OWEN CLANCY'S HAPPY TRAIL; Or, THE MOTOR WIZARD IN CALIFORNIA.

By BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER I.

ALMOST A RIOT.

No, it was not an earthquake that happened in the city of Los Angeles, California, on that beautiful sun-shiny morning. It was just a tow-headed, cross-eyed youth shaking things up at the corner of Sixth and Main in an attempt to find his father.

And not one corner of the cross streets was involved, but all four corners. The upheaval that followed this search for a missing relative, extended in several directions, so that a very small cause led up to remarkably large results.

It was nine o'clock of a Saturday morning. That Saturday was some sort of a festal day for the Chinese, and at the hour mentioned, a dragon a block long, consisting of a hundred Celestials covered with papier-mâché, was twisting and writhing along Sixth Street.

On one corner, leaning against the side of a building, was a tall man in seedy clothes. A card on his breast bore the sad legend, "Help the Blind." The man's eyes were covered with large blue goggles, and in one hand he held his hat, and in the other a couple of dozen cheap lead pencils.

Across the street, on corner number two, was an Italian with a hand organ. The Italian's assistant was a monkey in a red cap.

Corner number three, among others, held a grocer's boy, carrying a basket with six dozens of eggs. He was very much absorbed in watching the Chinese dragon wriggle along the thoroughfare.

The fourth corner was reserved for Hiram Hill, the tow-headed, cross-eyed chap who was destined to cause all the commotion. While Hill stood on the walk, telling himself that the gaudily painted dragon looked very much like an overgrown centipede, he suddenly caught sight of a man in an automobile.

The auto was headed along Main Street, and was waiting for the dragon to clear the way so it could proceed. Hill looked at the machine across the papier-mâché spine of the chink monster, and he gave a yell of surprise when his gaze took account of the one man in the tonneau of the car.

Undoubtedly that man was Hiram Hill's father–the parent who had been mysteriously missing ever since the first Klondike gold rush! Hiram's eyes were sharp, and to them the beetling brow, the one "squint eye," the very pronounced Roman nose, and the retreating chin which made the face resemble a bird's beak, were all very plain.

After that first yell of surprise, Hiram's astonishing good luck held him speechless. Following a year of a trying town-to-town canvas of the whole Southwest, he had at last come within hailing distance of his long-lost parent.

Only one point remained to make assurance doubly sure. Had the "suspect" a brown mole on the back of his neck? Sharp as Hill's eyes were, they could not determine that.

"Who wants a pencil?" came feebly from the hapless person on the first corner. "Help the blind."

"Jocko," said the son of sunny Italy, on corner two, "maka da bow, taka da mon!"

The monkey lifted his hat and went through motions that passed for a bow. He also looked at his master and showed his teeth, not relishing the way his chain had been pulled.

"Pipe de chink wid de pigeon toes and de bow legs!" yelped the grocer's boy. "If he's goin' de way dem feet are pointed, foist t'ing yous know he'll be runnin' into himself."

The boy with the basket of eggs was very observing. As he shouted his remarks he leveled a finger at a pair of coolie legs supporting one of the vertebra of the passing dragon. The legs were badly sprung at the knees, but they ended in feet which the Chinaman had to step over as he walked.

"Dad!" whooped Hiram Hill; "I say, dad!"

Hiram recovered his speech, and all at once became as active as a swarm of bees after some one has kicked over the hive. He wanted to get to that automobile and give his father a filial embrace–and he was in a hurry. The Chinese dragon was in the way, but Hiram didn't mind a little thing like that.

He jumped at the papier-mâché thing and hit it in the vicinity of the bow-legged Chinaman. That particular chink went down, and the dragon was broken squarely in two, midway of its length.

Now, a papier-mâché dragon is a sort of a blind-follow-my-leader affair. The Chinaman at the head is the only one in the procession who can see where he is going, and the remaining sections of the monster hang onto him and follow his lead.

The rear half of the dragon got lost, and went groping wildly for the front half. Somehow or other, it ran into the crowd on the corner, and there was a mix-up in which three dollars worth of eggs were badly scrambled.

The last section of the front half, missing the part behind, began swinging back and forth across the street in an attempt to find the lost tail. It carromed into corner number two, smashing one perfectly good hand organ, freeing an excited monkey, and drawing forth a volley of lurid words from the Italian.

