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Cities and Nature

Andrea Arcidiacono
Silvia Ronchi Editors

Ecosystem
Services and Green
Infrastructure
Perspectives from
Spatial Planning in Italy
Cities and Nature

Series Editors
Peter Newman, Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University
Perth, WA, Australia
Cheryl Desha, School of Engineering and Built Environment,
Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
Alessandro Sanches-Pereira , Instituto 17, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Cities and Nature fosters high-quality multi-disciplinary research addressing the
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dealing with the urban and the environment nexus, including: spatial dynamics of
urban built areas, urban and peri-urban agriculture, urban greening and green
infrastructure, environmental planning, urban forests, urban ecology, regional
dynamics and landscape fragmentation.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10068

Andrea Arcidiacono • Silvia Ronchi
Editors

Ecosystem Services and

Green Infrastructure
Perspectives from Spatial Planning in Italy
Editors
Andrea Arcidiacono Silvia Ronchi
Department of Architecture and Department of Architecture and
Urban Studies Urban Studies
Politecnico di Milano Politecnico di Milano
Milano, Italy Milano, Italy

ISSN 2520-8306     ISSN 2520-8314 (electronic)

Cities and Nature
ISBN 978-3-030-54344-0    ISBN 978-3-030-54345-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54345-7

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Foreword

The last few decades have seen a flurry of activity in conceptualizing nature with the
development of well-established legislative and strategic frameworks for green
growth. In addition to this, advanced scientific studies have been conducted on a
variety of green concepts (including studies on the key role of green spaces in
improving the quality of life). Despite these efforts, cities and urban regions are still
losing their green areas. The green structures of several European cities might still
be visible, but hectares of public and private green spaces are alarmingly diminish-
ing (see, e.g., the cities of Oslo, Copenhagen, Vienna, Helsinki, Milan, and
Stockholm).
From the planning perspective, several green concepts have been used to address
a sustainable urban development. Green corridors, green belts, green structures, and
green fingers are intended to control urban sprawl, protect nature, and provide rec-
reational opportunities. More recently, the concepts of green infrastructure (GI) and
ecosystem services (ES) have been developed within the framework of the ongoing
scientific debate and European and National policy. Compared to the traditional
green concepts, GI and ES provide a holistic approach which integrates the socio-­
political and environmental concerns of landscape with contemporary urban plan-
ning. GI and ES can also be used to address a variety of several planning mandates
(e.g., sustainable urban development, people’s well-being, and quality of life).1
Moreover, regardless of the increasing collaboration among city and regional
planning departments, universities and research institutes, as well as regional and
master plans, all of the above have struggled to acknowledge the importance and
role of green spaces within urban development. There are several challenges and
obstacles in effectively embedding green concepts into and prioritizing green prac-
tices in planning.

1
Mell I, Allin S, Reimer M. & Wilker J. (2017) Strategic green infrastructure planning in Germany
and the UK: A transnational evaluation of the evolution of urban greening policy and practice,
International Planning Studies, 22:4, 333-349.

v
vi Foreword

These impediments might be related to local socio-political dynamics, private

interests in the urban development process, as well as a lack of expertise in the plan-
ning departments.
In this foreword, I highlight the following issues related to GI and ES as well as
their implementation in planning. These issues have been theoretically and empiri-
cally analyzed in recent years (by analyzing several cases in Italy, Canada, Finland,
and Norway) in these four areas of: i) the transfer of advanced scientific knowledge
of GI and ES into planning; ii) implementation of the concepts of GI and ES at dif-
ferent levels of planning (moving from regional to local projects); iii) rhetoric
images of green cities, which are related to the predominance of certain “green
interests” in city developments (see, e.g., real estate developers) and the idealized
representation of green by planners; and iv) the model of urban growth that cities
address and related impacts on green (e.g., compact city vs urban sprawl).
These arguments, which are expanded upon below, help underpin the core ratio-
nal of current and innovative studies in the European and Italian contexts which are
presented in this book.
(i) The transfer of advanced scientific knowledge of GI and ES into planning
strategies and practices. These emerging green concepts have been developed by
experts from different scientific fields (e.g., biology, landscape architecture, and
landscape ecology) and then transferred (or are being transferred) by policymakers
and planners into the green plans of our urban regions and cities (which often do not
have any legal status). The traditional expertise of planning and related fields is
inadequate to understand the role and functions of GI and ES in urban develop-
ment.2 More interdisciplinary groups of practitioners are needed in the planning
divisions of our cities and regions.
(ii) Implementation of the concepts of GI and ES at different levels of planning.
It seems that GI and ES are often used as the conceptual framework when designing
strategic scenarios at the regional and local scales.3 However, the implementation of
ES into current land-use planning (e.g., zoning and detailed plans) is still rather dif-
ficult. For example, the mapping of ES cannot be easily translated into current land-­
use maps by using the existing planning tools (and regulation). Moreover, at the
level of the urban projects, we should recall that storm water management (which
refers to the regulating ES), protection of nature (see supporting ES), as well as
access and view to green spaces (see recreational ES) have already been
acknowledged for decades by planners, but only recently have they been included in
the ES conceptual framework. This can generate some misinterpretations of the
concepts of ES and related purposes.

2
Lahde E. & Di Marino M. (2018). Multidisciplinary collaboration and understanding of Green
Infrastructure. Results from the cities of Tampere, Vantaa and Jyvaskyla (Finland). Urban Forestry
and Urban Greening https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S161886671730420X
3
Di Marino M., Tiitu M., Lapintie K., Viinikka A. and Kopperoinen L. (2019) ‘Integrating green
infrastructure and ecosystem services in land use planning. Results from two Finnish case studies’.
Land Use Policy, 82: 643-656.
Foreword vii

Furthermore, the administrative fragmentation and sectorial plans that character-

ize several contexts, which have been analyzed in this book, do not support the
implementation of GI and ES at different levels of planning and across boundaries.
This administrative fragmentation is more evident in the Italian context.
Municipalities make land-use decisions through local development plans (local
master plans and detailed plans), while regions, provinces, and metropolitan cities
produce regional landscape plans and regional territorial plans, provincial territorial
coordination plans, and strategic metropolitan plans, respectively. On one hand,
each region provides its own regional framework law on land use and might extend
it to implement GI and ES. On the other hand, the absence of a national framework
law on land use does not allow the regions to create coherent policies for GI and
ES. Nevertheless, in both Italian and European cities and regions, soft-planning
tools and non-statutory planning might be seen as being relevant to supporting the
incorporation of these concepts.
(iii) Rhetoric images of green cities have characterized the most recent urban
development (at the city, regional, and building level). In urban development pro-
cesses, there are different “green interests.” Very often, the predominance of the
private development itself has compromised the achievement of public planning
objectives. Real estate developers have tended to emphasize the property looking
onto a green view, which typically increases housing costs and property values. This
approach has resulted in limiting urban densification around protected areas (based
on given distances and potential impacts), while, in contrast, the other green areas
have been constantly affected by urban development. These processes have also
resulted in a persuasive storytelling and representation of green cities. Thus, green
concepts have gained a metaphorical power in planning. The Dutch green heart, for
example, “is a metaphor that masks the real physical features of the area”4 which
neither exists in plans nor does it form a homogenous unity. The risk is that GI and
ES can also be used for greenwashing land-use projects with little ecological value.
(iv) The model of urban growth and impacts on green. Several cities have fol-
lowed the model of a compact city in order to preserve arable lands and forests as
well as their biodiversity from urban growth. In the last 10 years, the compact city
has been considered the most environmentally sustainable option for urban form as
well as public policy.5 Although the compact city model can protect against green-
field development as well as help preserve nature in terms of forests and farmlands,
it has exerted extreme pressure on urban nature, especially on urban green (both
public and private). Considering this model of growth, for example, urban ES are
really endangered, such as (1) recreation and creativity, (2) engagement with nature
(and well-being), (3) human thermal comfort, and (4) air quality.

4
Van Eeten N., & Roe E (2000) When Fiction Conveys Truth and Authority, Journal of the
American Planning Association, 66:1, 58-67, p 61.
5
Mouratidis, K. (2017). Is compact city livable? The impact of compact versus sprawled neigh-
bourhoods on neighbourhood satisfaction. Urban studies, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/
0042098017729109
viii Foreword

Thus, the green is not prioritized within urban development. The green spaces
are often readily sacrificed as cities expand and develop.6 This loss of green is often
compensated for by the increasing share of green spaces in other urban areas (e.g.,
the mechanism of ecological compensations). We also see “green left-overs” in the
built environment. These approaches confirm that the provision and quality of green
generally hold a low priority in urban development. The green is diminishing in our
urban regions, and to date, this trend has not been reversed. The concepts of GI and
ES are rather new in planning; therefore, we do not yet have a broad perspective and
understanding of the possible impacts of this trend.
In the last few years, although there has been a consolidation of the concepts of
GI and ES within the scientific debate and policy frameworks, the assimilation and
adaptation of both concepts in spatial planning (both research and practice) is still
rather new. Understanding GI and ES requires new expertise, interdisciplinary
approaches in planning, and probably new planning tools. It is hoped that the
European and Italian cases in this book will show a comprehensive overview of the
potential of both concepts and possible implementation.

