uncle as the son he lost so long ago?"

"You are quite sure you can bring the boy here?" asked Curtis.

"Why not? I have only to go to Florence and ask her to send the boy to
me."

"You are quite at liberty to do so if you like, Tim Bolton," said
Curtis, with a mocking smile. "I am glad, at any rate, that you have
shown me what is in your mind. You are very sharp, but you are not
quite so sharp as I am."

"I don't understand you."

"Then I will be more explicit. It's out of your power to make use of
the boy against me, because----"

"Well?"

"Because he is not in the city."

"Where is he, then?"

"Where you are not likely to find him."

"If you have killed him----" Bolton began, but Curtis interrupted him.

"The boy is safe--I will tell you that much," he said; "but for
reasons which you can guess, I think it better that he should be out
of New York. When the proper time comes, and all is safe, he may come
back, but not in time to help you in your cunning plans, Mr. Tim
Bolton."

"Then, I suppose," said Bolton, assuming an air of mortification and
discomfiture, "it is no use for me to remain here any longer."

"You are quite right. I wish you a pleasant journey home. Give my love
to Florence when you see her."

"That man is a fiend!" soliloquized Bolton, as he walked back,
leisurely, to his place of business. "Let me get hold of Dodger and I
will foil him yet!"

Chapter XXVII.
Dodger Strikes Luck.

When Dodger landed in San Francisco, in spite of the fact that he had
made the journey against his will, he felt a natural exhilaration and
pleasure in the new and striking circumstances and scenes in which he
found himself placed.

It was in the year 1877, and the city was by no means what it is now.
Yet it probably contained not far from two hundred thousand people,
lively, earnest, enterprising. All seemed busy and hopeful, and Dodger
caught the contagion.

As he walked with the reporter to a modest hotel, where the rates were
a dollar and a half a day, not far from Montgomery Street, Randolph
Leslie asked:

"How do you like San Francisco thus far, Arthur?"

It will be remembered that Dodger, feeling that the name by which he
had hitherto been known was hardly likely to recommend him, adopted
the one given him by Curtis Waring.

"I think I shall like it ever so much," answered Dodger. "Everybody
seems to be wideawake."

"Do you think you will like it better than New York?"

"I thin