opened the vestibule door. Tom
followed the man and so did Sam and Dick.

"Freight train ahead, off the track," announced Tom. "We ran into the
last car."

"Let us go up front and see how bad it is," returned Dick. "Maybe this
will tie us up here for hours."

"Oh, I hope not," cried Sam. "I want to get to the college just as
soon as possible. I'm dying to know what it's like."

"We can be thankful we were not hurt, Sam," said his older brother.
"If our engineer hadn't stopped the train as he did we might have had
a fearful smashup."

"I know it," answered Sam soberly, and then the boys walked forward to
learn the full extent of the damage done and what prospects there were
of continuing their journey.

To my old readers the lads just mentioned will need no special
introduction, but for the benefit of those who have not read the
previous volumes in this "Rover Boys Series" let me state that the
brothers were three in number, Dick being the oldest, fun-loving Tom
coming next and Sam the youngest. They were the sons of one Anderson
Rover, a rich widower, and when at home lived with their father and an
aunt and an uncle on a beautiful farm called Valley Brook.

From the farm, and while their father was in Africa, the boys had been
sent by their Uncle Randolph to school, as related in the first book
of the series, called "The Rover Boys at School." At this place,
called Putnam Hall, they made many friends and also a few enemies and
had "the time of their lives," as Tom often expressed it.

A term at school had been followed by a short trip on the ocean, and
then the boys, in company with their uncle, went to the jungles of
Africa to rescue Mr. Rover, who was a captive of a savage tribe of
natives. After that came trips out West, and to the Great Lakes, and
to the mountains, and, returning to school, the lads went into camp
with the other cadets. Then they took another long trip on land and
sea and led a Crusoe-like life on an island of the Pacific Ocean.

"I think we'd better settle down now," said Dick on returning home
from being cast away, but this was not to be. They took a house-boat
trip down the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, had a number of
adventures on the plains and then found themselves in southern waters,
where they solved the mystery of a deserted steam yacht.

They returned to the farm and to Putnam Hall, and for a time matters
went along quietly. On account of attending to some business for his