That Dudley Ray’s son should be forced by dire necessity to sell newspapers was not improbable. Bolton therefore inserted the advertisement already mentioned.
A few days later he received two letters post-marked St. Louis.
He opened them with a thrill of excitement. He felt that he was on the verge of making an important discovery.
One letter was addressed in a schoolboy hand, and ran thus:
Dear Sir: I saw your advertisement in one of the morning papers. I hope it means me. My name is not Ernest, but it may have been changed by some people with whom I lived in Nebraska. I am sixteen years old, and I am obliged to earn my living selling papers. My father died when I was a baby, and my mother three years later. I am alone in the world, and am having a hard time. I suppose you wouldn’t advertise for me unless you had some good news for me. You may send your answer to this letter to the Southern Hotel. The clerk is a friend of mine, and he says he will save it for me.
Yours respectfully,
Arthur Ray.
“That isn’t the boy,” said Bolton, laying down the letter in disappointment. “The name is different, and, besides, the writer says that his father died when he was a baby. Of course that settles the question. He is a different boy.”
He opened the second letter, hoping that it might be more satisfactory.
It was the letter of Tom Burns, setting forth his meeting Ernest at Oak Forks, and afterward at Oreville in California.