number, Dick being the oldest, Tom next, and Sam the youngest, as
already mentioned. Whether the boys were orphans or not was a
question which could not be answered. Upon the death of their
mother, their father, a rich mine owner and geological expert, had
left the boys in the care of his brother, Randolph Rover, an
eccentric gentleman who devoted his entire time to scientific
farming. Mr. Anderson Rover had then journeyed to the western
coast of Africa, hoping to locate some valuable gold mines in the
heart of the Dark Continent. He had plunged into the interior
with a number of natives, and that was the last heard of him,
although Mr. Randolph Rover had made diligent inquiries concerning
his whereabouts.

All of the boys were bright, fun-loving fellows, and to keep them
out of mischief Randolph Rover had sent them off to Putnam Hall, a
first class school, located some distance from Cedarville, a
pretty town on Lake Cayuga, in New York State. Here the lads had
made numerous friends and incidentally a number of enemies.

Of the friends several have already been named, and others will
come to the front as our story proceeds. Of the enemies the
principal ones were Arnold Baxter, a man who had tried, years
before, to defraud the boys' father out of a gold mine in the
West, and his son Dan, who had once been the bully of Putnam Hall.
Arnold Baxter's tool was a good-for-nothing scamp named Buddy
Girk, who had once robbed Dick of his watch. Both of these men
were now in jail charged with an important robbery in Albany, and
the Rover boys had aided in bringing the men to justice. Dan, the
bully, was also under arrest, charged with the abduction of Dom
Stanhope. Dom, who was Dick Rover's dearest friend, had been