"You're right--we'll fool 'em!" cried Dick, and at the next stopping place this simple trick was carried out. CHAPTER XX DOWN HILL "You'd never suspect it was there; would you?" "Not at first glance." "And unless we meet with some one who was as clever as the amateur detective that Poe tells about, who looked in the simplest place for the letter instead of in the hardest, we'll be safe," said Paul. The three chums had just finished carrying out their little plan. Back of the mirror there stuck, half-way out, an envelope bearing in large type the name of an auto firm. It was obviously an envelope meant to contain a circular, but into it Dick had slipped the important papers. "We'll leave,'em there until we go to sleep in some hotel," he explained, "and then I'll hide them somewhere in the room. But I'm not going to carry them about with me." "You couldn't come to a wiser decision," declared Paul. "Did you get a new road map?" "Yes, and a better one than our lame friend took. I'll have a joke with Uncle Ezra when I see him again. I'll send him a bill for two maps, and he'll wonder what's up." "I don't want to say mean things about your relatives, Dick," began Innis, "but----" "Go as far as you like!" interrupted the young millionaire. "You can't hurt my feelings by saying anything about Uncle Ezra. What is it?" "Well, I was just going to remark that he had an awful lot of nerve to try to stop you from saving this Wardell's fortune. Don't you think so yourself?" "I do, Innis. But you must remember that my uncle is a peculiar man. Money is more to him than anything else. He hates to see it 'wasted,' as he calls it, though I believe in enjoying the good things that money can buy--to a limited extent, of course. But, no doubt, Uncle Ezra feels that he is doing right, that he is well within the law, and that he has a claim on this man's fortune, though I think he got it away from him by unfair means. Or, rather, he is going to try to get it away from him. But he won't if I can stop him." "That's the way to talk, Dick! But how can your uncle think it is right to send men to search your auto for papers?" "I suppose because my uncle thinks he has a right to the papers." "Maybe so," agreed Paul. "But say, if we're going to reach Plattsville by night, we'd better get a move on." They had come to a halt a little way out of the town, not far from Buffalo, where they had bought a new road map, and secured the envelope into which the legal papers were slipped. They had abandoned the plan of going to Hazelton, when they found out the trick that had been played on them, and were now counting on making Plattsville in time to stay just outside it over night. They did not travel after dark, unless it was to reach some predetermined point of their journey, and on this occasion, as there was no good hotel in Plattsville, they had voted to sleep in the big auto.