The Chums of Scranton High out for the Pennant Part 6

Thad showed signs of intense interest.

"I sort of thought you'd be wanting to cultivate his acquaintance so as to study the chap at closer range, Hugh," he hastened to say. "Well, did he entertain you with some accounts of his adventures in different parts of the world, as he promised he'd do if we'd drop around at his new home and see him?"

"He certainly can talk a blue streak, once he gets started," admitted Hugh, with a little whistle. "Why, that man would have made a splendid lawyer, if he'd ever had the ambition to try; and as a promoter for land schemes he'd take the cake. But he says he was born with the wanderl.u.s.t in his veins that would not let him rest anywhere for a decent length of time. No sooner would he get settled nicely, and perhaps own some big piece of land, down in Brazil once, or it may have been out in our own West, than along would come that awful yearning to be on the move again; and so, unable to resist, he would sacrifice his property, and get on the jump again."

"If you could only rely on all he says, Hugh," admitted the deeply interested Thad, "he'd be a mighty interesting character; but for one, I firmly believe it's a great big lie; he's never been anywhere but around this country, and that traveling on freight-car beams, and walking the ties."

"Well," Hugh went on, "he certainly has a mighty intimate acquaintance with all sorts of countries, for he can describe things in the most minute way you ever heard. He kept me fairly chained while he was talking of Borneo, Sumatra, Hong Kong, China, j.a.pan, the Philippines, and all those far-away countries in the South Seas. If he's only read about them, the man has the most astonis.h.i.+ng memory I ever ran across."

"Oh! he's no doubt a character," admitted the skeptical Thad, as though he begrudged acknowledging even this much; "but I still believe him to be a fake. Keep right on telling me what you did, Hugh."

"For that matter, I didn't do much of anything except listen to his stories, for he kept up a steady stream of talk for a whole hour or more, and covered a wide territory in that time."

"I sort of think Brother Lu has conceived a liking for me which is hardly returned in the same ratio; though I confess there's something almost fascinating about the fellow."

Thad acted as though alarmed.

"Be careful, and keep on your guard, Hugh, or else he'll be hypnotizing you just like he seems to have done with poor Matilda and her husband.

That slick tongue of his can do all sorts of stunts. Why if you don't look out we'll have you going around taking up a subscription to fit Brother Lu out with a brand new suit of togs; and perhaps buying the poor chap a bully meerschaum pipe; for it must be dreadful that he is now compelled to use one of Mr. Hosmer's old corncob affairs."

His sarcasm was lost upon his chum, for Hugh laughed merrily at the gruesome picture Thad drew of his complete subjugation to the wiles of the schemer.

"Of course," he continued, calmly, "I didn't forget what I was there for princ.i.p.ally, and all the while he was talking so fluently and holding my interest, I kept watching him and trying to study his real character. Thad, I own up to failure. Once I thought I was a pretty clever hand at that sort of thing, but now I'm mixer-up, and have lost considerable confidence.

"I kept changing my mind again and again. When he'd tell some of the most astonis.h.i.+ng stories of the strange lands he'd roved through, I'd begin to say to myself that he must surely be just lying. Then the fellow'd mention some little happening that he'd describe so vividly, would you believe it, I felt the tears in my eyes, for it would be sort of pathetic. So during that whole hour I sat there and changed my mind every ten minutes, now blowing hot, and again cold. I came away in as muddled a state as I went there. His actions seem to stamp him a rogue if ever there was one; and yet, Thad, I seemed to see something different in the depths of his twinkling blue eyes."

"Oh! thunder! however are we going to get rid of such a sticker?"

groaned Thad, as though at a loss to know what next to do.

"Listen," resumed Hugh. "Among other things he mentioned was an account of his adventures down in Texas in the big oil field there, where he said men make fortunes one day and lose them the next in speculation. He went into some details to tell me of a strange thing he had witnessed there, and among other names mentioned, he chanced to speak of a Marshal Hastings, who, it seems, is much feared by the bad men of that community. Somehow, I thought I could detect a little quaver in Brother Lu's voice whenever he spoke of this party; and, Thad, do you know, the idea flashed through my brain that perhaps he'd had an unpleasant half hour with that same Marshal Hastings himself."

"I take it that you mean the officer may have warned Lu to shake the dust of that region off his brogans, and make himself scarce, if he didn't want to pull hemp; is that your idea, Hugh?"

"Something along that order," came the steady reply. "At least he could not think of Marshal Hastings without some memory that was unpleasant, making him s.h.i.+ver."

Thad's eagerness increased by jumps, and showed itself on his face, which was now lighted up with antic.i.p.ation.

"I'm beginning to sense something coming, Hugh," he hastened to say.

"What you saw gave you a sort of idea, didn't it? You reckon right now that there may be a way to frighten this lazy loafer, so that of his own free will he'll cut stick and clear out. Well, perhaps after all something like that would be the best way to get rid of him. I don't believe the people in this civilized section of country would stand for any night-riding business like they did in the Kentucky tobacco district; or such a thing as that tar and feather picnic. So go on and tell me your scheme."

"Well," Hugh continued, "you could hardly call it by such a name as yet, because the idea is hardly more than half hatched. But when he told me about the way the bad men used to shake at mention of that brave marshal's very name, and I saw him doing something along the same order, why, I began to figure out that if only Brother Lu could be made to believe Marshal Hastings was here from Texas, looking for _somebody_ he meant to take back with him, why, he might get such a bad scare he'd skip by the light of the moon between days, and never, never come back again."

Thad gave his chum a vigorous pound on the back that made the other wince; but then he was accustomed to taking things of this nature from expressive Thad.

