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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14630 ***
+
+Ruth Fielding
+On Cliff Island
+
+OR
+
+THE OLD HUNTER'S TREASURE BOX
+
+BY
+
+ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+AUTHOR OF "RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL," "RUTH
+FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH," ETC.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+=Books for Girls=
+
+BY ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+
+RUTH FIELDING SERIES
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
+
+Price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
+      Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
+      Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
+      Or, Lost in the Backwoods.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
+      Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
+      Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
+      Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
+      Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
+      Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.
+
+CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
+
+[Illustration: SHE SHOT OVER THE YAWNING EDGE OF THE CHASM AND
+DISAPPEARED]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. THE WRECK AT APPLEGATE CROSSING      1
+
+   II. THE PANTHER AT LARGE                 9
+
+  III. UNCLE JABEZ HAS TWO OPINIONS        17
+
+   IV. ON THE WAY TO BRIARWOOD             26
+
+    V. A LONG LOOK AHEAD                   35
+
+   VI. PICKING UP THE THREADS              42
+
+  VII. "A HARD ROW TO HOE"                 49
+
+ VIII. JERRY SHEMING AGAIN                 57
+
+   IX. RUTH'S LITTLE PLOT                  66
+
+    X. AN EXCITING FINISH                  73
+
+   XI. A NUMBER OF THINGS                  82
+
+  XII. RUFUS BLENT'S LITTLE WAYS           90
+
+ XIII. FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE             98
+
+  XIV. THE HUE AND CRY                    106
+
+   XV. OVER THE PRECIPICE                 115
+
+  XVI. HIDE AND SEEK                      124
+
+ XVII. CHRISTMAS MORNING                  133
+
+XVIII. FUN ON THE ICE                     143
+
+  XIX. BLENT IS MASTER                    150
+
+   XX. THE FISHING PARTY                  157
+
+  XXI. JERRY'S CAVE                       166
+
+ XXII. SNOWED IN                          173
+
+XXIII. "A BLOW FOR LIBERTY"               181
+
+ XXIV. A MIDNIGHT MARAUDER                189
+
+  XXV. THE TREASURE BOX                   197
+
+
+
+
+RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WRECK AT APPLEGATE CROSSING
+
+
+A September morning has dawned, with only a vague tang of autumn in the
+air. In the green old dooryard at the Red Mill, under the spreading shade
+trees, two girls are shelling a great basket of dried lima beans for the
+winter's store.
+
+The smaller, black-haired girl begins the conversation.
+
+"Suppose Jane Ann doesn't come, Ruth?"
+
+"You mean on this morning train?" responded the plumper and more
+mature-looking girl, whose frank face was particularly attractive.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then Tom said he would go back to meet the evening train--and we'll go
+with him," said Ruth Fielding, with a smile. "But I could not go this
+morning and leave poor Aunt Alvirah all these beans to shell."
+
+"Of course not," agreed her friend, promptly. "And Jane Ann won't feel
+offended by our not meeting her at Cheslow, I know."
+
+"No, indeed, Helen," laughed Ruth. "Jane Ann Hicks is altogether too
+sensible a girl."
+
+"Sensible about everything but her name," commented Helen Cameron, making
+a little face.
+
+"And one can scarcely blame her. It _is_ ugly," Ruth responded, with a
+sigh. "Jane Ann Hicks! Dear, dear! how could her Uncle Bill be so
+thoughtless as to name her that, when she was left, helpless, to his
+care?"
+
+"He didn't realize that fashions in names change--like everything else,"
+observed Helen, briskly.
+
+"I wonder what the girls at Briarwood will say to that name," Ruth
+pondered.
+
+"Why The Fox and Heavy will help us make the other girls toe the mark. And
+Madge Steele! She's a regiment in herself," declared Helen. "We all had
+such a fine time at Silver Ranch that the least we can do is to see that
+Jane Ann is not hazed like the other infants."
+
+"I expect we all have to stand our share of hazing when we go into fresh
+company," said Ruth, reflectively. "But there will not be the same crowd
+to meet her that met us, dear."
+
+"And the Sweetbriars will be on hand to preserve order," laughed her chum.
+"Thanks to _you_, Ruthie. Why--oh! see Tom!"
+
+She jumped up, dropping a lapful of pods, and pointed up the Cheslow road,
+which here branched from the river road almost opposite the Red Mill.
+
+"What is the matter?" demanded Ruth, also scrambling to her feet.
+
+A big touring car was approaching at top speed. They could see that the
+only person in it was a black-haired boy, who sat at the steering wheel.
+
+He brought the machine to an abrupt stop before the gate, and leaped out.
+Tearing off his goggles as he ran, he approached the two girls in such a
+state of excitement that he could scarce speak coherently.
+
+"Oh, Tom! what is it?" gasped Helen, seizing his arm with both hands.
+
+It took but a single glance to discover the relationship between them.
+Twins never looked more alike--only Tom's features lacked the delicacy of
+outline which belonged to his sister.
+
+"Tom!" cried Ruth, on the other side of the excited youth, "don't keep us
+on tenter-hooks. Surely nothing has happened to Jane Ann?"
+
+"I don't know! They won't tell us much about it at the station," exclaimed
+the boy.
+
+"There hasn't been a wreck?" demanded Ruth.
+
+"Yes. At Applegate Crossing. And it is the train from the west that is in
+trouble with a freight. A rear-end collision, I understand."
+
+"Suppose something has happened to the poor girl!" wailed Helen.
+
+"We must go and see," declared Ruth, quick to decide in an emergency. "You
+must drive us, Tom."
+
+"That's what I came back for," replied Tom Cameron, mopping his brow. "I
+couldn't get anything out of Mercy's father----"
+
+"Of course not," Helen said, briskly, as Ruth ran to the house. "The
+railroad employes are forbidden to talk when there is an accident. Mr.
+Curtis might lose his job as station agent at Cheslow if he answered all
+queries."
+
+Ruth came flying back from the house. She had merely called into the
+kitchen to Aunt Alvirah that they were off--and their destination. While
+Tom sprang in and manipulated the self-starter, his sister and the girl of
+the Red Mill took their seats in the tonneau.
+
+By the time old Aunt Alvirah had hobbled to the porch, the automobile was
+being turned, and backed, and then it was off, up the river road. Uncle
+Jabez, in his dusty garments, appeared for a moment at the door of the
+mill as they flashed past in the big motor car. Evidently he was amazed to
+see the three--the girls hatless--starting off at such a pace in the
+Camerons' car.
+
+Tom threw in the clutch at high speed and the car bounded over the road,
+gradually increasing its pace until the hum of the engine almost drowned
+out all speech. The girls asked no questions. They knew that, by following
+the river road along the placid Lumano for some distance, they could take
+a fork toward the railway and reach Applegate Crossing much quicker than
+by going through Cheslow.
+
+Once Tom flung back a word or two over his shoulder. No relief train had
+gone from their home station to the scene of the wreck. It was understood
+that a wrecking gang, and doctors, and nurses, had started from the
+distant city before ever the Cheslow people learned of the trouble.
+
+"Oh! if Jane Ann should be hurt!" murmured Helen for the twentieth time.
+
+"Uncle Bill Hicks would be heartbroken," agreed Ruth.
+
+Although the crossroad, when they struck into it at the Forks, was not so
+smooth and well-built as the river highway, Tom did not reduce speed. Mile
+after mile rolled away behind them. From a low ridge they caught a glimpse
+of the cut where the two trains had come together.
+
+It was the old story of a freight being dilatory in getting out of a block
+that had been opened for the passage of an express. The express had run
+her nose into the caboose of the freight, and more harm was done to the
+freight than to the passenger cars. A great crowd, however, had gathered
+about.
+
+Tom ran the car into an open lot beside the tracks, where part of the
+railroad fence had been torn away. Two passenger cars were on their sides,
+and one or two of the box cars had burst open.
+
+"Look at that!" gasped the boy, whose bright eyes took in much that the
+girls missed, for _they_ were looking for Jane Ann Hicks. "That's a
+menagerie car--and it's all smashed. See! 'Rival's Circus & Menagerie.'
+Crickey! suppose some of the savage animals are loose!"
+
+"Oh! don't suggest such a thing," begged his sister.
+
+Tom saw an excited crowd of men near the broken cage cars of the traveling
+menagerie. Down in the gully that was here crossed by the narrow span of
+the railroad trestle, there was a thick jungle of saplings and brush out
+of which a few taller trees rose, their spreading limbs almost touching
+the sides of the ravine.
+
+It must be confessed that the boy was drawn more toward this point of
+interest than toward the passenger train where Jane Ann might possibly be
+lying injured. But Ruth and Helen ran toward this latter spot, where the
+crowd of passengers was thickest.
+
+Suddenly the crowd parted and the girls saw a figure lying on the ground,
+with a girl about their own age bending over it. Ruth screamed, "Jinny!"
+and at the sound of the pet name her uncle's cow punchers had given her,
+the girl from Silver Ranch responded with an echoing cry.
+
+"Oh, Ruth! And Helen! I'm not hurt--only scratched. But this poor
+fellow----"
+
+"Who is he?" demanded Helen Cameron, as she and Ruth arrived beside their
+friend.
+
+The figure on the ground was a very young man--a boy, in fact. He was
+roughly dressed, and sturdily built. His eyes were closed and he was very
+pale.
+
+"He got me out of the window when the car turned over," gasped Jane Ann.
+"Then he fell with me and has either broken his leg, or twisted it----"
+
+"Only strained, Miss," spoke the victim of the accident, opening his eyes
+suddenly. Ruth saw that they were kind, brown eyes, with a deal of
+patience in their glance. He was not the sort of chap to make much of a
+trifle.
+
+"But you can't walk on it," exclaimed Jane Ann, who was a large-framed
+girl with even blacker hair than Helen's--straight as an Indian's--and
+with flashing eyes. She was expensively dressed, although her torn frock
+and coat were not in very good taste. She showed plainly a lack of that
+motherly oversight all girls need.
+
+"They'll come and fix me up after a time," said the strange youth,
+patiently.
+
+"That won't do," declared Ruth, quickly. "I suppose the doctors are busy
+up there with other passengers?"
+
+"Oh, yes," admitted Jane Ann. "Lots of people were hurt in the cars a good
+deal worse than Mr.--Mr.----?"
+
+"My name's Jerry Sheming, Miss," said the youth. "Don't you worry about
+me."
+
+"Here's Tom!" cried Helen. "Can't we lift him into the car? We'll run to
+Cheslow and let Dr. Davison look at his leg," she added.
+
+Tom, understanding the difficulty at a glance, agreed. Between the four
+young folk they managed to carry Jerry Sheming to the car. They had
+scarcely got him into the tonneau when a series of yells arose from the
+crowd down near the derailed freight train.
+
+"Look out! Take care of that panther! I told you she was out!" shouted one
+voice above the general uproar.
+
+Ruth Fielding and her friends, startled indeed, ran to the brow of the
+hill. One of the wide-branched trees rose from the bottom of the ravine
+right below them. Along one of the branches lay a long, cat-like body.
+
+"A black panther!" gasped Tom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PANTHER AT LARGE
+
+
+"Say! let's get out of here!" exclaimed the girl from the West. "I don't
+want to be eaten up by that cat--and Uncle Bill would make an awful row
+over it. Come on!"
+
+She seized Ruth's hand and, leaving Tom to drag his sister with him, set
+off at full speed for the motor car, wherein Jerry Sheming, the stranger,
+still lay helpless.
+
+Helen was breathless from laughter when she reached the car. Jane Ann's
+desire not to be eaten up by the panther because of what Mr. Bill Hicks,
+of Bullhide, Montana, would say, was so amusing that Tom's twin forgot her
+fright.
+
+"Stop your fooling and get in there--quick!" commanded the anxious boy,
+pushing his sister into the tonneau. With the injured Jerry, the back of
+the car was well filled. Tom leaped into the front seat and tried to start
+the car.
+
+"Quick, Tom!" begged Ruth Fielding. "There's the panther."
+
+"Panther! What panther?" demanded Jerry, starting up in his seat.
+
+The lithe, black beast appeared just then over the brow of the hill. The
+men who had started after the beast were below in the ravine, yelling, and
+driving the creature toward them. The motor car was the nearest object to
+attract the great cat's wrath, and there is no wild beast more savage and
+treacherous.
