LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER I

       UNPLEASANT NEWS

       Table of Contents

      "Back to Putnam Hall again, boys! Hurrah!"

      "Yes, back again, Tom, and glad of it," returned Dick Rover. "I can tell you, the academy is getting to be a regular second home."

      "Right you are, Dick," came from Sam Rover, the youngest of the three brothers. "I'd rather be here than up to the farm, even if Uncle Randolph and Aunt Martha are kind and considerate. The farm is so slow — "

      "While here we have our full share of adventures and more," finished Tom. "I wonder what will happen to us this term? The other terms kept us mighty busy, didn't they?"

      "I'm not looking for any more outside adventures," said Dick, with a serious shake of his head. "Our enemies have been disposed of, and I don't want, to hear of or see them again."

      "Nor I — but we'll hear of them, nevertheless, mark my words. The Baxters won't leave us rest. They are a hard crowd, and Buddy Girk is just as bad," finished Tom.

      It was the opening of the spring term at Putnam Hall Military Academy, and the three Rover boys had just come up from Cedarville in the carryall, driven by Peleg Snuggers, the general-utility man of the place. Their old chums, Frank Harrington, Fred Garrison, Larry Colby, and a number of others, had already arrived, so the boys did not lack for company. As they entered the spacious building genial Captain Putnam greeted each with a hearty handshake, and a pleasant word also came to them from George Strong, the head assistant.

      For the benefit of those who have not read the other books of this series, entitled "The Rover Boys at School" and "The Rover Boys on the Ocean," I would state that the Rover boys were three in number, Dick being the oldest, Tom next, and Sam the youngest, as already mentioned. Whether the boys were orphans or not was a question which could not be answered. Upon the death of their mother, their father, a rich mine owner and geological expert, had left the boys in the care of his brother, Randolph Rover, an eccentric gentleman who devoted his entire time to scientific farming. Mr. Anderson Rover had then journeyed to the western coast of Africa, hoping to locate some valuable gold mines in the heart of the Dark Continent. He had plunged into the interior with a number of natives, and that was the last heard of him, although Mr. Randolph Rover had made diligent inquiries concerning his whereabouts.

      All of the boys were bright, fun-loving fellows, and to keep them out of mischief Randolph Rover had sent them off to Putnam Hall, a first class school, located some distance from Cedarville, a pretty town on Lake Cayuga, in New York State. Here the lads had made numerous friends and incidentally a number of enemies.

      Of the friends several have already been named, and others will come to the front as our story proceeds. Of the enemies the principal ones were Arnold Baxter, a man who had tried, years before, to defraud the boys' father out of a gold mine in the West, and his son Dan, who had once been the bully of Putnam Hall. Arnold Baxter's tool was a good-for-nothing scamp named Buddy Girk, who had once robbed Dick of his watch. Both of these men were now in jail charged with an important robbery in Albany, and the Rover boys had aided in bringing the men to justice. Dan, the bully, was also under arrest, charged with the abduction of Dora Stanhope. Dora, who was Dick Rover's dearest friend, had been carried off by the directions of Josiah Crabtree, a former teacher of Putnam Hall, who wished to marry Mrs. Stanhope and thus get his hands on the money the widow held in trust for her daughter, but the abduction had been nipped in the bud and Josiah Crabtree had fled, leaving Dan Baxter to shoulder the blame of the transaction.

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