ight" which
had been all one-sided.

"Believe me!" muttered Bobolink, "if a couple more scouts had been
along just now I'd have taken a savage delight in pitching in and
giving that crowd the licking they deserved. Course a tramp isn't
worth much, but then he's _human_, and I hate to see anybody
bullied."

"It wasn't Hank's business to chase the hoboes out of town," said
Jack. "We have the police force to manage such things. Fact is, I
reckon Hank's bunch has done more to hurt the good name of Stanhope
than all the hoboes we ever had come around here."

"If I had my way, Jack, there'd be a public woodpile, and every tramp
caught coming to town would have to work his passage. I bet there'd be
a sign on every cross-roads warning the brotherhood to beware of
Stanhope as they might of the smallpox. But here's Briggs' store."

As they entered the place they could see that the proprietor was
alone, his clerk being off on the delivery wagon.

"Whew! he certainly looks pretty huffy this morning," muttered the
observing Bobolink. "Those tramps must have bothered him more or less
before he could get them to move on."

"It might be he had some trouble with Hank before we came up," Jack
suggested; but further talk was prevented by the coming up of the
storekeeper.

Mr. Briggs was a small man with white hair, and keen, rat-like eyes.
He possessed good business abilities, and had managed to accumulate a
small fortune in the many years he purveyed to the people of
Stanhope.

Latterly, however, the little, old man had been growing very nervous
and irritable, perhaps with the coming of age and its infirmities. He
detested boys, and since that feeling soon becomes mutual there was
open war between Mr. Briggs and many of the juveniles of Stanhope.

Suspicious by nature, he always watched when boys came into his store
as though he weighed them all in the same balance with Hank Lawson,
and considered that none of Stanhope's rising generation could be
trusted out of sight.

Long ago he had taken to covering every apple and sugar barrel with
wire screens to prevent pilfering. Neither Jack nor Bobolink had ever
had hot words with the storekeeper, but for all that they felt that
his manner was openly aggressive at the time they entered the door.

"If you want to buy anything, boys," said Mr. Briggs curtly, "I'll
wait on you; but if you've only come in here to stand around my store
and get warm I'll have to ask you to move on. My