“I envy your having him along,” said Dick.

At that moment the train rolled into a station and Larry and some of the others got off.

“We leave you at the next station,” said Songbird, to the Rovers.  “When you find out what you are going to do this summer, write and let me know.”

“I certainly shall,” answered Dick.

The three Rover boys soon after found themselves alone.  They had to make a change of cars, and some time later rolled into the station at Oak Run.

“Home again!” shouted Tom, as he alighted on the depot platform.

“Yes, and there is Uncle Randolph waiting for us,” added Dick, as he hurried forward to meet his relative.  “How do you do, Uncle!” he cried.

“I am well, Richard,” answered Randolph Rover, and then he shook hands with all three boys.  “Your—­er—­your father—­” he began and hesitated.

“Father?  What of him?” asked Tom, in quick alarm, for he saw that his uncle was much disturbed.

“Isn’t he with you?”

“Why, no!” answered the three, in a chorus.

“He started for home last night,” added Dick.

“Took the train after the one you and Aunt Martha took.”

“But he didn’t come home,” said Randolph Rover.

“Didn’t come home?”

“No.”

“Didn’t he send any word?” questioned Sam.

“None that I received.”

“He said he was going straight home would telephone from Lockville for the carriage to meet the last train,” said Tom.  “This is mighty queer.”

It was queer and for the moment the Rover boys and their uncle stared blankly at one another.

“Something is wrong,” declared Dick, presently.  “And I am going to make it my business to find out at once what it is.”

CHAPTER II

AN IMPORTANT TELEGRAM

Dick Rover would not have been so much disturbed by his father’s disappearance had it not been for one thing, which was that Mr. Rover, on leaving the closing exercises at Putnam Hall, had declared that he would take the last train home that night.  This train got into Oak Run at one o’clock in the morning, when the station was closed and the platform usually deserted.

“Let us ask around and see if anybody was here when the train came in,” suggested Tom.

They first appealed to Mr. Ricks, the station master, an old and crabbed individual, who disliked the boys for the jokes they had played on him in times past.  He shook his head at once.

“Don’t keep the station open that long,” he grunted.  “I was home an’ in bed, an’ I don’t know anything about your father.”

“Was anybody around the station, that you know of?” went on Dick.

“No.”

“Did any telegram come in for our family?”

“If it did I reckon Jackson would send it over, or telephone.”

“Let us ask Jackson and make sure,” said Sam, and led the way to the telegraph office.  The telegraph receiver was ticking away at a lively rate, and Jackson, who had charge of the office, was taking down a message on a blank.