"He took to this path, but he isn't in sight," answered Dick. He was almost winded himself.
"Come on, he must be somewhere around," put in Tom, and ran down the path several hundred feet. Then he tripped over a fallen log and went headlong in the bushes and wet grass. He got up looking tired out and cross.
"We've missed him," announced Dick, rather dismally. "It's a pity, too. He deserves to be put under arrest."
"I think we had better get home and warn Uncle Randolph," returned Sam. "If we don't there is no telling what that fellow Merrick and that Pike may do."
The others considered Sam's advice good, and after another look around for Dangler, they turned in the direction of home. They were a good three miles from the farm and had to cross the river above the falls, thus adding half a mile more to the journey. It was wet and muddy walking and they had not covered over a mile when Tom called a halt.
"I am about fagged out," he announced. "Wonder if we can't hire a buggy at the next farmhouse."
Directly after crossing the river they came to a small farmhouse, and walked around to the kitchen, where they saw an old woman shelling peas.
"We can't let you have any carriage," she said. "The men folks are to town and they've got the horses."
The boys were about to turn away when Dick thought of something.
"By the way, do you know a man named Dangler?" he asked.
"I guess he lives where he pleases. He is an old bachelor and comes and goes as he likes. He used to have a cottage down the pike, but it burnt down last winter."
"Then you haven't any idea where he is stopping now?"
"Do you know a man named Merrick and another man named Pike?" went on the eldest Rover boy.
"Has this Dangler any relatives around here?" asked Tom.
"Do you know what kind of man he is?" asked Sam.
"I never talk about my neighbors," answered the old woman, and drew up her thin lips and went on shelling peas.
Feeling it would be useless to ask any more questions, the three boys journeyed wearily on to the next farmhouse. This belonged to a fat German named Gus Schmidt, who knew the Rovers fairly well.
"Yah, I let you haf a carriage alretty," said Gus Schmidt. "Put you must pring him back to-morrow, hey?"
"I vos hear some putty goot stories apout you Rofer poys," went on Mr. Schmidt, while he was hooking up his horse. "You vos on der Mississippi Rifer, hey?"