the last any of his family had ever heard of him.

Was he dead or alive? Hundreds of times had the boys and their
uncle pondered that question. Each mail was watched with anxiety,
but day after day brought no news, until the waiting became an old
story, and all settled down to the dismal conviction that the
daring explorer must be dead. He had landed and gone into the
interior with three white men and twenty natives, and that was all
that could be ascertained concerning him.

At the time of Anderson Rover's departure Randolph had been on the
point of purchasing a farm of two hundred acres in the Mohawk
Valley of New York State. The land had not changed hands until a
year later, however, and then Dick, Tom, and Sam were called upon
to give up their life in the metropolis and settle down in the
country, a mile away from the village of Dexter Corners.

For a month things had gone very well, for all was new, and it
seemed like a "picnic," to use Tom's way of expressing it. They
had run over the farm from end to end, climbed to the roof of the
barn, explored the brook, and Sam had broken his arm by falling
from the top of a cherry tree. But after that the novelty wore,
away, and the boys began to fret.

"They want something to do," thought Randolph Rover, and set them
to work studying scientific farming, as he called it. At this
Dick made some progress, but the uncle could do nothing with Tom
and Sam. Then the last two broke loose and began to play pranks
on everybody that came along, and life became little short of a
burden to the studious Randolph and, his quiet-minded spouse.