HATCHING A PLOT.
"Say, fellows, here's a how-de-do, and no mistake! You ought to have
been at the corner of Sixth and Main about two hours ago. You'd have
seen something that would have made a horse laugh--but there's something
back of it that isn't so thundering funny, at that."
Gerald Wynn could smoke a cigarette and talk at the same time. He burst
into the room in the cheap boarding house, where he and his friends had
taken up their headquarters, and eased himself of the foregoing remarks.
Hank Burton and Bob Katz sat at a table playing cards. There were a
bottle and two glasses on the table. Katz was smoking a pipe and Burton
a cigar.
"Hanged if I care a hoot about anything, just now, but annexing a little
kale," said Burton, turning in his chair to look at Gerald with a scowl.
"Here I haven't a sou in my jeans, and I've got as much right to that
fifteen thousand as you or Katz have, Wynn. Fork over a hundred! I'm
tired of bein' broke."
"Nary, I don't fork!" Wynn answered positively. "You know what we're
going to do with this money, Hank, and you know that if we start to
break into it the whole will go and we'll be up a spout on this Tia
Juana business."
"Blast the Tia Juana business! A bird in the hand beats a whole flock in
the bush! Give me my share now, Gerald, and you and Bob can do what you
blamed please with your own part of the swag."
"That won't go!" spoke up Katz. "The share we want in that gamblin'
layout below the border will take all the fifteen thousand. You agreed
to go inter it, Hank. Don't crawfish now!"
"I want somethin' to jingle in my pocket!" barked Burton.
"Take a couple o' nails," suggested Katz.
"I allow it's right funny to you," continued Burton sourly, "but it
ain't pleasant to go around with nary a red in your pants."
"I'm paying your expenses, Hank," put in Gerald. "Staked to your three
squares, your smoking and your travel pay, I don't see what more you
need. If this Tia Juana scheme works out, we'll all of us get rich."
"I want a little loose cash now," cried Burton.
"Go out and work for it, then," said Gerald, out of patience. "If we put
anything into the Tia Juana game it's got to be fifteen thousand, and
I'd be mighty foolish to give you money out of our capital."
"Give it to me out of your own pocket if you don't want to give me any
of the capital!"
"I've got just enough to get us to Catalina where we're to see Jack
Lopez and clean up the Tia Juana business. Why don't you do a little
something on the side, Hank? You're a champion swimmer--go to some
natatorium and give swimming lessons. That would be easy money."
"Gammon!" snorted Burton.
In a fit of anger he jumped to his feet, and he would have left the
room, but Gerald stood in front of the door and barred the way.
"Now, don't get ugly!" said Gerald. "I've got something to tell you
that's mighty interesting. I think, fellows, that we have been trailed
from Phoenix!"
That was more than interesting. Burton's flash of temper left him at
once, and he and Katz showed their apprehension.
"Who trailed us?" demanded Katz.
"That cross-eyed, tow-headed freak, Hiram Hill."
"How do you know he trailed us?" asked Burton.
"Well, he's in Los Angeles. It isn't a happenchance that we're here at
the same time."
"When did you see Hill?" went on Katz.
"About two hours ago, at the corner of Sixth and Main. He--he---" Gerald
paused to laugh.
"I don't see anythin' humorous in this layout!" grunted Burton. "If
we've been trailed to Los we'd better be diggin' out instead of enjoyin'
the situation."
"What's funny about it, Gerald?" asked Katz.
"There was a chink dragon going down the Street--you know the kind--a
dragon in sections, with a yellow boy under each section. Well, I was
watching the procession when I heard some one yell 'Dad!' in a voice
that sounded pretty familiar. The next minute, who but Hiram Hill
knocked a hole in that chink snake. He was trying to get to a man who
sat in an automobile on the other side of the street. In about two
seconds there was the biggest kind of a rough-house. I kept out of it,
and saw Hiram get to the automobile and begin hugging the chap in the
tonneau. The fellow in the car didn't like it, and the driver started up
and Hill was left behind.
"The crowd rolled over the place where Hill was lying and I saw him
picked up by a couple of policemen and carried to a drug store.
Naturally, I was in a good deal of a taking, not knowing but Hill had
been following me, see? Well, I waited till he came out of the drug
store, then I camped on his trail for a while. He went to a telegraph
office and sent a telegram---"
"Who did he send it to?" cut in Burton apprehensively.
"What do I know about that? You don't think I was foolish enough to go
close and try to get a line on what Hill was writing, do you? Well,
after he left the telegraph office he went to the Renfrew House. I
reckon that's where he stays."