Jocko ran across the street, and began climbing the tall man who was selling lead pencils. With a roar of consternation, the tall man rushed into the street, flourishing his arms, and begging some one–any one–to "Take it away! Take it away!" He finally collided with the head end of the dragon, demoralizing that half of the chink procession as completely as the latter half had been.

By that time; Sixth and Main was in a turmoil. The dragon had broken up in a hundred parts, like a jointed snake, and each part was thrashing around blindly, trying to get rid of its papier-mâché so it could see where it was and what it was doing.

From the four corners the crowd flowed into the street. Eggs, entirely whole or only slightly cracked, flew from mischievous hands over heaving heads, only to smash against some particularly inviting mark.

The monkey leaped from one pair of shoulders to another, chattering wildly. In course of time, he reached the automobile, landed in a heap on the bosom of the beetle-browed, Roman-nosed passenger in the tonneau, and encircling him with his hairy arms. The beetle-browed man got up and fought for his freedom, clamoring furiously for "Police! Police!"

Just at that moment, the only policeman in that vicinity was at the patrol box, sending in a riot call. Meanwhile, Hiram Hill was having his own share of troubles.

The bow-legged Chinaman had slipped out of his papier-mâché shell. He did not know, of course, that Hill was the one who had knocked his section of the dragon out of line, but the instant he was able to look around, he saw Hill, and immediately selected him as a suitable object for hostility.

The chink did not step on himself, nor in any way interfere with his progress in going for Hiram. He hit Hiram so hard over the head with the piece of dragon that he knocked a hole in the papier-mâché, and, just as Hiram freed himself of the encumbrance, and straightened up to get his bearings and swoop down on his assailant, an egg smashed in his face and effectually blinded him.

A hollow murmur sounded in Hiram's ears, like the roar of the sea. He was picked up on the troubled waters of the màlée, and borne back and forth in the surging tide. At last he slammed into something and fell, limp and dazed, to the ground.

He drew his sleeve across his eyes, thus freeing them for clearer vision. To his joy and wonder, he found that destiny had hurled him against the side of the automobile he had been trying to reach.

Jocko had jumped from the shoulders of the passenger in the tonneau, and the passenger was still on his feet and had his back toward Hiram. The latter, boiling over with filial sentiments, climbed up on the running board and encircled the beetle-browed man in a fond embrace.

"Dad!" clamored Hiram excitedly; "don't you know me?"

"Get off! get off!" roared the man, going at once into a flurry. "Whose monkey is this, anyway? Police! Police!"

The man, naturally, was in a highly excited state of mind and thought the simian was upon him again. Just then, the driver of the machine found a cleared space ahead and started for it. He started so quickly that Hiram was thrown from the running board, dropped to the hard pavement, and there stumbled against and fallen over by the jostling mob.

This rough usage was more than Hiram could stand. The senses were being knocked out of him by swift degrees. He felt his wits going, and he made a frantic attempt to stay them as they drifted away. The attempt was useless, however, and a great darkness suddenly descended upon Hiram and closed him in.

When he regained his senses, he was lying on a bench in a drug store. A clerk was holding a handkerchief, saturated with a drug of some kind, to his nostrils, and a bluecoat was standing near, twirling his club and looking down at Hiram speculatively.

"Question is," said the policeman, "what is he doing with two hats?"

"That's more than I can tell you, officer," answered the clerk. "Ah, he's coming to!"

Hiram sat up on the bench and pushed aside the drug-soaked handkerchief. "Dad!" he murmured confusedly.

"I'm not your dad," said the officer. "I'm just the fellow who pulled you out of the crowd. Where'd you get that hat?"

Hiram looked down. His own hat was on his head and had, in some manner, remained with him throughout all the excitement, but in his hand he was clutching, like grim death, a battered black Stetson.

Turning the hat over, Hiram looked into the crown. The gilt letters, "U. H." met his eyes.

"It's dad's hat," he gurgled. "Upton Hill, that's his name! I knew I had a bean on the right number! I–I—"

A bit of white showed under the sweatband. Westerners, of a certain type, sometimes carry important documents under the sweatband of their hats. Hiram pulled his object out of the Stetson, examined it, and then inquired his way to the nearest telegraph office. Five minutes later he had sent the following telegram:

"OWEN CLANCY, the Motor Wizard, Phoenix, Arizona: Hot on the trail. You said you would help me find dad. Come to Los Angeles at once and get busy. Meet me Renfrew House.

HIRAM."

