This meeting was not at all to his taste, especially when he and his brothers wished to turn their whole attention to locating Mrs. Stanhope and her enemies.

"Have you been following us?" demanded Bart Larkspur.

"No, Larkspur, we have something of more importance to do," answered Tom.

"Huh! you needn't get gay, Rover!"

"I'll get gay if I wish," retorted Tom, sharply.

"You had better not follow us," came in ugly tones from Jerry Koswell.

"If you do you'll get yourselves in hot water."

"See here, Koswell, and you too, Larkspur," said d.i.c.k, in a low but distinct tone. "We know all about what you did at Brill-and so do the authorities know it. Just at present we haven't time to bother with you.

But some day we may get after you."

"Bah! you can't scare me!" snorted Koswell. Yet his face showed that he was disturbed.

"Are you staying in Boston?" asked Sam, somewhat curiously.

"No, we are bound for a trip up the coast to--"

"Shut up, Jerry, don't tell 'em where we are going," interrupted Larkspur. "It's none of their business."

"Some day we'll get after you," said d.i.c.k. "Now we've got to leave you,"

he added, as the car conductor called out the name of Varmolet street, as d.i.c.k had requested him to do.

"You keep your distance!" shouted Koswell after the Rover boys.

"We are not afraid of you!" added Larkspur, and then the car went on again, and the two former students of Brill were lost to view.

"They are off on some kind of a trip," said Sam. "Evidently they have quite some money."

"More money than brains," returned Tom, bluntly. "If their folks don't take 'em in hand, they'll both end up in prison some day."

"Koswell mentioned a trip up the coast," said d.i.c.k. "They must be going up to Portland and Cas...o...b..y, or further."

"I'd like to go to Cas...o...b..y myself," said Sam. "It's a beautiful spot, with its islands. Tom Favor was telling me all about it. He spent three summers there."

They had alighted at the corner of Varmolet street and now started to look for No. 234. They had to walk two blocks, past houses that were disreputable in the extreme.

"I don't like the look of this neighborhood," remarked Sam, as they hurried along. "I'd hate to visit it after dark."

"Think of what Mrs. Stanhope must be suffering, if they brought her to such a spot," returned d.i.c.k, and could not help shuddering.

Presently they reached No. 234, an old three-storied house, with a dingy front porch, and with solid wooden shutters, the majority of which were tightly closed. Not a soul was in sight around the place.

"Don't ring any bell," warned Sam. "If those rascals are here they may take the alarm and skip out."

"There isn't any bell to ring," answered Tom, grimly. "There was once an old-fashioned knocker, but it has been broken off."

"I think one of us ought to try to get around to the back," said d.i.c.k.

"If those rascals are here they may try to escape that way."

"That is true," returned Tom. "But let us make sure first that we have the right place. The folks living here may be all-right people, and they'd think it strange to see us spying around."

d.i.c.k looked up and down the street and saw a girl eight or nine years old sitting on a porch some distance away, minding a baby.

"Will you tell me who lives in that house?" he asked, of the girl.

"Why, old Mr. Mason lives there," was the answer.

"Mr. Mason?"

"Yes. He's a very old man-'most ninety years old, so they say."

"Does he live there alone?"

"Yes-that is, all the rest of his family are dead. He has a housekeeper, Mrs. Sobber."

"Mrs. Sobber!" exclaimed d.i.c.k.

"Yes, sir."

"How old is she?"

"Oh, I don't know-maybe forty or fifty. She's been Mr. Mason's housekeeper for three or four years. If you call on her, you want to look out. She don't buy from agents."

"Why?" asked d.i.c.k, innocently. He did not mind that the little girl took him to be an agent.

"Oh, she is too sharp and miserly, I guess. She used to get me to do her errands for her-but she never paid me even a cent for it."

"Anybody else in the house?"

"Not regular. Once in a while a young man comes to see Mrs. Sobber. He ain't her son, but he's some kind of a relation. I think she's his aunt, or great aunt."

"Haven't you seen anybody else coming lately?"

"I've been away lately-down to my grandfather's farm. I came back last night. I wish I was back on the farm," added the little girl, wistfully.

"Never mind, maybe you'll get back some day," said d.i.c.k, cheerily.

"Here's something for you," and he dropped a silver dime in her lap, something that pleased her greatly.

"It's the place!" cried the eldest Rover boy, on rejoining his brothers.

"An old man lives here, and a Mrs. Sobber is his housekeeper. She is some relation to Tad, I feel sure. Maybe she is the one who advanced him some money."

"And maybe she is the woman seen in the auto with Mrs. Stanhope," added Tom, quickly.

"I shouldn't be surprised."