below. Those rooms are much better than
these."

As the boys had no baggage, there was nothing for them to arrange in
the rooms which had been assigned to them, so after a hasty look
around they started to go downstairs again, to rejoin the girls in the
parlor. As the boys passed the room next to the one which Dave and Ben
had elected to occupy, the door of the apartment was opened on a
crack. Then, as the youths left the corridor to descend the stairs,
the door was opened a little wider, and a young man peered out
cautiously.

"Well, what do you know about that!" muttered the young man to
himself, after the four chums had disappeared. "Right here at this
hotel, and going to occupy the room next to the one I've got! Could
you beat it?"

The young man was Ward Porton.

CHAPTER XII

TIM CRAPSEY'S PLOT

"Who are you talking to, Port?" questioned a man who was resting on
the bed in the room which Ward Porton occupied.

"Didn't I tell you not to call me by that name, Crapsey?" returned the
former moving-picture actor, as he closed the door softly and locked
it.

"What's the difference when we're alone?" grumbled the man called
Crapsey, as he shifted himself and rubbed his eyes.

"It may make a whole lot of difference," answered Porton. "I've just
made a big discovery."

"A discovery?" The man sat up on the edge of the bed. "Discovered how
to git hold of some money, I hope. We need it."

"You remember my telling you about that fellow who looks like me--the
fellow named Dave Porter?" went on the former moving-picture actor.
"Well, he's here in this hotel. And he and three of his chums have the
rooms next to this one."

"You don't mean it?" and now Tim Crapsey showed his interest. "Did
they see you?"

"Not much! And I don't intend that they shall," was the decided
reply.

"Did you know the other fellows?"

"Yes, they are the regular bunch Porter travels with. I've got to keep
out of sight of all of them. From what they said they are evidently
snowbound here on account of this blizzard, so there is no telling how
long they will stay," added the former moving-picture actor in
disgust. "Confound the luck! I suppose I'll have to stay in this room
a prisoner and let you get my meals for me."

"This fellow's being here may not be such a bad thing for you,"
remarked Tim Crapsey. "Maybe you can impersonate him and touch the
hotel clerk for a loan of ten or twenty dollars."

"I am not going to run too