Department of Urban and Regional Planning  Mina Di Marino

NMBU, As, Norway
e-mail: [email protected]

6
Di Marino M., Niemelä J. & Lapintie K. (2018). Urban nature for land use planning. Urbanistica,
159: 94-102.
Contents

1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy.

Towards a New Paradigm ����������������������������������������������������������������������    1
Andrea Arcidiacono and Silvia Ronchi
2 Urban Green Infrastructure: Opportunities and Challenges
at the European Scale������������������������������������������������������������������������������   17
Grazia Zulian, Julie Raynal, Rayka Hauser, and Joachim Maes
3 The Green City: From a Vision to a Concept
from National to European Perspectives ����������������������������������������������   29
Jürgen H. Breuste
4 The Inertial Forces of Ecological Planning:
How Planning Resists Conceptual Change��������������������������������������������   45
Kimmo Lapintie
5 The Project of the Green Infrastructure in Lombardy Region.
A Resilient Spatial Structure for the Landscape Plan��������������������������   59
Andrea Arcidiacono and Silvia Ronchi
6 A Green Infrastructure in the Guidelines to Limit Land
Consumption of the Friuli Venezia Giulia
Regional Landscape Plan������������������������������������������������������������������������   73
Elisabetta Peccol, Mirko Pellegrini, and Mauro Pascolini
7 The Landscape Planning and the Green Infrastructure
in Campania Region��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87
Emanuela Coppola
8 The Green Infrastructure Instrument for the Metropolitan
Area of Naples: Experimentations Through Local Planning�������������� 101
Francesco Domenico Moccia and Antonia Arena

ix
x Contents

9 Green Infrastructure and Local Planning Processes:

A Study Concerning the Metropolitan Context of Cagliari���������������� 113
Sabrina Lai, Federica Leone, and Corrado Zoppi
10 Ecosystem Services Integration into Local Policies
and Strategies in the City of Bologna: Analysis of the State
of the Art and Recommendations for Future Development ���������������� 127
Claudia de Luca, John Martin, and Simona Tondelli
11 The New Urban Plan of Rescaldina Municipality.
An Experience for Improving Ecosystem Services Provision�������������� 141
Silvia Ronchi, Andrea Arcidiacono, and Laura Pogliani
12 Identifying Ecosystem Service Hotspots to Support
Urban Planning in Trento ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 153
Davide Geneletti and Chiara Cortinovis
13 Mapping Ecosystem Services, Disservices,
and Ecological Requirements to Enhance Urban
Forest Planning and Management in Padova���������������������������������������� 167
Chiara Cortinovis, Claudia Alzetta, and Davide Geneletti
14 Messina. Green and Blue Infrastructures
for the Re-urbanisation of the City�������������������������������������������������������� 181
Carlo Gasparrini and Anna Terracciano
15 Green Texture: Nature and Reuse in the Prato Operative
Plan Legislation���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 201
Francesco Caporaso, Pamela Bracciotti, and Antonella Perretta
16 Green Infrastructure and Landscape Planning
in a Sustainable and Resilient Perspective�������������������������������������������� 213
Angioletta Voghera and Benedetta Giudice
17 Lessons from Italian Experiences: Bottlenecks, New Challenges
and Opportunities������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 225
Silvia Ronchi and Andrea Arcidiacono

Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 237
About the Editors

Andrea Arcidiacono MSc., Arch., Ph.D., in Urban Regional and Environmental

Planning at the Politecnico di Milano. Associate Professor at the DAStU (Dep. of
Architecture and Urban Studies), Politecnico di Milano. He is Director of the
LabPPTE (Landscape Plans Territories Ecosystems Lab) and member of the scien-
tific board of the CRCS (Land Take Research Centre). Since 2016, Andrea is Vice
President of the National Institute of Urban Planning (INU). He is also a Member of
the Editorial Board of the national journal Urbanistica. His research focuses on
landscape and urban planning, open spaces and green and blue infrastructure design,
ecosystem analysis and nature-based solutions for spatial planning, and policies for
land take limitation. Currently, Andrea is the DAStU Principal Investigator in the
program LIFE 2014–2020 “European Programme for the Environment and Climate
Action” (LIFE 2017), "‘SOIL4LIFE,” and Project Leader (DAStU-POLIMI) for
studies and researches to support the revision of the Lombardy Regional Landscape
Plan. He has been a member of the Scientific Committee for the Town Plan of the
City of Milan (2012). Andrea has been a consultant of several public Administrations
and designer of town plans and detail plans. He is (co)author of over 120 scientific
publications.

Silvia Ronchi MSc. Urban Planning, Ph.D., in Urban Planning, Design and Policy
at the Politecnico di Milano. Untenured Researcher and Assistant Professor at the
DAStU (Dep. of Architecture and Urban Studies), Politecnico di Milano and mem-
ber of the LabPPTE (Landscape Plans Territories Ecosystems Lab, Politecnico di
Milano). Since 2007, Silvia is member of the Scientific Board of the CRCS (Land
Take Research Centre) and Editor of the CRCS annual national reports. She is spe-
cialized in Geographic Information System for Spatial planning. From 2015 to
2018, she collaborated with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission
(Territorial Development Unit – B3). She is a member of the Ecosystem Services
Partnership (ESP) and the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE).
Her research focuses on Ecosystem services, landscape and urban planning, envi-
ronmental assessment, green and blue infrastructures design. She has been a

xi
xii About the Editors

consultant of several Public administrations and research centres for the Strategic
Environmental Assessment of General Town plans and sustainable development
projects (ecological connection, landscape studies and natural capital). She is (co)
author of over 50 scientific publications.
Chapter 1
Challenges for Contemporary Spatial
Planning in Italy. Towards a New
Paradigm

Andrea Arcidiacono and Silvia Ronchi

Abstract The new environmental, ecological and social emergencies affecting the
contemporary city and territory of the “Anthropocene era” have increasingly intense
impacts on human well-being and quality of urban life. Emergencies, closely related
to regional anthropisation processes, concern issues of adaptation to climate change,
risk prevention and food security. Responding to these challenges requires a shift in
strategies and urban design models. In Italy, traditional planning models still pre-
vail, mainly oriented towards governing processes of urban growth and improving
regional infrastructures, which strongly affect the availability of natural resources.
Even recent planning experiences, focused mostly on the governance of urban rede-
velopment processes, have been unable to reduce the persisting intensity of urban-
isation processes or trigger broader regeneration effects within the increasingly less
efficient and less liveable urban fabrics of the built-up city. Nowadays, it is neces-
sary to redefine the territorial governance agenda and experiment with a new urban
planning paradigm which can address the re-urbanisation of the contemporary city
in an ecologically oriented and socially cohesive perspective, guaranteeing the well-­
being and the quality of citizens’ lives through a robust reconstruction of the urban
natural capital.

Keywords Planning perspective · Urbanisation and land take limitation · Climate

change adaptation · Ecosystem services · Green and blue infrastructures · Nature-­
based solutions · Resilient regeneration · Human well-being · Contemporary cities

A. Arcidiacono (*) · S. Ronchi

Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

A. Arcidiacono, S. Ronchi (eds.), Ecosystem Services and Green Infrastructure,
Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54345-7_1
2 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

1.1 Introduction

In recent decades, the intensity of anthropisation processes has had an irreversible

impact on the availability of natural resources (water, soil, and air) with direct
effects on the production of food and raw materials, on hydrogeological stability,
and, more generally, on climate change.
In about a century, commonly known as “Anthropocene,” which began with the
late nineteenth-century modern era, human action has started to produce radical and
irreversible changes on the biophysical composition of our planet (Crutzen 1998,
2005). Anthropisation processes are among the most significant determinants of the
planet’s environmental and ecological crisis (UN 2019a). If the process of growth
continues at its current intensity, urban areas will contain about 70% of the world
population by 2050, and the land occupied by cities in the developing world will
triple (UN 2019b).
The physical features and environmental conditions of these urban conglomera-
tions are profoundly different in various areas of the planet. In Europe, the urbanisa-
tion process is more advanced than in other regions of the Earth. In Italy, over 70%
of the population already lives in urbanised areas with similar structure – compact
central urban areas with important historical features; dense and compact expansion
fabrics from late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century development with
a mix of residential, productive and craft activities; large peripheral and peri-urban
mono-functional areas, where large industrial settlements and new residential dis-
tricts stand side by side, developed during the second half of the twentieth century,
during the phase of maximum settlement and employment development of European
cities. The mass development phase coincided with the maximum intensity of “land
take” processes, which are mainly due to the urban transformation of agricultural
soils. In Italy, from the 1980s, this long period of urban growth demonstrated more
complex and articulated aspects. On the one hand, there was the onset of intensive
reconversion processes of large disused urban industrial areas or areas linked to the
abandonment and under-utilisation of primary urban services (customs, slaughter-
houses, railway yards and, more recently, barracks). On the other hand, the going on
of urban growth, which despite being apparently less intense compared to the
dynamics of the decades of post-War mass expansion, started to increasingly affect
peri-urban and suburban areas connoted by the ever-increasing spread of low-­
density settlements determining a huge peri-urbanisation process as one of the most
unsustainable forms of urban development. In a situation of weakness and substan-
tial inadequacy of the intermediate levels of territorial government (provincial and
supra-local initially, and now metropolitan authorities), sprawl processes have pro-
voked peri-urban growth through intense land take and soil sealing with high land-
scape fragmentation. This is due to the prevalence of a horizontal growth of
settlement characterised by low-density housing models and high land occupation
(Brueckner 2001; EEA 2006), and the consequent emergence of a mobility system
based on the use of individual vehicles, necessary because of a lack of connection
between public transport planning with regional development strategies; and
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 3

