Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway

“Wish it was my last,” said Tom. “You fellows’ll be sophomores at Erskine when I get there, and I’ll be a freshie and you won’t have anything to do with me!”

They were sitting on the big broad veranda of the hotel reading their letters. It was eleven o’clock of an ideal September day, and the guests, of whom there were many left desp...

Neither Nelson nor Bob--nor for that matter Tom nor Dan, who merely looked on--ever quite forgot it. The first inning was not over before it became evident that in the annual co...

Things looked bad, indeed, for the visiting team. The watchers on the grand stand were on their feet, shouting continuously. Not a few were joining the throng on the turf, scurr...

They left the hut as soon as the packs were tied up, and retraced their steps to the railroad track. On every hand were signs of the storm’s ravages. The sides of the old gravel...

“I hope the money is there,” said Tom. “Of course I want to eat, but to stay here where there’s a circus and not be able to get in would be worse than starving.”

They turned and looked about them. They seemed to be on the end of the island, for beyond them at a little distance the waves raced by a sandy point. To their right, as they fac...

Although it had been fairly mild when they went to sleep, by early morning the chill had crept under the rubber blankets, and the four sleepers twisted and turned uneasily, cons...

They made an early start the next morning. There was a delicious fresh breeze blowing from the bay, they were well rested, and life was well worth living. For an hour they walke...

They were talking it over. It was after five o’clock and they were sitting in the deserted dressing tent, to which Dan, as was his privilege as a member of “America’s Greatest C...

That was a strange meal and an enjoyable one. The menu wasn’t elaborate, but their appetites were, and not one of the four was inclined to be critical. What had formerly been th...

Tom scrambled to his feet, Barry retreated, still barking and growling furiously, with the hair on his neck and along his back standing straight up, and the newcomer stumbled th...

Dan Speede took the car steps at a bound and was out on the station platform looking eagerly about him before the other three boys had struggled through the car door. Swinging h...

At a little after eight the next morning they were on their way again. Nine hours of sound, refreshing slumber had worked a change. Dan no longer held any grudge against the doc...

The next day was Thursday. Nelson declared it wasn’t; that it was only Wednesday; but the blue, red, and yellow calendar advertising Somebody’s Smokeless Powder, which hung in t...

It was a very subdued quartet that took the road to Clearwater, the nearest village, although, after they had walked along in silence for a few hundred yards, Dan’s face began t...

After supper Dan reminded the others that they hadn’t written to their folks about Jerry and they all sought the writing room. Those were the first letters home, and, of course,...

It was a fresh, cool morning, with a southerly breeze blowing up from the ocean and rustling the leaves of the willows and maples along the meadow walls. Big fleecy clouds saile...

They rested until a little after two o’clock, and then, the intensest heat of a very hot day having passed, they took up their journey again, the party of four now having become...

The next day, which was Saturday, the seventeenth, dawned clear and cold. It was the first touch of real autumn weather they had had, and when they hurried downstairs the fire i...

They found their dinners at the first house they applied at, and good, generous dinners they were. At a quarter of two they were returning to the circus ground, and not alone. T...

By the time they had regained the Jericho road they had walked nearly twelve miles, and it was close to six o’clock. It had been slow going for the last two hours, for the dista...