"Call for all baseball candidates at the gym to-morrow afternoon!" announced Bob, during the lunch hour.
"I don't think I want to go in for baseball this spring," returned Sam.
"I heard something of that from some of the other fellows, Sam," interrupted Bob. "It won't do. We need you and we are bound to have you."
The roads were now drying up rapidly, and that afternoon Spud asked Sam if he did not want to walk to Ashton.
"I've got a few things I want to get at the stores," said Spud. "Come along, the hike on the road will do you good."
"All right, Spud, I'll go along, for I am tired of writing themes and studying," answered Sam. But it was not his theme and his lessons that worried the boy. Thinking about Grace, and waiting continually for some sort of word from her, had given him not only a heart ache but a headache as well.
When the boys arrived at Ashton they separated for a short while, Spud to get fitted with a new pair of shoes while Sam went to another place in quest of a new cap. The Rover boy had just made his purchase, and was leaving the store to rejoin Spud when he heard some one call his name, and looking around saw Andy Royce approaching.
"I just thought I'd ask you if you had heard anything about that Blackie Crowden yet," remarked the gardener from Hope, as he approached.
"Not yet, Royce. But they have sent out a good description of him, along with copies of his photograph, so the authorities think they will get him sooner or later."
"I've heard something that maybe you would like to know," went on Andy Royce. "I've heard that Crowden was over at Leadenfield, to a small roadhouse kept by a man named Bissette, a Frenchman."