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10, and ate until Tom was ready to "bust his buttons," as he expressed it.

"Let us try a new path down," said Sam, when it came time to go home, and he and Tom led the way, over a series of rocky ridges and cliffs anything but easy to traverse. In some places they had to drop ten and fifteen feet, and once Tom came down on his ankle in a manner that made him cry with pain.

"You look out for yourself," warned Dick. "If you sprain an ankle up here we'll have a job of it getting you home."

"No sprained ankle for mine, thank you," replied Tom. And he was more careful after that.

As Dick came after his brothers he saw something peculiar at one side of the path he was pursuing. It appeared to be a tin lunch box suspended from a tree limb by a bit of wire. The box was painted red and seemed to be new.

"That's strange," said the eldest Rover boy to himself. "Who would leave such a thing as that in that position? I'll have to investigate."

Without telling Sam and Tom what he was going to do, Dick left the path and plunged into the bushes which grew between himself and the tree from which the tin box was suspended. Among the bushes the footing was uncertain, and hardly had he taken a dozen steps when he felt himself sinking.