overflowing I guess. Everything seems to
be coming his way in a bunch."

"I suspect that this Hank ye're tillin' me about must be a wild
harum-scarum broth av a boy thin?" remarked the old woodsman, puffing
at his pipe contentedly.

"He is the toughest boy in town," said Phil.

"And several others train with him who aim to beat his record if they
can," Spider Sexton hastened to add as his contribution.

"There's absolutely nothing they wouldn't try if they thought they
could get some fun or gain out of it," declared Jud emphatically.

"Do till!" exclaimed their host, shaking his head dolefully as though
he disliked knowing that any boys could sink to such a low level.

"Why, only the other day," said Bobolink, "Jack and I saw the gang
pick on a couple of tramps who had just come out of Briggs' store. So
far as we knew the hoboes hadn't offered to say a word to Hank and his
crowd, but the fellows ran them out of town with a shower of stones.
Didn't they, Jack?"

"Yes. And we saw one tramp get a hard blow on the head from a rock, in
the bargain," assented Jack.

"Wow! but they were a mad pair, let me tell you," concluded Bobolink.

"By the same token," observed Tolly Tip, "till me av one of the tramps
had on an ould blue army coat wid rid linin' to the same?"

Bobolink uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Just what he did, I give you my word!" he replied hastily.

"And was the other chap a long-legged hobo, wid a face that made ye
think av the sharp idge av a hatchet?" the old trapper questioned.

"I reckon you must have seen the pair yourself, Tolly Tip!" observed
Bobolink. "Were you in Stanhope, or did they happen to pass this
way?"

At that the taker of furs touched his cheek just below his eye with
the tip of his finger, and smiled humorously.

"'Tis the black eye they were afther giving me early this day, sure it
was," he explained. "Not two miles away from here it happened, where
the road cuts through the woods like a knife blade. I'd been out to
look at a few traps set in that section whin I kim on the spalpeens.
We had words, and the shorter chap wid the army coat ran, but the
other engaged me. Before he cut stick he managed to lave the
imprission av his fists on me face, bad luck to the same."

"I guess after all, Jack," remarked Bobolink, "they must be a couple
of hard cases, and Hank did the town a service when he chased them
off."

"It would be the first time on record then that the Laws