"I've been doing a little character work."

"Character work?"

"Yes. I can't get over my old penchant for acting."

But, although they were very curious, he evaded making a complete explanation then.

A little later he found an opportunity to speak with Bart and Bruce without being overheard by the girls or Mrs. Medford.

"Look here, you two," he said, "I'm going to need you to-night. Don't make any plans about dinner or the theatre. Provide yourselves with pistols, for you may have to use them. Be ready when I want you."

"This is rather interesting," said Hodge. "What's the game, Frank?"

"The game will be to capture a nice little bunch of human tigers."

"Human tigers!" grunted Browning. "That sounds like the real thing, old man. Can't you put us wise a little more?"

"Not now. I'm going to call up my friend Bronson, the detective, and get him into it, for I believe he will be needed. I hope that this night I'll be able to effectually checkmate some very dangerous rascals."

Merry did not use the phone in the suite, but went down to the booths in the hotel lobby. There he called up police headquarters and asked for Bronson.

"He's just come in," was the answer. "Have him to the phone in a moment."

Directly Bronson himself inquired what was wanted.

"This is Merriwell," explained Frank. "Is there anything that will prevent you from giving me your services to-night?"

"Well, nothing that I know of, if the business is important; but I'll have to know what's doing in order to make it right here."

"I don't like to explain over the phone," said Frank. "If you can wait, I'll jump into a cab and come right down to tell you all about it."

"I'll wait," was the a.s.surance.

Merry lost no time in taking a cab for police headquarters, where he found the plain-clothes man waiting for him.

"Bronson," said Merriwell, "I've found Felipe Jalisco."

"Have you? Well, it will give me some satisfaction to again get my hands on that slippery chap."

"But I believe I have found something far more important. You know I told you that I was convinced of foul play in the Watson Scott affair, and also in the seeming accident that happened to Warren Hatch."

"Which seems entirely improbable to me."

"I think I'll be able to convince you to-night that I was not mistaken in either case. Further than that, I hope to place within your grasp the wretch who drugged Scott and bribed Hatch's chauffeur to bring about that accident."

"If you can do that, and if we succeed in securing the villain, it will be a corking piece of work. I think it will prove the sensation of the hour."

"Listen," said Frank, "and I will tell you my plan."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FLAMES DO THEIR WORK.

Early that evening old Spooner returned, accompanied by an even more disreputable-looking old man than himself.

Felipe heard them slowly and laboriously fumbling their way up the dark stairs, recognized the sound of Spooner's cane, and flung open the door of his room that the light of his oil lamp might aid them.

"Bless you, boy!" panted old Spooner. "These stairs are dark--heathenishly dark."

"I see to-night you have with you a friend, senor,"' observed the Mexican boy.

"Yes, poor fellow. I have seen him much on the streets. He stays with me frequently. He is deaf and dumb."

"Two beggar cronies," muttered Felipe, in Spanish, as he closed the door after they had vanished shufflingly into old Spooner's room. "Now I know quite well how the old man lives, but it is a poor living he gets."

Once or twice Felipe fancied he detected faint, suspicious sounds in the hall; but when he listened at the door he heard nothing more.

He did not see a number of shadowy figures which came up those unsteady stairs in a marvelously silent manner and vanished into the room occupied by old Spooner.

It was quite late when the listening boy fancied he heard a familiar step on the stairs. In a twinkling he was close to the door. Two persons were coming.

Then sounded a sharp, familiar knock, upon which Felipe flung open the door, crying:

"Welcome, senors! I had begun to fear you would not come to see me this night."

"Oh, we're here, me boy," chuckled Hagan, as he entered, with Alvarez Lazaro at his heels. "It's suspicious our friend Lazaro became on account of a queer thing. He's been shadowed by the police since yesterday. Now you can't guess why he grew suspicious?"

"I cannot," confessed Jalisco, closing and locking the door.

"The coppers stopped watching him," laughed the Irishman. "Although he tried to discover some one chasing him about, not a soul took the trouble. When I met him all ready to come here, he told me the action of the police worried him and made him suspicious."

"Had they continued to watch me," said Lazaro, "I could have given them the slip and laughed; but when I could discover no one watching, I knew not what to do."

"It's all right," nodded Hagan, as he took a seat on the bed. "Devil a soul followed us here."

Lazaro did not sit down, although the boy offered the only chair and urged him to take it.

"No," he said; "I choose to stand. I shall not remain long, but I came to give you news that will cheer your heart. Senor Hagan says he has told you of the sudden illness of Senor Watson Scott and of the accident which happened to Senor Warren Hatch. Thus you see, Felipe, already two of the great men who were going to build Frank Merriwell's railroad in Sonora are flat on their backs, and why both of them are not dead is more than I can understand. Senor Scott must have a const.i.tution like iron, for he drank all the coffee in which I dropped a powder that should have ended his life."

"Then it was you who did it?" cried Felipe.

"Yes; I have begun the work of ruining Merriwell's plans, bringing him to poverty and wretchedness and destroying him at last. Did I tell you once that I was the bosom friend of Porfias del Norte? I am Del Norte himself!

"Del Norte, a youth, died in that cave; but Del Norte, the old man you see before you, rose from it. I am Del Norte, the old man; but to the world I am Alvarez Lazaro, the avenger of Del Norte. I have sworn to destroy Merriwell and make him suffer even as I suffered. I am losing no time. I began with the purpose of blocking Merriwell's railroad scheme.