arranged to take life easy from that time on.

"Hey! let's beat it," mumbled the keenly disappointed Jim Pettigrew.
"I've got heaps to do at the office; and I seem to tumble to the fact
that, after all, our big game didn't pan out just as was expected."

Thad did not have a single word to say just then. He was, in fact,
too dazed to collect his thoughts. But Hugh's active mind was grappling
with the matter, and he apparently seemed able to figure things out.

They retreated in a strategic fashion, so that possibly no one was
the wiser for their having been behind the bushes, unless Brother Lu
chanced to take a notion to peep from behind some fluttering white
dimity curtain.

"Well, what does it all mean, do you know, Hugh?" finally burst out
Thad, after they had gone far enough away to make it safe to talk
in ordinary tones.

"I think I have guessed why he seemed so tickled after reading the
article which we figured would give him such a bad scare," said
Hugh, with a grim smile. "The fact of the matter is he hoodwinked
me when he told such whopping yarns about the terrible sheriff of
the oil regions. There may be such a chap, all right, but his name
isn't Hastings by a long shot. He just invented that name, you see;
and when he read Jim's article about his being up here, he tumbled
to the game."

"Oh! it's rotten luck!" groaned Thad; "after all that beautiful
strategy we've fallen down flat. No use talking, Hugh. Jim, that