simultaneously supported by the spreading of a capillary road network. Sprawling

urban development caused diffuse anthropisation of rural environments which were
characterised by high landscape value and significant production capacity, and it
profoundly affected the continuity and quality of ecological and environmental con-
nectivity of the peri-urban area.
This urban development dynamic was underestimated by Italian urban planners
who believed that the new season of “urban transformation,” focused on the reuse
and redevelopment of large abandoned urban areas, would marginalise expansive
growth. During the 1990s and for a large part of the first decade of the 2000s, in
Europe and Italy, the reuse of abandoned and underused sites located in central
urban areas has coexisted with the strengthening of new land take phenomena. In
Italy, over about 30 years (1989–2018), more than 7700 km2 of agricultural and
natural soils have been urbanised (ISPRA 2016, 2018), with an annual average of
more than 260 km2 (almost one and a half times the extension of the city of Milan
and roughly double its urbanised area). This intense land take process led the coun-
try to have an anthropised surface area of more than 7.5% of its territory (ISPRA
2018). This phenomenon was not only due to the prevalence of low-density scat-
tered settlement patterns and the spread of new types of production and work activi-
ties (shopping malls and logistics hubs) but mainly to the persistence of economic
and real estate pressure produced by the incidence of the urban rent.
Land take and soil sealing remain among the leading causes of soil degradation
processes across Europe (Ronchi et al. 2019): with direct impacts on the reduction
and deterioration of one of the primary natural resources, that provides fundamental
ecosystem services for quality of human life and well-being; with effects on food
production, air quality, water regulation, hydrogeological stability and more gener-
ally on climate change. These effects influence the salubrity of our cities and the
health of citizens, who are increasingly exposed to diseases linked to the intensity
of urbanisation phenomena and soil sealing. The effects of heatwaves in central
Europe are one of the main causes of death during the four summer months (EEA
2016; Geneletti et al. 2020); the record temperatures registered in different parts of
Europe in 2013, 2014 and 2015 led to an exceptional increase of mortality
(Gasparrini et al. 2015). In 2015, the summer heatwave caused more than 3000
deaths in France (EEA 2017). In the last 20 years, the European Commission has
widely reported the risks and impacts connected to the persistence of soil sealing
and land take processes in Europe and has outlined the main strategies to be imple-
mented to limit the intensity of these phenomena (European Commission 2002,
2006a, 2012) towards the goal of “no net land take” by 2050 (European Commission
2016). Nevertheless, the European Commission has failed to approve the Soil
Framework Directive (European Commission 2006b). This act would have strength-
ened the legislative action of the Member States (Ronchi et al. 2019), but it was
withdrawn in 2014 at the wishes of some of the leading Member States. The reasons
for the opposition include the subsidiarity and proportionality principles, the esti-
mated costs, the administrative burden and existing national legislation on soil that
was not considered as aligned with the incoming proposal (Glæsner et al. 2014).
4 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

Many European States activated public policies and legislative measures to

reduce land take and soil sealing and support urban regeneration for new environ-
mental and social liveability, acting both on quantitative limitation and on fiscal
policies. In Italy, throughout the first decade of the 2000s, the national annual aver-
age of land take intensity exceeded 60 hectares per day (ISPRA 2016). This trend
was more intense in some regions, such as Lombardy and Veneto, often with a sig-
nificant impact on landscapes of outstanding environmental value. In recent years,
land take processes, while remaining intense, registered a considerable reduction. In
2018, the annual average was less than 15 hectares per day, with an overall increase
in artificial surface areas of 51 km2 compared to a total amount of national urbanised
area of 23,033 km2 (ISPRA 2019). This reduction was not so much attributable to
national or regional legislative measures, which are still absent or not yet imple-
mented. All national Governments that have, since 2010, sought to approve, with
differing determination, a draft law to limit land take and to incentivise urban regen-
eration, failed. Regionally, new legislations approved in recent years have been
partly contradictory and only partially applied in planning tools. Instead, the land
take process decrease was mainly the global effect of the economic crisis that also
affected the construction sector and the real estate market. However, in the face of a
factual reduction of urbanisation processes, urban plans in Italy continue to propose
a development model still mainly oriented to urban growth dynamics, which are
incoherent with demographic and employment trends – an approach purely based
upon speculative real estate and financial logics that will perpetuate for a long time
a new land take process (Arcidiacono 2015). This planning model is still far from
dealing effectively with the current environmental and ecological emergencies.
These are issues directly concerning the definition of innovative strategies in urban
planning, oriented towards the construction of adaptive and resilient actions able to
respond to increasingly intense territorial risks and reduce the ongoing effects of
climate change.

1.2  ew Priorities for Urban Planning: Redefining

N
the “Common Interest”

Despite the intense land take processes, in Italy, it seems still arduous to approve a
legislative reform that supports spatial planning aimed at addressing land take
reduction and promoting urban regeneration interventions – a framework law that
defines principles and planning priorities for a resilient approach in the designing of
the contemporary city and to contrast climate change through adaptive planning
solutions (Arcidiacono 2015). The planning models currently used in Italy are still
traditional, driven by logics of urban and infrastructures growth, often divorced
from demographic or employment requirements. Development strategies and
choices are made by the administrative municipal level, within a planning system in
which diverse territorial planning levels (provincial, metropolitan and regional)
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 5

have never had the strength or efficacy to guide, coordinate or influence decisions
on local land-use planning. Nowadays, the forecasted urban transformations that
threaten soil and ecosystem services are defined in local urban plans. The adoption
of supra-local scale can reduce and mitigate these impacts where the design of envi-
ronmental and ecological networks and the construction of green belts can be effec-
tively and coherently planned, and the future development decisions calibrated
according to the actual forecast of population and employment growth.
Quantitative limitation of land take must be introduced, applying legislative acts,
planning and land-use conformation tools at the most appropriate territorial levels,
and continuing to monitor the extent and the intensity of the processes. Nevertheless,
mapping the land take process or introducing normative rules for its quantitative
restriction is not sufficient; it is fundamental to introduce a qualitative assessment
approach that considers not only the amount of soil surface loss but also soil quality
and the ecosystem services provision to evaluate and select appropriate design strat-
egies aiming to enhance ecosystem capacity and related benefits, which are crucial
for quality of life and human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).
The soil ecosystem services directly concern air quality, water filtering and regula-
tion, food production, landscape quality, cultural and aesthetic historical values, and
deeply affect climate change and environmental risks that are increasingly impact-
ful and perceivable in urban contexts. Anthropisation and soil sealing due to urban-
isation processes involve a reduction, and often a zeroing, of ecosystem services
provision, with significant impacts on citizens’ quality of life and health conditions
(Dodge et al. 2012; Shekhar et al. 2019). In urban and peri-urban areas, where the
contribution of regulating ecosystem services is most relevant, the quality and
improvement of health and well-being conditions are connected to the physical and
morphological features of the built environment, and the availability and condition
of natural and green open spaces (WHO 2019).
A radical update of the traditional urban planning paradigm is needed for design-
ing the contemporary city to face with these emerging pressure conditions and the
urgency to provide adaptive and resilient responses to climate change (Arcidiacono
et al. 2018a); an innovation of spatial planning model that places ecological and
environmental issues at the centre of the design and planning action to conserve and
strengthen the provision of those ecosystem services on which life quality and
inhabitants’ well-being depend. This perspective requires a full-fledged update of
the “common and public goals” for urban planning. Fifty years after the Henri
Lefebvre essay on the “Right to the city” (Lefevre 1968), the needs, rights and
desires of citizens have changed, including social and distributive equality terms
and requirements of wellness and liveability of cities. In Italy, “Planning standards”
(introduced into the Italian legislation at the end of the 1960s, with Inter-Ministerial
decree no. 1444/68) have traditionally guaranteed adequate conditions of local wel-
fare, introducing a mandatory minimum supplies of public spaces (parks and social-
isation spaces) and services (school, health and cultural), as availability and spatial
configuration, to provide an acceptable level of urban liveability (Giaimo 2019).
Today, these facilities are still fundamental for structuring the fixed capital of the
“public city.” A large part of Italian cities’ quality of life depends upon assigning
6 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

different functions and values to urban spaces, indiscriminately offering minimum

supplies of public areas and services to everyone, despite the issues of the social
division of the space not being addressed. However, it becomes inevitable to expand
and redefine the boundaries of urban plan’s “common and public interest”, intro-
ducing notions of social, ecological and environmental performances, related to the
complex and widespread forms of the contemporary city. A process of urban plan-
ning innovation that poses articulated challenges requires different levels of experi-
mentation (Ronchi et al. 2020). On the one hand, this involves redefining the spatial
plan and urban structure framework around the design of public space, and environ-
mental and usage networks of the contemporary city (e.g. green and blue infrastruc-
tures); on the other hand, this involves introducing qualitative and performance
parameters and indicators, which should be adequate to verify the sustainability of
the plan’s strategies in a perspective of adaptation and resilience (Schewenius et al.
2014) to environmental changes, complexity of physical and social contexts and
new demand for welfare. These performance standards are relevant for updating the
traditional urban plan features and contents to be renewed in its processes and tools,
but remaining stable in its goals, to protect everyone’s interests and defend the qual-
ity of spaces where people live.

