"Well, Rad, we're after big game this time," Tom said. "I don't know what it will be that we'll get, whether animals or plants, and--"

"Oh, I knows, Massa Tom. Yo'-all means dem orchard plants that lib on air--dem big orchard plants." Eradicate meant orchids, of which many rare and beautiful kinds are found in South America.

"Yes, Rad, I guess we will get some big orchids," agreed Tom.

"An' I shorely will help climb de trees arter 'em. Or maybe we kin git de monkeys to frow em down, same as dey will de cocoanuts."

"Maybe, Rad. Well, now go ahead and nail up the rest of these boxes. We want to get started as soon as we can," and the colored man got busy, murmuring from time to time something about oranges and bananas and cocoanuts.

Everyone was occupied in getting matters in shape for the trip to South America, even Mr. Swift laying aside his work on his pet invention--a gyroscope--while he helped his son. And had Tom not been quite so engrossed with his preparations he might have gone about town more, in which case he would have learned something that might have saved him and the others considerable trouble and no little danger. And this fact was that Andy Foger had been in Shopton several times lately.

After the trouble which the red-haired bully and his father caused Tom and his friends on their trip to the city of gold, Mr. Foger moved away from Shopton. He had lost his fortune and had to begin all over again. The Foger homestead was closed up, and Andy ceased to be a fixture of the town, for which Tom and Ned were very glad.

But of late Andy had been seen in Shopton several times, and it was noticed that, on one or two occasions, he had a man with him--a man who seemed to have plenty of money--a man with an air about him not unlike that of Mr. Preston. A man with what newspaper men would have called a circus or theatrical "air."

This man had visited