The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey

Hugh looked at the big thermometer alongside the Juggins' front door as he came out, and the mercury was still falling steadily.

"It's certainly a whole lot sharper than it was early this morning,

Thad. Feels to me as if the first cold wave of the winter had struck

Scranton."

"The ice on our flooded baseball field, and that out at Hobson's mill-pond ought to be in great shape after a hard freeze to-night, Hugh."

"We're in luck this time, chum Thad. Look at that sky, will you? Never a cloud in sight, and the sun going down yellow. Deacon Winslow, our reliable old weather prophet blacksmith, who always keeps a goose-bone hanging up in his smithy, to tell what sort of a winter we're going to get, says such a sign stands for cold and clear to-morrow after that kind of a sunset. Red means warmer, you know."

"I only hope it keeps on for forty-eight hours more, that's all I can say, Hugh. This being Thursday, it would fetch us to Saturday. I understand they're not meaning to let a single pair of steel runners on the baseball park, to mark the smooth surface of the new ice, until Saturday morning."

"Which will be a fine thing for our hockey try-out with the scratch

Seven, eh, Thad?"

"We want to test our team play before going up against the boys of Keyport High, that's a fact; and Scranton can put up a hard fighting bunch of irregulars. There are some mighty clever hockey players in and out of the high school, who are not on our Seven. I guess there ought to be a pretty lively game on Saturday; and there will be if several fellows I could mention line up against us."

The two boys who had just left the home of a schoolmate named Horatio Juggins were great friends. Although Hugh Morgan had seemed to jump into popular leadership among the boys of Scranton, soon after his folks came to reside in the town, he and Thad Stevens had become almost inseparables.

Indeed, some of the fellows often regarded them as "Damon and Pythias," or on occasions it might be "David and Jonathan." Both were of an athletic turn, and took prominent parts in all baseball games, and other strenuous outdoor sports indulged in by the boys of Scranton High; a record of which will be found in the several preceding books of this series, to which the new reader is referred, if he feels any curiosity concerning the earlier doings of this lively bunch.

Hugh was cool and calm in times when his chum would show visible signs of great excitement. He had drilled himself to control his temper under provocation, until he felt master of himself.

It was the 10th of January, and thus far the opportunities for skating that had come to the young people of that section of country where Scranton was located, had been almost nil; which would account for the enthusiasm of the lads when Thad announced how rapidly the thermometer was giving promise of a severe cold spell.

Scranton had two keen rivals for athletic honors. Allandale and Belleville High fellows had given them a hard run of it before they carried off the championship pennant of the county in baseball the preceding summer.

Then, in the late fall, there had been a wonderfully successful athletic tournament, inaugurated to celebrate the enclosing of the grounds outside Scranton with a high board-fence, and the building of a splendid grandstand, as well as rooms where the athletic participants in sports might dress in comfort.

With the coming of winter the big field thus enclosed had been properly flooded, so that it might afford a vast amount of healthy recreation to all Scranton boys and girls who loved to skate.

Hitherto they had been compelled to trudge all the way out to Hobson's mill-pond, and back, which was a long enough journey to keep many from ever thinking of indulging in what is, perhaps, the most cherished winter sport among youthful Americans.

The two friends had been asked around by the Juggins boy to inspect a wonderful assortment of treasure trove that an old and peculiar uncle, with a fad for collecting curios of every description, and who was at present out in India, had sent to his young nephew and namesake.

These consisted of scores of most interesting objects, besides several thousand rare postage stamps. Taken in all it was the greatest collection of stamps any of them had ever heard of. And the other things proved of such absorbing interest that Hugh and Thad had lingered until the afternoon was done, with supper not so far away but that they must hurry home.

Thad, apparently, had something on his mind which he wished to get rid of, judging from the way in which he several times looked queerly at his chum. Finally, as if determined to speak up, he started, half apologetically:

"Hugh, excuse me if I'm butting in where I have no business," he said; "but when I saw you talking so long with that town bully, Nick Lang, this afternoon, after we got out of school, I didn't know what to think. Was he threatening you about anything, Hugh? After that fine dressing-down you gave Nick last summer, when he forced you to fight him while we were out at that barn dance, I notice he keeps fairly mum when you're around."

