Excerpt
SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS
"Sam, this isn't the path."
"I know it, Tom."
"We've missed our way," went on Tom Rover, with a serious look on his usually sunny face.
"It looks that way to me," answered Sam Rover, his younger brother. "I think we made a wrong turn after we slid down the cliff."
"What is keeping Dick?"
"I don't know."
"Let's call to him," went on Tom, and set up a loud cry, in which his brother joined. The pair listened intently, but no answer came back.
"I don't like this," said Sam, an anxious look in his clear eyes. "Maybe Dick is in trouble."
"Perhaps so," answered Tom Rover.
The two boys were far up on a mountainside, and all around them were tall trees, thick brushwood, and immense ridges of rocks. It had been a clear, sunshiny day, but now the sky was overcast, and it looked like rain.
"We've got to go back for Dick," said Tom, after a painful pause. "No use of going on without him."
"I hope he hasn't fallen over some cliff and hurt himself," returned his younger brother.
"I don't see why he doesn't answer us, if he's all right," was the unsatisfactory reply. "Come on, or the storm will overtake us before we get down from the mountain and we'll be soaked by the time we reach home."
Side by side the brothers retraced their steps—a hard task, for it is much easier to climb down a steep mountainside than to climb up.
To those who have read the previous volumes in this "Rover Boys Series," the two brothers just mentioned will need no special introduction. The Rover boys were three in number, Dick being the oldest, fun-loving Tom coming next, and Sam bringing up the rear. All were bright, lively, up-to-date lads, and honest and manly to the core. They lived on a farm called Valley Brook, in New York state,—a beautiful spot owned by their uncle, Randolph Rover, and his wife, Martha. Their father, Anderson Rover, also lived at the farm when at home, but he was away a great deal on business.
From the farm the boys had been sent, some years before, to Putnam Hall, an ideal place of learning, of which we shall learn more as our tale proceeds. What the lads did there on their arrival has already been related in "The Rover Boys at School," the first volume of this series.
A short term at Putnam Hall was followed by a trip on the ocean, and then a long journey to the jungles of Africa, in search of Anderson Rover, who had disappeared. Then came a grand outing out west, and another outing on the great lakes, followed by some stirring adventures in the mountains of New York state.
Coming from the mountains, the three youths had expected to go back to Putnam Hall at once, but fate ordained otherwise and they were cast away in the Pacific Ocean, as related in "The Rover Boys on Land and Sea." They had a hard task of it getting home, and then returned to the school and had some splendid times while in camp with the other cadets.
When vacation was once more at hand the boys soon solved the problem of what to do. Their Uncle Randolph had taken a houseboat for debt. The craft was located on the Ohio River, and it was resolved to make a trip down the Mississippi....