"Oh! that sounds good to me, Hugh!" he burst out with. "I honestly believe you are getting close to a bully scheme that may pan out firstcla.s.s. Argument and all kinds of pleading wouldn't influence that man a bit, because he's selfish, I know he must be, or else he wouldn't burden his poor sister, and see her working for his miserable comfort every day, and all day long. But, Hugh, he could be moved by fear. If so be he has ever done anything down there in Texas that he could be arrested for, why, just the mere knowledge that this marshal, who always gets those he goes after, has come north, and is looking for some one, ought to start Brother Lu on a gallop for another distant section of country."

"It might," said Hugh, reflectively, as though the exuberance of his comrade was having an effect on his mind.

"It surely would," repeated Thad, pounding a fist into his other palm to express his convictions. "And, believe me, he wouldn't dare show his smiling face in these parts in a hurry again, because he'd feel pretty sure the marshal would have arranged it with the local police to notify him in case Brother Lu ever turned up. Why, Hugh, we've got the scheme right now; and it ought to work to beat the band. I can see that hobo trailing along over the ties again at a hot pace; and while poor Matilda may grieve for her brother, she'll heave a sigh of relief to know it's all over, and the ladies are her friends again."

"Let's go a step further, then," insinuated Hugh, "and if we decide to try out this little plan, which you're good enough to call a scheme, how can we fix it so that the reformed hobo will take the alarm?"

"That's where the hitch may come in," agreed the other boy, as he allowed three separate lines of wrinkles to gather across his forehead, which was always reckoned a sure sign that Thad Stevens was concentrating his brain power upon the solution of a knotty problem. "One thing sure, we can't very well up and inform him of the fact ourselves, or he'd understand the motive right away."

"And even if a letter could be sent," continued Hugh, "how would we be able to get the right post-mark on the envelope, unless we asked the postmaster down in a town of Texas close to the oil fields to mail it for us?"

Suddenly Thad started to smile. The said smile rapidly broadened into a positive grin that spread all over his face, while his eyes fairly sparkled with delight.

"Hugh, I've just grabbed a bright idea!" he said, explosively.

"Let's hear about it before the same gets away from you, then," his chum advised.

"Listen. Perhaps you may know that I used to go some with little Jim Pettigrew more or less before you and I became such chums. Jim is considerably older than me, but his stature always made folks think he was a kid. Well, of course you also know Jim he's graduated into a regular cub reporter, as he's so fond of calling it, because that word _cub_ is used so often in the movies, when they show up a big newspaper office in New York or Chicago, and the latest greenhorn on the staff is given an a.s.signment that allows him to make the greatest news scoop ever heard of. Jim, to tell the truth, works on our local weekly here, the _Scranton Courier_. He rakes the entire country for news, writes things up that have never occurred, so as to fill s.p.a.ce, and draw his weekly pay, attends weddings, funerals, and all sorts of events, not forgetting baseball games and such things.

"Well, Jim is still a good friend of mine, although he now feels himself so mighty important that even the mayor sends for him to communicate something he wants to appear in the next issue of the paper. The idea that flashed into my brain, you must know, Hugh, is to tell Jim of our great trouble with this pesky hobo, and enlist his aid in scaring Brother Lu off."

"Suppose now, in the issue of the _Courier_ that is due tomorrow morning there appeared an interesting write-up about a certain Marshal Hastings who was visiting Scranton, having come all the way from Texas to find and take back a certain party who was badly wanted there for some serious offense; the story could give little hints that would point to Brother Lu as the man, without actually saying so. Hugh, tell me, what do you think of that for a scheme; and might it do the work, would you say?"

CHAPTER IX

SETTING THE MAN TRAP

Hugh jumped up from his chair and clapped a cap on his head.

"It's now about four o'clock of a Friday afternoon," he remarked, "and if we could only run across Jim Pettigrew, and he got interested in our story, why it might not be too late to get the little write-up arranged before they went to press tonight."

Thad was all animation.

"Fine! Let's rush around to the _Courier_ office and see Jim!" he hastened to say. "I've an idea he's a sort of Jack-of-all-trades there, writing up news, setting type in an emergency, and even helping turn off the limited edition of about five hundred copies of the paper that are run every week. So, as Friday night is the climax to their week's work, we're likely to find Jim there with his coat off, and on the job."

They soon arrived at the small building on a side street where the local paper had its offices, and, indeed, every other thing connected with it, for that matter.

"There's Jim sitting in the editor's chair," observed Thad, looking through a dusty window.

"Must be Mr. Adoiphus Hanks, who owns and edits the _Courier_, is out of town just at present. Say, that would just suit us to a fraction, wouldn't it, Hugh?"

"It might make things easier for us," admitted the other; and then they burst in on the important if diminutive Jim, who received them with all the airs of a metropolitan editor.

"Glad to see you, boys," he told them; "just take seats, will you, and excuse me for three minutes. I'm winding up the main editorial for this week's issue. Hanks is out of town, and has left me in full charge; but then that happens frequently nowadays; and, say, some foolish people have gone so far as to say they can tell when he's absent because, well, the paper shows it; but I tell them they are only saying that to flatter me. Three minutes, boys, and I'll be at your service."

Whatever it was Jim was doing on the typewriter, he continued to pound laboriously away for about that length of time. Then finis.h.i.+ng he drew the sheet out, glanced over it, made some corrections, smiled as though highly pleased, and called out to a boy who was working a hand press to come and take it to the lone compositor, standing at his case in a distant corner of the den.

"That'll make folks sit up and take notice I kind of think," said Jim, swelling out his chest with an air of great importance. "Don't ask me what it is all about, for I want it to be a surprise to the community. Read it in tomorrow's issue of the _Weekly Courier_.

Now, what can I do for you, Thad, old scout? Anything connected with the Scranton High baseball team you want written up for next week? I'm always ready to favor the boys, because I used to play ball myself away back."