1.3  cosystem Services for Supporting a New Spatial

E
Planning Paradigm

The new environmental and ecological emergencies require redefinition the concept
of “common and public interest” in a broader categorisation of services provided to
citizens for their well-being, and in a qualitative perspective of performance and
resilience in defining land uses. According to this, the introduction of a different
planning paradigm finds a relevant contribution from the ecosystem services
approach.
The increasing relevance and dissemination of ecosystem functions and services
in environmental and soil science researches (Burkhard et al. 2012, 2013; Haase et al.
2014b) can provide an effective contribution to spatial and landscape planning, at
reconfiguring the plan’s environmental and ecological structure, at selecting land-­
use strategies for defining regeneration and re-urbanisation solutions for the con-
temporary city and landscape (Cortinovis and Geneletti 2019). The mapping and
evaluation of ecosystem services (Maes et al. 2016), defined in literature as multiple
benefits provided by ecosystems to humanity (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
2005; Haines-Young and Potschin 2013), have become an increasingly accurate and
investigated research subject. This approach can constitute a fundamental contribu-
tion to improving the decision-making processes for spatial planning. The measure-
ment and monitoring of ecosystem services can facilitate a comparative and dynamic
assessment of the effects determined by alternative scenarios of transformation and
development of land use on urban quality and support the identification of multiple
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 7

common performance objectives in deciding “where to put things” (Polasky et al.

2008). In this way, the ecosystem approach acts as a model to interpret and address
the collective contemporary city “needs,” as it assumes the perspective of beneficia-
ries, who are the service recipients, within an updated planning of the public city
and local welfare, which can respond to the growing demand for well-being and
urban equality, in quantitative and performance terms. The potential of this approach
intersects with the need to make public decision-makers and citizens increasingly
aware of the role played by ecosystem services (Saarikoski et al. 2018; Grêt-­
Regamey et al. 2017) orienting urban planning strategies (Hansen et al. 2015;
Cortinovis and Geneletti 2018) towards a dimension of sustainability and resilience
of the territory to climate change (McPhearson et al. 2014, 2015). In this perspec-
tive, the actions to reduce land take and soil sealing, concerning the protection and
appreciation of the ecosystem, are more effective and not only about quantitative
parameters but introducing assessment criteria which consider soil quality and eco-
system functions (Polasky et al. 2011). To achieve an ecosystem dimensioning of
the urban plan for different land-use transformation scenarios (Geneletti 2013), the
knowledge of soil quality is essential to define the land-use planning choices and
identify adequate mitigation or compensatory actions and finally to exclude the soil
transformability when the ecosystem values cannot be restored. Compensatory
measures based upon quantitative criteria (following the principle for which the
same amount of urbanised land must be re-naturalised) appear inadequate or even
counterproductive where the aim is not to have, indifferently, new green spaces, but
maintain ecosystems and related benefits and restore the degraded one.
The integration between the mapping and evaluation of ecosystem services, and
the definition of urban planning strategies and decisions, require a truly “transdisci-
plinary” approach (Costanza 2008). This approach can recompose the fragmenta-
tion of the sector-based analytical contributions and overcome the traditional
subordination of specialist scientific disciplines (environmental, ecological, agro-
nomic, geological and pedological) in the spatial planning process. In this co-design
model, the different areas of expertise cooperate to define spatial planning and
development strategies, objectives and actions by verifying and assessing its impacts
and benefits on soil functions and values using adequate criteria and indicators. The
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can acquire a new role becoming a tool
that, by mapping and evaluating ecosystem functions and services (Geneletti 2016;
Ronchi et al. 2020), can guide and monitor planning strategies, affect its objectives,
actions and tools, define regulatory and performance devices, which oriented public
and private interventions to pursue common interest and well-being.
Recently, the methods and experiments to assess ecosystem services are increas-
ingly accurate and refined (Haase et al. 2014a; Burkhard et al. 2013; Crossman et al.
2013). The more complex challenge is to raise awareness among public decision-­
makers and citizens of the approach’s potential (Gret-Regamey et al. 2017; Costanza
et al. 2017), to achieve effective integration between methodologies of classification
and evaluation of ecosystem services, and spatial and landscape planning models
(Albert et al. 2016; Gómez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013; Grêt-Regamey et al.
2017). The potential of ecosystem analysis in a transdisciplinary integration process
8 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

with spatial planning is significant at the different planning scales, where the ex ante
assessment capacity of the ecosystem functionality becomes an opportunity for pro-
tection and conservation and their enhancement.
There is still the risk that studies and research, which provide detailed and articu-
lated classifications and functionalities of ecosystem services, remain limited to the
scientific field of research without influencing experiments of new sustainable plan-
ning models resilient to climate change. Evaluating ecosystem services may appear
to be a low-priority activity with substantial rhetorical value in evoking ecological
innovation applied to spatial planning, but in reality unable to effect planning or
influence land-use regulations (Cortinovis and Geneletti 2018).
Internationally, urban and landscape planning experiences are becoming more
frequent, at the local and regional scales, where there is an explicit relationship
between assessment of ecosystem services and definition of land uses (Hansen et al.
2015). These are practices where methodologies have been trialled during decision-­
making processes (Saarikoski et al. 2018; Cortinovis and Geneletti 2018; Ronchi
et al. 2020) to define strategies of urban and landscape planning objectives
(Mascarenhas et al. 2014; Haase et al. 2014b), aimed at increasing the multiple
benefits provided by ecosystem services, in terms of air quality, water drainage and
run-off mitigation, microclimate regulation and pollution reduction (Gómez-­
Baggethun and Barton 2013; Rall et al. 2015).
In Italy, the experiences assessing ecosystem services integrated directly into the
spatial planning process (and Strategic environmental assessment), conditioning its
decisions and directly affecting forecasts of soil transformability, are still partial,
even if awareness of this approach is increasing (Geneletti et al. 2020). This volume
collects some of the most significant experiences in Italy. One limit may be due to
the difficulty of communicating to citizens and decision-makers the importance of
ecosystem services for the quality of human life (Porter and Kramer 2011) and
urban well-being, and the direct relationships with the decisions on land use, which
rarely leads them to be considered in policy and planning decisions (Costanza et al.
1997, 2017). It may be helpful to quantify these services in the “market” terms
(TEEB 2008, Gómez-Baggethun et al. 2010). The role they play is so essential for
human well-being that it is difficult to attribute an economic value (de Groot et al.
2002), but even though there are risks associated with the “monetisation of nature”
(Costanza 2006; Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez 2011), research on the eco-
nomic valuation of ecosystem services has contributed to making the value they
have for global and local economies more intelligible. These can be used “freely”
by citizens and economic stakeholders (Costanza et al. 1997).
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 9

1.4  reen and Blue Infrastructure and Nature-Based

G
Solutions (NBS) for the Resilient Regeneration
of the Contemporary City

Recently, Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) (European Commission 2013a, b)

has played an increasingly significant role in practices and processes of urban and
landscape planning (Benedict and McMahon 2000; EEA 2014; Lafortezza et al.
2013) by redefining spatial planning paradigms in a resilient and ecologically ori-
ented way. They have made a planning contribution in the usable ecological recon-
figuration of the contemporary city and region. In the document, “An Action Plan
for nature, people and economy” (European Commission 2017), the European
Commission identified Green Infrastructure as the best management and protection
tool for European natural capital sites as priorities to rescue threatened habitats and
species in Europe, while pursuing an objective of restoring at least 15% of the
degraded ecosystems and maintaining the ecosystems and their services. GBI may
not appear a new solution in urban planning and might be seen as “old wine in new
bottles” (Davies et al. 2006, Von Christian et al. 2012), if considered design of net-
works of open spaces with ecological connotations. They are a relevant and fruitful
field of experimentation in the re-urbanisation of the contemporary city in a resilient
and adaptive dimension (Ahern 2007), which responds to multiple differentiated
functions referring to the soil characters and the design scale of the project.
While restoring the methodological and planning tradition of Ecological net-
works which guarantee biodiversity and connections between highly natural areas
(Bennet and Mulongoy 2006), GBI supersedes and re-orientates the concept of net-
work, in the multifunctional and multi-scale perspective (Arcidiacono et al. 2018b).
“GBI is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other
environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem
services (…). In addition to providing a key tool to halt and reverse the loss of bio-
diversity, this network of green and blue spaces provides simultaneously a multi-
plicity of benefits in a cost-efficient way. The delivery of those benefits is maximised
if planned at a strategic level” (European Commission 2013b). GBI is mooted as a
planning tool for the conservation and protection of rural and natural systems’ land-
scape values, supporting land take restriction measures while becoming the spatial
design of reference for the implementation and consistency check of nature-based
solutions (NBS), or “living solutions inspired and supported by the use of natural
processes and structures which are designed to address various environmental chal-
lenges in an efficient and adaptable manner, while simultaneously providing eco-
nomic, social, and environmental benefits” (European Commission 2015; Maes and
Jacobs 2017). GBI is a tool to increase the quantity and quality of natural resources
within the city’s central and peri-urban fabrics (European Commission 2013b),
where regulating ecosystem services are precious and fragile, from within a project
that integrates systems of natural areas and water resources with slow mobility net-
works, energy and digital infrastructures, building systems of spatial, social and
value relationships, cohesive and inclusive, supporting widespread regeneration
10 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

