Owen Clancy's Happy Trail Part 6

"Well," grumbled Hiram, "I won't start for San Diego afore to-morrow. I want you to be along, and I'm waitin' over so'st to have you. S'pose we go and eat? Registered yet?"

"I'll register now," said Clancy, "and then we'll sit in at the chuck table and have dinner."

He went over to the desk alone, put down his name, and then wrote out a telegram. He handed it to a boy along with some money, and asked that the message be put on the wires as soon as possible. After that he went to his room, got the dust and cinders off his face and out of his hair, joined Hill, and the two went into the dining room together.

Clancy was determined to make the most of his "Happy Trail," and directly after dinner proposed that he and Hill should spend the afternoon at one of the beaches. Hill, who was all wrapped up in San Diego, now that he had received that supposed letter from his father, consented reluctantly. The two boarded an electric car and went to Venice.

There was a big crowd at this particular beach. Hill, in spite of the fact that he professed to believe his father was in San Diego, was scanning every face he pa.s.sed for the beetling brow, retreating chin, Roman nose, and squint eye. He acted so wild and unreasonable that Clancy was tempted to believe he had gone daffy on the subject of his lost father.

He would run up to a man with a prominent nose, grab him by the shoulders, and study his face in a search for the other specifications.

Once he was knocked down, and another time he was nearly arrested when an irate man, whom he had stopped to investigate, raised a shout for a policeman.

"Look here, Hiram," remonstrated the motor wizard, drawing his tow-headed friend apart, "if you're convinced your father is in San Diego, what the deuce are you expecting to see him here in Venice for?"

"I got the habit of lookin'," answered Hill lamely, "and seems like I can't give it up."

"Well, you've got to give it up for the rest of to-day or you and I will separate here and now. You act as though you had just escaped from a lunatic asylum, and when people see me they are apt to think there are two of us."

They went out on the pleasure pier, bought post cards to send to their friends, had their pictures taken on a couple of burros, and finally got into bathing suits and went into the surf. Hill at last forgot about his lost parent and let himself loose for a good time.

Both he and Clancy enjoyed themselves to the limit. Refreshed by their plunge in the ocean, they went into a restaurant, and did ample justice to a splendid, meal. After that they started back to Los Angeles.

"This here has been a great afternoon, Clancy!" sighed Hiram, sinking back in the car seat and showing his weariness. "We haven't done much toward runnin' out the trail, but we can begin on that again to-morrow."

"I'm running out my own trail, Hiram," laughed Clancy.

"Eh?" returned Hill blankly.

The motor wizard did not explain. His companion, he knew, would not have understood him if he had explained. But Clancy realized that he was more contented in mind than he had been at any time during the last two weeks. Tired though he was, it was astonishing how much better he felt.

"New sights and new scenes," thought Clancy, "do a lot to put new life into a fellow. I'm beginning to wish I had taken this Happy Trail a long time ago."

It was ten o'clock when they walked into the lobby of the Renfrew House.

As they stopped at the counter to get the keys to their rooms, Clancy asked the clerk if there was a telegram for him. The clerk thumbed over, a bunch of messages and tossed out one.

"Owen Clancy?" he queried. "There you are."

"I hope it ain't Wynn wirin' you to come back," remarked Hill, with sudden foreboding.

"It isn't from Wynn," said Clancy; "I know that before I open it. I'll bet something handsome it's from the chief of police at San Diego."

"The chief of police? What's he wiring you for?"

"Come over here, Hiram, and I'll explain."

Clancy led his companion to a couple of chairs.

"Now," said he, after, they had seated themselves, "we're about to decide whether we're going to Catalina Island, in the morning, or to San Diego."

"That's already decided!" a.s.serted Hill. "Whatever makes you think it ain't?"

"Look at that letter you received at noon, Hiram," went on Clancy. "You were asked to come to eighteen-twenty 'Q' Street, weren't you?"

"Yes," Hiram answered, consulting the letter.

"Well," explained Clancy, "I wired the chief of police at San Diego, asking him who lives at that number in Q Street. If this reply to my message says that Upton Hill lives at that address, then I'll congratulate you, and we will go on together to, San Diego in the morning.

"Sure!"

"But if the message says that some one else lives at the address, it's proof positive that your letter was a fake, and that going to San Diego is worse than a waste of time, eh?"

"Let's see what the message says," parried Hill.

Clancy opened it, removed the folded yellow sheet, opened it out, and he and Hill read the following:

"OWEN CLANCY, Renfrew House, Los Angeles: No such street as 'Q' in the city. No such man as Upton Hill in directory. Never heard of him.

PENNYPACKER, Chief of Police."

"What do you think of that?" asked Clancy.

"I reckon your judgment is good, Clancy," answered the baffled Hill. "If it wasn't, I'd not have asked you to help me run out this trail."

"Then we'll cut out San Diego and go to Catalina?"

"What's the use o' goin' to San Diego; lookin' for a street they haven't got in the town? Of course we'll try the island--nothin' else for us to do."

CHAPTER VI.

THE GLa.s.s-BOTTOM BOAT.

The distance from the mainland to the island of Catalina is only about twenty miles, and the steamer from San Pedro makes the trip in something like two hours and a half.

At ten o'clock in the morning Clancy and Hill went aboard, at ten-fifteen the boat got under way, and promptly at ten-seventeen Hiram became seasick. There wasn't anything halfway about it, either, he was sick all through and all over. For an hour he was afraid he was going to die, and for an hour and a half he was afraid he wasn't.

Clancy was so busy with Hill that he had no time to enjoy the trip. As soon as the boat tied up at the Avalon pier and the gangplank was run out, Hill galloped ash.o.r.e, and sank down on the dock with a groan of thanksgiving. Clancy hurried after him, picked him up, and supported him to solid earth.

"I thought you were a better sailor than that, Hiram," chuckled Clancy.

"Me--a sailor?" whimpered Hill. "Say, it always makes my stomach do a hornpipe just to look at a picture of the sea. I can't cross a creek on a bridge without getting separated from my last meal. Darn it! This is why I wanted to find my lost dad in San Diego--I could go there by land.

Clancy, I'm goin' to stay on this island, and live and die here. I won't never go back. Let's find a restaurant somewhere and fill up, I never was so empty in all my life."

Finding a restaurant was not difficult, for the little town was full of them. A rattling good fish dinner put Hill in a pleasanter mood, so that his wretchedness of the morning survived as only a faint and far-off memory.

Senor Jack Lopez had a curio store on the main street of the town. The investigators were directed to his place of business, but to their disappointment, Lopez was away on the other side of the island and would not be back until evening. As they came out of the curio store, a man approached them and sounded the praises of the gla.s.s bottom boats.

"Ugh!" said Hiram, trying to get away, "no boats for mine!"