As they crossed the lobby of the hotel they almost ran into a big, burly young fellow who was coming in the opposite direction.

“Dan Baxter!” ejaculated Dick.  “Then I was right after all.”

The burly young fellow stared first at Dick and then the others in blank amazement.  He carried a dress-suit case, and this dropped from his hand to the floor.

“Whe—­where did yo—­you come from?” he stammered at last.

“I guess we can ask the same question,” said Tom coldly.

“Been following me, have you?” sneered Dan Baxter, making an effort to recover his self-possession.

“No, we haven’t been following you,” said Sam.

“Supposing you tell us how it happens that you are here?”

“Suppose you tell us how it happens that you are here,” came from Dick.

“That is my business.”

“Our business is our own, too, Dan Baxter.”

“You followed me,” growled the big bully, his face darkening.  “I know you and don’t you forget it.”

“Why should we follow you?” said Tom.  “We got the best of you over that treasure in the Adirondacks.”

“Oh, you needn’t blow.  Remember the old saying, ’He laughs best who laughs last.’  I aint done with you yet—­not by a long shot.”

“Well, let me warn you to keep your distance,” said Dick sternly.  “If you don’t, you’ll regret it.  We have been very easy with you in the past, but if you go too far, I, for one, will be for putting you where your father is, in prison.”

“And I say the same,” said Tom.

“Ditto here,” came from Sam.

At these words a look of bitter hatred crossed Dan Baxter’s face.  He clenched his fists and breathed hard.

“You can brag when you are three to one,” he cried fiercely.  “But wait, that’s all.  My father would be a free man if it wasn’t for you.  Wait, and see what I do!”

And so speaking he caught up his dress-suit case, swung around on his heel, and left the hotel before anybody could stop him.

“He’s the same old Baxter,” said Tom, with a long sigh.  “Always going to square up.”

“I think he is more vindictive than he used to be,” observed Sam.  “When Dick spoke about his father being in prison he looked as if he would like to strangle the lot of us.”

“Well, I admit it would be rough on any ordinary boy to mention the fact that his father was in prison,” said Dick.  “But we all know, and Dan Baxter himself knows, that one is about as wicked as the other.  The only thing that makes Arnold Baxter’s case worse is that he is old enough to know better.”

“So is Dan old enough to know better,” was Tom’s comment.

“I believe he was coming here to get accommodations,” said Dick.

“If he was, that would tend to prove that he had just arrived in San Francisco, Dick.”

“True.  But he may have been in this vicinity, perhaps in Oakland, Alameda, or some other nearby town.”