CHAPTER PAGE

     I. Good times coming
    II.  A Bull in the China shop
   III.  Giving Nick A chance
    IV.  The hockey match with A scratch seven
     V. Thad brings some startling news
    VI.  Not guilty
   VII.  Turning A page of the past
  VIII.  Owen DUGDALE’S announcement
    IX.  An Adventure on the road
     X. The mystery deepens
    XI.  A mother’s sacrifice
   XII.  Tip satisfies his craving—­and loses
  XIII.  The lively game with Keyport’s seven
   XIV.  Encouraging Nick
    XV.  Where the sparks flew
   XVI.  At the deacon’s fireside
  XVII.  A wonderful discovery
 XVIII.  In A safe Harbor at last
   XIX.  Meeting BELLEVILLE’S strong team
    XX.  Nick makes good—­conclusion

THE CHUMS OF SCRANTON HIGH AT ICE HOCKEY

CHAPTER I

GOOD TIMES COMING

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.