Rover was dazed, and for several weeks the man knew not what to
do. "Take all of the money I made in the West, but give me back
my wife!" he said broken-heartedly, but this could not be, and
soon after he left his three boys in charge of a housekeeper and
set off to tour Europe, thinking that a change of scene would
prove a benefit.

When he came back he seemed a changed man. He was restless, and
could not remain at home for more than a few weeks at a time. He
placed the boys at a boarding school in New York and returned to
the West, where he made another strike in the gold mines; and when
he came back once more he was reported to be worth between two and
three hundred thousand dollars.

But now a new idea had came into his head. He had been reading up
on Africa, and had reached the conclusion that there must be gold
in the great unexplored regions of that country. He determined to
go to Africa, fit out an exploration, and try his luck.

"It will not cost me over ten to twenty thousand dollars," he said
to his brother Randolph. "And it may make me a millionaire."

"If you are bound to go, I will not stop you," had been Randolph
Rover's reply. "But what of your boys in the meanwhile?"

This was a serious question, for Anderson Rover knew well the risk
he was running, knew well that many a white man had gone into the
interior of Africa never to return. At last it was settled that
Randolph Rover should become Dick, Tom, and Sam's temporary
guardian. This accomplished, Anderson Rover set off and that was