"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 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."