“And he made the most awful face at us you ever saw!” added Mary.
CHAPTER V
A GLIMPSE OF ENEMIES
“Slugger Brown!”
“What does that rascal want around here?”
“Where did he go to?”
“Come on and see if he’s still outside!”
Such were some of the remarks made by the Rover boys after Martha and Mary had announced that they had seen Slugger Brown peering in at the parlor window of the old farmhouse.
My old readers will remember Slugger Brown well. He had attended Colby Hall while the Rovers were cadets there, and he and his crony, Nappy Martell, had done many things to make life unpleasant for our friends. Then, when Slugger and Nappy were exposed and had departed, these two unworthies, along with their fathers, had continued to cross the Rover boys’ path. During the World War Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell had been put in prison as German sympathizers and Slugger and Nappy had been placed in a detention camp in the South. Later on the Browns and the Martells had gone down into Texas and Oklahoma and there aided Carson Davenport and his gang in an endeavor to take away oil claims belonging to Dick Rover. These rascals, as well as another evildoer named Werner, overreached themselves, and as a result sunk all their money in wells which produced but little oil, and in the end the rascals left the fields practically penniless.
“It’s queer Slugger Brown should come up here,” was Jack’s comment, as the boys searched around the house in the semi-darkness. It had stopped raining but the grass and bushes were still wet.