+
+Tom was having trouble in starting the car. Besides, it was headed
+directly for the huge cat, and the latter undoubtedly had fastened its
+cruel gaze upon the big car and its frightened occupants.
+
+Ruth Fielding and her friends had been in serious difficulties before.
+They had even (in the woods of the Northern Adirondacks and in the
+foothills of the Montana Rockies) met peril in a somewhat similar form.
+But here, with the panther creeping toward them, foot by foot, the young
+friends had no weapon of defense.
+
+Ruth had often proved herself both a courageous and a sensible girl.
+Coming from her old home where her parents had died, a year and a half
+before, she had received shelter at the Red Mill, belonging to her great
+uncle, Jabez Potter, at first as an object of charity, for Uncle Jabez was
+a miserly and ill-tempered old fellow. The adventures of the first book of
+this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe's
+Secret," narrate how Ruth won her way--in a measure, at least--to her
+uncle's heart.
+
+Ruth made friends quickly with Helen and Tom Cameron, and when, the year
+previous, Helen had gone to Briarwood Hall to school, Ruth had gone with
+her, and the fun, friendships, rivalries, and adventures of their first
+term at boarding school are related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall;
+Or, Solving the Campus Mystery."
+
+In "Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost in the Backwoods," the third
+volume of the series, are told the mid-winter sports of our heroine and
+her friends; and later, after the school year is concluded, we find them
+all at the seaside home of one of the Briarwood girls, and follow them
+through the excitement and incidents of "Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse
+Point; Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway."
+
+When our present story opens Ruth and the Camerons have just returned from
+the West, where they had spent a part of the summer vacation with Jane Ann
+Hicks, and their many adventures are fully related in the fifth volume of
+the series, entitled "Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Or, Schoolgirls Among
+the Cowboys."
+
+Few perils they had faced, however, equalled this present incident. The
+black panther, its gleaming eyes fixed upon the stalled motor car and the
+young folk in it, crouched for only a moment, with lashing tail and bared
+fangs.
+
+Uttering another half-stifled snarl, the beast bounded into the air. The
+distance was too great for the brute to pass immediately to the car; but
+it was plain that one more leap would bring her aboard.
+
+"Start it! Quick, Tom!" gasped Helen.
+
+"I--I can't!" groaned her brother.
+
+"Then we must run----"
+
+"Sit still!" commanded Jane Ann, with fire in her eye. "I'm not going to
+run from that cat. I hate 'em, anyway----"
+
+"We can't leave Mr. Sheming," said Ruth, decidedly. "Try again, Tommy."
+
+"Oh, don't bother about me," groaned the young man, who was still a
+stranger to them. "Don't be caught here on my account."
+
+"It will not do us any good to run," cried Ruth, sensibly. "Oh, Tommy!"
+
+And then the engine started. The electric starter had worked at last. Tom
+threw in his clutch and the car lunged ahead just as the snarling cat
+sprang into the air again.
+
+The cat and the car were approaching each other, head on. The creature
+could not change its course; nor could Tom Cameron veer the car very well
+on this rough ground.
+
+He had meant to turn the car in a big circle and make for the road again.
+But that flashing black body darting through the air was enough to shake
+the nerve of anybody. The car "wabbled." It shot towards the tracks, and
+then back again.
+
+Perhaps that was a happy circumstance, after all. For as the car swerved,
+there was a splintering crash, and the windshield was shivered. The body
+of the panther shot to one side and the motor car escaped the full shock
+of the charge.
+
+Over and over upon the ground the panther rolled; and off toward the road,
+in a long, sweeping curve, darted the automobile.
+
+"Lucky escape!" Tom shouted, turning his blazing face once to look back at
+the party in his car.
+
+"Oh! More than luck, Tommy!" returned Ruth, earnestly.
+
+"It was providential," declared Helen, shrinking into her seat again and
+beginning to tremble, now that the danger was past.
+
+"Good hunting!" exclaimed the girl from the ranch. "Think of charging a
+wildcat with one of these smoke wagons! My! wouldn't it make Bashful Ike's
+eyes bulge out? I reckon he wouldn't believe we had such hunting here in
+the East--eh?" and her laugh broke the spell of fear that had clutched
+them all.
+
+"That critter beats the biggest bobcat I ever heard of," remarked Jerry
+Sheming. "Why! a catamount isn't in it with that black beast."
+
+"Where'd it go?" asked Tom, quite taken up with the running of the car.
+
+"Back to the ravine," said Ruth. "Oh! I hope it will do no damage before
+it is caught."
+
+Just now the four young friends had something more immediate to think
+about. This Jerry Sheming had been "playing 'possum." Suddenly they found
+that he lay back in the tonneau, quite insensible.
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Helen. "What shall we do? He is--Oh, Ruth! he isn't
+_dead_?"
+
+"Of a strained leg?" demanded Jane Ann, in some disgust.
+
+"But he looks so white," said Helen, plaintively.
+
+"He's just knocked out. It's hurt him lots more than he let on," declared
+the girl from Silver Ranch, who had seen many a man suffer in silence
+until he lost the grip on himself--as this youth had.
+
+In half an hour the car stopped before Dr. Davison's gate--the gate with
+the green lamps. Jerry Sheming had come to his senses long since and
+seemed more troubled by the fact that he had fainted than by the injury to
+his leg.
+
+Ruth, by a few searching questions, had learned something of his story,
+too. He had not been a passenger on the train in which Jane Ann was riding
+when the wreck occurred. Indeed, he hadn't owned carfare between stations,
+as he expressed it.
+
+"I was hoofin' it from Cheslow to Grading. I heard of a job up at
+Grading--and I needed that job," Jerry had observed, drily.
+
+This was enough to tell Ruth Fielding what was needed. When Dr. Davison
+asked where the young fellow belonged, Ruth broke in with:
+
+"He's going to the mill with me. You come after us, Doctor, if you think
+he ought to go to bed before his leg is treated."
+
+"What do you reckon your folks will say, Miss?" groaned the injured youth.
+And even Helen and Tom looked surprised.
+
+"Aunt Alvirah will nurse you," laughed Ruth. "As for Uncle Jabez----"
+
+"It will do Uncle Jabez good," put in Dr. Davison, confidently. "That's
+right, Ruthie. You take him along to your house. I'll come right out
+behind you and will be there almost before Tom, here, and your uncle's Ben
+can get our patient to bed."
+
+It had already been arranged that Jane Ann should go on to Outlook, the
+Camerons' home. She would remain there with the twins for the few days
+intervening before the young folk went back to school--the girls to
+Briarwood, and Tom to Seven Oaks, the military academy he had entered when
+his sister and Ruth went to their boarding school.
+
+"How you will ever get your baggage--and in what shape--we can only
+guess," Tom said to the Western girl, grinning over his shoulder as the
+car flew on toward the Red Mill. "Guess you'll have to bid a fond farewell
+to all the glad rags you brought with you, and put on some of Ruth's, or
+Helen's."
+
+"I'd look nice; wouldn't I?" she scoffed, tossing her head. "If I don't
+get my trunks I'll sue the railroad company."
+
+The car arrived before the gate of the cottage. There was the basket of
+beans just where Ruth and Helen had left them. And Aunt Alvirah came
+hobbling to the door again, murmuring, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
+and quite amazed when she saw Ben come running to help Tom Cameron into
+the house with the youth from the railroad wreck.
+
+"Though, landy's sake! I don't know what your Uncle Jabez will say when he
+comes back from town and finds this boy in the best bed," grumbled Aunt
+Alvirah, after a bit, when she and Ruth were left alone with Jerry
+Sheming, and the others had gone on in the car, hurrying so as not to be
+late for luncheon at Outlook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UNCLE JABEZ HAS TWO OPINIONS
+
+
+Dr. Davison came, found that Jerry's leg was not broken, left liniment,
+some quieting medicine to use if the patient could not sleep, and went
+away. Still Uncle Jabez had not returned from town.
+
+Dinner had been a farce. Ben, the hired man, was fed as usual; but Ruth
+and Aunt Alvirah did not feel like eating; and, considering his fever, it
+was just as well, the doctor said, if the patient did not eat until later.
+
+Jerry Sheming was a fellow of infinite pluck. The pain he had endured
+during his rough ride in the automobile must have been terrific. Yet he
+was only ashamed, now, that he had fainted.
+
+"First time I ever heard of a Sheming fainting--or yet a Tilton, Miss," he
+told Ruth.
+
+"I don't believe you belong near here?" suggested Ruth, who sat beside
+him, for he seemed restless. "I don't remember hearing either of those
+names around the Red Mill."
+
+"No. I--I lived away west of here," replied Jerry, slowly. "Oh, a long
+ways."
+
+"Not as far as Montana? That is where Jane Ann comes from."
+
+"The girl I helped through the car window?" he asked, quickly.
+
+"Yes. Miss Hicks."
+
+"I did not mean really West," he said. "But it's quite some miles. I had
+been walking two days--and I'm some walker," he added, with a smile.
+
+"Looking for work, you said?" questioned Ruth, diffident about showing her
+interest in the young fellow, yet deeply curious.
+
+"Yes. I've got to support myself some way."
+
+"Haven't you any folks at all, Mr. Jerry?"
+
+"I ain't a 'mister,'" said the youth. "I'm not so much older than you and
+your friends."
+
+"You seem a lot older," laughed Ruth, tossing back her hair.
+
+"That's because I have been working most of my life--and I guess livin' in
+the woods all the time makes a chap seem old."
+
+"And you've lived in the woods?"
+
+"With my uncle. I can't remember anybody else belongin' to me--not very
+well. Pete Tilton is _his_ name. He's been a guide and hunter all his
+life. And of late years he got so queer--before they took him away----"
+
+"Took him away?" interrupted Ruth, "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, I'll tell you," said Jerry, slowly. "He got wild towards the last.
+It was something about his money and papers that he lost. He kep' 'em in a
+box somewhere. There was a landslide at the west end of the island."
+
+"The island? What island?"
+
+"Cliff Island. That's where we lived. Uncle Pete said he owned half the
+island, but Rufe Blent cheated him out of it. That's what made him so
+savage with Blent, and he come pretty near killin' him. At least, Blent
+told it that way.
+
+"So they took poor Uncle Pete into court, and they said he wasn't safe to
+be at large, and sent him to the county asylum. Then--well, there wasn't
+no manner o' use my stayin' around there. Rufe Blent warned me off the
+island. So I started out to hunt a job."
+
+The details were rather vague, but Ruth felt a little diffident about
+asking for further particulars. Besides, it was not long before Uncle
+Jabez came home.
+
+"What do ye reckon your Aunt Alvirah keeps that spare room for?" demanded
+the old miller, with his usual growl, when Ruth explained about Jerry.
+"For to put up tramps?"
+
+"Oh, Uncle! he isn't just a _tramp_!"
+
+"I'd like to know what ye call it, Niece Ruth?" grumbled Uncle Jabez.
+
+"Think how he saved Jane Ann! That car was rolling right down the
+embankment. He pulled her through the window and almost the next moment
+the car slid the rest of the way to the bottom, and lots of people--people
+in the chairs next to her--were badly hurt. Oh, Uncle! he saved her life,
+perhaps."
+
+"That ain't makin' it any dif'rent," declared Uncle Jabez. "He's a tramp
+and nobody knows anything about him. Why didn't Davison send him to the
+hospital? The doc's allus mixin' us up with waifs an' strays. He's got
+more cheek than a houn' pup----"
+
+"Now, Jabez!" cried the little old lady, who had been bending over the
+stove. "Don't ye make yourself out wuss nor you be. That poor boy ain't
+doin' no harm to the bed."
+
+"Makin' you more work, Alviry."
+
+"What am I good for if it ain't to work?" she demanded, quite fiercely.
+"When I can't work I want ye sh'd take me back to the poor farm where ye
+got me--an' where I'd been these last 'leven years if it hadn't been for
+your charity that you're so 'fraid folks will suspect----"
+
+"Charity!" broke in Uncle Jabez. "Ha! Yes! a fat lot of charity I've
+showed you, Alviry Boggs. I reckon I've got my money's wuth out o' you
+back an' bones."
+
+The old woman stood as straight as she could and looked at the grim miller
+with shining eyes. Ruth thought her face really beautiful as she smiled
+and said, wagging her head at the gray-faced man:
+
+"Oh, Jabez Potter! Jabez Potter! Nobody'll know till you're in your coffin
+jest how much good you've done in this world'--on the sly! An' you'll let
+this pore boy rest an' git well here before he has to go out an' hunt a
+job for hisself. For my pretty, here, tells me he ain't got no home nor no
+friends."
