And he began: "Oh, dreamy days in summer time, When purling brooks and shady nooks--" "If you start up again I'll jump overboard," interrupted Tom.
"Do so, you need a cooling off," grunted Powell; but that was the end of the poetry for the time being.
They were just passing one of the coves when they caught sight of a man sitting on an overhanging tree, fishing.
"Hullo, what luck ?" cried Fred, good-naturedly.
"Fair," was the somewhat surly answer.

Then, as the man caught sight of the others in the boat, he turned his head away.
"That fellow looks familiar to me," ejaculated Sam, in sudden and strong excitement.
"And he looks familiar to me, too," exclaimed Tom.
"Do you think it is Arnold Baxter ?" "If it isn't, it's his double," went on Tom.

"Row the boat over quick, boys." "Who is this Arnold Baxter?
The father of Dan Baxter ?" questioned Fred.
"The same, Fred." "The fellow who escaped from prison, or the hospital ?" asked Powell.
"That's the chap." Without delay the rowboat was turned in toward the overhanging tree.
Scarcely had this been done when the fisherman pulled in his line with all speed, took up his string of fish and ran into the bushes between two cliffs of rocks.
"He is getting out, and in a hurry too!" said Fred.
"Hi, there, stop! We want to talk to you!" sang out Tom, at the top of his lungs.
"Ain't got time," roared back the strange fisherman, and on the instant he was gone.
"It must have been Arnold Baxter, beyond a doubt," said Sam.
"If it was, what is he doing here ?" questioned his brother.
"He's keeping out of the reach of the law," answered Powell.

"I suppose he thought he was perfectly safe in such an out-of-the-way place as this." "And he was fishing just to kill time," put in Fred.
"I'd like to go after him and make sure," went on Tom.

"What do you say, Sam ?" "I am with you." "But we may be late--" began Fred.
"Oh, Captain Putnam will excuse us when I tell him what delayed us." The rowboat soon reached the shore, and Sam and Tom leaped to the brushwood, where the trail of the vanished fisherman was plainly to be seen.
It was decided that Fred and Powell should remain in charge of the rowboat, so that nobody might come and make off with the craft.