"Confound the luck, anyhow!" cried Sercomb. "Nothing seems to go right with me. If you fellows had got hold of Ferral last night, all this couldn't have happened to-day."
"If we'd done that, Ralph," said Mings gloomily, "we don't know what would have happened to-day. Motor Matt and that Dutch pal of his would have been left, and they'd have kicked up a big ruction when they found Ferral had disappeared."
"We could have taken care of Motor Matt and the Dutchman," snapped Sercomb, "and Mings and Packard could have run Ferral away in the automobile and dropped him so close to the quicksands that he'd have wandered into them in the dark. He'd never have shown up here to make me any trouble." Bitterness throbbed in Sercomb's voice. "That fellow has been a drawback to me ever since we were kids, and now he's got to step in and try to knock me out of Uncle Jack's money!"
"You wasn't a favorite of your Uncle Jack, eh?" queried Balt Finn.
"No, blast the old codger! He never seemed to like me, and I was always around him. Dick, who never came near, was the one he had always in mind."
"Well, has the old fluke cashed in?" asked Packard. "That's the point."
"Of course he has! He was always a high liver, and it's a wonder apoplexy didn't take him long ago. Feeling that he was about to die, he made his will, put it in his pocket, and tucked himself away somewhere, just to see whether Dick or I would be first to locate him. Precious little I care about the old juniper, if I could lay hands on the will."
"The one you've made out, Ralph," said Packard, "is pretty well gotten up. You've imitated your uncle's signature in great shape."
"The deuce of it is," returned Sercomb, "I don't know just what property he's got, so I can schedule it. If I could find the original will, I could copy that part of it."
"Maybe," suggested Finn, "this is only a tempest in a teapot, and that the old man left you all his property, after all."