They could even look forward confidently now to the next game, which would be with Allendale, two weeks off; and some there were who already saw in imagination the championship pennant of the Three Town High School League floating from the flag-pole on the dear old campus during the Fall session of school. CHAPTER VII WHAT THAD SAW Some days passed. As there would be no championship game the coming Saturday for Scranton High the town settled back into its ordinary condition, so far as the young people went. There were afternoons for practice, of course, when the full team was expected to be on deck, and renew their acquaintance with the many intricacies of the game as taught by Coach Saunders. Still every other day the boys were at liberty to go and come as they pleased. Some made it a religious duty, as well as pleasure, to show up regularly at the ball grounds, where there were always enough fellows handy to get up a scrub game, for baseball aspirants were as thick as blackberries in August around Scranton that season. A great revival of interest in outdoor sports had struck the town, and promised to stick far into the fall and winter. On one of these off-days---it was Friday, to be exact---Thad showed up over at the home of his chum, evidently laboring under some unusual stress of excitement. Hugh had walked home with him from school, and being busy with certain things had stayed in his den for two hours or more. Then in burst Thad, his face red with suppressed news. "What's happened now?" demanded Hugh, realizing instantly that the other was in a perfect "sweat" to communicate something he had learned. "Have the Germans landed on the coast, or is little old New York being bombarded from giant airplanes? There's something amiss, I can see from your way of bursting in on me." "Oh! you know what I've been bothering my head over lately, Hugh," snapped the panting Thad. "Of course it's that hobo!" "Meaning Matilda's now quiet and respected brother Lu, eh?" the other chuckled. "Well, what's he been doing now---cut stick, and lit out, as we hoped would be the case, finding life in and around a sleepy town like Scranton too dull and commonplace to please the fastidious notions of such a wonderful world traveler?" "What! that leech clear out, and free his poor sister from the load he's gone and fastened on her? Well, it's just the contrary; he can't be shaken off, try as you will. Why, Hugh, even my respected Ma and two of her friends couldn't do the first thing toward getting Matilda to say she'd chase him off." "Oh! that's the way the land lies, is it, Thad? Then some of the good ladies of Scranton have been over trying to convince Matilda that blood isn't thicker than water, and that she is under no sort of obligation to give her wanderer of a brother a shelter, either temporary or permanent, under her little roof."