CHAPTER I 

SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS 

"Sam, this isn't the path." 

"I know it, Tom." 

"We've missed our way," went on Tom Rover, with a serious look on his usually sunny face. 

"It looks that way to me," answered Sam Rover, his younger brother. "I think we made a wrong turn after we slid down the cliff." 

"What is keeping Dick?" 

"I don't know." 

"Let's call to him," went on Tom, and set up a loud cry, in which his brother joined. The pair listened intently, but no answer came back. 

"I don't like this," said Sam, an anxious look in his clear eyes. "Maybe Dick is in trouble." 

"Perhaps so," answered Tom Rover. 

The two boys were far up on a mountainside, and all around them were tall trees, thick brushwood, and immense ridges of rocks. It had been a clear, sunshiny day, but now the sky was overcast, and it looked like rain. 

"We've got to go back for Dick," said Tom, after a painful pause. "No use of going on without him." 

"I hope he hasn't fallen over some cliff and hurt himself," returned his younger brother. 

"I don't see why he doesn't answer us, if he's all right," was the unsatisfactory reply. "Come on, or the storm will overtake us before we get down from the mountain and we'll be soaked by the time we reach home." 

Side by side the brothers retraced their steps--a hard task, for it is much easier to climb down a steep mountainside than to climb up. 
Did he think he was okay?
"I hope he hasn't fallen over some cliff and hurt himself," returned his younger brother. 
