The three Rover boys got off the next day and took a walk past
the cottages where resided the Lanings and the Stanhopes. At the
Lanings' place Nellie and Grace came out to greet them.

"So you are back!" cried Nellie, blushing sweetly. "Father said
you were. He saw you come in at Cedarville."

"Yes, back again, and glad to meet you," answered Tom, and gave
the girl's hand a tight squeeze, while Sam and Dick also shook
hands with both girls.

"And how do you feel?" asked Grace of Dick. "Wasn't that
dreadful the way Mr. Baxter treated you on that train?"

"Well, he got the worst of it," answered Dick.

"Oh, I know that! And now they suspect him of a robbery in
Albany. Papa was reading it in one of the Ithaca papers."

"Yes, and I guess he's guilty, Grace. But tell me, does Josiah
Crabtree worry Mrs. Stanhope any more?" continued the boy
seriously.

"Why to be sure he does! And, oh, let me tell you something!
Dora told me that he was terribly angry over having been sent to
Chicago on a wild-goose chase."

"I wish he had remained out there."

"So do all of us," said Nellie Laning. "He seems bound to marry