processes of existing fabrics. Networks of spaces, waters, landscape, urban and

agricultural, green areas and places of waste and abandonment interact and pene-
trate the building fabrics to the core and bring a different contribution to the urban
metabolism. This contribution is based upon recycling and optimising resources and
social re-appropriation of shared assets. Systems of areas are managed by multilevel
governance processes, in which urban planning intersects with spontaneous plan-
ning actions, as the “tactical urbanism” (Lyndon and Garcia 2015), which can con-
struct and reinforce local community identity (European Commission 2015).
Designing GBI, open areas and spaces become planning places and components,
which identify and differentiate NBS based on ecosystem values, within an overall
frame based on the re-composition and ecological and social regeneration of the
urban structure. A network of areas, in the urban and peri-urban area, denoted by a
specific landscape dimension and ecosystem condition which provide support for
city’s naturalness reconstruction strategies and impact regulation on soil biological
cycles, verifying its permeability and porosity ratios (European Commission 2013b;
Maes et al. 2014).
GBI is a supporting structure, which is designed based upon the mapping and
evaluation of functionalities and ecosystem services which allow to assess and ver-
ify planning decisions and strategies. It is a planning perspective which overturns
the traditional quantitative and functional urban planning approach. It introduces a
performance dimension at setting performative criteria and design guidelines, to be
adapted to physical and social local contexts, to which anchoring the methods of
evaluation and control of urban regeneration processes and restriction of land take.
GBI becomes a strategic and spatial “backbone” in public–private negotiation
processes, by guiding transformation and regeneration proposals towards updated
objectives of collective and public interest – no longer just increasing the supply of
areas and services but achieving new ecological performance, which can conserve
and enhance the precious and threatened regulating ecosystem services within the
city’s built-up fabrics.
GBI’s multi-scale dimension constitutes its primary potential in territory’s spa-
tial structuring. At the landscape scale, it provides a priority structure for planning
strategies, which protect the landscape’s ecological and natural values, and develops
territorial use systems that resiliently and adaptively support guidelines and devices
to protect and sustain landscape development and provide the re-composition and
regeneration of degraded areas. At the urban scale, it provides a framework for
defining and selecting NBS, for the updated and informed design of the public city
and local welfare, appropriate to the evolution of social demand and the concept of
urban living quality, which is capable of responding to the recent requirements of
collective interest and urban well-being based on a resilient and adaptive configura-
tion of urban and spatial structures.
In this sense, GBI faces the reduction of land take through a planning and design
perspective by:
• Coordinating the regulatory restrictions of land-use transformations within a
landscape networks design
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 11

• Protecting and enhancing the ecological porosity of the consolidated urban fabrics
• Conditioning and articulating the implementation of a general strategy aimed at
the densification of the existing city using solutions that do not compromise the
supply and quality of existing urban open spaces (even private)
• Addressing the regeneration of abandonment and disused places with active
measures towards bringing new naturalness and permeability of the soil inside
the built-up city and responding resiliently to climate change pressures

1.5 Conclusions

Nowadays, it is imperative to innovate spatial planning paradigm so that it can

address new challenges in the design of the contemporary city, in sustainable and
resilience perspective of land-use transformation to climate changes. A model must
be found that reduces the use of natural resources, primarily soil, through awareness
of the values of services that the ecosystem provides and the multiple benefits that
they produce for human well-being. The ecosystem approach constitutes an impor-
tant model, but there are still several critical issues.
While the ES debate is widespread in the academic discourse, in the literature
and scientific research, there is a lack of awareness by public decision-makers on
the importance of ecosystem services for urban quality and collective well-being.
This need for greater awareness is related to urban planning goals towards redefin-
ing and expanding the collective interest concerns, where ecosystem services
directly affect the quality of life and well-being of citizens.
The second element of weakness concerns the limited integration of the ecosys-
tem approach into spatial planning; until today, the experiences are limited and
sector-based. It seems necessary to assume a transdisciplinary perspective in rede-
fining the urban planning paradigm, in which the different technical disciplines co-­
participate in setting planning decisions. Planners require greater awareness of the
contribution that the ecosystem assessment can provide to the redefinition of the
spatial plan for re-urbanising the contemporary city in a flexible and ecologically
oriented manner which can respond to the challenges imposed by climate change.
In defining spatial and landscape planning strategies that favour the regeneration of
the existing city over new land take of agricultural and natural soils, it is essential
that the “porosity” of urban fabrics is increased, to conserve open spaces and exist-
ing greenery and improving the urban natural capital. The densification of the built-
­up city becomes an agreeable objective only if practised through regeneration
(environmental and social) and the partial re-naturalisation of already urbanised and
soil sealed areas, where the transformation of land use must contribute to the pursuit
of new ecological and environmental goals. Many recent urban redevelopment proj-
ects, implemented in European and Italian cities, have achieved results of renewal
and real estate development of areas using greenwashing strategies but have been
ineffective in increasing ecosystem quality and social cohesion of open
12 A. Arcidiacono and S. Ronchi

spaces – despite being frequently supported by rhetoric of the ecological city and
environmental sustainability.
A third critical “knot to untangle” concerns the scale of ES in terms of the rela-
tion between ES mapping and evaluating and spatial planning strategies. Mismatches
between the scales at which ES are delivered, demanded and governed are recog-
nised as being one of the most important causes of failures in natural resource man-
agement and a critical issue in ES adoption for spatial planning. Investigations on
“scale definition” insist that ES assessment must consider the ecological processes
that ensure the provision of goods and services, and the relevant application level
which is central to any ES evaluation and analysis of environmental changes.
Addressing mismatches requires an adjustment between ES ecological processes
at the management and planning scale. The adoption of a multi-scale approach
could help overcome or at least reduce this critical issue. Mapping and scale issues
must be investigated together for ES implementation in planning and assessment
processes, as ES evaluation and mapping are often inadequate or ignored during the
decision-making process.
The ES assessment mismatch can be solved (or a suitable compromise found) in
the adoption of the landscape scale as a logical setting. This is due to the mixture of
historical, social, cultural and environmental aspects and dynamics. A landscape
approach goes beyond administrative boundaries to focus on conserving the similar-
ity of the landscape structure. Landscape metrics can help assess the benefiting
areas which rely on provisioning areas for the delivery of services.
Another key topic is the importance of including ES consideration in the strate-
gic environmental assessment (SEA), providing a window of opportunity to main-
stream ES into decision-making processes and planning formally, and the adoption
of an ecological compensation method to redefine and improve proposals for land-­
uses changes.
A relevant contribution which facilitates experimentation of evaluation and map-
ping of ecosystem services integration and the construction of a new planning model
is related to the development of GBI, as an innovative structure for contemporary
planning.
The potential of GBI methodology to provide an innovative approach is becom-
ing increasingly important for planning, where these networks can shape the new
framework of the contemporary urban and territorial structure, and systems of open
spaces (public and private), urban and peri-urban areas, agricultural and natural soil,
are integrated as pieces of an ecologically oriented and socially inclusive recreative
and environmental project. GBI permits the experimentation of an across-scale
approach to the project, in which the wide-scale design of green networks is down-
scaled at intercommunal and local levels and can activate forms of governance and
social sharing of the local project, within a common perspective of improving the
quality of living conditions.
This volume aims to provide a scientific and methodological contribution to the
trialling of an innovative method in Italian spatial and landscape planning, through
a critical reflection on the opportunities and potential connected to the application
of ecosystem services and green and blue infrastructures to spatial planning,
1 Challenges for Contemporary Spatial Planning in Italy. Towards a New Paradigm 13

demonstrating innovative national case study while highlighting critical issues that
need to be resolved.

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Another Random Scribd Document
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 “That man acts as if he wanted to see us in a hurry,” said Jack, as
he straightened up and watched the fellow’s approach.
The man was a stranger to them and eyed them inquiringly as he
came closer.
“Are you the Rovers?” he demanded.
“We are,” answered Jack. “What of it?”
“I’ve got bad news for you,” was the man’s answer. “Mr. Tom
Rover has been seriously hurt, and the other fellows think you had
better come to see him just as soon as possible.”
 CHAPTER XXV
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE LOG CABIN

“My dad hurt!”