"I don't like this a little bit," commented Katz. "I allow we'd better
duck--and do it pronto. If Hill is really trailin' us, maybe he has sent
a telegraft message to the sheriff, back in Phoenix. We got to look
sharp, Gerald, or we'll be pinched."
"That's my motion, Bob," said Burton. "Hanged if this Hill business
hasn't got me on the run."
"Don't fret," continued Gerald reassuringly. "I've hatched a plot that
will take care of Hill, all right."
"Plot?" said Burton. "What sort of a plot?"
"Listen, Hank. You know about this Hill. I've told you and Bob how he's
got a fool bee in his bonnet, and is running around the Southwest
looking for his father. The old man--judging from his photograph, which
Hill totes around in his pocket--is a bigger freak than Hiram is. He's
got a beak like a pelican, and is homely enough to stop a clock."
"You know plenty about Hill and his hunt for his dad," returned Burton.
"You flimflammed Hill out of five hundred by offering to take him across
the Mexican boundary and showing him where his father could be found,"
said Burton, with a laugh. "But you got the money, and Hill got the
experience," he added.
"Which," said Gerald calmly, "is mainly the reason why Hill is trying to
get even with me. I know enough about Hill's father, though, to put over
a scheme that will get this cross-eyed buttinsky off our track."
"What's the scheme?" inquired Katz.
"It hinges on this point, that Hiram Hill would rather find his father
than get even with me for that 'con' game I worked on him. I'm going to
write Hiram a letter, Bob, and send it to him at the Renfrew House."
"What sort of a letter?" put in Burton.
"I'm going to sign the name of his father, Upton Hill, to the thing, and
play up that incident at Sixth and Main pretty strong. Where's that pen
and ink, Hank? And give me a sheet of paper and envelope."
While his companions got the writing materials, Gerald seated himself at
a table and began getting his thoughts busy. By the time pen, ink, and
paper were put in front of him, he had his letter mapped out in his
mind, and had only to put it upon paper.
"Won't Hiram know that the letter isn't in his dad's handwritin'?"
suggested Katz.
"I reckon he won't," answered Gerald craftily, leaning back in his chair
with the letter in his hand. "It's been some sort of a while, Bob, since
the first Klondike rush, when old 'Up' Hill disappeared. It isn't likely
that Hiram remembers anything about his father's handwriting. Here's
what the letter says:
"DEAR SON: Was it really you who jumped aboard my automobile at the
corner of Sixth and Main this morning? My conscience has been troubling
me ever since. I have hunted up the policeman and secured from him your
name and address, but am in a hurry to get back to San Diego, where I
live, and cannot remain in Los Angeles to prosecute a personal search
for you. If you are really my son, come to San Diego, make my house at
eighteen-twenty Q Street your home, and I will ask you certain questions
whose answers will prove indisputably whether or not you are my son. I
must have the proof, you know, because I am a very rich man, and you, as
my sole relative, will inherit everything I leave. Hoping to see you in
San Diego at your earliest convenience, I remain, yours expectantly,
'UPTON HILL.'"
Gerald dropped the letter on the table, and looked up at his friends
with a guileful smile.
"How's that for a bait?" he asked.
"Bully!" declared Katz. "Hiram Hill will tumble all over himself to go
to San Diego."
"What'll happen when he can't find any Upton Hill in San Diego?" said
Burton.
"We don't care what happens--then," answered Gerald. "By that time, you
know, we ought to have finished our deal with Jack Lopez, and to be away
from Catalina, and where Hill will never be able to find us."
"How do you know he gave his name and address to a policeman?" continued
Burton.
"That's what people always do when they get into trouble on the street,
or meet with an accident, isn't it?"
"Maybe it is, but if it happens that Hill didn't give his name and
address to the cop, the fact will queer that whole letter."
"I allow Hank is right, Gerald," chimed in Katz, "This here is one of
them cases where you can't be too careful. Reckon I'd write another
letter and change that."
"It's not necessary," insisted Gerald. "Hill was stunned. If he can't
remember giving his name and address to the policeman, he'll think he
did it at a time when he didn't know what he was doing. The letter goes
as I have written it."
Gerald began addressing the envelope. Both the sheet of paper and the
envelope were plain, and bore no clew of the hotel in which they had
been written.
The letter was folded, thrust into the envelope, and the envelope sealed
and stamped.
"It's dinner time, fellows," announced Gerald, "and we'll post this on
our way to the noon eats. Come on."
They all got up and left the room.
"When do we hike for the island, Gerald?" asked Katz, as they went
downstairs.
"We'll pull out for San Pedro to-morrow, and catch the morning boat,"
was the reply. "We want to wind up our business with Lopez and clear out
before Hill discovers that letter is a fake and gets back from San
Diego. We can turn the trick with ground to spare--don't fret about
that."