“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.

“Yes.  Our daddy wants it back!”

Mr. Gannon looked a bit surprised.

“Not to wear,” explained Russ quickly.  “He doesn’t want it to wear.  You can keep it, I guess.  But when he told the clerk in his office to give the coat to you there were some papers in one of the pockets and——­”

“Real estate papers,” broke in Laddie, remembering this part.

“Yes, real estate papers,” said Russ.  “They were in the pocket of the old, ragged coat, and my daddy would like awful much to get ’em back.  Have you got the coat?”

Mr. Gannon did not speak for a moment or two.  He seemed to be trying to think of something.  Then, as Russ and Laddie looked at him, and as Zip sat looking at the cat, the red-haired tramp lumberman said: 

“Well, now, it’s a funny thing, but I have got that old coat yet.  It’s too ragged for me to wear—­it got a lot more ragged after your father gave it to me—­but I sort of took a liking to it, and I kept it.  I’ve got it yet.”

“Where is it?” asked Russ eagerly.