The cry came simultaneously from Andy and Randy.
“What happened to him?” questioned Fred and Jack.
“His horse stumbled on the down trail and threw Mr. Rover over
his head,” answered the man. “I don’t know but he may have his
skull cracked. Some miners picked him up and took him to
Longnose’s shack.”
“You mean the Indian called Longnose?” queried Randy, for the
boys had heard of such an individual living along Sunset Trail. He
was an old man and quite a notorious character, and the lads had
thought that some time they might visit him.
“That’s the fellow. They put Mr. Rover to bed and sent one of the
men off for a doctor. He was unconscious for a while, but then he
began to call out for his sons and for Jack and Fred. One of the men
knew about you being in this vicinity and said you were stopping with
Cal Corning. So then I rode over to Corning’s place. He wasn’t
home, but the women folks there told me that you were on a
camping trip and that I could find you either at Dogberry Lake or
Gansen Lake. I rode over to Dogberry first, and then I came here.
My name is Nick Ocker. I’m from Allways.”
“Will you take us over to my dad?” questioned Andy.
“Sure, I will. I told the other fellows that I’d come back with you.
They thought if they couldn’t get the doctor they might get some sort
of a wagon and move Mr. Rover over to Allways. He’s west of here,
and it would be easier traveling that way than this. The road is better
going. Besides that, we’ve got two doctors over there, and one of
them, Doc Hendershot, runs a kind of hospital.”
 The sad news that the twins’ father had been seriously hurt
worried the boys greatly. The twins were the most affected and so
worked up they could scarcely prepare themselves for the trip.
“Oh, Jack! suppose he dies?” burst out Andy frantically.
“Oh, it may not be so bad, Andy,” said the young major soothingly.
“First reports are often ten times worse than they ought to be.”
“But if he’s got a fractured skull——” put in Randy, and then
choked up so he could not go on.
The boys could think of but one thing, and that was to get to Tom
Rover’s side as quickly as possible. Kicking the campfire into the
lake so that the blaze might do no damage during their absence,
they ran for their horses and were soon mounted. In their hurry to get
away they forgot almost everything else, although just before leaping
into the saddle Fred grabbed up one of the pistols and Jack the
other.
The horse on which Nick Ocker was mounted showed signs of
having been ridden a considerable distance. Yet he got over Sunset
Trail at a fairly good rate of speed, although to the boys, anxious to
get to Tom Rover’s side, it seemed almost a snail’s pace.
“If we were only sure where this Longnose’s cabin was located we
could go ahead,” said Randy.
“That’s right,” breathed his brother, clattering along beside his twin
over the rocky trail. “Gee, if only we had an auto and could use it!”
“If dad is seriously hurt what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it will depend on circumstances. It’s too
bad there isn’t some city near by where we could get a first-class
doctor and maybe put dad in a real hospital. That’s most likely what
he’ll need.”
Up one foothill and down another passed the Rover boys and their
guide. Then Sunset Trail made a sharp turn and they found
themselves climbing the mountainside. Here the going was
exceedingly rough, and they had to ride with care. Then they
reached the top of the rise and went downward, still hugging the
mountainside.
“I reckon it was somewhere along here that the other fellows
picked Mr. Rover up,” observed Nick Ocker as they clattered along,
occasionally sending a loose stone down into the rocky valley below
them. “It’s a mighty bad place to get a tumble, if you want to know it.”
“Did he break any bones, do you know?” questioned Fred.
“It seemed to me one of his wrists acted that way,” answered
Ocker. “It was very limp and swollen. But, of course, Mr. Rover was
hurt too badly around the head to tell anything about it. He’s got a
bad bruise on his left shoulder too. I don’t like to alarm you boys, but
I think he’ll be mighty lucky if he pulls out of it.”
“How far have we to go now?” questioned Randy. He had asked
the same question several times before.
“Not more than half a mile,” was the reply of the guide.
Nick Ocker was not a prepossessing individual when it came to
looks. He was tall, gaunt, and had several scars on the side of his
face and on his neck. He had bulging black eyes that seemed at
times to almost pop out of his head, and a crop of black hair that was
almost as stiff as a brush. He was rather poorly dressed, showing
that he was most likely down on his luck.
But just now the boys paid little attention to their guide except to
follow him on the trail. Their thoughts were centered upon their
relative who had been hurt. In what condition would they find him?
Was he still alive?
Presently they reached a split in the roadway. Sunset Trail
continued westward and a smaller trail headed along the
mountainside to the north.
“There is Longnose’s cabin!” exclaimed Nick Ocker, pointing
ahead. “And there is one of the fellows waving to us to come on.”
The place he pointed out was an old and dilapidated log cabin
built, evidently, by some prospector years ago. It stood in the
shadow of a clump of fir trees and on one side was an immense rock
resting precariously close to the edge of a sharp cliff.
“Are those the Rover boys?” sang out the man in front of the
cabin, as the party came up.
“Yes,” answered Nick Ocker. “How is Mr. Rover?”
“Not so well,” was the reply. “He’s been asking for his two sons
and the others right along. But listen,” went on the man. “You chaps
want to go in there cautiously. The doctor was here and said Mr.
Rover was not to be excited.”
Hastily dismounting, the four boys entered the log cabin, and as
they did so the two men outside led the horses away. Then several
other men appeared, each with his soft hat pulled far down over his
forehead.
“Make it short and snappy,” said one of the men to all of the
others. “Don’t take any chances. If you give ’em any rope they’ll fight
like wildcats.”
“I’m all ready,” answered one of the other men. He was carrying a
number of ropes.
One after another the boys entered the log cabin. It was rather
dark inside, and for several seconds they could see little or nothing.
Then they saw a bunk on the far side of the room and on it rested a
form partly covered with a blanket. The head of the form was
swathed in bandages. With their hearts in their throats Andy and
Randy approached what they thought was the form of their father,
and Fred and Jack followed. Then, as they were bending over the
form in the bunk, they heard hasty footsteps behind them. The next
instant each of them found his arms pinned behind him.
“Take it easy now! Take it easy or you’ll be sorry for it!” cried one of
the men in a hard voice.
“If you try to fight you’ll get the worst licking you ever had in all
your life,” added another of the men.
“Wha-what does this mean?” stammered Randy. The sudden turn
of affairs completely bewildered him.
 “Dad! Dad!” came from Andy, who in a flash thought his father
might be the victim of foul play at the hands of the men who were
now attacking them.
“Keep quiet there—keep quiet!” ordered one of the men who was
holding Jack.
But the young major had no intention of submitting calmly to the
unexpected attack that had been made on him and his cousins. Like
a lightning flash it came to him that they were the victims of a trap,
and his astonishment was increased when he saw that the man who
was holding him was Carson Davenport!
“I told you I’d get you some day, you rat!” cried Davenport between
his set teeth. “I’ve waited a long time, but now I’ve got you!” and still
holding Jack he did his best to bind the young major’s hands behind
him.
In the meanwhile the other boys were struggling with might and
main to get away from the rascals who were holding them. Half a
dozen blows were struck, and poor Fred was dragged outside by two
of the men and tightly bound, hands and feet. Andy presently
followed, and then the whole gang of men set upon Randy and Jack.
They continued to fight until each received a blow on the head that
all but stunned him. Then they, too, were roped up.
In the mêlée in the cabin Randy and his assailant had lunged
against the bunk where the figure supposed to be that of Tom Rover
rested. In the mix-up the figure fell out on the floor and proved to be
nothing but a crudely made dummy.
When the boys recovered somewhat from the effects of the
unexpected attack they were surprised to find themselves
confronted, not only by Carson Davenport, but also by Tate and
Jackson, Davenport’s cronies in the oil fields. The other two men
were a fellow named Digby and the guide who had brought them to
the ill-fated spot.
“Well, that trick worked to perfection,” said Davenport, as he eyed
the four prisoners with satisfaction. “Now then, Ocker, tell us just how
you worked it.”
 Thereupon Ocker related how he had gone directly to Gansen
Lake and told his faked story of Tom Rover’s mishap. He had not
been near Cal Corning’s home, for the reason that the crowd had
already information regarding the movements of the younger Rovers.
“I think the best thing you can do, Ocker, is to go back to that
camp and bring all of the duffel up here. Take Digby with you. Make
it look as if the boys had been there and then moved on to some
other place. That will set Tom Rover to guessing and give us a
chance to make a clean get-away.”
“Now you’ve captured us, what do you intend to do with us?”
questioned Jack. The blood was flowing down one of his cheeks, but
he had no means of wiping it away.
“You’ll find out a little later,” answered Davenport.
“You kids are responsible for our dropping a lot of money down in
the oil fields,” came from Jackson, with a sour look at the Rovers.
“We calculate to get some of that money back.”
“Nothing happened to you but what you deserved,” retorted Fred.
“That’s your way of looking at it. We think differently,” growled
Tate, and then he added: “We might as well be on the way.
Longnose will be back here to-night most likely, and we’ll want to
clean up before he comes.”
Bound as they were, the boys were helpless. One after another
they were lashed fast to their horses and then the men brought forth
their own steeds. The log cabin was put in order, the door closed,
and the whole party rode off, Jackson in advance and Davenport
bringing up the rear. Between them rode the four boys and Tate. All
of the men carried guns, and Davenport had the pistol taken from
Jack while Tate carried the one Fred had brought along.
“Well, I’m mighty glad of one thing,” said Randy to his twin, as they
rode along a narrow trail leading into the mountains. “I’m glad that
figure in the bunk was a dummy and not dad.”
“That’s right,” answered his brother quickly. “Gee! when I think of
that story being a fake I’m almost satisfied to be a prisoner.”
 “I wonder if we can’t ride away from them,” whispered the other.
“What! with all of them carrying guns? I’m afraid not. They could
easily shoot our horses, even if they didn’t want to shoot us.”
The boys, bruised and bleeding from the atrocious attack made
upon them, thought the ride along the mountainside would never
come to an end. The horses had to proceed with care, for the rocky
trail was full of perils, and before the ride came to an end Fred was
so dizzy and weak he could hardly see. Randy’s back hurt him, and
he would have given almost anything just to lie down.
Presently they reached a place where the underbrush among the
trees was heavy. Here the whole party came to a halt and the men
dismounted. One after another the boys were unlashed and the
ropes binding their feet were released. Then, somewhat to their
surprise, they were led into a long, low cave shaped somewhat like a
dumb-bell with a narrow opening in the center. At this opening some
rough timbers had been placed, held securely by several chains. At
one side one of the timbers could be pushed away, forming
something of a door.
“Now then, in you go!” cried Davenport, and one after another the
lads were thrust into the back section of the cavern. Then the log
door was pushed again into position and chained, and the four Rover
boys found themselves prisoners in the cave.
 CHAPTER XXVI
THREE DEMANDS

