CHAPTER I

THE ROVER BOYS AT HOME


"All out for Oak Run!" shouted the brakeman of the train, as he thrust
his head in through the doorway of the car. "Step lively, please!"

"Hurrah for home!" shouted a curly-headed youth of sixteen, as he
caught up a small dress-suit case. "Come on, Sam."

"I'm coming, Tom," answered a boy a year younger. "Where is Dick?"

"Here I am," replied Dick Rover, the big brother of the others. "Just
been in the baggage car, making sure the trunks would be put off," he
added. "Say, but this looks natural, doesn't it, after traveling
thousands of miles across the Pacific?"

"And across the Continent from San Francisco," put in Sam Rover.

"Do you know, I feel as if I'd been away for an age?"

"It's what we've gone through with that makes you feel that way,
Sam," came from Tom Rover. "Just think of being cast away on a lonely
island like Robinson Crusoe! Why, half the folks won't believe our
story when they hear it."