Stubbs's brother would attempt
to follow the circus of which he had once been a member, although so
many weeks had elapsed since it had passed along there.

Leander was of the opinion that they ought to have borrowed a dog, with
which to track the monkey more easily, and even offered to go back to
get one; but Toby thought that would be a waste of valuable time, more
especially as it was by no means certain that Leander could procure the
dog if he did go back.

Joe thought each inch of the road should be examined with a view to
finding tracks of the monkey; but that plan was given up in a very few
moments after it was tried, for the good reason that the boys could not
distinguish even their own footprints, the road was beaten so hard; and
so they could only walk straight ahead, hoping to come up with the
fugitive, or to hear some news of him.

At each house on the road they stopped to ask if a stray monkey had been
seen; but they could hear nothing encouraging until they had walked
nearly three miles, and were just beginning to think it would have been
wiser to remain with the party who went into the woods.

At last, however, a farmer told them that he had seen an animal come up
the main road, just about sunrise, and that it had gone up through his
field into an oak grove. He had had no idea at the time that it was a
monkey, and had intended to take his gun and go in search of it as soon
as he could spare the time.

Toby trembled as the man said this, for Mr. Stubbs's death was too vivid
in his mind for him to think without a shudder of any one going in
search of this monkey with a gun. He started for the grove at full
speed, fearing that some one with more time at his disposal had seen his
pet, and might even now be in pursuit of him.

Of course the boys did not know certainly that the animal the farmer had
seen was Mr. Stubbs's brother, but all were quite sure it was; and,
before they had been in the oak grove ten minutes they saw the monkey
himself, hanging by his tail and one paw from the branch of a tree.

CHAPTER XVII

DRIVING A MONKEY

Toby was so delighted at seeing his pet safe and alive that he set up a
great shout; and the monkey, thus warned that boys who would chain him
down to the drudgery of a circus ring were on his track, started off at
full speed, scolding furiously as he went.

To catch a monkey in the woods was even a harder task than to "scrape"
him from the tent, or to capture h