sonal search
for you. If you are really my son, come to San Diego, make my house at
eighteen-twenty Q Street your home, and I will ask you certain questions
whose answers will prove indisputably whether or not you are my son. I
must have the proof, you know, because I am a very rich man, and you, as
my sole relative, will inherit everything I leave. Hoping to see you in
San Diego at your earliest convenience, I remain, yours expectantly,
'UPTON HILL.'"

Gerald dropped the letter on the table, and looked up at his friends
with a guileful smile.

"How's that for a bait?" he asked.

"Bully!" declared Katz. "Hiram Hill will tumble all over himself to go
to San Diego."

"What'll happen when he can't find any Upton Hill in San Diego?" said
Burton.

"We don't care what happens--then," answered Gerald. "By that time, you
know, we ought to have finished our deal with Jack Lopez, and to be away
from Catalina, and where Hill will never be able to find us."

"How do you know he gave his name and address to a policeman?" continued
Burton.

"That's what people always do when they get into trouble on the street,
or meet with an accident, isn't it?"

"Maybe it is, but if it happens that Hill didn't give his name and
address to the cop, the fact will queer that whole letter."

"I allow Hank is right, Gerald," chimed in Katz, "This here is one of
them cases where you can't be too careful. Reckon I'd write another
letter and change that."

"It's not necessary," insisted Gerald. "Hill was stunned. If he can't
remember giving his name and address to the policeman, he'll think he
did it at a time when he didn't know what he was doing. The letter goes
as I have written it."

Gerald began addressing the envelope. Both the sheet of paper and the
envelope were plain, and bore no clew of the hotel in which they had
been written.

The letter was folded, thrust into the envelope, and the envelope sealed
and stamped.

"It's dinner time, fellows," announced Gerald, "and we'll post this on
our way to the noon eats. Come on."

They all got up and left the room.

"When do we hike for the island, Gerald?" asked Katz, as they went
downstairs.

"We'll pull out for San Pedro to-morrow, and catch the morning boat,"
was the reply. "We want to wind up our business with Lopez and clear out
before Hill discovers that letter is a fake and gets back from San
Diego. We can turn the trick with ground to spare--don't fret about
that