Project Gutenberg's Owen Clancy's Happy Trail, by Burt L. Standish

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Title: Owen Clancy's Happy Trail
or, The Motor Wizard in California

Author: Burt L. Standish

Release Date: January 1, 2008 [EBook #24102]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OWEN CLANCY'S HAPPY TRAIL ***

Produced by Richard Halsey

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-mache, 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 St