Owen Clancy's Happy Trail Part 2

You can't look at me without thinking you owe me the biggest part of fifteen thousand dollars, and I can't look at you without thinking how you betrayed my confidence."

"You can get rid of me, Owen, in about two shakes," said Wynn. "Kick me out. I haven't any right to be one of the firm, anyhow."

The motor wizard shook his head.

"You've got to hang on and make good in the place where you lost out,"

Clancy returned. "You've got to do this for the sake of your mother, who thinks so much of you. We've got to allow a little time, you know, for us to get back on our old footing. I need a change. Ferguson says so, and I have a feeling that he knows what he is talking about. I---"

A boy came into the office that moment with a telegram. He knew the motor wizard by sight, and went directly to him.

"This is for you, Mr. Clancy," said he.

Clancy signed for the message, tore it open, read the contents, and laughed.

"By thunder," he cried, "here's just the thing!"

"What do you mean?" asked Wynn.

"It's a hurry-up call from Hiram Hill. You remember Hiram?"

Wynn winced. "Yes," said he, "I remember Hiram Hill quite vividly."

"He left Phoenix for the coast several weeks ago, carrying on his search for his father. I always thought that search of Hiram's was more or less of a joke--and I haven't any positive information yet that it isn't--but here's a message asking me to come to Los Angeles at once. Hiram says that he is 'hot on the trail,' and that I promised him to help him find his father--which is true."

Clancy arose with sudden determination in his voice and manner.

"Wynn," he continued, "I'm going to leave you here to get Clancy & Wynn started in the old Rockwell garage. It will give you plenty to occupy your mind. While you're hard at it, I'm going to soldier and have a good time. Here's where I hit the Happy Trail!"

"What in the deuce is the Happy Trail?" queried Wynn.

"Ferguson will tell you about it. I'm going with Hiram on a wild-goose chase, and I'm hoping to have some fun. When I come back, old man, I want you to be feeling differently, and I expect to be feeling differently myself. This afternoon I am starting for the Pacific coast, and if Hiram and I, between us, can't stir up a few thrills, and corral a little enjoyment, then I've got another guess coming. Lafe, I'm for the Happy Trail, and I'm going to hit it hard!"

CHAPTER III.

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 gla.s.ses 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 c.h.i.n.k 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---"