+
+"Uh-huh!" grunted Uncle Jabez, and stumped away to the mill, fairly beaten
+for the time.
+
+"He grumbles and grunts," observed Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head as she
+turned to her work again. "But out o' sight he's re'lly gettin'
+tender-hearted, Ruthie. An' I b'lieve you showed him how a lot. Oh, my
+back! and oh, my bones!"
+
+Before supper time a man on horseback came to the mill and cried a warning
+to the miller and his family: "Look out for your stables and pigpens.
+There's three beasts loose from those wrecked menagerie cars at the
+crossing, Jabez."
+
+"Mercy on us! They ain't bound this way, are they?" demanded Uncle Jabez,
+with more anxiety than he usually showed.
+
+"Nobody knows. You know, the piece of woods yonder is thick. The menagerie
+men lost them an hour ago. A big black panther--an ugly brute--and a lion
+and lioness. Them last two they say is as tame as kittens. But excuse me!
+I'd ruther trust the kittens," said the neighbor. Then he dug his heels in
+the sides of his horse and started off to bear the news to other residents
+along the road that followed this bank of the Lumano River.
+
+Jabez shouted for Ben to hurry through his supper, and they closed the
+mill tight while the womenfolk tried to close all the shutters on the
+first floor of the cottage. But the "blinds" had not been closed on the
+east side of the house since they were painted the previous spring. Aunt
+Alviry was the kind of housekeeper who favored the morning sun and it
+always streamed into the windows of the guest room.
+
+When they tried to close the outside shutters of those windows, one had a
+broken hinge that the painters had said nothing about. The heavy blind
+fell to the ground.
+
+"Goodness me!" exclaimed Ruth, running back into the house. "That old
+panther could jump right into that room where Jerry is. But if we keep a
+bright light in there all night, I guess he won't--if he comes this way at
+all."
+
+It was foolish, of course, to fear the coming of the marauding animal
+from the shattered circus car. Probably, Ruth told herself before the
+evening was half over, "Rival's Circus and Menagerie" had moved on with
+all its beasts.
+
+Uncle Jabez, however, got down the double-barreled shotgun, cleaned and
+oiled it, and slipped in two cartridges loaded with big shot.
+
+"I ain't aimin' to lose my pigs if I can help it," he said.
+
+As the evening dragged by, they all forgot the panther scare. Jerry had
+fallen asleep after supper without recourse to the medicine Dr. Davison
+had left. As usual, Uncle Jabez was poring over his daybook and counting
+the cash in the japanned money box.
+
+Ruth was deep in her text books. One does forget so much between June and
+September! Aunt Alvirah was busily sewing some ruffled garment for "her
+pretty."
+
+Suddenly a quick, stern voice spoke out of the guest room down the hall.
+
+"Quick! bring that gun!"
+
+"Hul-_lo_!" murmured Uncle Jabez, looking up.
+
+"That poor boy's delirious," declared Aunt Alvirah.
+
+But Ruth jumped up and ran lightly to the room where Jerry Sheming lay.
+
+"What _is_ it?" she gasped, peering at the flushed face that was raised
+from the pillow.
+
+"That cat!" muttered Jerry.
+
+"Oh, you're dreaming!" declared Ruth, trying to laugh.
+
+"I ain't lived in the woods for nothin'," snapped the young fellow. "I
+never see that black panther in her native wilds, o' course; but I've
+tracked other kinds o' cats. And one of the tribe is 'round here----There!
+hear that?"
+
+One of the horses in the stable squealed suddenly--a scream of fear. Then
+a cow bellowed.
+
+Uncle Jabez came with a rush, in his stocking feet, with the heavy shotgun
+in his hand.
+
+"What's up?" he demanded, hoarsely.
+
+"I am!" exclaimed Jerry, swinging his legs out of bed, despite the pain it
+caused him. "Put out that light, Miss Ruth."
+
+Aunt Alvirah hobbled in, groaning, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
+
+Uncle Jabez softly raised the sash where the blind was missing.
+
+"I saw her eyes," gasped Jerry, much excited. He reached out a grasping
+hand. "Gimme that gun, sir, unless you are a good shot. I don't often
+miss."
+
+"You take it," muttered Uncle Jabez, thrusting the gun into the young
+fellow's hand. "My--my eyes ain't what they once was."
+
+"Send the women folk back. If she leaps in at the winder----"
+
+Suddenly he raised the gun to his shoulder. It was so dark in the room
+they all saw the crouching creature on the lawn outside. It was headed for
+the open window, and its eyes gleamed like yellow coals.
+
+In a moment the gun spoke--one long tongue of flame, followed by the
+other, flashed into the night. There was a yowl, a struggle on the grass
+outside, and then----
+
+"You're something of a shot, you be, young feller!" boomed out Jabez
+Potter's rough voice. "I was some mistaken in you. Ah! it hurt ye, eh?"
+and he proceeded to lift the suffering Jerry back into bed as tenderly as
+he would have handled Ruth herself.
+
+They did not go out to see the dead panther until daybreak. Then they
+learned that the pair of lions had already been caught by their owners.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ON THE WAY TO BRIARWOOD
+
+
+If anything had been needed to interest Ruth Fielding deeply in the young
+fellow who had been injured at the scene of the railroad wreck, the
+occurrence that evening at the Red Mill would have provided it.
+
+It was not enough for her to make a veritable hero of him to Helen, and
+Jane Ann, and Tom, when they came over from Outlook the following morning.
+When the girl of the Red Mill was really interested in anything or
+anybody, she gave her whole-souled attention to it.
+
+She could not be satisfied with Jerry Sheming's brief account of his life
+with his half-crazed uncle on some distant place called Cliff Island, and
+the domestic tragedy that seemed to be the cause of the old man's final
+incarceration in a madhouse.
+
+"Tell me all about yourself--do," she pleaded with Jerry, who was to
+remain in bed for several days (Uncle Jabez insisted on it himself, too!),
+for the injured leg must be rested. "Didn't you live anywhere else but in
+the woods?"
+
+"That's right, Miss," he said, slowly. "I got a little schooling on the
+mainland; but it warn't much. Uncle Pete used to guide around parties of
+city men who wanted to fish and hunt. At the last I did most of the
+guidin'. He said he could trust me, for I hated liquor as bad as him. _My_
+dad was killed by it.
+
+"Uncle Pete was a mite cracked over it, maybe. But he was good enough to
+me until Rufus Blent came rummagin' round. Somehow he got Uncle Pete to
+ragin'."
+
+"Who is this Rufus Blent?" asked Ruth, curiously.
+
+"He's a real estate man. He lives at Logwood. That's the landin' at the
+east end o' the lake."
+
+"What lake?"
+
+"Tallahaska. You've heard tell on't?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. But I was never there, of course."
+
+"Well, Miss, Cliff Island is just the purtiest place! And Uncle Pete must
+have had some title to it, for he's lived there all his life--and he's
+old. Fifty-odd year he was there, I know. He was more than a squatter.
+
+"I reckon he was a bit of a miser. He had some money, and he didn't trust
+to banks. So he kept it hid on the island, of course.
+
+"Then the landslide come, and he talked as though it had covered his
+treasure box--and in it was papers he talked about. If he could ha' got
+those papers he could ha' beat Rufus Blent off.
+
+"That's the understandin' I got of him. Of course, he talked right ragin'
+and foolish; but some things he said was onderstandable. But he couldn't
+make the judge see it--nor could I. They let Rufus Blent have his way, and
+Uncle Pete went to the 'sylum.
+
+"Then they ordered me off the island. I believe Blent wanted to s'arch it
+himself for the treasure box. He's a sneakin' man--I allus hated him,"
+said Jerry, clenching his fist angrily.
+
+"But they could ha' put me in the jug if I'd tried to fight him. So I come
+away. Don't 'spect I'll ever see Tallahaska--or Cliff Island--again," and
+the young fellow's voice broke and he turned his face away.
+
+When Jane Ann Hicks heard something of this, through Ruth, she was eager
+to help Jerry to be revenged upon the man whom he thought had cheated his
+uncle.
+
+"Let me write to Bill Hicks about it," she cried, eagerly. "He'll come on
+here and get after this thieving real estate fellow--you bet!"
+
+"I have no doubt that he would," laughed Helen, pinching her. "You'd make
+him leave his ranch and everything else and come here just to do that.
+Don't be rash, young lady. Jerry certainly did you a favor, but you
+needn't take everything he says for the gospel truth."
+
+"I believe myself he's honest," added Ruth, quietly.
+
+"And I don't doubt him either," Helen Cameron said. "But we'd better hear
+both sides of it. And a missing treasure box, and papers to prove that an
+old hunter is owner of an island in Tallahaska, sounds--well, unusual, to
+say the least."
+
+Ruth laughed. "Helen has suddenly developed caution," she said. "What do
+you say, Tom?"
+
+"I'll get father to write to somebody at Logwood, and find out about it,"
+returned the boy, promptly.
+
+That is the way the matter was left for the time being. The next day they
+were to start for school--the girls for Briarwood and Tom for Seven Oaks.
+
+It was arranged that Jerry should remain at the Red Mill for a time. Uncle
+Jabez's second opinion of him was so favorable that the miller might
+employ him for a time as the harvesting and other fall work came on. And
+Jane Ann left a goodly sum in the miller's hands for young Sheming's use.
+
+"He's that independent that he wouldn't take nothing from me but a pair
+of cuff links," declared Jane Ann, wiping her eyes, for she was a
+tender-hearted girl under her rough exterior. "Says they will do for him
+to remember me by. He's a nice chap."
+
+"Jinny's getting sentimental," gibed Tom, slily.
+
+"I'm not over you, Mister Tom!" she flared up instantly. "You're too
+'advanced' a dresser."
+
+"And you were the girl who once ran away from Silver Ranch and the boys
+out there, because everything was so 'common,'" chuckled Tom.
+
+Ruth shut him off at that. She knew that the western girl could not stand
+much teasing.
+
+They were all nervous, anyway; at least, the girls were. Ruth and Helen
+approached their second year at Briarwood with some anxiety. How would
+they be treated? How would the studies be arranged for the coming months
+of hard work? How were they going to stand with the teachers?
+
+When the two chums first went to Briarwood they occupied a double room;
+but later they had taken in Mercy Curtis, a lame girl. Now that
+"triumvirate" could not continue, for Jane Ann had begged to room with
+Ruth and Helen.
+
+The western girl, who was afraid of scarcely anything "on four legs or
+two" in her own environment, was really nervous as she approached
+boarding school. She had seen enough of these eastern girls to know that
+they were entirely different from herself. She was "out of their class,"
+she told herself, and if she had not been with Ruth and Helen these few
+last days before the opening of the school term, she would have run away.
+
+Ruth was going back to school this term with a delightful sense of having
+gained Uncle Jabez's special approval. He admitted that schooling such as
+she gained at Briarwood was of some use. And he made her a nice present of
+pocket-money when she started.
+
+The Cameron auto stopped for her at the Red Mill before mid-forenoon, and
+Ruth bade the miller and Aunt Alvirah and Ben--not forgetting Jerry
+Sheming, her new friend--good-bye.
+
+"Do--_do_ take care o' yourself, my pretty," crooned Aunt Alvirah over
+her, at the last. "Jest remember we're a-honin' for you here at the ol'
+mill."
+
+"Take care of Uncle Jabez," whispered Ruth. She dared kiss the grim old
+man only upon his dusty cheek. Then she shook hands with bashful Ben and
+ran out to her waiting friends.
+
+"Come on, or we'll lose the train," cried Helen.
+
+They were off the moment Ruth stepped into the tonneau. But she stood up
+and waved her hand to the little figure of Aunt Alvirah in the cottage
+doorway as long as she could be seen on the Cheslow road. And she had a
+fancy that Uncle Jabez himself was lurking in the dark opening to the
+grist-floor of the mill, and watching the retreating motor car.
+
+There was a quick, alert-looking girl hobbling on two canes up and down
+the platform at Cheslow Station. This was Mercy Curtis, the station
+agent's crippled daughter.
+
+"Here you are at last!" she cried, shrilly. "And the train already hooting
+for the station. Five minutes more and you would have been too late. Did
+you think I could go to Briarwood without you?"
