“If you have killed him——” Bolton began, but Curtis interrupted him.
“The boy is safe—I will tell you that much,” he said; “but for reasons which you can guess, I think it better that he should be out of New York. When the proper time comes, and all is safe, he may come back, but not in time to help you in your cunning plans, Mr. Tim Bolton.”
“Then, I suppose,” said Bolton, assuming an air of mortification and discomfiture, “it is no use for me to remain here any longer.”
“You are quite right. I wish you a pleasant journey home. Give my love to Florence when you see her.”
“That man is a fiend!” soliloquized Bolton, as he walked back, leisurely, to his place of business. “Let me get hold of Dodger and I will foil him yet!”
Chapter XXVII.
Dodger Strikes Luck.
When Dodger landed in San Francisco, in spite of the fact that he had made the journey against his will, he felt a natural exhilaration and pleasure in the new and striking circumstances and scenes in which he found himself placed.
It was in the year 1877, and the city was by no means what it is now. Yet it probably contained not far from two hundred thousand people, lively, earnest, enterprising. All seemed busy and hopeful, and Dodger caught the contagion.
As he walked with the reporter to a modest hotel, where the rates were a dollar and a half a day, not far from Montgomery Street, Randolph Leslie asked:
“How do you like San Francisco thus far, Arthur?”