one to rid her of
that wart that's fastened on her bounty; if she won't give him up of
her own will, then some of us ought to see to it that he's chased out
of the neighborhood."

"Hold on, Thad, go slow," warned the more cautious Hugh. "I feel
pretty much the same as you do about it, but we mustn't think of
trying any White Cap business around such a respectable town as
Scranton. There's still lots of time to investigate; and if the
worst comes we can appeal to the mayor to help. Perhaps the police
could look up the man's record, and make him clear out on the plea
that he's got a bad reputation. That would answer our purpose, and
at the same time keep within the law."

Thad looked wonderfully pleased.

"I didn't tell you something more I saw, Hugh," he now went on to say.
"When the three ladies came out, Brother Lu he managed to be there in
plain sight. He tried to be polite like, and was of course seized
with one of those fake fits of coughing right before them. Matilda
ran to his side, and put her arm around him looking defiantly at Ma
as if to say: 'There, don't you see how far gone he is, and how can
you ask me to be so inhuman and unsisterly as to tell him he must go
out again into the cold, cruel world that has treated him so badly?'

"The ladies looked after Brother Lu as he staggered away, as if
they hardly knew what to think. But it happened, Hugh, that I could
watch the man from where I was snuggled down, and would you believe
me, he had no sooner got behind the little building they use for a
woodshed than he started to dance a regular old hoe-down, snapping
his fingers, and looking particularly merry. I tell you I could
hardly hold in, I was so downright mad; I wanted to rush out and
denounce him for an old fraud of the first water. But on considering
how useless that would be, besides giving it away that I suspected.
him, and was spying on his actions, I managed to get a grip on
myself again.

"After things had sizzled out, Hugh, I came away, and ran nearly all
the distance between the Hosmer cottage and your house, I was that
eager to tell you how the land lay. And now, once for all, what can
we do to bounce that fraud, and free poor Matilda from the
three-big-meals-a-day brother who's fastened on her like a leech?"

Hugh nodded his head as though he had been thinking while his chum
continued to tell of his experiences. From his manner Thad jumped to
the conclusion that Hugh might have s