was located on the Ohio River, and in a volume called
"The Rover Boys on the River," I related how Sam, Tom, and Dick
resolved to take a trip on the craft during their summer vacation.
On this outing they were accompanied by "Songbird" Powell, a school
chum given to the making of doggerel which he persisted in calling
poetry, Fred Garrison, who had stood by the Rovers through thick and
thin, and Hans Mueller, a German youth who had not yet fully mastered
the English language. To make the trip more interesting the boys
invited an old friend, Mrs. Stanhope, to accompany them, and also
Mrs. Laning, her sister. With Mrs. Stanhope was a daughter Dora, who
Dick Rover thought was the best and sweetest girl in the whole world,
and with Mrs. Laning were her daughters Grace and Nellie, warm friends
of Tom and Sam.

The trip on the houseboat started well enough, but soon came trouble
through the underhanded work of Dan Baxter, a big youth who had been
the Rovers' bitter enemy ever since they had gone to Putnam Hall,
and another boy named Lew Flapp. These young rascals ran off with
the houseboat and two of the girls, and it took hard work to regain
the craft and come to the girls' rescue. Lew Flapp was made a prisoner
and sent east to stand trial for some of his numerous misdeeds, but
Dan Baxter escaped.

"We don't want to see any more of Baxter," Sam had said, but this
wish was not to be gratified. Floating down the Mississippi, the
houseboat got damaged in a big storm, and had to be laid up for
repairs. This being so, all on board decided to take a trip inland,
and accordingly they set out, the ladies and girls by way of the
railroad and the boys on horseback.

As already told in "The Rover Boys on the Plains," this trip was full
of mystery and peril. Dan Baxter turned up most unexpectedly, and
our friends visited a mysterious ranch only to learn that it was a
rendezvous for a band of counterfeiters. Through a government detective
the counterfeiters were rounded up, only one man, Sack Todd, escaping.
Dan Baxter also got away, but later on he was traced to a big swamp,
where his horse was found, stuck fast in the slimy ooze. It was
thought by some that Baxter had lost his life trying to find his way
through the swamp, but of this the Rovers were somewhat doubtful.

After the capture of the counterfeiters the boys and their chums had
gone on to meet the ladies and the girls, and had spent a full week
at the ranch of a friend,