"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 bra.s.s 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 b.u.mped 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 tramp, and that's all there is to it!"

"And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the tramp tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't get anything!

The tramp who got a hold of me night before last stripped me clean! And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money to buy provisions with.

And also that's the reason why I'm hungry."

The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory answers.

"And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some minutes before, "that's why two other boys are hungry just about this time. I got rolled for my wad plenty."

"That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy.

"That's Bowery!" corrected the other.

"What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy.

"I said that's why two other boys are hungry."

"They ain't hungry any more," Tommy declared with a wink.

"That listens good!" the stranger said.

"Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and stole everything they could get their hands on."

"Brave boys!" laughed the other.

"You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!"

declared Tommy. "Here these boys come here and steal our grub and you seem to think they did a n.o.ble thing! What's your name, anyhow?"

"Buck," was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue, N. Y. C.

Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just about ready to sc.r.a.p for something to eat!"

"Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and b.u.t.ter and canned tomatoes, before the young man. "Why didn't you say something about being a Boy Scout before you tried to hold us up for a hand-out?

You seem to go at everything wrong end first!"

"How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and d.i.c.k Thompson?" asked Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because, if you had b.u.mped into them, they would have fed you out of the provisions they stole from us!"

"I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when you left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for things to quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind."

"That must have been Ventner," suggested Will.

"Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine again? Does he know you're here?"

"He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the refuse cast aside by the miners."

"Well you got into the mine at last," Will suggested, "what is the next move you are thinking of making?"

"After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered, with a nod at the great stack of food which Tommy had piled up on his plate, "I'm going to give you boys the surprise of your lives!"

"You've pretty near done that now!" laughed Will.

"And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of the Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize for stealing your grub!"

"If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!"

CHAPTER XIV

MINE RATS READY FOR WAR

"Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down and bring those two foolish youngsters up with me. It's time we had an understanding with you boys. You're here looking for something, and we're here looking for something. Perhaps we would meet with better success if we talked over our plans."

"What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy.

"Keep it dark," grinned Elmer. "I'm not going to tell you a thing until I bring Jimmie and d.i.c.k up here so they can get next to the whole story!

I guess you boys can work together without sc.r.a.pping, can't you?"

"When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!"

"So that's what you came down here after, is it?"

"Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine."