Owen Clancy's Happy Trail Part 5

"Maybe he's mixed up in it, and maybe he isn't. I wouldn't go and connect him with any gamblin' syndicate just because I found that there card under the sweatband of his Stetson. What do you allow is the thing for us to do? My hand's on the table, Clancy, and I want you to help me play it."

"Strikes me," said Clancy reflectively, "that the best move is to go across to Catalina Island and talk with this man Lopez."

"I allowed we'd better, advertise in the papers," remarked Hill. "We could use the Lost and Found Column."

"How?"

"Well, we could say, 'Lost--One man about fifty with a squinch eye, a Roman nose, and a mole on the back of his neck. Answers to name of Upton Hill. Communicate with Hiram Hill, Renfrew House, City.' And then we could put in another, like this: 'Found--One black Stetson, initials "U.

H." in crown. Picked up corner Sixth and Maine time the c.h.i.n.k dragon went to pieces. Communicate with Hiram Hill, and so forth.' I don't see any use in huntin' up this Lopez."

"Your father must have, business, with Lopez, Hiram, or he wouldn't be having the Mexican's card. Would he?"

"I reckon not."

"It's likely your father is over at Catalina now. If we go to the island and hunt up Lopez, there's a chance of our locating Upton Hill--or the man you think is Upton Hill."

"Maybe you're right," said Hill.

"I don't think advertising would do any good. Your supposed father didn't seem very enthusiastic about meeting you, the time you landed on him in the automobile."

Hill's cross eyes blinked.

"It was the way I come at him," said he. "I been thinkin' since. There was a hull lot of excitement, and I'll gamble dad didn't have time to get the run o' what was happenin'. He didn't have no good chance to be affectionate."

"I suppose not," returned Clancy, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"The trail seems to be a pretty warm one, all right, and--- Where are you going?"

Clancy broke off his remarks to grab hold of Hiram and restrain him. The tow-headed chap had suddenly leaped out of his chair like a restive wild cat.

"Ain't that dad over yonder?" he asked. "I see a feller that seems to be built on the same lines of the photograft, but--n-n-no," he finished musingly, "that feller's a Mexican."

"Letter for you, Mr. Hill," said a bell boy, coming across the lobby from the clerk's desk.

Hill took the letter wonderingly, stared at it, tore it open, and then sank into a chair while he read the communication. Presently he began to breathe hard, and to gurgle in his throat.

"I knew the old man didn't have a marble heart," he muttered joyfully.

"I reckoned he'd come around, if I'd only give him time enough. The trail's a short one, Clancy, and it leads to San Diego instead of to Catalina. There," and he thrust the letter into the motor wizard's hand, "read that."

CHAPTER V.

THE MOTOR WIZARD'S JUDGMENT.

"This has a fishy look to me, Hiram," said Clancy, after reading the letter. "Upton Hill, who claims to have written it, says he got your address from the policeman who pulled you out of the melee and helped you to the drug store. Mighty queer he couldn't spend time to call on you, after getting your address, instead of putting you to all the expense of going to San Diego to find him."

"Don't be a wet blanket, blame it!" begged Hill. "Only dad I got in the world, and here you go to throwin' cold water on his motives."

"Did you give your address to the policeman?"

"Give it up. I was plump batty, just after I got away from that mob, and I don't know what I did. Reckon I must have given up the information, or dad couldn't have got it and sent me that letter."

The motor wizard was conscious of a deep distrust regarding that communication upon which Hill was setting such store. Instinctively he had become suspicious, and the more he considered the letter's contents, the more suspicious he became.

"Do you recognize your father's handwriting, Hiram?" asked Clancy.

"Well, hardly," was the grinning response. "Dad got lost in the shuffle almost before I'd cut my teeth. I'm not familiar with his handwritin'.

Did you read what he says about bein' well off? Gosh! Say, I'm li'ble to come into some money! I reckon this is one time my cup's right side up when it rains good luck."

"Haven't you got a sample of your father's penmanship anywhere, Hiram?"

"Not that I know anythin' about. You see, all the letters he'd written I left back home, and---" Hill paused abruptly. "Gee," he went on, reaching into the breast pocket of his coat, "I allow I have got a sc.r.a.p o' dad's writin'. It's on the back o' that photograft."

He drew the photograph into sight, turned it over, and pushed it under Clancy's eyes.

"There!" and he pointed with his finger. "That's a sample o' dad's fist."

Upton Hill, age thirty-six. This was all the writing on the back of the photograph. It was enough, however. Clancy compared the name signed to the letter with that on the photograph. It could be seen at a glance that the same hand had not written the two signatures--they were utterly different.

"Just as I imagined," observed Clancy. "Hiram, either your father did not write what is on the back of the photograph, or else that letter is a forgery. The same hand did not trace the two signatures. Look! You can see that just as plainly as I can."

Hill took the letter in one hand and the photograph in the other, squinted up his cross eyes, and tried to inst.i.tute comparisons.

"The signature ain't the same," he finally agreed, "and that's a fact."

"Which proves that the letter's a forgery."

"I'm not a-sayin' that, Clancy. It can't be that dad wrote what's on the back o' the picter."

"You have always thought he did the writing on the back of the photograph, haven't you?"

"Then you're thinking he didn't, now, so you can believe the letter's genuine."

"Well, what of it? I'd a heap rather pin my faith to the writin' in the letter than to what's on the photograft."

Clancy saw that argument was useless. Hill was completely carried away with the letter, for it steered him along the line of least resistance right into the haven of his happiest desires. He believed in that letter because he wanted to believe in it, and for no other earthly reason.

"Then," said the motor wizard quietly, "you think you'll go to San Diego and not to Catalina Island?"

"What's the use o' wastin' time on Catalina when that letter tells us right where to go?" demanded Hill. "You're goin' with me, ain't you?"

"Not if you're going right away, Hiram. I just reached Los Angeles after a long ride from Phoenix, and I'm not going to hit the iron trail again before I have a chance to get the cinders out of my eyes and the dust off my face. If you're going to San Diego this afternoon, or to-night, you'll go alone."

"You don't take any stock in this letter at all, huh?"

"No."

"Who do you think wrote it if it wasn't my lost dad?"

"I don't know who wrote it,"