'll beat his head off!"

"You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George.

"Not me!" answered Sandy. "Me for ham and eggs!"

"What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?"

Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from
somewhere just outside the door.

"That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy.

"You've had your share!" shouted Sandy.

"It has now been nine days since I've tasted food!" came the answer from
the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a chuckle
between the words.

"All right!" replied Tommy. "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine
days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be
hungry. Go on away tonight, anyhow!"

"Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the
door. "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!"

"Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy.

"You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door. "I haven't had
a thing to eat in forty or fifty days. Come on, now," he added "be good
fellows and open up. I'm so hungry I could eat a brass cylinder."

"Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy. "He'll stand there chinning all night
if we don't! We've got enough to eat for the present anyway."

Will unfastened the door and a tall, slender young fellow of perhaps
seventeen stepped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under the
strong electric light. His face was streaked with coal dust and his
clothing was ragged and dirty. Still, the boy looked like anything but a
tramp. Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment.

"Where'd you come from?" he asked.

"Off the rods!" was the reply.

"And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll by
starlight and just happened to walk into this mine."

"Sure!" answered the other with a provoking grin.

"Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy that
had a mixup with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were trying to
invite you to supper. What do you know about that?"

"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 mixup with a tr