s
standing on the platform to see the crowd off peacefully. "Look at
this!" thrusting the coins under his very nose. "Bad money, that's
what 'tis,--passed off on me last night! But I know who done it, and
where he is,--leastways where he was last night, and he can't have
got so very far. He's Tom Smith, the hawker, and he'd got his van in
a field nigh 'pon the top of Woodend Lane last night--put it there
without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave! Trespassing, that's
what he was, and that's another thing you can have him up for.
He was there to kidnap a child and a dog what he said was his; but
I'll bet they wasn't--and that's another thing against him.
Of course he'd move on as soon as he'd got the kid, but he can't have
got so very far with that old horse of his--he looked as if he'd drop
dead if he was made to go another mile."

The policeman stayed to see the train depart with the crowd safely
packed inside it, then turned away with Bob. He was as anxious as
Bob himself to follow up the case. Policemen did not get much chance
in little country places, and promotion came slowly. "What was he
giving you six shillings for?" he asked, as Bob and he trudged up the
hill from the station.

Bob looked foolish. "Oh--for--for showing him the way," he
stammered.

The policeman looked at him sharply. "What way?" he asked.

"To--to Woodend Lane," he answered, shortly, wondering distractedly
how he could avoid giving true explanations; but the policeman, to
his relief, did not press the matter further, and whatever his
thoughts were, he kept them to himself.

Presently he asked, casually, "Where was the child he wanted to get
hold of? In Woodend Lane?"

"Yes--I mean I dunno. I don't know nothing about it."

"I only asked, 'cause we've had word to keep a look-out for a man,
probably with a caravan, who has stolen a child and a dog from
Wood--"

"Why, look, what's that over there?" interrupted Bob, in sudden
excitement.

"That over there" was a shabby brown caravan, hung about with tins
and brushes, standing beneath a high hedge in a corner of a distant
field. From the road beneath it, it would not be visible to any
passer-by, but looking across country as they were the glitter of the
tins flashing in the rays of the morning sun caught the eye, and
discovered the van in its hiding-place.

"Here goes!" cried the policeman, excitedly. "A chap don't get a
chance like this every day. Come along, young fe