cured that lovely sweet
butter, without which the hot biscuits would never taste quite so
fine. And as her customary supply had not turned up, with Sunday just
ahead, nothing would do but that Hugh must take a little run out on
his wheel, and fetch several pounds home with him.

It was about half-past eight when he threw himself in the saddle
and started. A more charming summer morning could hardly be experienced.
The sun might be a bit hot later on, but just then the air was
fragrant with the odor of new-mown grass, the neighbors' lawns having
been attended to on the preceding day, but not raked up; the birds
sang blithely in the hedges and among the branches of the trees,
and in Hugh's soul there rested the joy that a tired high-school
scholar finds when the end of the week brings a well-deserved holiday.

As he rode quietly along, not desiring to be in too great a hurry,
Hugh's mind somehow reverted to the last occasion when he had gone
out to this same farm, in Thad's company, as it happened. He could
again in imagination see the old tramp as he got his solitary meal,
with the aid of those useful empty tomato cans, and the little blaze
he had kindled among the trees alongside the road.

Passing the spot revived these memories vividly. To think that weeks
had gone and all that time Brother Lu had stuck to his guns, holding
out at the humble Hosmer cottage, and eating the bread of dependence!

"But something tells me the end is coming pretty soon now," Hugh
muttered, as he continued on his way.

It was not so very far beyond that identical spot he discovered a
large car standing at one side of the road, where the woods grew
quite thickly. The chauffeur sat there, idly waiting, it seemed.
Hugh had more than once known the same thing to happen, when parties
touring from some neighboring town stopped to eat lunch in a spot
they fancied, or, it might be, to gather wild flowers.

He was not much interested as he passed, with a nod to the man, who
looked around at his approach, save to notice that the car was a
pretty fine one, and which he remembered seeing once or twice in
Scranton, always empty save for the driver.

Hugh had just turned a bend lying a little away from the car when he
distinctly saw some one hastily jump aside, and disappear amidst a
screen of bushes growing along the road.

"Now, that was queer," Hugh told himself; "whoever that fellow could
be he didn't want me to see him, it looked like.