tion were packed.

While they were on the car Merry told Starbright something of his great
plan to build a railroad in Sonora that should tap his mining property,
and of his battle with Porfias del Norte and Alvarez Lazaro.

"Whew!" exclaimed Dick. "But you have been engaged in strenuous
affairs."

"Rather," nodded Merry. "But the sky is pretty clear now, and I feel
like taking a little relaxation. I have a plan that I will unfold after
we find Morgan. Inza Burrage, Elsie Bellwood, Bart Hodge, Bruce
Browning, and Harry Rattleton are in town, and they----"

"Great Scott!" palpitated the young reporter. "This is great! I'll have
to see them all if it takes me away from the paper long enough to get me
fired. Here we are. We get off here."

They had reached the Bowery.

Leaving the car, Starbright led the way to one of the cheapest downtown
hotels, over the door of which was a sign which stated that rooms could
be secured there for fifty cents a night, beds for fifteen and
twenty-five cents.

They mounted a flight of dirty stairs and came into the office, where a
number of poverty-stricken men were sitting about, reading papers,
smoking, and talking. Some of the men looked like hobos, and all wore on
their faces the stamp of blighted lives. A single glance made it plain
that drink had caused the downfall of nearly all of them.

Merriwell shrugged his shoulders as his eyes ran swiftly over the hotel
office and the loungers gathered therein.

"Dade Morgan stopping here!" he mentally exclaimed. "The immaculate,
almost aesthetic, Dade in such a wretched place! It seems impossible."

There was no clerk behind the desk.

"Come on," said Starbright. "I know how to find Morgan's room. This
way."

They turned from the office and mounted another flight of stairs, darker
and dirtier than the first. There was no carpet on the bare floor of
the corridor above, where a weakly flaring gas jet made a sickly break
in the gloom. There was a peculiar smell about the place that was
distinctly offensive. The door of a room stood open. Inside two
filthy-looking men, minus their coats, were arguing loudly and drunkenly
about "labor and capital," while a third man lay sleeping on a dirty
bed.

A man shuffled along the dark corridor and stared at Frank and Dick with
suspicious, resentful eyes. He was low-browed, sullen, and vicious in
appearance; just such a man as one would not care to meet alone on a
dark street late at night.