etime. I've always longed for
the free life of a tramp; and if you'll let me go along with you for a
little while, and teach me, I'll not bother you; and I'll do whatever
you say."

The elderly person frowned. "Beat it, kid!" he commanded. "We ain't
runnin' no day nursery. These you see here is all the real thing. Maybe
we asks fer a handout now and then; but that ain't our reg'lar lay. You
ain't swift enough to travel with this bunch, kid, so you'd better duck.
Why we gents, here, if we was added up is wanted in about twenty-seven
cities fer about everything from rollin' a souse to crackin' a box and
croakin' a bull. You gotta do something before you can train wid gents
like us, see?" The speaker projected a stubbled jaw, scowled horridly
and swept a flattened palm downward and backward at a right angle to a
hairy arm in eloquent gesture of finality.

The boy had stood with his straight, black eyebrows puckered into a
studious frown, drinking in every word. Now he straightened up. "I guess
I made a mistake," he said, apologetically. "You ain't tramps at all.
You're thieves and murderers and things like that." His eyes opened a
bit wider and his voice sank to a whisper as the words passed his lips.
"But you haven't so much on me, at that," he went on, "for I'm a regular
burglar, too," and from the bulging pockets of his coat he drew two
handfuls of greenbacks and jewelry. The eyes of the six registered
astonishment, mixed with craft and greed. "I just robbed a house in
Oakdale," explained the boy. "I usually rob one every night."

For a moment his auditors were too surprised to voice a single emotion;
but presently one murmured, soulfully: "Pipe de swag!" He of the frock
coat, golf cap, and years waved a conciliatory hand. He tried to look at
the boy's face; but for the life of him he couldn't raise his eyes above
the dazzling wealth clutched in the fingers of those two small,
slim hands. From one dangled a pearl necklace which alone might have
ransomed, if not a king, at least a lesser member of a royal family,
while diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds scintillated in the
flaring light of the fire. Nor was the fistful of currency in the other
hand to be sneezed at. There were greenbacks, it is true; but there were
also yellowbacks with the reddish gold of large denominations. The Sky
Pilot sighed a sigh that was more than half gasp.

"Can't yuh take a kid?" he inquired. "I knew youse all along. Yuh can't
fool