Page:Ned Wilding's Disappearance.djvu/19

Rh But an exclamation of pain escaped him as he hit his bruised fingers against the gun stock.

"There!" exclaimed Alice. "I knew you'd do something wrong. Now I suppose it will start bleeding again," and she turned back as if to undo the bandage.

"Never mind!" spoke Bart quickly. "I'll stick some court plaster on if it does. Say Alice get us some cake and lemonade, please."

Alice agreed and while she prepared the beverage and got some cakes from the pantry, in which interval the four boys talked nothing but gun, there is an opportunity of making you better acquainted with them. It's hard to be introduced to a person when he has sustained a smashed thumb, so it is, perhaps, just as well that the formal presentation was postponed until now.

Bart Keene, Ned Wilding, Frank Roscoe and Fenn Masterson, (who was called Stumpy, for short, because of his rather limited height and breadth of beam), were four boys who lived in the town of Darewell. This was located not far from Lake Erie, on the Still River, a stream in which the boys fished, swam and upon which they spent many hours in their big rowboat.

With the exception of Frank Roscoe, the boys lived in the heart of the town. Their parents