+
+Ruth ran up and kissed her heartily. She knew that Mercy's "bark was worse
+than her bite."
+
+"You come and see Jane Ann--and be nice to her. She doesn't look it, but
+she's just as scared as she can be."
+
+"Of course you'd have some poor, unfortunate pup, or kitten, to mother,
+Ruth Fielding," snapped the lame girl.
+
+She was very nice, however, to the girl from Silver Ranch, sat beside her
+in the chair car, and soon had Jane Ann laughing. For Mercy Curtis, with
+her sarcastic tongue, could be good fun if she wished to be.
+
+Here and there, along the route to Osago Lake, other Briarwood girls
+joined them. At one point appeared Madge Steele and her brother, Bob, a
+slow, smiling young giant, called "Bobbins" by the other boys, who was
+always being "looked after" in a most distressing fashion by his sister.
+
+"Come, Bobby, boy, don't fall up the steps and get your nice new clothes
+dirty," adjured Madge, as her brother made a false step in getting aboard
+the train. "Will you look out for him, Mr. Cameron, if I leave him in your
+care?"
+
+"Sure!" said Tom, laughing. "I'll see that he doesn't spoil his pinafore
+or mess up his curls."
+
+"Say! I'd shake a sister like that if I had one," grunted "Busy Izzy"
+Phelps, disgustedly.
+
+"Aw, what's the odds?" drawled good-natured Bobbins.
+
+The hilarious crowd boarded the _Lanawaxa_ at the landing, and after
+crossing the lake they again took a train, disembarking at Seven Oaks,
+where the boys' school was situated.
+
+From here the girls were to journey by stage to Briarwood. There was
+dust-coated, grinning, bewhiskered "Old Noah Dolliver" and his "Ark,"
+waiting for them.
+
+There was a horde of uniformed academy boys about to greet Tom and his
+chums, and to eye the girls who had come thus far in their company. But
+Ruth and her friends were not so bashful as they had been the year before.
+
+They formed in line, two by two, and slowly paraded the length of the
+platform, chanting in unison the favorite "welcome to the infants" used at
+the beginning of each half at Briarwood:
+
+    "Uncle Noah, he drove an Ark--
+      One wide river to cross!
+    He's aiming to land at Briarwood Park--
+      One wide river to cross!
+        One wide river!
+        One wide river of Jordan!
+        One wide river!
+        One wide river to cross!"
+
+The boys cheered them enthusiastically. The girls piled into the coach
+with much laughter. Even Mercy had taken part in this fun, for the
+procession had marched at an easy pace for her benefit.
+
+Old Dolliver cracked his whip. Tom ran along in the dust on one side and
+Bobbins on the other, each to bid a last good-bye to his sister.
+
+Then the coach rolled into the shadow of the cool wood road, and Ruth and
+her friends were really upon the last lap of their journey to the Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A LONG LOOK AHEAD
+
+
+"Hurrah! first glimpse of the old place!"
+
+Helen cried this, with her head out of the Ark. The dust rolled up in a
+cloud behind them as they topped the hill. Here Mary Cox had met Ruth and
+Helen that first day, a year ago, when they approached the Hall.
+
+There was no infant in the coach now save Jane Ann. And the chums were
+determined to save the western girl from that strange and lonely feeling
+they had themselves experienced.
+
+There was nobody in view on the pastured hill. Down the slope the Ark
+coasted and bye and bye Cedar Walk came into view.
+
+"Shall we get out here, girls?" called Madge Steele, with a glance at
+Mercy.
+
+"Of course we shall," cried that sprightly person, shaking her fist at the
+big senior. "Don't you dare try to spare _me_, Miss! I am getting so
+strong and healthy I am ashamed of myself. Don't you dare!"
+
+Madge kissed her warmly, as Ruth had. _That_ was the best way to treat
+Mercy Curtis whenever she "exploded."
+
+Suddenly Helen leaned out of the open half of the door on her side and
+began to call a welcome to four girls who were walking briskly down the
+winding pathway. Instantly they began to run, shouting joyfully in return.
+
+"Here we be, young ladies," croaked Old Dolliver, bringing his tired
+horses to a halt.
+
+They struggled forth, Jane Ann coming last to help the lame girl--just a
+mite. Then the two parties of school friends came together like the
+mingling of waters.
+
+One was a very plump girl with a smiling, rosy face; one was red-haired
+and very sharp-looking, and the other two balanced each other evenly, both
+being more than a little pretty, very well dressed, and one dark while the
+other was light.
+
+The light girl was Belle Tingley, and the dark one Lluella Fairfax; of
+course, the red-haired one was Mary Cox, "The Fox," while the stout girl
+could be no other than "Heavy" Jennie Stone.
+
+The Fox came forward quickly and seized both of Ruth's hands. "Dear Ruth,"
+she whispered. "I arrived just this morning myself. You know that my
+brother is all right again?" and she kissed the girl of the Red Mill
+warmly.
+
+Belle and Lluella looked a bit surprised at Mary Cox's manifestation of
+friendship for Ruth; but they did not yet know all the particulars of
+their schoolmates' adventures at Silver Ranch.
+
+Heavy was hurrying about, kissing everybody indiscriminately, and of
+course performing this rite with Ruth at least twice.
+
+"I'm so tickled to see you all, I can't tell!" she laughed. "And you're
+all looking fine, too. But it does seem a month, instead of a week, since
+I saw you."
+
+"My! but you are looking bad yourself, Heavy," gibed Helen Cameron,
+shaking her head and staring at the other girl. "You're just fading away
+to a shadow."
+
+"Pretty near," admitted Heavy. "But the doctor says I shall get my
+appetite back after a time. I was allowed to drink the water two eggs were
+boiled in for lunch, and to-night I can eat the holes out of a dozen
+doughnuts. Oh! I'm convalescing nicely, thank you."
+
+The girls who had reached the school first welcomed Jane Ann quite as
+warmly as they did the others. There was an air about them all that seemed
+protecting to the strange girl.
+
+Other girls were walking up and down the Cedar Walk, and sometimes they
+cast more than glances at the eight juniors who were already such
+friends. Madge had immediately been swallowed up by a crowd of seniors.
+
+"Say, Foxy! got an infant there?" demanded one girl.
+
+"I suppose Fielding has made her a Sweetbriar already--eh?" suggested
+another.
+
+"The Sweetbriars do not have to fish for members," declared Helen, tossing
+her head.
+
+"Oh, my! See what a long tail our cat's got!" responded one of the other
+crowd, tauntingly.
+
+"The double quartette! There's just eight of them," crowed another. "There
+certainly will be something doing at Briarwood Hall with those two
+roomsful."
+
+"Say! that's right!" cried Heavy, eagerly, to Ruth. "You, and Helen, and
+Mercy, and Jinny, take that quartette room on our other side. We'll just
+about boss that dormitory. What do you say?"
+
+"If Mrs. Tellingham will agree," said Ruth. "I'll ask her."
+
+"But you girls will be 'way ahead of me in your books," broke in Jane Ann.
+
+"We needn't be ahead of you in sleeping, and in fun," laughed Heavy,
+pinching her.
+
+"Don't be offish, Miss Jinny," said Helen, calling her by the title that
+the cowboys did.
+
+"And my name--my dreadful, dreadful name!" groaned the western girl.
+
+"I tell you!" exclaimed Ruth, "we're all friends. Let's agree how we shall
+introduce Miss Hicks to the bunch. She must choose a name----"
+
+"Why, call yourself 'Nita,' if you want to, dear," said Helen, patting the
+western girl's arm. "That's the name you ran away with."
+
+"But I'm ashamed of that. I know it is silly--and I chose it for a silly
+reason. But you know what all these girls will do to 'Jane Ann,'" and she
+shook her head, more than a little troubled.
+
+"What's the matter with Ann?" demanded Mercy Curtis, sharply. "Isn't 'Ann
+Hicks' sensible-sounding enough? For sure, it's not _pretty_; but we can't
+all have both pretty names and pretty features," and she laughed.
+
+"And it's mighty tough when you haven't got either," grumbled the new
+girl.
+
+"'Ann Hicks,'" quoth Ruth, softly. "I like it. I believe it sounds nice,
+too--when you get used to it. 'Ann Hicks.' Something dignified and fine
+about it--just as though you had been named after some really great
+woman--some leader."
+
+The others laughed; and yet they looked appreciation of Ruth Fielding's
+fantasy.
+
+"Bully for you, Ruthie!" cried Helen, hugging her. "If Ann Hicks agrees."
+
+"It doesn't sound so bad without the 'Jane,'" admitted the western girl
+with a sigh. "And Ruth says it so nicely."
+
+"We'll all say it nicely," declared The Fox, who was a much different
+"Fox" from what she had been the year before. "'Ann Hicks,' I bet you've
+got a daguerreotype at home of the gentle old soul for whom you are named.
+You know--silver-gray gown, pearls, pink cheeks, and a real ostrich
+feather fan."
+
+"My goodness me!" ejaculated the newly christened Ann Hicks, "you have
+already arranged a very fanciful family tree for me. Can I ever live up to
+such an ancestress as _that_?"
+
+"Certainly you can," declared Ruth, firmly. "You've just _got_ to. Think
+of the original Ann--as Mary described her--whenever you feel like
+exploding. Her picture ought to bring you up short. A lady like that
+_couldn't_ explode."
+
+"Tough lines," grumbled the western girl. "Right from what you girls call
+the 'wild and woolly,' and to have to live up to silver-gray silk and
+pearls--M-m-m-m!"
+
+"Now, say! say!" cried Belle Tingley, suddenly, and seizing upon Ruth,
+about whom she had been hovering ever since they had met. "_I_ want to
+talk a little. There aren't any more infants to christen, I hope?"
+
+"Go on!" laughed Ruth, squeezing her. "What is the matter, _Bella mia_?"
+
+"And don't talk Italian," said Belle, shrugging her shoulders. "Listen! I
+promised to ask you the minute you arrived, Ruthie, and now you've been
+here ten at least."
+
+"It is something splendid," laughed Lluella, clapping her hands, evidently
+being already a sharer in Belle's secret.
+
+"I'll tell you--if they'll let me," panted Belle, shaking Ruth a little.
+"Father's bought Cliff Island. It's a splendid place. We were there for
+part of the summer. And there will be a great lodge built by Christmas
+time and he has told me I might invite you all to come to the
+house-warming. Now, Ruth! it remains with you. If you'll go, the others
+will, I know. And it's a splendid place."
+
+"Cliff Island?" gasped Ruth.
+
+"Yes. In Lake Tallahaska."
+
+"And your father has just bought it?"
+
+"Yes. He had some trouble getting a clear title; but it's all right now.
+They had to evict an old squatter. I want you all to come with me for the
+mid-winter holiday. What do you say, Ruthie?" asked Belle, eagerly.
+
+"I say it's a long look ahead," responded Ruth, slowly. "It's very kind of
+you, Belle. But I'll have to write home first, of course. I'd like to go,
+though--to Cliff Island--yes, indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PICKING UP THE THREADS
+
+
+Ann Hicks must see the preceptress at once. That came first, and Ruth
+would not go into the old dormitory until the introduction of the western
+girl was accomplished.
+
+There was a whole bevy of girls on the steps of the main building, in
+which Mrs. Grace Tellingham and Dr. Tellingham lived. Nobody ever thought
+of putting the queer old doctor first, although all the Briarwoods
+respected the historian immensely. He was considered very, very scholarly,
+although it would have been hard to find any of his histories in any
+library save that of Briarwood itself.
+
+It was understood that just now he was engaged upon a treatise relating to
+the possible existence of a race before the Mound Builders in the Middle
+West, and he was not to be disturbed, of course, at his work.
+
+But when Ruth and Ann Hicks entered the big office room, there he was,
+bent over huge tomes upon the work table, his spectacles awry, and his wig
+pushed so far back upon his head that two hands' breadth of glistening
+crown was exposed.
+
+The fiction that Dr. Tellingham was not bald might have been kept up very
+well indeed, did not the gentleman get so excited while he worked. As soon
+as he became interested in his books, he proceeded to bare his high brow
+to all beholders, and the wig slid toward the back of his neck.
+
+The truth was, as Heavy Stone said, Dr. Tellingham had to remove his
+collar to brush his hair--there really was so little of it.
