“What’s the matter here, Joe?” asked the conductor of the train, stepping up at this moment.
“Only a couple of stowaways that I found stealing a ride in this car,” was the answer.
“Tramps, eh?” said the conductor, sharply, flashing the light from his lantern upon the two trembling figures who stood behind him. “A dog, too,” he continued, “and I’ll warrant they stole it. I’ve a mind to take it in payment for their ride. If this was a town I’d have you fellows arrested and locked up in less than no time. You, and all your kind, ought to be killed off for the good of the country. As it is I’ll leave you here to soak in the rain for the rest of the night, and perhaps some of the worthlessness will be washed out of you by morning. Hello! what’s this?”
Here the conductor stooped and picked up a small object over which Brakeman Joe had stumbled, and which he had sent flying out on to the platform.
It was a book, and the conductor picked it up, wondering where it could have come from. “‘Andersen’s Fairy Tales,’” he read aloud, holding it up to his lantern. “The very book my little Kitty was asking me to get for her only the other day! Well, if this isn’t a find!” Then, turning to the fly-leaf, he read aloud: “To Prince Dusty, from——”
Here he was interrupted by Arthur, who sprang forward, and, stretching out his hand for the book, cried: “Please, sir, it’s mine; and I should feel dreadfully to lose it, and we aren’t tramps, and didn’t mean to steal a ride. We got locked in by accident, and we have money enough to pay for everything, and oh! please don’t leave us here in this lonely place.”
The conductor stared at the boy in amazement. “Well, you do look like a ‘little Dusty’ sure enough, though I can’t say that you are exactly what I should have fancied a Prince was. Who are you, anyway? And where do you want to go to?”
Then Arthur, who was completely covered with white dust from the meal sacks on which he had been sleeping, told the conductor, in as few words as possible, of the object of their journey, and how they happened to be locked into car No. 201. He finished by repeating that they had money, and would willingly pay for the privilege of riding further on the train, provided it was bound east. This last question was asked most anxiously, for as yet the boy had not the slightest idea of where they were.