added Step Hen.

“Oh! everybody’s doing it now,” mocked Davy Jones; “and I can see that there ain’t the first sign of an old faded blue army overcoat anywhere around this camp.”

“After all, who cares?” exclaimed Giraffe, as he lowered his threatening gun; an act that doubtless gave the two tramps much solid satisfaction. “All of us felt mean and sore because our fine tracking game had come to such a sudden end. Now there’s still a chance we’ll meet up with a few crackerjack adventures before we pick the prize. I say bully all around!”

Davy Jones immediately threw himself into an acrobatic position, and waved both of his feet wildly in the air, as though he felt that the situation might be beyond weak words, and called for something stronger in order to express his exuberant feelings.

“Yes, all of those things would be enough to convince us we’ve made a mistake,” remarked Thad; “and if we want any further proof here it is right before us.”

He pointed to the ground as he spoke. There were a number of footprints in the half dried mud close to the border of the road, evidently made by the two men as they walked back and forth collecting dead wood for their cooking fire.

“You’re right, Thad,” commented Allan Hollister, who of course instantly saw what the other meant when he pointed in that way. “We settled it long ago that we ought to know Wandering George any time we came up with him, simply because he’s got a rag tied around his right shoe to keep it on his foot, it’s that old, and going to flinders. Neither of these men has need to do that; in fact, if you notice, they’ve both got shoes on that look nearly new!”

At that one of the tramps hastened to speak, as though he began to fear that as it was so remarkable a thing for a road roamer to be wearing good footgear, they were liable to arrest as having stolen the same.

“Say, we done a little turn for a cobbler two days back, over in Hooptown, an’ he give us the shoes. Said he fixed ’em fur customers what didn’t ever come back to pay the charges; didn’t we, Smikes?”

“We told him his barn was on fire, sure we did, an’ helped him trow water on, an’ keep the thing from burnin’ down. He gives us a hunky dinner, an’ trows de trilbies in fur good measure. But dey hurts us bad, an’ we was jest a-sayin’ we wishes we had de ole uns back agin. If it wa’n’t so cold we’d take ’em off right now, and go bare-footed, wouldn’t we, Jake?”

“Oh! well, it doesn’t matter to us where you got the shoes,” said Thad. “We happen to be looking for another man, and thought one of you might be him. So go on with your cooking; and, Giraffe, where’s that knuckle of ham you said you hated to lug any further, but which you thought it a sin to throw away? Perhaps we might hand the same over to Smikes and Jake, to pay up for having given them such a bad scare.”

This caused the two tramps to grin in anxious anticipation; and when Giraffe only too willingly extracted the said remnant of a half ham which the scouts had started with, they eagerly seized upon it.

“It’s all right, young fellers,” remarked the one who had been called Smikes, as he clutched the prize; “we ain’t a-carin’ if we gits the same kind o’ a skeer ’bout once a day reg’lar-like, hey, Jake? Talk tuh me ’bout dinner rainin’ down frum the clouds, this beats my time holler. Cum agin, boys, an’ do it sum more.”

Thad knew it was folly to stay any longer at the camp, but before leaving he wished to put a question to the men.

“We’re looking for a fellow who calls himself Wandering George,” he went on to say. “Just now he’s wearing an old faded blue army overcoat that was given to him by a lady who didn’t know that her husband valued it as a keepsake. So we just offered to find it for him, and give George a dollar or so to make up. Have either of you seen a man wearing a blue coat like that?”

“Nixey, mister,” replied Jake promptly.

“Say, I used to wear a blue overcoat, like them, when I was marchin’ fur ole Unc Sam in the Spanish war, fool thet I was; but honest to goodness now I ain’t set eyes on the like this three years an’ more,” the second tramp asserted.

“That settles it, then, fellows!” ejaculated Step Hen, with a note of joy in his voice; “we’ve got to go on further, and run our quarry down. And let me tell you I’m tickled nearly to death because it’s turned out so.”

“Who be you boys, anyhow?” asked Smikes. “Air ye what we hears called scouts?”

“Just what we are,” replied Allan. “That’s why we think it’s so much fun to follow this Wandering George, and trade him a big silver dollar for the old coat the lady gave him when she saw he made out to be cold. Scouts are crazy to do all kinds of things like that, you know.”

“Well, dew tell,” muttered the tramp, shaking his head; “I don’t git on ter the trick, fur a fact. If ’twar me now, I’d rather be a-settin’ in a warm room waitin’ tuh hear the dinner horn blow.”

“Oh! we all like to hear that, let me tell you,” asserted Giraffe, who was unusually fond of eating; “but we get tired of home cooking, and things taste so fine when you’re in camp.”

“Huh! mebbe so, when yuh got plenty o’ the right kind o’ stuff along,” observed the man who gripped the ham bone that Giraffe had tossed him, “but yuh’d think a heap different, let me tell yuh, if ever any of the lot knowed wat it meant tuh be as hungry as a wolf, and nawthin’ tuh satisfy it with. But then there seems tuh be all kinds o’ people in this ole world; an’ they jest kaint understand each other noways.”

Thad saw that the tramp was rather a queer customer, and something along the order of a hobo philosopher; but he had no more time just then to stand and talk with him out of idle curiosity.

So he gave the order, and the scouts, wheeling around, strode out upon the road, their faces set toward the east. The last they saw of the two tramps was just before turning a bend in the road they looked back and saw that the men were apparently hard at work dividing the remnant of the ham that had been turned over by the boys as some sort of solace to soothe their wounded feelings.

Half a mile further on and the woods gave place to cultivated fields and pastures, although of course it was too early in the season for much work to be done by the farmers, except where they were hauling fertilizer to make ready for the first plowing.

“If we get the chance, boys, to-night, let’s sleep in a barn,” suggested Giraffe, as he rubbed his right shank as though it might pain him. “Where we lay last night it seemed to me a million roots and stones kept pushing into my body till I was black and blue this morning. And I always did like to nestle down in good sweet hay. I don’t blame tramps for taking the chance every opportunity that opens. What do the rest of you say to that?”

“It strikes me favorably,” Step Hen quickly admitted.

“Oh! any old place is good enough for me,” sighed Bumpus.

“If you can only be sure there are no rats around, I believe I’d enjoy sleeping in a hay mow,” Davy told them.

“I’ve never had the experience,” remarked Smithy with a shrug of his shoulders, and a grimace; “and I must confess I don’t hanker much for it. Bad enough to have to roll up in your own blanket any old time; but spiders and hornets and all that horrible set are to be found in haylofts, they tell me. I’m more afraid of them than an alligator or a wild bull. A gypsy once told me I would die from poison bites, and ever since I’ve had