"Well if you will start a hunt for this man Baxter at once I'll guarantee you three dollars per day for a week or two, and if you succeed in landing him in jail I'll guarantee you a reward of one hundred dollars. I know my father will pay that amount willingly."
"And if he won't, I will," said Tom.
"You must be rich."
"We are fairly rich, Mr. Staton. This man is a great criminal and has been an enemy to our family for years. We don't want to see him at large."
"Well, I'll take the job and do the best I can for you," said Munro Staton and arose to his feet. "My hired man can run the farm while I am gone."
He said he knew the spot where the boys had first seen Arnold Baxter, and he would visit it at sunrise the next day and take up the trail as best he could.
"That trail through the woods used to lead to the village of Hopdale," he said. "Perhaps I'll learn something about him over there."
"I sincerely hope that you do," returned Dick.
The boys, and especially Tom, were worn out with traveling and readily consented to borrow a horse from Munro Staton, on which to ride back to camp. The steed was returned early in the morning.
"It's rather a wild-goose chase," said Dick, in talking matters over with his brothers. "But I don't know of anything else to do. Mr. Staton may catch Baxter quicker than a metropolitan detective could do the job."