"To see you," answered Russ.

"To see _me_!" exclaimed the red-haired lumberman in surprise. "Well, I'm
no great sight to look at, that's sure. But still I'm glad to see you. Are
you sure you wanted me?"

"You're red-haired," said Russ slowly, as though going over certain
points.

"That's right," said the lumberman.

"And you cut down trees," went on Russ.

"Correct."

"And were you ever a tramp?" Russ asked.

"Well, yes, you could call me that," admitted the red-haired man, speaking
slowly. "I'm a sort of tramp lumberman. I never like to stay long in one
place, and so I'm roving all over. You could call me a tramp."

"That's good," said Russ.

"Well, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't," said Mr. Gannon. "It
isn't so bad tramping in the summer, but in the winter it isn't so nice.
You get cold and hungry."

"I meant it's good 'cause you're the very one we want to see," went on
Russ, who felt quite big and grown-up, now that he and Laddie had come
this far alone. "Now where is the ragged coat?"

"The ragged coat?" questioned Mr. Gannon. He did not seem to know what
Laddie meant.

"Didn't you get a ragged cent from my daddy's real estate office about a
month ago?" went on Russ in surprise. "It was in Pineville, where we live
when we aren't visiting Grandma Bell. Did you get a ragged coat there?"

"Pineville--Pineville?" murmured the red-haired lumberman to himself, as
if trying to remember. "Yes, I did tramp through there and--Hold on!" he
cried. "I remember now! I did ask at an office if they had an old coat
they could give me. I hadn't one worth wearing. I did get an old coat,
and, as you say, it was ragged."

"Our father gave you that," went on Laddie. "Or he told one of his real
estate men to do it."

"Yes, that's right--I remember now. I did beg a coat from a real estate
office," said Mr. Gannon. "And that was your father's place, was it? Well,
I'm glad to meet you boys. Your father was kind to me. But Pineville is a
long way from here. It took me almost a month to walk it, stopping to work
now and then."

"We came in the train," said Laddie, "and I know a riddle about the
conductor punching the tickets, but I don't know----"

Russ didn't want his brother to get to talking about riddles at a time
like this. So he interrupted with:

"And have you got that ragged coat now, Mr. Tramp--I mean Mr. Gannon? Have
you got that coat now?"

"Have I got that ragged coat, you mean?" asked the man.