Of course they went to Joe’s home first, for he was the one who had been tied to the tree and for whose safety the Mount Airy people were mostly concerned. If they had been fresh from a battle-field they could scarcely have met a warmer greeting than that which was extended to them when they walked into Mrs. Wayring’s presence and Uncle Joe’s. The former, in spite of their protests, insisted on making heroes of them.
“Well,” said Uncle Joe, when he had listened to a hurried description of their various adventures, “I don’t suppose you were at all disappointed when you found that I could not take you on that trip that we had been talking about for a year or more?”
“Oh, yes, we were,” exclaimed Joe. “But we couldn’t think of spending more than half the vacation in doing nothing, and that was the reason we went back to Indian Lake.”
Leaving Roy and Arthur in conversation with his relatives, Joe Wayring, who had been taught to take care of his things as soon as he was done using them, took his gun under one arm and Fly-rod under the other and went up to his room. A few minutes afterward the boys heard him calling to them from the head of the stairs to “come up” and “come quick.” They went, and found Joe walking about his room in great glee, trundling an elegant nickel-plated bicycle beside him. On the table lay a card to which he directed their attention. Roy picked it up and read:
“I am a present for Joe Wayring, and hope in some degree to recompense him for the disappointment he must have felt when he found that his uncle could not take him on a trip this summer. Use me regularly and judiciously, and if you do not say that life has suddenly doubled its charm—if you do not, before the end of the year, notice a thousand and one improvements in yourself, both physically and mentally, then I shall have failed of my mission. There are two others like me in town, and one of my relations, ridden by Thomas Stevens, the trans-continental cyclist, is now on his way around the world.
“An Expert Columbia.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
“Now isn’t he a daisy?” exclaimed Roy, who could scarcely have been more pleased if the wheel had belonged to himself. “Full nickeled, ball bearings, adjustable saddle, safety bar, Buffalo tool bag and lamp. Every thing complete, of course, for your Uncle Joe doesn’t do things by halves. Now, Joe, you can ride and Art and I will go afoot.”
“Say,” cried Arthur, who had taken the card from Roy’s hand. “What does this mean? ‘There are two others like me in town?’ There wasn’t a bike in Mount Airy when we left.”
“That’s so. I wonder who have the others. I wish you had, for I don’t want to be the only one of our crowd to get my head broke.”