Hugh chuckled, as though the recollection might not be wholly displeasing; though, truth to tell, that was the only fight he had been in since coming to Scranton. Even it would not have taken place only that he could not stand by and see the big bully thrash most cruelly a weaker boy than himself.

"Oh! no, you're away off in your guess, Thad," he replied immediately. "Fact is, instead of threats, Nick was asking a favor of me, for once in his life."

"You don't say!" ejaculated Thad. "Well, now you've got me excited there's nothing left but to tell me what sort of a favor Nick would want of you, Hugh."

"It seems that for a long time he's been admiring those old hockey skates of mine," continued the other. "In fact, they've grown on Nick so that he even condescended to ask me to sell them to him for a dollar, which he said he'd earned by doing odd jobs, just in order to buy my old skates. He chanced to hear me say once that my mother had promised to get me the best silver-plated hockey skates on the market, for my next birthday, which is now only a few days off. That's all there was to it, Thad."

"Well," commented Thad, "we all know that Nick is a boss skater, even on the old runners he sports, and which mebbe his dad used before him, they're that ancient. He can hold his own with the next one whenever there's any ice worth using. And as to hockey, why, if Nick would only play fair, which he never will, it seems because his nature must be warped and crooked, he could have a leading place on our Seven. As it is, the boys refused to stand for him in any game, and so he had to herd with the scratch players. Even then Mr. Leonard, our efficient coach and trainer, has to call him down good and hard for cheating, or playing off-side purposely. It's anything to win, with Nick."

"You're painting Nick pretty true to life, Thad," agreed Hugh; "though I'm sorry it's so, I've got a hunch that chap, if he only could be reconstructed in some way or other, might be a shining mark in many of our athletic games."

"Oh! that's hopeless, Hugh, I tell you. The leopard can't change its spots; and Nick Lang was born to be just the tricky bully he's always shown himself."

Hugh shook his head, as though not quite agreeing with his chum.

"Time alone will tell, Thad. There might come a sudden revolution in

Nick's way of seeing things. I've heard of boys who were said to be

the worst in the town taking a turn, and forging up to the head.

It's improbable, I admit, but not impossible."

"Oh! he's bad all the way through, believe me, Hugh. But did you sell the skates, as he wanted you to do?"

"No, I told him I didn't care to," Hugh replied. "I was tempted to agree when he looked so bitterly disappointed; then an ugly scowl came over his face, and he broke away and left me; so that opportunity was lost. Besides, it's best not to be too sure I'm going to get those silver-plated skates after all, though Mom is looking pretty mysterious these days; and some sort of package came to her by express from New York the other day. She hurried it away before I could even see the name printed on the wrapper."

"Perhaps," said Thad a bit wistfully, "you might bequeath me your old skates in case you do get new ones. Mine are not half as good for hockey. I don't blame Nick for envying you their possession; but then it hasn't been so much what you had on your feet that has made you the swift hockey player you are, but coolness of judgment, ability to anticipate the moves of the enemy, and a clever stroke that can send the puck skimming over the ice like fury."

"Here, that'll do for you, Thad. No bouquets needed, thank you, all the same. According to my notion there are several fellows in Scranton my equals at hockey, and perhaps my superiors. Nick Lang, for instance, if only he had skates he could depend on, and which wouldn't threaten to trip him up in the midst of an exciting scrimmage."

"But, see here, Hugh, you were speaking just now about a chap built like Nick turning over a new leaf, and making himself respected in the community in spite of the bad name he's always had. Honestly now, do you really believe that's possible? Is there such a thing as the regeneration of a boy who's been born bad, and always taken delight in doing every sort of mean thing on the calendar? I can't believe it."

Hugh Morgan turned and gave his chum a serious look.

"I've got a good mind to tell you something that's been on my mind lately," he said.