Well, it was a great story! Jim had allowed his imagination full swing, that was certain. He spoke of actually running across the stern official from Texas, and making his acquaintance under rather dramatic conditions connected with a broken-down car on the road. Then he launched forth into a vivid description of how the minion of justice confided to him the reason for his being there so far distant from the field of his customary useful and perilous operations. Sly little hints were conveyed in his mention of the rascal whom he had vowed to find, and take back with him to Texas, there to pay the penalty for breaking the laws. Why, surely the guilty conscience of Brother Lu must discover a description of himself in every word that the imaginary marshal uttered.
The two boys finished at about the same time. Their eyes met in a stare, and Thad gave utterance to a whistle.
"Whew! Jim is sure a dandy when it comes to write-ups, isn't he, though, Hugh?" he breathed softly, for the proprietor of the "Emporium" happened to be bustling about the place, and was evidently a bit curious to know just what there could be in that week's edition of the Courier to so plainly interest Hugh and his chum.
"He certainly is," admitted Hugh. "Why, you can almost see that Marshal Hastings walking before you, and looking as if he had his eagle eye fixed on you for keeps. Jim's described him so smartly that it would apply to almost any Western sheriff or marshal we've ever seen in the movies."
"But just think how the cold creeps will chase up and down the spinal column of that miserable sneak of a hobo when he glimpses this article," chuckled Thad. "I can imagine him starting, and his eyes nearly popping out of his head as he gets busy devouring the whole thing. And, then, Hugh, what d'ye reckon his next move will be?" Hugh shrugged his shoulders as he slowly replied:
"Honestly now, Thad, I give it up. If he's really guilty, as we believe, why, of course, he'll not wait on the order of his going, but skip out like a prairie fire, and we'll be shut of him. But there's always the doubt. In fact, we never can be sure we've struck the right nail on the head until we see Lu hitting the high places, and never even looking back."
"I must read that wonderful article again," quoth the admiring Thad. "It's simply great the way Jim's written it up, and I'm sure that chap is bound to occupy an exalted place in newspaperdom down in New York one of these days when luck comes to him, and he emigrates that way."
They scanned it line by line until they could almost repeat the whole story by heart, it made such a great impression on them. Thad seemed more than amused over the idea that the good folks from Scranton would swallow it whole, and believe there was really a Texan marshal in their midst, looking right and left for a desperate character who had dropped down in that quiet and respectable neighborhood, thinking he would be safe from molestation there.
"Why, Hugh," he went on to say, exuberantly, "all today I warrant you hundreds of people here, women as well as boys and men, will be scanning every party who happens to be wearing a felt bat anything like the one Marshal Hastings is said to possess; and wondering if the stranger from Mechanicsville, or Allandale, or any other old place can be the wonderful Texan official, who according to Jim's graphic account has notches cut on the stocks of both his big revolvers to indicate just how many bad men he has been compelled to lay low during the course of his long and thrilling public career. Oh! I feel just as if I wanted to drop down and laugh till my sides ached, it's such a rich joke. That Jim will kill me yet with his wonderful write-ups."
Hugh was apparently also highly amused, but he did not lose sight of the main facts in the case, as his next remark proved.