With nothing to do, the next two days passed slowly.  The boys went fishing and swimming, and they also did some shooting at a target which they set up behind the barn, and whiled away, some time at boxing and in gymnastic exercises.  Dick also spent an hour in penning a long letter to Dora Stanhope, who, as my old readers are well aware, was his dearest girl friend.  Dora and her mother lived not far from Putnam Hall, and Dick and his brothers had become acquainted with her and her two cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning, when they had first gone to school.  The Rover boys had on several occasions saved Mrs. Stanhope from serious trouble, and for this the widow was very grateful.  She and her daughter had gone with them on the houseboat trip down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and Mrs. Laning and Nellie and Grace had likewise accompanied the party.  It may be added here that Tom and Sam thought Nellie and Grace two of the nicest girls in the whole world, which indeed they were.

On Saturday morning the boys were contemplating a bicycle ride when Sam, who chanced to look toward the road, set up a shout: 

“Here comes father!”

All gazed in the direction and saw Mr. Rover coming toward them in a rig he had hired at the depot.  They ran to meet their parent and were soon shaking him by the hand.  They saw that he looked travel worn and tired.

“I have been on the go ever since I left Putnam Hall,” said Anderson Rover.  “It was a most unexpected trip.  I will tell you all about it as soon as I have rested a bit and had something to eat.”

“We have something to tell, too,” answered Dick.  “But that can keep until later.”

Inside of an hour Mr. Rover had been served with a good, hot breakfast and then he declared that he felt like a new man.  He invited the whole family into the sitting room for a conference of importance.

“I told you lads I had something on my mind,” he said.  “I did not want to speak of it while at the graduation exercises at the school because there was too much going on.  Now I am going to tell you everything and also tell you what I propose to do.  But first, I want to listen to what you have to tell me.”

It did not take the three boys long to relate the particulars of the pursuit of Cuffer and Shelley, and of what they had overheard at the old mill.  Anderson Rover listened with close attention and did not seem surprised when they mentioned Sid Merrick’s name.

“That fits in, to a certain degree, with what I have to tell you.” he said, when they had finished.

“It is a strange story, and the only way for me to do, so that it will be perfectly clear to you, is to tell it from the beginning.”

“Well, we’re willing enough to listen,” said Dick, with a smile.

“We’ve been on pins and needles ever since you said you had something important to tell,” added Tom, grinning.

“Well, to start, this concerns Mrs. Stanhope more than it concerns ourselves,” began the father.