The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle | Page 6

anything so rash," answered Tom,
meekly.
"Going to uncover some more freight thieves?" asked Jack Ness, as he
took charge of the team and started for the barn.
"I think dem boys had bettah cotch some of dem chicken thieves," put
in Aleck Pop. "Yo' don't seem to git holt ob dem nohow."
"Oh, never you mind about the chicken thieves," grumbled Jack Ness.
"Has somebody been stealing chickens again?" asked Dick,
remembering that they had suffered several times from such
depredations.
"Yes, da has--took two chickens las' Wednesday, foah on Saturday, an'
two on Monday. Jack he laid fo' 'em wid a shotgun, but he didn't cotch
nobody."
"I'll catch them yet, see if I don't," said the hired man.
"Perhaps a fox is doing it," suggested Sam. "If so, we ought to go on a
fox hunt. That would suit me first-rate."
"No fox in this," answered Jack Ness. "I see the footprints of two
men,--tramps, I reckon. If I catch sight of 'em I'll fill 'em full of shot
and then have 'em locked up."
CHAPTER III

FUN ON THE FARM
Two days passed and the boys felt once more at home on the farm. The
strain of the recent examinations and the closing exercises at school had
gone and as Sam declared, "they were once more themselves," and
ready for anything that might turn up.
In those two days came another telegram from Mr. Rover, sent from
Philadelphia, in which he stated that he had caught his man, but had
lost him again. He added that he would be home probably on the
following Sunday. This message came in on Monday, so the boys knew
they would have to wait nearly a week before seeing their parent.
"I am just dying to know what it is all about," said Tom, and the others
said practically the same.
Tom could not keep down his propensities for joking and nearly drove
Sarah, the cook, to distraction by putting some barn mice in the bread
box in the pantry and by pouring ink over some small stones and then
adding them to the coal she was using in the kitchen range. He also
took a piece of old rubber bicycle tire and trimmed it up to resemble a
snake and put it in Jack Ness' bed in the barn, thereby nearly scaring
the hired man into a fit. Ness ran out of the room in his night dress and
raised such a yell that he aroused everybody in the house. He got his
shotgun and blazed away at the supposed snake, thereby ruining a
blanket, two sheets, and filling the mattress with shot. When he found
out how he had been hoaxed he was the most foolish looking man to be
imagined.
"You just wait, Master Tom, I'll get square," he said.
"Who said I put a snake in your bed?" demanded Tom. "I never did
such a thing in my life."
"No, but you put that old rubber in, and I know it," grumbled the hired
man, and then went back to bed.
Tom also had his little joke on Aleck Pop. One evening he saw the

colored man dressing up to go out and learned that he was going to call
on a colored widow living at Dexter's Corners, a nearby village.
"We can't allow this," said the fun-loving Rover to his younger brother.
"The next thing you know Aleck will be getting married and leaving
us."
"What do you think of doing?" asked Sam.
"Come on, and I'll show you."
Now, Aleck was rather a good looking and well-formed darkey and he
was proud of his shape. He had a fine black coat, with trousers to match,
and a gorgeous colored vest. This suit Tom was certain he would wear
when calling on the widow.
When in Ithaca on his way home the fun-loving Rover had purchased
an imitation rabbit, made of thin rubber. This rabbit had a small rubber
hose attached, and by blowing into the hose the rabbit could be blown
up to life-size or larger.
Leading the way to Aleck's room, Tom got out the colored man's coat
and placed the rubber rabbit in the middle of the back, between the
cloth and the lining. It was put in flat and the hose was allowed to
dangle down under the lining to within an inch of the split of the
coat-tails, and at this point Tom put a hole in the lining, so he could get
at the end of the hose with ease.
It was not long before Aleck came in to dress. It was late and he was in
a hurry, for he knew he had a rival, a man named Jim Johnson, and he
did not want Johnson to get to the