The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon | Page 9

gone and hurt that leg again!"

Frank cried, as he, too, seized the other hand of his father, and squeezed
it affectionately.
"But I told Ted to be sure and let you know that it was not on account
of my new upset that I wanted you back," declared the ranchman,
frowning.
"Yes, he delivered the message all right, dad; but all the same I was
bothered a heap, let me tell you," Frank went on. "And now, please, tell
us what it's all about; won't you; and what this gentleman has to do
with it; also the bottle Ted said you were handling?"
At that Colonel Haywood smiled, and looked up at the stranger.
"This is a Mr. Hinchman, Frank," he remarked. "He lives in a small
place on the great Colorado River called Mohave City. And one day,
not long ago, a man who was fishing on the river at a place where an
eddy set in, found a curious bottle floating, that was sealed with red
wax on the top, and seemed to contain only a piece of paper. This is the
bottle," and as he spoke he opened a drawer of the desk, and drew out
the flask in question.
Frank took it, and turned it around. So far as he could see it was an
ordinary bottle. It contained no cork, but there were signs of sealing
wax around the top.
"Mr. Hinchman, is, I believe," the ranchman went on, "though he has
been too modest to say so himself, a gentleman of some importance in
Mohave City, which accounted for the fisherman fetching his queer
find to him. The bottle had evidently come down the great river,
perhaps for one or two hundred miles, escaping destruction from
contact with rocks in a marvelous manner, and finally falling into the
hands of one who had both the time and the curiosity to examine its
sealed contents."
Colonel Haywood thereupon took up a small piece of paper from the
pad of the desk.

"This is what he found in the bottle, Frank," continued the stockman.
"It bore my address, and the name of my ranch here; so thinking that it
might be something more than a practical joke he concluded to journey
all the way across the country to see me. It was a mighty nice thing for
Mr. Hinchman to do, and something I am not apt to forget in a hurry,
either."
"Then the paper interested you, dad, it seems?" Frank remarked,
eagerly.
"It certainly did, son, and I rather think you will feel the same as I did
when I tell you whose name is written at the bottom of this little
communication," the cattleman went on.
"All right, I'm ready to hear it," Frank remarked, laughingly.
"Felix Oswald!" replied his father, quickly.
The boy was indeed intensely surprised, if one could judge from his
manner.
"Your Uncle Felix, dad, who has been gone these three years, and
whose mysterious disappearance set the whole scientific world
guessing. And you say his name is there, signed to that paper found in
the sealed bottle? Well, you sure have given me a surprise. Then he's
still alive?"
"He seemed to be when he wrote this," the cattleman said, reflectively;
"but as he failed to put any date on it, we can only guess how long the
bottle has been cruising down the Colorado, sucked into eddies that
might hold it for weeks or months, until a rise in the river sent it forth
again."
"Say, doesn't that beat everything you ever heard of, Bob?" declared
Frank, turning to his chum.
"It certainly does," replied Bob, and then the ranchman's boy
continued:

"Perhaps you remember me telling you some things about this queer
old uncle of dad's, Bob, and how, after he had made a name for himself,
he suddenly vanished in a night, leaving word behind that he was going
to study the biggest subject any man could ever tackle. And as he didn't
want to be bothered, he said he would leave no address behind. They've
looked for him all over Europe, Asia and Africa, but he was never
heard from again. And now to think that he's sent word to dad; and in a
sealed bottle too!"
"That looks as if he must be somewhere on the Colorado River, don't
it?" suggested Bob.
"Undoubtedly," replied the stockman; "in fact, in this brief
communication he admits that he is located somewhere along the
Grand Canyon, in a place where travelers have as yet never penetrated.
I can only guess that Uncle Felix must have been seized with a desire to
unearth treasures that might tell the history of those strange old cliff
dwellers, who occupied much of that country as long as eight hundred
years ago. All