Despite the fat boy's resistance, Tad led him back to the circle. There, Stacy reluctantly shook hands all around, and inside of five minutes he was chatting away with his usual good humor.
For a few days more the Pony Riders roved through the woods. Then, most regretfully—on both sides—the boys and their tutor parted from Cale Vaughn. At Bangor they found a pile of home letters awaiting them. Best of all were the letters that Tad received from his mother. She had regained her health, she wrote, and was putting on flesh at a rate that would soon be cause for alarm and—fasting.
It was some months before Cale Vaughn settled, to his satisfaction, the score against Squire Halliday and the game warden. Cale had a wide and valuable acquaintance throughout the state, and in time he secured the removal from office of Squire Halliday, who didn't need the justice's fees anyway. Jed, too, "walked the plank" in favor of a new game warden for that section.
As for the Pony Rider Boys, they were already planning a trip to the South, from which they would not return until late in the fall. The story of these most interesting of all adventures that they had experienced will be told in a following volume entitled, "THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN LOUISIANA; or, Following the Game Trails in the Canebrake."