"This here's a great day for me," murmured Hiram, rubbing his bruises as he turned away from the operator's window. "I reckon that'll fetch Clancy, if he's well enough to come. Him and me can run out this happy trail together, with ground to spare. That red-headed wizard has got more sense in a minute than I have in a year, and I reckon we'll get along. He's a good feller to tie to, in a time like this."

CHAPTER II.

CLANCY HITS THE "HAPPY TRAIL."

"How's the shoulder, Clancy?" Doctor Ferguson asked, as the young motor wizard walked into his office.

"I know it belongs to me," was the smiling reply, "every time I make a move, but I guess it's coming along all right at that, doc."

"No reason why it shouldn't. You're as tough as a piece of whalebone, and a little nick like that can't put you on the retired list. Sit down here–I've got a few words to say to you."

The doctor indicated a chair close to his desk, and then sank back in his own seat with the air of one who is about to say something weighty and important.

"Don't you try to scare me about anything, doc," said Clancy apprehensively, as he slid into the chair.

"Tush!" and the physician wagged his head. "You haven't got sense enough to be scared at anything. That's the main trouble with you. It's two weeks since you went to Wickenburg and got in front of that bullet. We kept you in bed for a week, and now you have been on your feet for another week. So far as the wound is concerned, Clancy, you are all right, but so far as something else is concerned, you are all wrong." Ferguson's eyes narrowed and he leveled a forefinger at his patient. "What happened, up there at Wickenburg?" he demanded.

"What happened?" repeated Clancy. "Why, you just spoke of that. I got in front of a bullet."

"Stop, trying to play horse with me!" went on the doctor sourly. "Something took place between you and your partner, Lafe Wynn, at Wickenburg, and I want to know what it was."

Clancy stiffened.

"That's a personal matter, Doctor Ferguson," he answered, "and I don't have to explain it to anybody."

"Well, you needn't get hot about it. There's something on your mind, and it's holding back your complete recovery. I'm asking questions and talking from the standpoint of your physician. If I knew the nature of the thing that bothered you, very possibly I could take means to counteract it."

Clancy was impressed by Ferguson's shrewdness. Yet he had no intention of revealing the cause of his secret worry.

How could he tell Ferguson, or anybody else, what really happened at Wickenburg? Only two or three people knew that Lafe Wynn had forged Clancy's name to a check and had absconded with that money, and with all the cash assets of the firm of Clancy & Wynn. Only two or three knew how Clancy had trailed Wynn to Wickenburg and had sent him back to Phoenix to take charge of the Square-deal Garage, as usual, while he–Clancy–was in bed in the other town for a week.

Apparently all was the same as it ever had been between the two partners. In this instance, however, surface indications were not to be trusted.

Clancy's confidence in Wynn had been rudely shattered. The motor wizard had spared his partner–had been generous with him, in fact, far beyond his deserts. This was not particularly on Wynn's account, but on account of Wynn's mother, an old lady who had come to Phoenix on the very day Wynn had absconded.

Mrs. Wynn, proud of the business success her son had made, had come to him so that he might make her a home in her declining years. Clancy had not the heart to tell the old lady the exact situation, and he had gone to Wickenburg to get Lafe and make him return to Phoenix.

Wynn knew that Clancy had spared him on his mother's account. This knowledge caused a restraint between the two partners, all the greater because Wynn's forgery, and defalcation had wiped out all the cash assets of Clancy and the firm–some fifteen thousand dollars which had not been recovered.

Clancy would not tell all this to any one, for fear it might reach Mrs. Wynn. And he was anxious that Wynn should have another chance, without letting the one error of an otherwise blameless life weigh in the scales against him.

"I'll get along, doctor," observed Clancy. "I'll bet all the fretting I do won't land on me so hard you can notice it."

"Confound it," burst out the doctor, "I do notice it! You've got to get away from things for a while. Take the Happy Trail, Clancy, and run it out. I reckon you can afford it–after the way you held up that street-car company."

"Happy Trail?" echoed Clancy; "what's that?"

"It's the carefree road of pure and unadulterated joy," explained Ferguson solemnly. "It takes you out of yourself, gives you new scenes and experiences, and finally you wake up feeling better than you ever felt before in your life."

"Lead me to it!" said Clancy.

"I wish I could," was the answer, "but I can't. A Happy Trail for you might be a mighty miserable one for me, and vice versa. You'll have to find it for yourself, Clancy, but when you do find it, hit it hard!"

