Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/73

 have been about half crazy when he suspected a boy who bore so close a resemblance to Roy Sheldon of being a sharper.

"I don't live with him any more," replied Rowe. "I have left him for good; but of course I did not take the trouble to ask his consent."

"Oh, that's what made you jump and look frightened when I caught hold of you and called you a runaway, was it?" said Arthur. "If your guardian finds you can he make you go back against your will?"

"Certainly. He has often given me to understand that he will have full control of my actions as well as of my property until I am twenty-one years old."

"Then he told you what isn't so," declared Joe.

"I guess not," answered Rowe doubtfully. "At any rate, when I ran away from him two years ago he gobbled me with the aid of a policeman and took me back."

"But you are older now than you were then," said Joe. "How old are you, if it is a fair question?"