staring at a figure which, passing the corner where the colored light from an apothecary shop drifted across the pavement, had turned a face toward him for a brief moment.
"Bill!"
Lanky muttered the word to himself, after the manner of one who fancied that he had seen a ghost. He even rubbed his eyes and winked, in the belief that he was seeing things that did not exist. For since he had left that forlorn figure up in camp at Rattail Island, it hardly seemed possible that he could run across him here, only a few hours later, in Columbia!
The shuffling figure turned the corner and was gone. Lanky took a step forward as if tempted to follow after; then came to a halt.
"Rats! Why should I think of chasing after that poor chap? It was him as sure as guns; but what of that? Rattail is only two miles up by the road. A hobo thinks nothing of tramping ten or twenty in a day. What's he want down here to-night? Well, if he's like the rest of the breed I reckon its liquor that draws him. Bill—Bill what? There he was, right before me again, and I ain't an inch closer to solving that terrible puzzle than before. Bill—Billy Smith, Brown, Jones; say, this is just awful how it gets away from a fellow."
So shaking his head Lanky walked on. He could