On the morning following the capture of the four Rover boys, Miss
Jennie Corning, on getting up to prepare breakfast for her brother
and Tom Rover, was much surprised to find a letter that had been
thrust under the front door of the house.
“Well, I declare, it’s a letter for Mr. Rover!” she exclaimed to
herself. “I wonder why they didn’t knock? Perhaps they thought we
were all asleep and didn’t want to wake us up.”
She heard Tom stirring in his room, and, going to it, knocked on
the door.
“A letter for you,” she said as he peered out through a crack. “I
found it shoved under the front door.”
On the day previous Tom Rover had received telegrams from both
Mr. Renton and Mr. Parkhurst stating that they were with him in his
actions against Peter Garrish and that they would come to Gold Hill
as soon as possible.
“Maybe Garrish has got wind of what I’m up to and wants to head
me off,” thought Tom as he sat down on a chair by the window and
opened the communication.
He read the letter hastily and then uttered a low whistle as he read
it a second time. The communication ran as follows:

“You and your family have done a whole lot toward

placing us in a hole. Now we intend to get square. We
have your twin sons and the other two boys prisoners
a long distance from here. They are in a spot where
you will never be able to find them. If you ever expect
to see your twins alive again be prepared to pay us fifty
 thousand dollars in cash. This is a first notice so that
you can get the money together and have it ready. You
will soon receive another notice as to how the money
is to be paid. Do not try to put the authorities on our
track or you will regret it as long as you live.
“Davenport.
“Jackson.
“Tate.”

It would be hard to analyze poor Tom’s feeling when he had

ascertained the contents of the letter. The news that the boys were
prisoners of their enemies upset him fully as much as the boys had
been upset when they had been told the twins’ father was injured.
“Dick was right, after all!” he groaned. “I thought he was
overcautious when he had the women folks and the girls taken away.
But he was right. Davenport must have been up around Colby Hall
and Clearwater Hall for the express purpose of getting his hands on
the boys, and the girls too. It was a deep-laid plot, no doubt of it. And
that being so, they have probably done everything they could to
cover up their tracks.”
What to do Tom hardly knew. He dressed with all possible haste
and then went to talk the matter over with Cal Corning, who had not
been away from home, as Nick Ocker had told the boys.
“It’s a villainous piece of business,” was Corning’s comment. “Why,
those rascals have kidnaped the lads! They ought every one of them
to be shot down!”
“I agree with you,” answered Tom. “But first we’ve got to find them.
You told them to go to a place called Gansen Lake, didn’t you?”
“Yes. It’s one of the finest spots in this vicinity for camping out.”
“Then I think I’d better ride over there and try to find out what
happened,” went on the twins’ father. “I’d like you to come along.”
“I sure will, Mr. Rover. And we’ll take guns along too—we may
need ’em,” went on Cal Corning, an angry look in his eyes. “I hope
we can round those rascals up. Things have been pretty peaceable
like in this county, and we want ’em to continue that way. We don’t
harbor no bandits nor kidnapers either.”
Tom waited until Cal Corning had swallowed a hasty breakfast. For
himself, he managed to drink a cup of coffee at the earnest
solicitation of Miss Jennie and Miss Lucy, both of whom were highly
excited over what was taking place. Then the two men rode off
toward Lake Gansen.
It was an easy matter for Corning to locate the spot where the four
boys had camped. On the edge of the lake they found the remains of
the campfire, and, searching the vicinity, came upon a handkerchief
bearing Fred’s initials. But everything was gone, for Ocker and Digby
had taken the things away the evening before.
Cal Corning was a thorough backwoodsman and after a careful
search declared that all of the horses had passed up to Sunset Trail.
They followed the hoofmarks for a short distance, but soon lost them
where the trail became rocky.
It was long after dark before Tom Rover returned to the Corning
homestead. Cal had preceded him, but Tom had been loath to give
up the hunt for the missing ones. He had found absolutely no trace
of the boys, and he was increasingly dispirited. For the time being all
thoughts concerning Peter Garrish and his doings were forgotten.
“I’ve got to do something,” muttered Tom to himself. “I’ve simply
got to do something!” But what to do he did not know. He started
another hunt the next day, and then, being equally unsuccessful in
getting a trace of the four boys, rode over to Maporah and sent a
long telegram to his two brothers.
The telegram was delivered to Dick Rover at the home on
Riverside Drive in New York just at a time when Dick and Sam were
so excited they could scarcely contain themselves.
And their excitement was justified, for while the two men had been
eating dinner in Dick’s home, a messenger had appeared at the front
door with two communications, one addressed to Dick and the other
to his younger brother. Each of the two letters was similar to that
sent to Tom Rover. In the one addressed to Dick the three rascals,
Davenport, Jackson and Tate, demanded fifty thousand dollars for
the safe return of Jack, while in the communication addressed to
Sam the same amount of money was demanded for the safe return
of Fred. Completely bewildered by these letters the two men had
been discussing the situation when the telegram from Tom was
brought in.
“Poor Tom is in the same boat!” exclaimed Sam. “Those
scoundrels want fifty thousand dollars from him or they won’t return
the twins.”
“That means that Tate, Jackson and Davenport want a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars from us for the safe return of the four
boys,” came from Dick. “It’s a pretty stiff demand, I take it.”
“Are you going to pay it, Dick?”
“Not if I can possibly help it. Fifty thousand dollars isn’t a flea bite.
At the same time, I don’t want them to hurt Jack or the other boys. I
know Davenport and his crowd pretty well. They are about as hard-
boiled as they come. I suppose the gang are as mad as hornets at
me and the kids for the way we turned the tables on them down in
the oil fields.”
“Well, I don’t believe in giving them a cent, either,” said Sam. “Just
the same, it makes me shiver to think of what they might do to Fred if
I don’t pony up.”
“We’ve got to do something, that’s sure.” Dick Rover began to
pace up and down the floor. “I expect Tom is just as much worried as
we are. It was an outrage to let Davenport and those other fellows
out of prison, and this proves it. I’ll tell you what, Sam. I’d give a
good part of that fifty thousand dollars right now to get my hands on
Davenport,” and Dick’s eyes sparked angrily.
From the servant girl they learned that the message had been
delivered by a boy. Who the fellow was she did not know, nor could
she give a very good description of his appearance.
“I suppose he was a kid just hired for the occasion,” said Dick.
“Most likely he knew nothing about the fellow who gave him the
letters.” And in this surmise Jack’s father was correct.
 The two talked the matter over for half an hour and then Dick
telephoned to a telegraph station and sent a telegram to Tom stating
he was starting for Maporah immediately and that Sam would
probably follow in a day or two.
“Somebody will have to go down to the office in the morning,” said
Dick. “I’ll take the midnight train for Chicago. You can follow just as
soon as you can fix things up in Wall Street,” and so it was arranged.
Although he did not know it, Dick Rover’s departure for the Grand
Central Terminal was noted by a young man who was watching the
three Rover houses from the other side of Riverside Drive. This
person was none other than the fellow who had introduced himself to
the Rover boys as Joe Brooks. And it was Brooks, acting on
information sent to him by telegraph by Davenport, who had made
the demands in the letters received by Dick and Sam.
“Going West, eh?” muttered Brooks to himself, after he saw Dick
on his way on the midnight limited. “I’ll have to let Davenport know
about this,” and he immediately forwarded a cipher dispatch. Then
he returned to the vicinity of the Rover homes to learn if possible
what Sam Rover intended to do.
He remained around the vicinity for more than an hour, then
returned to his hotel to snatch a few hours’ sleep. But he was up by
seven o’clock and once more on the watch, and he followed Sam
down into Wall Street and at noon saw Sam also depart for Maporah.
Then he sent an additional dispatch to Davenport.
“I think I might as well go out West myself now,” he told himself
after the dispatch had been forwarded. “There is no use of letting
Davenport and that crowd get their fists on one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars when I’m not around. If I’m not on hand they may
forget all the work I’ve done on the case. I’m entitled to my full share
of whatever comes in, and I intend to have it.” A few hours later he
too departed for the West, getting a ticket for Allways. He traveled as
he was as far as Chicago. But there, before changing to the other
train, he donned the costume of a Westerner and put on a wig of
sandy gray hair which made him look considerably older than he
was.
 Although he had not said a word to anybody about it, Dick Rover
carried with him on his Western trip the equivalent of seventy-five
thousand dollars, part in cash and part in Liberty Bonds. When Sam
left the city at noon the day following he carried a like amount of
cash and securities, the two sums making the total of the amount
demanded by the rascals who were holding the four boys for
ransom.
“If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll have to pony up and let it go
at that,” was the way Dick had expressed himself before leaving.
“Just the same, I hope we won’t have to give up a cent, and that we
can catch those rascals red-handed.”
Dick hoped greatly that Tom would have good news for him on his
arrival. But he was doomed to disappointment. Tom rode over to the
Maporah station to meet his brother, and one look at his face told
Dick that so far the hunt for the missing boys had proved fruitless.
“I’m keeping the thing as quiet as possible,” said Tom, whose eyes
showed that he had slept but little the past few nights. “But I’ve got
Cal Corning, Hank Butts, Lew Billings, and half a dozen other men
hunting high and low for the boys. So far though they haven’t turned
up the slightest clew, and I haven’t been able to get a clew myself,
although I’ve been riding up and down one trail and another and
making inquiries of every one I met. Not a soul seems to have seen
them since they were at Lake Gansen.”
“Have you received any more letters?” asked Dick.
“No. But I’m expecting one every day. Those fellows are probably
as anxious as we are. They’ll want to get their money and most likely
get out of the country—maybe going down into Mexico where we
can’t get at them.”
“I don’t like it, Tom, that you haven’t got more word,” and now
Dick’s face showed deeper anxiety than ever. “Those fellows may
have got cold feet on the whole proposition and done away with the
boys.”
“That may be so, Dick,” and Tom’s voice took on a tone of
hopelessness. “I wouldn’t put it past Davenport and that gang to do
anything. I only pray to Heaven that the boys may still be alive.”
 CHAPTER XXVII
PRISONERS IN THE CAVE

