"This is what he found in the bottle, Frank," continued the stockman. "It bore my address, and the name of my ranch here; so thinking that it might be something more than a practical joke he concluded to journey all the way across the country to see me. It was a mighty nice thing for Mr. Hinchman to do, and something I am not apt to forget in a hurry, either."
"Then the paper interested you, dad, it seems?" Frank remarked, eagerly.
"It certainly did, son, and I rather think you will feel the same as I did when I tell you whose name is written at the bottom of this little communication," the cattleman went on.
"All right, I'm ready to hear it," Frank remarked, laughingly.
"Felix Oswald!" replied his father, quickly.
The boy was indeed intensely surprised, if one could judge from his manner.
"Your Uncle Felix, dad, who has been gone these three years, and whose mysterious disappearance set the whole scientific world guessing. And you say his name is there, signed to that paper found in the sealed bottle? Well, you sure have given me a surprise. Then he's still alive?"
"He seemed to be when he wrote this," the cattleman said, reflectively; "but as he failed to put any date on it, we can only guess how long the bottle has been cruising down the Colorado, sucked into eddies that might hold it for weeks or months, until a rise in the river sent it forth again."
"Say, doesn't that beat everything you ever heard of, Bob?" declared Frank, turning to his chum.
"It certainly does," replied Bob, and then the ranchman's boy continued: