“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 assignment 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 space, 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.”