straight on
up the road," he announced, coming back. "I will not have to
go very far before I find a physician."

"No, you're not going, either," broke in the boss tramp. "I am
going."

"But, see here, I can't very well let a stranger like you go off
with our horse," Dick objected smilingly.

"You don't have to," retorted the other. "I'll go on foot, and
I'll make the trip as fast as I can, too. But maybe you'd better
give me a note to the doctor. He might not pay much attention
to a sick call from a fellow who looks as tough as I do."

"If I let you go, can I depend upon you to keep right on going
straight and fast, until you deliver a note to a doctor?" asked
Prescott, eyeing the boss tramp keenly.

"Yes!" answered the tramp, returning the glance with one so
straightforward that Dick felt he could really trust the man.
"And if the first doctor won't or can't come, I'll keep on going
until I find one who will take the call."

"Good for you!" cried Tom Reade heartily. "And if it weren't
for fear of startling you, I'd say that the next thing you'll
be doing will be to find and accept a job, and work again like
a useful man!"

"That would be startling," grinned the fellow, half sullenly.

Dick wrote the note. Away went his ill-favored looking messenger.
Dick turned to administer more nitre to the peddler.

"Do you expect to move on at all to-day?" Dave asked of Dick.

"It wouldn't be really wise, would it?" Dick counter-queried.
"Our tent and shelter flap are pretty wet to take down and fold
away in a wagon. We'd find it wet going, too. Hadn't we better
stay here until to-morrow, and then break camp with our tent properly
dry?"

All hands voted in favor of remaining---except the hoboes, who
weren't asked. They would remain indefinitely, anyway, if permitted,
and if the food held out.

But Dick soon set them to work. One was despatched for water,
the other two set to gathering wet firewood and spreading it in
the sun to dry out. Nor did the trio of remaining tramps refuse
to do the work required of them, though they looked reluctant
enough at first.

Two more hours passed.

"I'm afraid our friend, Hustling Weary, is having a hard time
to get a doctor who'll come down the road," Dick remarked to Darrin.

"Oh, the doctor will come, if Weary has found him," Dave replied.
"Doctors always come. They have to, or lose their reputations."

Half an hour later a business-like honk! was heard. T