+
+"Dear, dear!" sputtered the historian, peering at the two girls over his
+reading glasses. "You don't want me, of course?"
+
+"Oh, no, Dr. Tellingham. This is a new girl. We wished to see Mrs.
+Tellingham," Ruth assured him.
+
+"Quite so," he said, briskly. "She is--Ah! she comes! My dear! Two of the
+young ladies to see you," and instantly he was buried in his books
+again--that is, buried all but his shining crown.
+
+Mrs. Tellingham was a graceful, gray-haired lady, with a charming smile.
+She trailed her black robe across the carpet and stooped to kiss Ruth
+warmly, for she not only respected the junior, but had learned to love
+her.
+
+"Welcome, Miss Fielding!" she said, kindly. "I am glad to see you back.
+And this is the girl I have been getting letters about--Miss Hicks?"
+
+"Ann Hicks," responded Ruth, firmly. "That is the name she wishes to be
+known by, dear Mrs. Tellingham."
+
+"I don't know who could be writing you but Uncle Bill," said Ann Hicks,
+blunderingly. "And I expect he's told you a-plenty."
+
+"I think 'Uncle Bill' must be the most recklessly generous man in the
+world, my dear," observed Mrs. Tellingham, taking and holding one of Ann's
+brown hands, and looking closely at the western girl.
+
+For a moment the new girl blushed and her own eyes shone. "You bet he is!
+I--I beg pardon," she stammered. "Uncle Bill is all right."
+
+"And Jennie Stone's Aunt Kate has been writing me about you, too. It seems
+she was much interested in you when you visited their place at Lighthouse
+Point."
+
+"She's very kind," murmured the new girl.
+
+"And Mrs. Murchiston, Helen's governess, has spoken a good word for you,"
+added the preceptress.
+
+"Why--why I didn't know so many people _cared_," stammered Ann.
+
+"You see, you have a way of making friends unconsciously. I can see that,"
+Mrs. Tellingham said, kindly. "Now, do not be discouraged. You will make
+friends among the girls in just the same way. Don't mind their banter for
+a while. The rough edges will soon rub off----"
+
+"But there _are_ rough edges," admitted the western girl, hanging her
+head.
+
+"Don't mind. There are such in most girls' characters and they show up
+when first they come to school. Keep cheerful. Come to me if you are in
+real trouble--and stick close to Miss Fielding, here. I can't give you any
+better advice than that," added Mrs. Tellingham, with a laugh.
+
+Then she was ready to listen to Ruth's plea that the room next to The Fox
+and her chums be given up to Ruth, Helen, Mercy and the new girl.
+
+"We love our little room; but it was crowded with Mercy last half; and we
+could all get along splendidly in a quartette room," said Ruth.
+
+"All right," agreed the principal. "I'll telephone to Miss Scrimp and Miss
+Picolet. Now, go and see about getting settled, young ladies. I expect
+much of you this half, Ruth Fielding. As for Ann, I shall take her in hand
+myself on Monday and see what classes she would best enter."
+
+"She's fine," declared Ann Hicks, when they were outside again. "I can get
+along with her. But how about the girls?"
+
+"They'll be nice to you, too--after a bit. Of course, everybody new has to
+expect some hazing. Thank your stars that you won't have to be put through
+the initiation of the marble harp," and she pointed to a marble figure in
+the tiny Italian garden in the middle of the campus.
+
+When Ann wanted to know what _that_ meant, Ruth repeated the legend as all
+new girls at Briarwood must learn it. But Ruth and her friends had long
+since agreed that no other nervous or high-strung girl was to be hazed, as
+she and Helen had been, when they first came to the Hall. So the ceremony
+of the marble harp was abolished. It has been described in the former
+volume of this series, "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall."
+
+The two went back to the dormitory that had become like home to Ruth. Miss
+Picolet, the little French teacher, beckoned them into her study. "I must
+be the good friend of your good friend, too, Miss Fielding," she said, and
+shook hands warmly with Ann.
+
+The matron of the house had already opened and aired the large room next
+to that which had been so long occupied by The Fox and her chums. The
+eight girls made the corridor ring with laughter and shouts while they
+were getting settled. The trunks had arrived from Lumberton and Helen and
+Ruth were busy decorating the big room which they were to share in the
+future with the lame girl and Ann Hicks.
+
+There were two wide beds in it; but each girl had her own dressing case
+and her locker and closet There were four windows and two study tables.
+It was a delightful place, they all agreed.
+
+"Hush! tell it not in Gath; whisper it not in Ascalon!" hissed The Fox,
+peering into the room. "You girls have the best there is. It's lots bigger
+than our quartette----"
+
+"Oh, I don't think so. Only a 'teeny' bit larger," responded Ruth,
+quickly.
+
+"Then it's Heavy that takes up so much space in our room. She dwarfs
+everything. However," said the red-haired girl, "you can have lots more
+fun in here. Shove back everything against one wall, roll up the rugs, and
+then we can dance."
+
+"And have Picolet after us in a hurry," observed Helen, laughing.
+
+"Barefoot dancing is still in vogue," retorted The Fox. "Helen can play
+her violin."
+
+"After retiring bell? No, thanks!" exclaimed Ruth's chum. "I am to stand
+better in my classes this half than last spring or Monsieur Pa-_pa_ will
+have something to say to me. He doesn't often preach; but that
+black-haired brother of mine did better last term than I did. Can't have
+that."
+
+"They're awfully strict with the boys over at Seven Oaks," sighed Heavy,
+who was chewing industriously as she talked, sitting cross-legged on the
+floor.
+
+"What are you eating, Heavy?" demanded Belle, suddenly.
+
+"Some of those doughnut holes, I bet!" giggled Lluella. "They must be
+awful filling, Heavy."
+
+"Nothing _is_ filling," replied the stout girl. "Just think, almost the
+whole universe is filled with just atmosphere--and your head, Lluella."
+
+"That's not pretty, dear," remarked The Fox, pinching Heavy. "Don't be
+nasty to your playmates."
+
+"Well, I've got to eat," groaned Heavy. "If you knew how long it seemed
+from luncheon to supper time----"
+
+Despite all Ruth Fielding could do, the girl from Silver Ranch felt
+herself a good deal out of this nonsense and joviality. Ann could not talk
+the way these girls did. She felt serious when she contemplated her future
+in the school.
+
+"I'd--I'd run away if it wasn't for Uncle Bill," she whispered to herself,
+looking out of the window at the hundreds of girls parading the walks
+about the campus.
+
+Almost every two girls seemed chums. They walked with their arms about
+each other's waists, and chattered like magpies. Ann Hicks wanted to run
+and hide somewhere, for she was more lonely now than she had ever been
+when wandering about the far-reaching range on the Montana ranch!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"A HARD ROW TO HOE"
+
+
+Since Ruth Fielding had organized the S.B.'s, or Sweetbriars, there had
+been little hazing at Briarwood Hall. Of course, this was the first real
+opening of the school year since that auspicious occasion; but the effect
+of the new society and its teachings upon the whole school was marked.
+
+Rivalries had ceased to a degree. The old Upedes, of which The Fox had
+been the head, no longer played their tricks. The Fox had grown much older
+in appearance, if not in years. She had had her lesson.
+
+Belle and Lluella and Heavy were not so reckless, either. And as the
+S.B.'s stood for friendship, kindness, helpfulness, and all its members
+wore the pretty badge, it was likely to be much easier for those "infants"
+who joined the school now.
+
+Ann Hicks was bound to receive some hard knocks, even as Mrs. Tellingham
+had suggested. But "roughing it" a little is sometimes good for girls as
+well as boys.
+
+In her own western home Ann could have held her own with anybody. She was
+so much out of her usual element here at Briarwood that she was like a
+startled hare. She scented danger on all sides.
+
+Her roommates could not always defend her, although even Mercy, the
+unmerciful, tried. Ann Hicks was so big, and blundering. She was taller
+than most girls of her age, and "raw-boned" like her uncle. Some time she
+might really be handsome; but there was little promise of it as yet.
+
+When the principal started her in her studies, it was soon discovered that
+Ann, big girl though she was, had to take some of the lessons belonging to
+the primary grade. And she made a sorry appearance in recitation, at best.
+
+There were plenty of girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as a
+schoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. And unless the victim is blessed
+with either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goes
+hard with her.
+
+Poor Ann had neither--she was merely confused and miserable.
+
+She saw the other girls of her room--and their close friends in the
+neighboring quartette--going cheerfully about the term's work. They had
+interests that the girl from the West, with her impoverished mind, could
+not even appreciate.
+
+She had to study so hard--even some of the simplest lessons--that she had
+little time to learn games. She did not care for gymnasium work, although
+there were probably few girls at the school as muscular as herself. Tennis
+seemed silly to her. Nobody rode at the Hall, and she longed to bestride a
+pony and dash off for a twenty-mile canter.
+
+Nothing that she was used to doing on the ranch would appeal to these
+girls here--Ann was quite sure of that. Ruth and the others who had been
+with them for that all-too-short month at Silver Ranch seemed to have
+forgotten the riding, and the roping, and all.
+
+Then, Helen had her violin--and loved it. Ruth was practicing singing all
+the time she could spare, for she was already a prominent member of the
+Glee Club. When the girl of the Red Mill sang, Ann Hicks felt her heart
+throb and the tears rise in her eyes. She loved Ruth's kind of music; yet
+she, herself, could not carry a tune.
+
+Mercy was strictly attentive to her own books. Mercy was a bookworm--nor
+did she like being asked questions about her studies. Those first few
+weeks Ann Hicks's recitations did not receive very high marks.
+
+Often some of the girls who did not know her very well laughed because she
+carried books belonging to the primary grade. Ann Hicks had many studies
+to make up that her mates had been drilled in while they were in the
+lower classes.
+
+One day at mail time (and in a boarding school that is a most important
+hour) Ann received a very tempting-looking box by parcel post. She had
+been initiated into the meaning of "boxes from home." Even Aunt Alvirah
+had sent a box to Ruth, filled with choicest homemade dainties.
+
+Ann expected nothing like that. Uncle Bill would never think of it--and he
+wouldn't know what to buy, anyway. The box fairly startled the girl from
+Silver Ranch.
+
+"What is it? Something good to eat, I bet," cried Heavy, who was on hand,
+of course. "Open it, Ann--do."
+
+"Come on! Let's see what the goodies are," urged another girl, but who
+smiled behind her hand.
+
+"I don't know who would send _me_ anything," said Ann, slowly.
+
+"Never mind the address. Open it!" cried a third speaker, and had Ann
+noted it, she would have realized that some of the most trying girls in
+the school had suddenly surrounded her.
+
+With trembling fingers she tore off the outside wrapper without seeing
+that the box had been mailed at the local post office--Lumberton!
+
+A very decorative box was enclosed.
+
+"H-m-m!" gasped Heavy. "Nothing less than fancy nougatines in _that_."
+
+She was aiding the heartless throng, but did not know it. It would have
+never entered Heavy's mind to do a really mean thing.
+
+Ann untied the narrow red ribbon. She raised the cover. Tissue paper
+covered something very choice----?
+
+_A dunce cap._
+
+For a moment Ann was stricken motionless. The girls about her shouted. One
+coarse, thoughtless girl seized the cap, pulled it from the box, and
+clapped it on Ann Hicks's black hair.
+
+The delighted crowd shouted more shrilly. Heavy was thunderstruck. Then
+she sputtered:
+
+"Well! I never would have believed there was anybody so mean as that in
+the whole of Briarwood School."
+
+But Ann, who had held in her temper as she governed a half-wild pony on
+the range, until this point, suddenly "let go all holts," as Bill Hicks
+would have expressed it.
+
+She tore the cap from her head and stamped upon it and the fancy box it
+had come in. She struck right and left at the laughing, scornful faces of
+the girls who had so baited her.
+
+Had it not been disgraceful, one might have been delighted with the change
+in the expression of those faces--and in the rapidity with which the
+change came about.
+
+More than one blow landed fairly. The print of Ann's fingers was
+impressed in red upon the cheeks of those nearest to her. They ran
+screaming--some laughing, some angry.
+
+Heavy's weight (for the fleshy girl had seized Ann about the waist) was
+all that made the enraged girl give over her pursuit of her tormentors.
+Fortunately, Ruth herself came running to the spot. She got Ann away and
+sat by her all the afternoon in their room, making up her own delinquent
+lessons afterward.