Meanwhile, what of the four Rover boys and their captors?

Bruised and bleeding, the lads had been thrown into the rear part
of the stony cavern, as already mentioned. The ropes which had
bound them had been taken away, but they were prisoners behind
heavy logs kept in place by strong chains.
Fred was so weak he was unable for the time being to stand, and
so slipped down in a heap in a corner with his back against a big
stone. There Andy followed him, nursing a wounded shoulder where
he had been struck with a club. Randy and Jack had also suffered,
the former having one arm severely wrenched in the mêlée at
Longnose’s cabin and the young major suffering from several cuts
on the forehead and on his chin.
“Now then, you boys behave yourselves and rest a while, and then
we’ll have a talk,” announced Davenport, and he and his gang went
outside, leaving the boys alone.
It was rather dark in the cavern, the only light coming from the
entrance, which was partly screened by the bushes, and from a
small crack overhead. This crack served to ventilate the place, there
being a continual current of air from the opening in front to that
above.
It must be admitted that the four boys felt anything but happy as
they peered at their surroundings. All were too fatigued from the
forced ride over the rocky trail to do much talking. They gathered in a
group on the stony floor of the cave, trying to attend to their cuts and
bruises as well as their limited means permitted.
“Gee, if a fellow only had a bit of water!” said Fred.
“They are a bunch of beasts!” cried Randy.
 “They have certainly made us prisoners,” said Jack grimly.
“Evidently they fixed this place on purpose for us.”
“Certainly looks it,” came from Andy. “Gee, it’s just like a regular
prison! Not much chance of getting away from here, I’m afraid.”
A little later Tate came in carrying two buckets of water and two
towels. He was followed by Jackson, who unlocked the chain holding
the log of the doorway in place, so that the water and towels might
be placed inside of the prison-like apartment. The men had a lantern
with them, and this they placed on a flat stone.
“There is one bucket to wash in and another for drinking,” said
Tate. “And here are a couple of towels you can use on your hurts.
We didn’t mean to treat you quite so rough, and it wouldn’t have
happened if you hadn’t put up a fight.”
“What are you going to do with us, Tate?” demanded Jack.
“You’ll find out a little later. Davenport will come in and talk with
you.”
“I suppose you’ve made another demand on our folks for money,”
declared Randy.
“Don’t bother your head about that now,” put in Jackson. “Better
have a drink and wash up. Then you’ll feel better.” Thereupon the
two men placed the log of the doorway in position, adjusted the
chain, and left the cave.
The boys were glad to get the water and likewise the use of the
lantern. Each washed in turn and took a drink, and then all felt
somewhat better. But their long tramp through the woods that
afternoon, the ride to Longnose’s cabin, and then the ride to the cave
had made all of them exceedingly hungry.
“Wonder if they’re going to give us anything to eat,” remarked Fred
after the light from outside had faded, leaving only the lantern to light
the cavern.
“I hardly think they intend to starve us,” replied Jack. “Those
fellows are out for only one thing—money.”
 The young major was right in regard to being starved, and less
than an hour later Tate and Digby appeared carrying a pot of stew,
another of coffee, and a loaf of bread.
“It’s the best we can do to-night,” said Tate, grinning. “Perhaps to-
morrow we’ll have something better.”
“Then you intend to keep us prisoners?” demanded Jack.
“Sure thing!”
“Don’t you know you’ll get yourselves into hot water doing that,
Tate?”
“I reckon we know what we’re doing, Rover.”
“If you kids will only behave yourselves you’ll be treated fine,” put
in Digby. “We don’t want to hurt you. All we expect to do is to keep
you here for maybe a week at the most. As soon as your folks come
across we’ll let you go.”
“And suppose they don’t come across?” questioned Fred.
“Then you’ll have to take the consequences.”
Once more the Rover boys were left to themselves. The men had
brought with them four tin plates, four cups, and the necessary
knives, forks and spoons, and the lads lost no time in attacking the
simple meal which had been furnished them.
“This must have been a well-prepared plan of theirs,” was Andy’s
comment while they were eating. “They’ve even got tableware for us,
and towels.”
“I’ll wager Davenport’s had this planned ever since he went to
Haven Point,” returned Jack. “Perhaps he thought he could get hold
of us or a hold of the girls while we were there. And since I’ve been
here thinking things over I’ve got another idea,” went on the young
major slowly. “I may be all wrong, but somehow I can’t get it out of
my mind.”
“What is that?” questioned Fred.
 “Do you remember that fellow who was in the runabout with
Davenport the day we met them on the road near Colby Hall?”
“Sure!”
“Well, ever since we met that fellow named Joe Brooks first in New
York and afterward in Chicago I’ve been trying to figure out where I
saw the chap. Now I’m wondering if he wasn’t the fellow who was
driving that car.”
“Why, he said he was a friend of Fatty Hendry’s!” exclaimed Andy.
“Yes, he said so. But that doesn’t make it so, does it?”
“You think he was a faker?” came quickly from Randy.
“He was if he was in cahoots with Davenport. Do you remember
how he stood alongside of us when we were buying our tickets for
Maporah, and how he questioned us about Sunset Trail when we
were going around with him in Chicago? He must have been nothing
but a confederate of Davenport and his gang.” And in this surmise,
as we already know, Jack was correct.
Although the bread was somewhat stale, the stew and the coffee
were both warm and fairly good, and, all told, the boys managed to
satisfy their hunger. They were wondering what was going to happen
next when Jackson and Digby came in carrying four blankets.
“No feather beds for you kids to-night,” said Digby. “But I reckon
you’ll find these a good deal better than nothing.”
“Davenport told me to tell you he’d have a talk with you in the
morning,” put in Jackson. “Now don’t try to break out and get away,
because one of us will be on guard in front of the cave all night.
Whoever is there will be armed and ready to shoot if you try any
monkey business.”
“Have you got a camp near by?” questioned Jack.
“Yes; we’re right where we can keep our eyes on you.”
The men went out and once more the four Rovers were left to
themselves. Jack and Randy now felt better, and while the latter took
up the lantern the young major made a careful inspection of the walls
of the cavern.
This inspection was disappointing. There were several nooks and
angles in the back of the cave and one large crack and several small
ones, all leading upward. But nothing in the way of an opening large
enough to admit the passage of the body was revealed.
“It isn’t likely that those fellows would leave any loophole for us,”
remarked Randy, as he held up the lantern. “They probably went
over this place very carefully before they set those logs up and
chained them.”
“I suppose that’s true,” was Jack’s answer. “But I’m going to get
out of here somehow if I possibly can.”
“Humph! I guess we all want to get away if it can be done, Jack.”
“If we don’t get away soon those rascals will hold our dads up for
thousands and thousands of dollars.”
“I know that, too. But we’re not going to be able to get away if this
prison is secure, and if they’re going to set a guard to watch us. For
all you know, they may be listening to every word we’re saying.”
As tired and worn out as they were, Andy and Fred also took a
look around the rocky prison. But nothing new was brought to light,
and presently all four of the boys were too tired to do more. They
arranged their blankets as best they could, and then sank down to
rest. But it was a long while before any of them fell asleep. Jack was
the last to drop off, and he turned the lantern low just before doing so
in order not to waste the oil, for there was no telling if any more
would be forthcoming.
When the four boys arose in the morning each felt in anything but
an agreeable humor. All were stiff and lame and it is doubtful if any
of them could have run very far even had the chance offered. They
had expected a visit from Davenport, but much to their surprise that
individual failed to show himself. Instead Tate and Ocker brought
them a breakfast consisting of coffee, bread, and some slices of
bacon.
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