"Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!"
"If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute,"
Will suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants. Do you
mean to say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this
kid while returning to the mine from the tracks?"
"Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy. "I thought I did. We
found him in a mix-up with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!"
"And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the
tramp tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob
me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't
get anything! The tramp who got a hold of me night before last
stripped me clean! And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money
to buy provisions with. And also that's the reason why I'm hungry."
The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic
course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory
answers.
"And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some
minutes before, "that's why two boys are hungry just about this time.
I got rolled for my wad plenty."
"That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy.
"That's Bowery!" corrected the other.
"What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy.
"I said that's why two other boys are hungry."
"They ain't hungry any more," declared Tommy with a wink.
"That listens good!" the stranger said.
"Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and
stole everything they could get their hands on."
"Brave boys!" laughed the other.
"You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!"
declared Tommy. "Here, these boys come here and steal our grub and you
seem to think they did a noble thing! What's your name anyhow?"
"Buck!" was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue,
N.Y.C. Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just
about ready to scrap for something to eat!"
"Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice
of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter
and canned tomatoes before the young man.
"How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked
Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!"
"How do you know that?"
"Because if you had bumped into them, they would fed you out of the
provisions they stole from us!"
"I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried
to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when
you left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the
darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for
things to quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think
I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a
jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind."
"That must have been Ventner," suggested Will.
"Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine
again? Does he know you're here?"
"He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone
away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the
refuse cast aside by the miners."
"Well, you've got him into the mine, at last," Will suggested. "What
is the next move you are thinking of making?"
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