+
+But the affair could not be passed over without comment. Some of the girls
+had reported Ann's actions. Of course, such a disgraceful thing as a girl
+slapping another was seldom heard of in Briarwood. Mrs. Tellingham, who
+knew very well where the blame lay, dared not let the matter go without
+punishing Ann, however.
+
+"I am grieved that one of our girls--a young lady in the junior
+grade--should so forget herself," said the principal. "Whatever may have
+been the temptation, such an exhibition of temper cannot be allowed. I am
+sure she will not yield to it again; nor shall I pass leniently over the
+person who may again be the cause of Ann Hicks losing her temper."
+
+This seemed to Ann to be "the last straw." "She might have better put me
+in the primary grade in the beginning," the ranch girl said, spitefully.
+"Then I wouldn't have been among those who despise me. I hate them all!
+I'll just get away from here----"
+
+But the thought of running away a second time rather troubled her. She had
+worried her uncle greatly the first time she had done so. Now he was sure
+she was in such good hands that she wouldn't wish to run away.
+
+Ann knew that she could not blame Ruth Fielding, and the other girls who
+were always kind to her. She merely shrank from being with them, when they
+knew so much more than she did.
+
+It was her pride that was hurt. Had she taken the teasing of the meaner
+girls in a wiser spirit, she knew they would not have sent her the dunce
+cap. They continued to tease her because they knew they could hurt her.
+
+"I--I wish I could show them I could do things that they never dreamed of
+doing!" muttered Ann, angrily, yet wistfully, too. "I'd like to fling a
+rope, or manage a bad bronc', or something they never saw a girl do
+before.
+
+"Book learning isn't everything. Oh! I have half a mind to give up and go
+back to the ranch. Nobody made fun of me out there--they didn't dare! And
+our folks are too kind to tease that way, anyhow," thought the western
+girl.
+
+"Uncle Bill is just paying out his good money for nothing. He said Ruth
+was a little lady--and Helen, too. I knew he wanted me to be the same,
+after he got acquainted with them and saw how fine they were.
+
+"But you sure 'can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' That's as
+certain as shootin'! If I stay here I've got a mighty hard row to
+hoe--and--and I don't believe I've got the pluck to hoe it." Ann groaned,
+and shook her tousled black head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JERRY SHEMING AGAIN
+
+
+Ruth, with all the fun and study of the opening of the fall term at
+Briarwood, could not entirely forget Jerry Sheming. More particularly did
+she think of him because of the invitation Belle Tingley had extended to
+her the day of their arrival.
+
+It was a coincidence that none of the other girls appreciated, for none of
+them had talked much with the young fellow who had saved Ann Hicks from
+the wrecked car at Applegate Crossing. Even Ann herself had not become as
+friendly with the boy as had Ruth.
+
+The fact that he had lived a good share of his life on the very island
+Belle said her father had bought for a hunting camp, served to spur Ruth's
+interest in both the youth and the island itself. Then, what Jerry had
+told her about his uncle's lost treasure box added to the zest of the
+affair.
+
+Somewhere on the island Peter Tilton had lost a box containing money and
+private papers. Jerry believed it to have been buried by a landslide that
+had occurred months before.
+
+There must be something in this story, or why should "Uncle Pete," as
+Jerry called him, have lost his mind over the catastrophe? Uncle Pete must
+be really mad or they would not have shut him up in the county asylum.
+
+The loss of the papers supposed to be in the box made it possible for some
+man named Blent to cheat the old hunter out of his holdings on Cliff
+Island.
+
+Not for a moment did Ruth suppose that Mr. Tingley, Belle's father, was a
+party to any scheme for cheating the old hunter. It was the work of the
+man Blent--if true.
+
+Ruth was very curious--and very much interested. Few letters ever passed
+between her and the Red Mill. Aunt Alvirah's gnarled and twisted fingers
+did not take kindly to the pen; and Uncle Jabez loved better to add up his
+earnings than to spend an evening retailing the gossip of the Mill for his
+grandniece to peruse.
+
+Ruth knew that Jerry had soon recovered from his accident and that for
+several weeks, at least, had worked for Uncle Jabez. The latter grudgingly
+admitted that Jerry was the best man he had ever hired in the cornfield,
+both in cutting fodder and shucking corn.
+
+Just before Thanksgiving there came a letter saying that Jerry had gone
+on. Of course, Ruth knew that her uncle would not keep the young fellow
+longer than he could make use of him; but she was sorry he had gone before
+she had communicated with him.
+
+The girl of the Red Mill felt that she wished to know Jerry better. She
+had been deeply interested in his story. She had hoped to learn more about
+him.
+
+"If you are really going to Cliff Island for the holidays, Belle," she
+told the latter, "I hope I can go."
+
+"Bully!" exclaimed Belle, joyfully. "We'll have a dandy time there--better
+than we had at Helen's father's camp, last winter. I refuse to be lost in
+the snow again."
+
+"Same here," drawled Heavy. "But I wish that lake you talk about, Belle,
+wouldn't freeze over. I don't like ice," with a shiver.
+
+"Who ever heard of water that wouldn't freeze?" demanded Belle,
+scornfully.
+
+"I have," said Heavy, promptly.
+
+"What kind of water, I'd like to know, Miss?"
+
+"Hot water," responded Heavy, chuckling.
+
+Helen, and most of the other girls who were invited to Cliff Island for
+Christmas, had already accepted the invitation. Ruth wrote to her uncle
+with some little doubt. She did not know how he would take the suggestion.
+She had been at the mill so little since first she began attending
+boarding school.
+
+This Thanksgiving she did not expect to go home. Few of the girls did so,
+for the recess was only over the week-end and lessons began again on
+Monday. Only those girls who lived very near to Briarwood made a real
+vacation of the first winter holiday. A good many used the time to make up
+lessons and work off "conditions."
+
+Thanksgiving Day itself was made somewhat special by a trip to Buchane
+Falls, where there was a large dam. Dinner was to be served at five in the
+evening, and more than half the school went off to the falls (which was
+ten miles away) in several big party wagons, before ten o'clock in the
+morning.
+
+"Bring your appetites back with you, girls," Mrs. Tellingham told them at
+chapel, and Heavy, at least, had promised to do so and meant to keep her
+word. Yet even Heavy did justice to the cold luncheon that was served to
+all of them at the falls.
+
+It was crisp autumn weather. Early in the morning there had been a skim of
+ice along the edge of the water; but there had not yet been frost enough
+to chain the current of the Buchane Creek. Indeed, it would not freeze
+over in the middle until mid-winter, if then.
+
+The picnic ground was above the falls and on the verge of the big
+millpond. There were swings, and a bowling alley, and boats, and other
+amusements.
+
+Ruth had fairly dragged Ann Hicks into the party. The girls who had been
+meanest to the westerner were present. Ann would have had a woefully bad
+time of it had not some of the smaller girls needed somebody to look out
+for them.
+
+Ann hated the little girls at Briarwood less than she did the big ones. In
+fact, the "primes," as they were called, rather took to the big girl from
+the West.
+
+One of the swings was not secure, and Ann started to fix it. She could
+climb like any boy, and there did not happen to be a teacher near to
+forbid her. Therefore, up she went, unfastened the rope from the beam, and
+proceeded to splice the place where it had become frayed.
+
+It was not a new rope, but was strong save in that one spot. Ann coiled
+it, and although it did not have the "feel" of the fine hemp, or the good
+hair rope that is part of the cowman's equipment, her hands and arm
+tingled to lassoo some active, running object.
+
+She coiled it once more and then flung the rope at a bush. The little
+girls shouted their appreciation. Ann did not mind, for there seemed to be
+no juniors or seniors there to see. Most of the older girls were down by
+the water.
+
+Indeed, some of the seniors were trying to interest the bigger girls in
+rowing. Briarwood owned a small lake, and they might have canoes and
+racing shells upon it, if the girls as a whole would become interested.
+
+But many of the big girls did not even know how to row. There was one big
+punt into which almost a dozen of them crowded. Heavy sat in the stern and
+declared that she had to have a big crowd in the bow of the boat, to
+balance it and keep her end from going down.
+
+Therefore one girl after another jumped in, and when it was really too
+full for safety it was pushed out from the landing. Just about the time
+the current which set toward the middle of the pond seized the punt, it
+was discovered that nobody had thought of oars.
+
+"How under the sun did you suppose a thing like this was going to be
+propelled?" Heavy demanded. "I never did see such a fellow as you are,
+Mandy Mitchell!"
+
+"You needn't scold me," declared the Mitchell girl. "You invited me into
+the boat."
+
+"Did I? Why! I must have been crazy, then!" declared Heavy. "And didn't
+any of you think how we were going to get back to shore?"
+
+"Nor we don't know now," cried another girl.
+
+"Oh-o!" gasped one of the others, darting a frightened look ahead. "We're
+aiming right for the dam."
+
+"You wouldn't expect the boat to drift against the current, would you?"
+snapped Heavy.
+
+"Let's scream!" cried another--and they could all do that to perfection.
+In a very few minutes it was apparent to everybody within the circle of
+half a mile or more that a bunch of girls was in trouble--or thought so!
+
+"Sit down!" gasped Heavy. "Don't rock the boat. If that yelling doesn't
+bring anybody, we're due to reach a watery grave, sure enough."
+
+"Oh, don't, Heavy!" wailed one of the weaker ones. "How can you?"
+
+Heavy was privately as frightened as any of them, but she tried to keep
+the others cheerful, and would have kept on joking till the end. But
+several small boats came racing down the pond after them, and along the
+bank came a man--or a boy--running and shouting. How either the girls in
+the boats or the youth on the shore could help them, was a mystery; but
+both comforted the imperiled party immensely.
+
+The current swung the heavy punt in toward the shore. Right at that end of
+the dam the water was running a foot deep--or more--over the flash-board.
+
+If the punt struck, it would turn broadside, and probably tip all hands
+over the dam. This was a serious predicament, indeed, and the spectators
+realized it even more keenly than did the girls in the punt.
+
+The youth who had been called to the spot by their screams threw off his
+coat and cap, and they saw him stoop to unlace his shoes. A plunge into
+this cold water was not attractive, and it was doubtful if he could help
+them much if he reached the punt.
+
+Down the hill from the picnic grounds came a group of girls, Ann Hicks in
+the lead. Most of her companions were too small to do any good in any
+event. The girl from the ranch carried a neat coil of rope in one hand and
+she shouted to Heavy to "Hold on!"
+
+"You tell me what to hold on to, and you'll see me do it!" replied the
+plump girl. "All I can take hold of just now is thin air."
+
+"Hold on!" said Ann again, and stopped, having reached the right spot.
+Then she swung the rope in the air, let it uncoil suddenly, and the loose
+end dropped fairly across Jennie Stone's lap.
+
+"Hold on!" yelled everybody, then, and Heavy obeyed.
+
+But the young fellow sprang to Ann's aid, and wrapped the slack of the
+rope around a stout sapling on the edge of the pond.
+
+"Easy! Easy!" he admonished. "We don't want to pull them out of the boat.
+You _can_ fling a rope; can't you, Miss?"
+
+"I'd ought to," grunted Ann. "I've roped enough steers--Why! you're Jerry
+Sheming," she declared, suddenly looking into his face. "Ruth Fielding
+wants to see you. Don't you run away before she talks with you."
+
+Then the rope became taut, and the punt began to swing shoreward slowly,
+taking in some water and setting the girls to screaming again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RUTH'S LITTLE PLOT
+
+
+The punt was in shallow water and the girls who had ventured into it
+without oars were perfectly safe before any of the teachers arrived. With
+them came Ruth and Helen, and some of the other juniors and seniors. Heavy
+took the stump.
+
+"Now! you see what she did?" cried the stout girl, seizing Ann in her arms
+the moment she could get ashore. "If she hadn't known how to fling a
+lasso, and rope a steer, she'd never have been able to send that rope to
+us.
+
+"Three cheers for Ann Hicks, the girl from the ranch, who knows what to do
+when folks are drowning in Buchane Pond! One--two--three----"
+
+The cheers were given with a will. Several of the girls who had treated
+the western girl so meanly about the dunce cap had been in the boat, and
+they asked Ann to shake hands. They were truly repentant, and Ann could
+not refuse their advances.
