loved to play
jokes on Tubbs, who was generally too dense to see where the fun came
in.

From the college the boys had taken another trip, as related in the
fifteenth volume of this series, called "The Rover Boys Down East."
There was a mystery about that trip, of which the outside world knew
little, but as that trip has something to do with the events which are
to follow in this story, I will here give such details as seem
necessary.

When the Rover Boys went to Putnam Hall they met three girls, Dora
Stanhope and her two cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning. Dora's mother was
a widow, living not far from the school, and it was not long before a
warm friendship sprang up between Dick and Dora,--a friendship that grew
more and more intimate as the days went by. Dick thought the world of
Dora, and the two were now practically engaged to be married. As for Tom
and Sam, they had taken to the two Laning girls from the start, and
though Tom was too full of fun to pay much attention to girls, yet
whenever Nellie was mentioned, he would grow red in the face; and it was
noticed that whenever Grace was present Sam was usually on hand to keep
her company.

The treasure unearthed on Treasure Isle had belonged to the Stanhope
estate, the bulk of it going to Mrs. Stanhope and Dora and the remainder
to the Lanings, because Mrs. Laning was Mrs. Stanhope's sister. But the
treasure had been claimed by a certain rascal named Sid Merrick and his
nephew, Tad Sobber, and when Merrick lost his life during a hurricane at
sea, Sobber continued to do all he could to get the money and jewels
into his possession.

"It's mine!" he told Dick Rover one day. "It's mine, all mine, and some
day I'm going to get it!"

"You keep on, Tad Sobber, and some day you'll land in prison," had been
Dick's answer. "We found that treasure, and the courts have decided that
it belongs to the Stanhope estate, and you had better keep your hands
off."

But Tad Sobber was not satisfied, and soon he made a move that caused
the worst kind of trouble. There was a learned but unscrupulous man
named Josiah Crabtree who had once been a teacher at Putnam Hall, but
who had been discharged and who had, later on, been sent to prison for
his misdeeds. This Josiah Crabtree had once sought to marry Mrs.
Stanhope, thinking thereby to get control of her money and the money she
held in trust for Dora. The lady was weak and sickly, and the teacher
had tried to hypnotize her into gett