The Rover Boys in the Air | Page 5

jungle after their father. Then had followed a trip
out West, and another on the Great Lakes. Later the youths had camped
out in the mountains during the winter, shooting quite some game.
Then they had returned to school, to go into camp during the summer
with the other cadets.
The boys by this time thought their adventures at an end, but more were
soon to follow. There came a long trip on land and sea, and then a
voyage down the Ohio River, and soon after this the Rovers found
themselves on the plains, where they had some adventures far out of the

ordinary. From the plains they went further south, and in southern
waters--the same being the Gulf of Mexico--they solved the mystery of
the deserted steam yacht.
"Now back to the farm for me!" Sam had said at this time, and all were
glad to go back, and also to return to Putnam Hall, from which seat of
learning they presently graduated with honors. Then Mr. Anderson
Rover got word of a valuable treasure, and he and the boys, with a
number of their friends, went to Treasure Isle in search of it. They were
followed by some of their enemies and the latter did all in their power
to cause trouble.
Although the boys had finished at Putnam Hall, their days of learning
were not yet over, and soon they set off for Brill College, a high-grade
seat of learning located in one of our middle-western states. They had
with them an old school chum named John Powell, usually called
"Songbird," because of his habit of making up and reciting so-called
poetry, and were presently joined by another old school companion
named William Philander Tubbs, a dudish chap who thought more of
his dress and the society of ladies than he did of his studies. Tom loved
to play jokes on Tubbs, who was generally too dense to see where the
fun came in.
From the college the boys had taken another trip, as related in the
fifteenth volume of this series, called "The Rover Boys Down East."
There was a mystery about that trip, of which the outside world knew
little, but as that trip has something to do with the events which are to
follow in this story, I will here give such details as seem necessary.
When the Rover Boys went to Putnam Hall they met three girls, Dora
Stanhope and her two cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning. Dora's mother
was a widow, living not far from the school, and it was not long before
a warm friendship sprang up between Dick and Dora,--a friendship that
grew more and more intimate as the days went by. Dick thought the
world of Dora, and the two were now practically engaged to be married.
As for Tom and Sam, they had taken to the two Laning girls from the
start, and though Tom was too full of fun to pay much attention to girls,
yet whenever Nellie was mentioned, he would grow red in the face; and

it was noticed that whenever Grace was present Sam was usually on
hand to keep her company.
The treasure unearthed on Treasure Isle had belonged to the Stanhope
estate, the bulk of it going to Mrs. Stanhope and Dora and the
remainder to the Lanings, because Mrs. Laning was Mrs. Stanhope's
sister. But the treasure had been claimed by a certain rascal named Sid
Merrick and his nephew, Tad Sobber, and when Merrick lost his life
during a hurricane at sea, Sobber continued to do all he could to get the
money and jewels into his possession.
"It's mine!" he told Dick Rover one day. "It's mine, all mine, and some
day I'm going to get it!"
"You keep on, Tad Sobber, and some day you'll land in prison," had
been Dick's answer. "We found that treasure, and the courts have
decided that it belongs to the Stanhope estate, and you had better keep
your hands off."
But Tad Sobber was not satisfied, and soon he made a move that
caused the worst kind of trouble. There was a learned but unscrupulous
man named Josiah Crabtree who had once been a teacher at Putnam
Hall, but who had been discharged and who had, later on, been sent to
prison for his misdeeds. This Josiah Crabtree had once sought to marry
Mrs. Stanhope, thinking thereby to get control of her money and the
money she held in trust for Dora. The lady was weak and sickly, and
the teacher had tried to hypnotize her into getting married, and had
nearly succeeded, but the plot was nipped in the bud by the Rover boys.
Tad Sobber met Josiah Crabtree and the pair hatched out another plot,
this time to abduct Mrs. Stanhope,