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“I say, Dave, here's an odd piece of news.”“An odd piece of news, Roger? What about?”“A wild man in the woods back of Oak Hall,” answered Roger Morr, who held a letter in his hand. “Queerest thing you ever heard of.”“I should say it was, if it's about a wild man,” returned Dave Porter. “Who sent that letter?”“Shadow Hamilton.”“Maybe it's another one of Shadow's innumerable yarns,” suggested Dave, with a faint smile. “If he can't tell them by word of mouth, he writes them down.”“What has Shadow got to say about the wild man?” asked Phil Lawrence, looking up from the suit-case he was packing. “Has he been trying to clean out Oak Hall, or anything like that?” “No, not exactly,” returned Roger, turning back to the letter, which he had not yet finished. “He keeps in the woods, so Shadow says, and scares everybody who comes that way.”“How does he scare them?” asked Dave, pausing in the act of stowing a suit of clothing in a trunk.

“I say, Dave, here's an odd piece of news.”“An odd piece of news, Roger? What about?”“A wild man in the woods back of Oak Hall,” answered Roger Morr, who held a letter in his hand. “Queerest thing you ever heard of.”“I should say it was, if it's about a wild man,” returned Dave Porter. “Who sent that letter?”“Shadow Hamilton.”“Maybe it's another one of Shadow's innumerable yarns,” suggested Dave, with a faint smile. “If he can't tell them by word of mouth, he writes them down.”“What has Shadow got to say about the wild man?” asked Phil Lawrence, looking up from the suit-case he was packing. “Has he been trying to clean out Oak Hall, or anything like that?” “No, not exactly,” returned Roger, turning back to the letter, which he had not yet finished. “He keeps in the woods, so Shadow says, and scares everybody who comes that way.”“How does he scare them?” asked Dave, pausing in the act of stowing a suit of clothing in a trunk.“Shadow writes that he and Lazy were out walking one day and the wild man came after them with a big club. He wears long hair and a long beard, and his clothes are in tatters.”“What did they do?” questioned Phil.

Edward L. Stratemeyer (October 4, 1862 - May 10, 1930) was an American publisher and writer of children's fiction. He was one of the most prolific writers in the world, producing in excess of 1,300 books himself, selling in excess of 500 million copies. He also created many well-known fictional book series for juveniles, including The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew series, many of which sold millions of copies and are still in publication today. On Stratemeyer's legacy, Fortune wrote: "As oil had its Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer."

Excerpt from Dave Porter and the Runaways, or Last Days at Oak Hall Dave porter and the runaways is a complete story in itself, but forms the ninth volume of a line issued under the general title of Dave Porter Series. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.