try has already been told in detail in "Under Dewey at Manila."
Ben had found his way to New York, and Walter had drifted to Boston. After several adventures, the war fever had caught both, and Ben had joined the army to become "A Young Volunteer in Cuba," as already related in the volume of that name, while Walter had joined the armored cruiser Brooklyn and participated in the destruction of the Spanish fleet in Santiago Bay, as told in "Fighting in Cuban Waters."
While the three boys were away from home. Job Dowling had overreached himself by trying to sell some of the Russell heirlooms which it had been willed the lads should keep. The heirlooms had been stolen by a sharper, and it had cost the old man a neat sum of money to get them back. The experience made him both a sadder and a wiser man, and from that time on his manner changed, and when the boys returned from the war they found that he had turned over a new leaf. In the future he was perfectly willing that they should "do fer themselves," as he expressed it.
After a brief stay in Buffalo, Walter had left, to rejoin the Brooklyn, which was bound for a cruise