+
+But the western girl was still doubtful of her standing with her mates,
+and went back to play with the little ones. Meanwhile she showed Ruth
+where Jerry Sheming stood at one side, and the girl from the Red Mill ran
+to him eagerly.
+
+"I am delighted to see you!" she exclaimed, shaking Jerry's rough hand. "I
+was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you after you left the mill. And I
+wanted to."
+
+"I'm glad of your interest in me, Miss Ruth," he said, "but I ain't got no
+call to expect it. Mr. Potter was pretty kind to me, and he kept me as
+long as there was work there."
+
+"But you haven't got to tramp it, now?"
+
+"Only to look for a steady job. I--I come over this way hopin' I'd hit it
+at Lumberton. But they're discharging men at the mills instead of hiring
+new ones."
+
+"And I expect you'd rather work in the woods than anywhere else?"
+suggested Ruth.
+
+"Why--yes, Miss. I love the woods. And I got a good rifle and shotgun, and
+I'm a good camp cook. I can't get a guide's license, but I could go as
+assistant--if anybody would take me around Tallahaska."
+
+"Suppose I could get you a job working right where you've always lived--at
+Cliff Island?" she asked, eagerly.
+
+"What d'ye mean--Cliff Island?" he demanded, flushing deeply. "I wouldn't
+work for that Rufus Blent--nor he wouldn't have me."
+
+"I don't know anything about the man," said Ruth, smiling. "But one of my
+chums has invited me to go to Cliff Island for the Christmas holidays. Her
+father has bought the place and is building a lodge there."
+
+"Good lands!" ejaculated Jerry.
+
+"Isn't that a coincidence?" Ruth commented. "Now, you wouldn't refuse a
+job with Mr. Tingley; would you?"
+
+"Tingley--is that the name?"
+
+"Yes. Perhaps I can get him, through Belle, to hire you. I'll try. Would
+you go back?"
+
+"In a minute!" exclaimed Jerry.
+
+"Then I'll try. You see, in four or five weeks, we'll be going there
+ourselves. I think it would just be jolly to have you around, for you know
+all about the island and everything."
+
+"Yes, indeed, ma'am," agreed Jerry. "I'd like the job."
+
+"So you must write me every few days and let me know where you are. Mrs.
+Tellingham won't mind--I'll explain to her," Ruth said, earnestly. "I am
+not quite sure that I can go myself, yet. But I'll know for sure in a few
+days. And I'll see if Belle won't ask her father to give you work at Cliff
+Island. Then, in your off time, you can look for that box your uncle
+lost. Don't you see?"
+
+"Oh, Miss! I guess that's gone for good. Near as I could make out o' Uncle
+Pete, the landslide at the west end of the island buried his treasure box
+a mile deep! It was in one o' the little caves, I s'pose."
+
+"Caves? Are there caves on the island?"
+
+"Lots of 'em. Big ones as well as small. If Uncle Pete wasn't plumb crazy,
+he had his money and papers in a hide-out that I'd never found."
+
+"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with
+'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few
+days where you are, Jerry?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."
+
+"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"
+
+"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice
+black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."
+
+"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because
+she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic
+ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.
+
+"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud
+of her--them that was in that boat."
+
+"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must
+run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."
+
+She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had
+gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little
+attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going
+over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.
+
+"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be
+in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on,
+Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."
+
+"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make
+any difference," growled the western girl.
+
+"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'" cried one of the girls
+who had taken a prominent part in the dunce cap trick. "You make me
+awfully ashamed of myself for being so mean to you. Please forgive us all,
+Ann--that's a good girl."
+
+Ann was awkward about accepting their apologies; and yet she was not
+naturally a bad-tempered girl. She was just different from them all--and
+felt the difference so keenly!
+
+This sudden reversal of feeling, and their evident offer of friendliness,
+made her feel more awkward than ever. She remained very glum while at the
+picnic grounds.
+
+But, as Ruth had said, the incident served to break the ice. Ann had
+gotten her start. Somebody beside the "primes" gave her "the glad hand and
+the smiling eye." Briarwood began to be a different sort of place for the
+ranch girl.
+
+There were plenty of the juniors who looked down on her still; but she had
+"shown them" once that she could do something the ordinary eastern girl
+could not do and Ann was on the _qui vive_ for another chance to "make
+good" along her own particular line.
+
+She grew brighter and more self-possessed as the term advanced. Her
+lessons, too, she attacked with more assurance.
+
+A few days after Thanksgiving Ruth received a letter in Aunt Alvirah's
+cramped hand-writing which assured her that Uncle Jabez would make no
+objection to her accepting the invitation to go to Cliff Island for the
+holidays.
+
+"And I'll remind him of it in time so't he can send you a Christmas
+goldpiece, if the sperit so moves him," wrote Aunt Alvirah, in her
+old-fashioned way. "But do take care of yourself, my pretty, in the middle
+of that lake."
+
+In telling Belle how happy she was to accept the invitation for the
+frolic, Ruth diffidently put forward her request that Mr. Tingley give
+Jerry Sheming a job.
+
+"I am quite sure he is a good boy," she told Belle. "He has worked for my
+uncle, and Uncle Jabez praised him. Now, Uncle Jabez doesn't praise for
+nothing."
+
+"I'll tell father about this Jerry--sure," laughed Belle. "You're an odd
+girl, Ruth. You're always trying to do something for somebody."
+
+"Trying to do somebody for somebody, maybe," interposed Mercy, in her
+sharp way. "Ruth uses her friends for her own ends."
+
+But Ruth's little plot worked. A fortnight after Thanksgiving she was able
+to write to Jerry, who had found a few days' work near the school, that he
+could go back to Cliff Island and present himself to Mr. Tingley's
+foreman. A good job was waiting for him on the island where he had lived
+so long with his uncle, the old hunter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN EXCITING FINISH
+
+
+Affairs at Briarwood went at high speed toward the end of the term.
+Everybody was busy. A girl who did not work, or who had no interest in her
+studies, fell behind very quickly.
+
+Ann Hicks was spurred to do her best by the activities of her mates. She
+did not like any of them well enough--save those in the two neighboring
+quartette rooms in her dormitory building--to accept defeat from them. She
+began to make a better appearance in recitations, and her marks became
+better.
+
+They all had extra interests save Ann herself. Helen Cameron was in the
+school orchestra and played first violin with a hope of getting solo parts
+in time. She loved the instrument, and in the evening, before the
+electricity was turned on, she often played in the room, delighting the
+music-loving Ann.
+
+Sometimes Ruth sang to her chum's accompaniment. Ruth's voice was so
+sweet, so true and tender, and she sang ballads with such feeling, that
+Ann often was glad it was dark in the room. The western girl considered it
+"soft" to weep, but Ruth's singing brought the tears to her eyes.
+
+Mercy Curtis even gave up her beloved books during the hour of these
+informal concerts. Other times she would have railed because she could not
+study. Mercy was as hungry for lessons as Heavy Stone was for layer-cake
+and macaroons.
+
+"That's all that's left me," croaked the lame girl, when she was in one of
+her most difficult moods. "I'll learn all there is to be learned. I'll
+stuff my head full. Then, when other girls laugh at my crooked back and
+weak legs, I'll shame 'em by knowing more out of books."
+
+"Oh, what a mean way to put it!" gasped Helen.
+
+"I don't care, Miss! You never had your back ache you and your legs go
+wabbly--No person with a bad back and such aches and pains as I have, was
+ever good-natured!"
+
+"Think of Aunt Alvirah," murmured Ruth, gently.
+
+"Oh, well--she isn't just human!" gasped the lame girl.
+
+"She is very human, I think," Ruth returned.
+
+"No. She's an angel. And no angel was ever called 'Curtis,'" declared the
+other, her eyes snapping.
+
+"But I believe there must be an angel somewhere named 'Mercy,'" Ruth
+responded, still softly.
+
+However, it was understood that Mercy was aiming to be the crack scholar
+of her class. There was a scholarship to be won, and Mercy hoped to get it
+and to go to college two years later.
+
+Even Jennie Stone declared she was going in for "extras."
+
+"What, pray?" scoffed The Fox. "All your spare time is taken up in eating
+now, Miss."
+
+"All right. I'll go in for the heavyweight championship at table,"
+declared the plump girl, good-naturedly. "At least, the result will
+doubtless be visible."
+
+Ann began to wonder what she was studying for. All these other girls
+seemed to have some particular object. Was she going to school without any
+real reason for it?
+
+Uncle Bill would be proud of her, of course. She practised assiduously to
+perfect her piano playing. That was something that would show out in
+Bullhide and on the ranch. Uncle Bill would crow over her playing just as
+he did over her bareback riding.
+
+But Ann was not entirely satisfied with these thoughts. Nor was she
+contented with the fact that she had begun to make her mates respect her.
+There was something lacking.
+
+She had half a mind to refuse Belle Tingley's invitation to Cliff Island.
+In her heart Ann believed she was included in the party because Belle
+would have been ashamed to ignore her, and Ruth would not have gone had
+Ann not been asked.
+
+To tell the truth Ann was hungry for the girls to like her for
+herself--for some attribute of character which she honestly possessed. She
+had never had to think of such things before. In her western home it had
+never crossed her mind whether people liked her, or not. Everybody about
+Silver Ranch had been uniformly kind to her.
+
+Belle's holiday party was to be made up of the eight girls in the two
+quartette rooms, with Madge Steele, the senior; Madge's brother, Bobbins,
+Tom Cameron, little Busy Izzy Phelps, and Belle's own brothers.
+
+"Of course, we've got to have the boys," declared Helen. "No fun without
+them."
+
+Mercy had tried to beg off at first; then she had agreed to go, if she
+could take half a trunkful of books with her.
+
+Briarwood girls were as busy as bees in June during these last few days of
+the first half. The second half was broken by the Easter vacation and most
+of the real hard work in study came before Christmas.
+
+There was going to be a school play after Christmas, and the parts were
+given out before the holidays. Helen was going to play and Ruth to sing.
+It did seem to Ann as though every girl was happy and busy but herself.
+
+The last day of the term was in sight. There was to be the usual
+entertainment and a dance at night. The hall had to be trimmed with greens
+and those girls--of the junior and senior classes--who could, were
+appointed to help gather the decorations.
+
+"I don't want to go," objected Ann.
+
+"Goosie!" cried Helen. "Of course you do. It will be fun."
+
+"Not for me," returned the ranch girl, grimly. "Do you see who is going to
+head the party? That Mitchell girl. She's always nasty to me."
+
+"Be nasty to her!" snapped Mercy, from her corner.
+
+"Now, Mercy!" begged Ruth, shaking a finger at the lame girl.
+
+"I wouldn't mind what Mitchell says or does," sniffed The Fox.
+
+"Fibber!" exclaimed Mercy.
+
+"I never tell lies, Miss," said Mary Cox, tossing her head.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated the somewhat spiteful Mercy, "do you call yourself a
+female George Washington?"
+
+"No. Marthy Washington," laughed Heavy.
+
+"Only her husband couldn't lie," declared Mercy. "And at that, they say
+that somebody wished to change the epitaph on his tomb to read: 'Here lies
+George Washington--for the first time!'"
+
+"Everybody is tempted to tell a fib some time," sighed Helen.
+
+"And falls, too," exclaimed Mercy.
+
+"I must say I don't believe there ever was anybody but Washington that
+didn't tell a lie. It's awfully hard to be exactly truthful always," said
+Lluella. "You remember that time in the primary grade, just after we'd
+come here to Briarwood, Belle?"
+
+"Do I?" laughed Belle Tingley. "You fibbed all right then, Miss."
+
+"It wasn't very bad--and I did _want_ to see the whole school so much.
+So--so I took one of my pencils to our teacher and asked her if she would
+ask the other scholars if it was theirs.
+
+"Of course, all the other girls in our room said it wasn't," proceeded
+Lluella. "Then teacher said just what I wanted her to say: 'You may
+inquire in the other classes.' So I went around and saw all the other
+classes and had a real nice time.
+
+"But when I got back with the pencil in my hand still, Belle come near
+getting me into trouble."
+
+"Uh-huh!" admitted Belle, nodding.
+
+"How?" asked somebody.
+
+"She just whispered--right out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you
+know it!' And I had to say--right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what
+could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, I s'pose."
