My Dear Boys:

I am not going to detain you long over this, for, if you are anything like I was, when I was your age, you don't want a lengthy introduction. But I just want a moment or so of your time, to explain something of the kind of story this is—a sort of bill of fare, as it were.

This is an account of how the young millionaire, Dick Hamilton, unexpectedly did a great service for a stranger, and how, later learning that this same stranger needed help in saving his fortune, Dick took strenuous action.

For excellence in his studies at the Kentfield Military Academy, Dick's father gave him his choice of any automobile he wished. Dick found just the kind of a touring car he wanted—one large enough to sleep and live in, as he and his friends traveled about.

In this car, which Dick named the Last Word, the boys set out for San Francisco. What happened to them on the way, how they foiled the plans of Dick's Uncle Ezra, how they came upon the strange man in the great salt desert, and how, in an exciting race, they tried to save him and blocked the plans of those who would take Mr. Wardell's fortune from him—all this you may read of in this book.

It is the fifth volume of the "Dick Hamilton Series," and that you will like it as well as you have the preceding ones is the sincere wish of your friend,

Howard R. Garis.