"That's a fine prescription–I don't think," laughed Clancy, getting up to leave. "You tell me what I must do, but don't tell me how I'm to do it."

"I'm as frank with you as you are with me," growled Ferguson. "Good-by!"

Clancy got back to the Square-deal Garage to find the whole force of employees moving the repair shop over to the garage known as the Red Star.

In order to keep Rockwell, of the Red Star, from driving the Square-deal place out of business, Clancy had been forced to buy the building and lot that housed the establishment belonging to him and Wynn. He had consummated this deal for ten thousand dollars, paying three thousand dollars down and getting time on the balance at seven per cent. And the mortgage had come due just before Wynn had absconded with all the cash resources. A stroke of luck alone had saved Clancy.

The street-car company had suddenly developed a need for the property he had bought. Judge Pembroke, a friend of Clancy's, did the negotiating, with the result that the premises sold for twenty thousand dollars.

The judge, knowing that Clancy & Wynn would have to move and must have some place to go, had secured an option on the Red-star establishment for four thousand dollars. So Clancy had financed the tottering affairs of Clancy & Wynn, had bought Rockwell's old place, and the transfer was in progress.

Lafe Wynn was overseeing the removal. When Clancy entered the garage, Lafe turned abruptly on his heel and walked into the office. Clancy followed him.

"What's the matter with you, Lafe?" inquired Clancy. "Why do you take pains to avoid me, all the time? We can't get along like that–and remain partners."

A look of suffering filled Wynn's face.

"Owen," said he, with an effort, "every time I look at you I think of what I am–a thief and a forger, only saved from the penitentiary by your generosity. It isn't a pleasant thought for a man who wants to be independent. If I could undo the wrong I did you–if I could—"

"You can–some time," said Clancy. "After you are able, you can pay me back my just proportion of that fifteen thousand."

"After I am able!" murmured Lafe sarcastically. "That will be a matter of years, Owen. I can't feel like this for years without going crazy. If I could find my rascally brother, Gerald, I–I might induce him to give back the money."

"Never," returned the motor wizard shortly. "Your brother Gerald has probably got rid of the money by this time. There were two to help him spend it, remember–Bob Katz and Hank Burton. Those three would make it fly."

There were extenuating circumstances about what Lafe Wynn had done. The extenuating circumstances were wrapped up in his unscrupulous brother. Gerald had told Lafe a pretty fiction about needing money to save him from dishonor–and Lafe had covered himself with dishonor in order to help Gerald. No sooner had Lafe secured the money than he and his two cronies had taken it and made good their escape. This was when Clancy had been wounded. At the time, he was seeking to help Lafe save the fifteen thousand dollars.

"I have got to make that loss up to you somehow," muttered Lafe, "and I've got to do it soon. My conscience will send me to a madhouse, if I don't."

Clancy studied his partner curiously for a few moments.

"Lafe," he went on presently, "you and I have got to get away from each other for a while. We are simply millstones around each other's neck. You can't look at me without thinking you owe me the biggest part of fifteen thousand dollars, and I can't look at you without thinking how you betrayed my confidence."

"You can get rid of me, Owen, in about two shakes," said Wynn. "Kick me out. I haven't any right to be one of the firm, anyhow."

The motor wizard shook his head.

"You've got to hang on and make good in the place where you lost out," Clancy returned. "You've got to do this for the sake of your mother, who thinks so much of you. We've got to allow a little time, you know, for us to get back on our old footing. I need a change. Ferguson says so, and I have a feeling that he knows what he is talking about. I—"

A boy came into the office that moment with a telegram. He knew the motor wizard by sight, and went directly to him.

"This is for you, Mr. Clancy," said he.

Clancy signed for the message, tore it open, read the contents, and laughed.

"By thunder," he cried, "here's just the thing!"

"What do you mean?" asked Wynn.

"It's a hurry-up call from Hiram Hill. You remember Hiram?"

Wynn winced. "Yes," said he, "I remember Hiram Hill quite vividly."

"He left Phoenix for the coast several weeks ago, carrying on his search for his father. I always thought that search of Hiram's was more or less of a joke–and I haven't any positive information yet that it isn't–but here's a message asking me to come to Los Angeles at once. Hiram says that he is 'hot on the trail,' and that I promised him to help him find his father–which is true."

Clancy arose with sudden determination in his voice and manner.