A pleasant-looking, matronly woman, plainly but neatly attired, came forward to greet him.

“Nat says you would like to get some dinner,” she said.

“Yes,” answered Carl.  “I hope you’ll excuse my applying to you, but your son tells me there is no hotel near by.”

“The nearest one is three miles away from here.”

“I don’t think I can hold out so long,” said Carl, smiling.

“Sit right down with Nat,” said the farmer’s wife, hospitably.  “Mr. Sweetser won’t be home for half an hour.  We’ve got enough, such as it is.”

Evidently Mrs. Sweetser was a good cook.  The dinner consisted of boiled mutton, with several kinds of vegetables.  A cup of tea and two kinds of pie followed.

It was hard to tell which of the two boys did fuller justice to the meal.  Nat had the usual appetite of a healthy farm boy, and Carl, in spite of his recent anxieties, and narrow escape from serious peril, did not allow himself to fall behind.

“Your mother’s a fine cook!” said Carl, between two mouthfuls.

“Ain’t she, though?” answered Nat, his mouth full of pie.

When Carl rose from the table he feared that he had eaten more than his little stock of money would pay for.

“How much will it be, Mrs. Sweetser?” he asked.

“Oh, you’re quite welcome to all you’ve had,” said the good woman, cheerily.  “It’s plain farmer’s fare.”

“I never tasted a better dinner,” said Carl.

Mrs. Sweetser seemed pleased with the compliment to her cooking.

“Come again when you are passing this way,” she said.  “You will always be welcome to a dinner.”

Carl thanked her heartily, and pressed on his way.  Two hours later, at a lonely point of the road, an ill-looking tramp, who had been reclining by the wayside, jumped up, and addressed him in a menacing tone: 

“Young feller, shell over all the money you have got, or I’ll hurt you!  I’m hard up, and I won’t stand no nonsense.”

Carl started and looked into the face of the tramp.  It seemed to him that he had never seen a man more ill-favored, or villainous-looking.

CHAPTER XI.

The archery prize.

Situated as he was, it seemed, on second thought, rather a joke to Carl to be attacked by a robber.  He had but twenty-five cents in good money about him, and that he had just picked up by the merest chance.

“Do I look like a banker?” he asked, humorously.  “Why do you want to rob a boy?”

“The way you’re togged out, you must have something,” growled the tramp, “and I haven’t got a penny.”

“Your business doesn’t seem to pay, then?”

“Don’t you make fun of me, or I’ll wring your neck!  Just hand over your money and be quick about it!  I haven’t time to stand fooling here all day.”

A bright idea came to Carl.  He couldn’t spare the silver coin, which constituted all his available wealth, but he still had the counterfeit note.