will go inside for an interview with
him." So saying, he tried to open the door, but found it fastened. In
spite of its splintered condition, it was secured so firmly that it
took them several minutes to force it open. When this was
accomplished, and an entrance was effected, the four gazed blankly
about them and at each other. The large room was empty. So were the
two smaller ones beyond, while an open window in the last showed the
manner in which Messrs. Plater and Grimshaw had effected their escape.

"It's too bad," said Billy Brackett; "for having had several
interesting interviews with those gentlemen, I should have been glad of
another. I think Winn would have been pleased to meet his namesake
too."

"Indeed I should," replied the boy. "I'd like to collect rent for the
use of my signature, and find out where he learned to copy it so
perfectly."

"But I don't understand all this at all," said Glen Elting. "If this
raft isn't theirs, why did they want it badly enough to pay three
hundred dollars reward for its recovery?"

"Whom did they pay it to?" asked Billy Brackett.

"A hundred to the City Marshal, and a hundred each to Binney and me.
We didn't want to take it, but they insisted, and said they should feel
hurt if we refused. So, of course, rather than hurt their feelings--
But really, Billy, they are most gentlemanly fellows, and I think
behaved very handsomely."

"Will you let me see the hundred dollars they gave you?" asked the
young engineer.

"Certainly," replied Glen, with an air of surprise, and adding, rather
stiffly, "though I didn't think, Billy, that _you_ would require proof
of my truthfulness."

"I don't, my dear boy, I don't!" exclaimed Billy Brackett. "I would
believe your unsupported word quicker than the sworn statement of most
men. I want to look at that money for a very different purpose."

So a roll of brand-new bills was handed to him, and he examined them
one by one with the utmost care.

"There are two hundred dollars here," he said at length. "Is this
Binney's share of the reward as well as your own?"

"No. I had a hundred-dollar bill, and Mr. Caspar seeing it, asked if I
would mind taking small bills for it, as he wanted one of that amount
to send off by mail; so, of course, I let him have it."

"Oh, my children! my children!" murmured Billy Brackett, "why will you
persist in attempting to travel through this wicked world without a
guardian? Of all the scrape