+
+The assembled girls laughed. But Ann Hicks was still seriously inclined
+not to go into the woods, although she had no idea of telling a fib about
+it. And because she was too proud to say to the teacher in charge that she
+feared Miss Mitchell's tongue, the western girl joined the
+greens-gathering party at the very last minute.
+
+There were two four-seated sleighs, for there was a hard-packed white
+track into the woods toward Triton Lake. Old Dolliver drove one, and his
+helper manned the other. The English teacher was in charge. She hoped to
+find bushels of holly berries and cedar buds as well as the materials for
+wreaths.
+
+One pair of the horses was western--high-spirited, hard-bitted mustangs.
+Ann Hicks recognized them before she got into the sleigh. How they pulled
+and danced, and tossed the froth from their bits!
+
+"I feel just as they do," thought the girl. "I'd love to break out, and
+kick, and bite, and act the very Old Boy! Poor things! How they must miss
+the plains and the free range."
+
+The other girls wondered what made her so silent. The tang of the frosty
+air, and the ring of the ponies' hoofs, and the jingle of the bells put
+plenty of life and fun into her mates; but Ann remained morose.
+
+They reached the edge of the swamp and the girls alighted with merry shout
+and song. They were all armed with big shears or sharp knives, but the
+berries grew high, and Old Dolliver's boy had to climb for them.
+
+Then the accident occurred--a totally unexpected and unlooked for
+accident. In stepping out on a high branch, the boy slipped, fell, and
+came down to the ground, hitting each intervening limb, and so saving his
+life, but dashing every bit of breath from his lungs, it seemed!
+
+The girls ran together, screaming. The teacher almost fainted. Old
+Dolliver stooped over the fallen boy and wiped the blood from his lips.
+
+"Don't tech him!" he croaked. "He's broke ev'ry bone in his body, I make
+no doubt. An' he'd oughter have a doctor----"
+
+"I'll get one," said Ann Hicks, briskly, in the old man's ear. "Where's
+the nearest--and the best?"
+
+"Doc Haverly at Lumberton."
+
+"I'll get him."
+
+"It's six miles, Miss. You'd never walk it. I'll take one of the
+teams----"
+
+"You stay with him," jerked out Ann. "I can ride."
+
+"Ride? Them ain't ridin' hosses, Miss," declared Old Dolliver.
+
+"If a horse has got four legs he can be ridden," declared the girl from
+the ranch, succinctly.
+
+"Take the off one on my team, then----"
+
+"That old plug? I guess not!" exclaimed Ann, and was off.
+
+She unharnessed one of the pitching, snapping mustangs. "Whoa--easy! You
+wouldn't bite me, you know," she crooned, and the mustang thrust forward
+his ears and listened.
+
+She dropped off the heavy harness. The bridle she allowed to remain, but
+there was no saddle. The English teacher came to her senses, suddenly.
+
+"That creature will kill you!" she cried, seeing what Ann was about.
+
+"Then he'll be the first horse that ever did it," drawled Ann. "Hi, yi,
+yi! We're off!"
+
+To the horror of the teacher, to the surprise of Old Dolliver, and to the
+delight of the other girls, Ann Hicks swung herself astride of the dancing
+pony, dug her heels into his ribs, and the next moment had darted out of
+sight down the wood road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A NUMBER OF THINGS
+
+
+There may have been good reason for the teacher to be horrified, but how
+else was the mustang to be ridden? Ann was a big girl to go tearing
+through the roads and 'way into Lumberton astride a horse. Without a
+saddle and curb, however, she could not otherwise have clung to him.
+
+Just now haste was imperative. She had a picture in her mind, all the way,
+of that boy lying in the snow, his face so pallid and the bloody foam upon
+his lips.
+
+In twenty-five minutes she was at the physician's gate. She flung herself
+off the horse, and as she shouted her news to the doctor through the open
+office window, she unbuckled the bridle-rein and made a leading strap of
+it.
+
+So, when the doctor drove out of the yard in his sleigh, she hopped in
+beside him and led the heaving mustang back into the woods. Of course she
+did not look ladylike at all, and not another girl at Briarwood would have
+done it. But even the English teacher--who was a prude--never scolded her
+for it.
+
+Indeed, the doctor made a heroine of Ann, Old Dolliver said he never saw
+her beat, and the boy, who was so sadly hurt (but who pulled through all
+right in the end) almost worshipped the girl from Silver Ranch.
+
+"And how she can ride!" the very girl who had treated Ann the meanest said
+of her. "What does it matter if she isn't quite up to the average yet in
+recitations? She _will_ be."
+
+This was after the holidays, however. There was too short a time before
+Belle Tingley and her friends started for Cliff Island for Ann to
+particularly note the different manner in which the girls in general
+treated her.
+
+The party went on the night train. Mr. Tingley, who had some influence
+with the railroad, had a special sleeper side-tracked at Lumberton for
+their accommodation. This sleeper was to be attached to the train that
+went through Lumberton at midnight.
+
+Therefore they did not have to skip all the fun of the dance. This was one
+of the occasions when the boys from the Seven Oaks Military Academy were
+allowed to mix freely with the girls of Briarwood. And both parties
+enjoyed it.
+
+Belle's mother had arrived in good season, for she was to chaperone the
+party bound for Logwood, at the head of Tallahaska Lake. She passed the
+word at ten o'clock, and the girls got their hand-baggage and ran down to
+the road, where Old Dolliver waited for them with his big sleigh. The boys
+walked into town, so the girls were nicely settled in the car when Tom
+Cameron and his chums reached the siding.
+
+Belle Tingley's two brothers were not too old to be companions for Tom,
+Bob, and Isadore Phelps. And they were all as eager for fun and
+prank-playing as they could be.
+
+Mrs. Tingley had already retired and most of the girls were in their
+dressing gowns when the boys arrived. The porter was making up the boys'
+berths as the latter tramped in, bringing on their clothing the first
+flakes of the storm that had been threatening all the evening.
+
+"Let the porter brush you, little boy," urged Madge, peering out between
+the curtains of her section and admonishing her big brother. "If you get
+cold and catch the croup I don't know what sister _will_ do! Now, be a
+good child!"
+
+"Huh!" grunted Isadore Phelps, trying to collect enough of the snow to
+make a ball to throw at her. "I wonder at you, Bobbins. Why don't you make
+her behave? Treatin' you like an over-grown kid."
+
+"I'd never treat _you_ that way, Master Isadore," said Madge, sweetly.
+"For you very well know that you're not grown at all!"
+
+At that Isadore _did_ gather snow--by running out for it. He brought back
+a dozen snowballs and the first thing the girls knew the missiles were
+dropping over the top of the curtains into the sheltered spaces devoted to
+the berths.
+
+There _was_ a great squealing then, for some of the victims were quite
+ready for bed, and the snow was cold and wet. Mrs. Tingley interfered
+little with the pranks of the young folk, and Izzy was careful not to
+throw any snow into _her_ compartment.
+
+But the tease did not know when to stop. He was usually that way--as Madge
+said, Izzy would drive a willing horse to death.
+
+It was Heavy and Ann, however, who paid him back in some of his own coin.
+
+The boys finally made their preparations for bed. Izzy paraded the length
+of the car in his big robe and bed slippers, for a drink of ice water.
+
+Before he could return, Heavy and Ann bounced out in their woolen kimonas
+and seized him. By this time the train had come in, the engine had
+switched to the siding, picked up their sleeper, and was now backing down
+to couple on to the train again.
+
+The two girls ran Izzy out into the vestibule, Heavy's hand over his
+mouth so that he could not shout to his friends for help. The door of the
+vestibule on the off side was unlocked. Ann pushed it open.
+
+The snow was falling heavily--it was impossible to see even the fence that
+bounded the railroad line on this side. The cars came together with a
+slight shock and the three were thrown into a giggling, struggling heap on
+the platform.
+
+"Lemme go!" gasped Izzy.
+
+"Sure we will!" giggled Heavy, and with a final push she sent him flying
+down the steps. Then she shut the door.
+
+She did not know that every other door on that side of the long train was
+locked. Almost immediately the train began to move forward. It swept away
+from the Lumberton platform, and it was fully a minute before Heavy and
+Ann realized what they had done.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" shrieked the plump girl, running down the aisle. "Busy Izzy
+is left behind."
+
+"Stop your joking," exclaimed Tom, peering out of his berth, which was an
+upper. "He's nothing of the kind."
+
+"He is! He is!"
+
+"Why, he's all ready for bed," declared one of the Tingley boys. "He
+wouldn't dare----"
+
+"We threw him out!" wailed Heavy. "We didn't know the train was to start
+so quickly."
+
+"Threw him off the train?" cried Mrs. Tingley, appearing in her boudoir
+cap and gown. "What kind of a menagerie am I supposed to preserve order
+in----?"
+
+"You can make bully good preserved ginger, Ma," said one of her sons, "but
+you fall short when it comes to preserving _order_."
+
+Most of the crowd were troubled over Isadore's absence. Some suggested
+pulling the emergency cord and stopping the train; others were for
+telegraphing back from the next station. All were talking at once, indeed,
+when the rear door opened and in came the conductor, escorting the
+shivering Isadore.
+
+"Does this--this _tyke_ belong in here?" demanded the man of brass
+buttons, with much emphasis.
+
+They welcomed him loudly. The conductor shook his head. The flagman on the
+end of the train had helped the boy aboard the last car as the train
+started to move.
+
+"Keep him here!" commanded the conductor. "And I've a mind to have both
+doors of the car locked until we reach Logwood. Don't let me hear anything
+more from you boys and girls on this journey."
+
+He went away laughing, however, and bye and bye they quieted down. Madge
+insisted upon making some hot composition, very strong, and dosing Isadore
+with it. The drink probably warded off a cold. Izzy admitted to Bobbins
+that a sister wasn't so bad to "have around" after all.
+
+While they slept, the car was shunted to the sidetrack at Logwood and the
+western-bound train went hooting away through the forest. It was still
+snowing heavily, there were not many trains passing through the Logwood
+yard, and no switching during the early part of the day. The snow
+smothered other sounds.
+
+Therefore, the party that had come to the lake for a vacation was not
+astir until late. It was hunger that roused them to the realities of life
+in the end. They had to dress and go to the one hotel of which the
+settlement boasted for breakfast.
+
+"Can't cross to the island on the ice, they say," Ralph Tingley ran in to
+tell his mother. "Weight of the snow has broken it up. One of the men says
+he'll get a punt and pole us over to Cliff Island if the snow stops so
+that he can see his way."
+
+"My! won't that be fun!" gasped Ann Hicks, who had overheard him.
+
+She had begun to enjoy herself the minute she felt that they were in rough
+country. Some of the girls wished they hadn't come. Ruth and Helen were
+already outside, snowballing with the boys.
+
+When Mrs. Tingley descended the car steps, ready to go to breakfast, her
+other son appeared--a second Mercury.
+
+"Mother, Mr. Preston is here. Says he'd like to see you."
+
+Mr. Preston was the foreman to whom Jerry Sheming had been sent for a job.
+Ruth, who overheard, remembered the man's name. Then she saw a man dressed
+in Canadian knit cap, tall boots, and mackinaw, and carrying a huge
+umbrella, with which he hurried forward to hold protectingly over Mrs.
+Tingley's head.
+
+"Glad to see you, ma'am," said the foreman. Ruth was passing them on her
+way to the hotel when she heard something that stayed her progress. "Sorry
+to trouble you. Mr. Tingley ain't coming up to-day?"
+
+"Not until Christmas morning," replied the lady. "He cannot get away
+before."
+
+"Well, I'll have to discharge that Jerry Sheming. Too bad, too. He's a
+worker, and well able to guide the boys and girls around the island--knows
+it like a book."
+
+"Why let him go, then?" asked the lady.
+
+"Blent says he's dishonest. An' I seen him snooping around rather funny,
+myself. Guess I'll have to fire him, Mis' Tingley."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RUFUS BLENT'S LITTLE WAYS
+
+
+The crowd waded through the soft snow to the inn. It was a small place,
+patronized mainly by fishermen and hunters in the season. It was plain,
+from the breakfast they served to the Tingley party, that if the
+unexpected guests had to remain long, they would be starved to death.
+
+"And all the 'big eats' over on the Island," wailed Heavy. "I could swim
+there, I believe."
+
+"I am afraid I could not allow you to do that," said Mrs. Tingley, shaking
+her head. "It would be too absurd. We'd better take the train home again."
+
+"Never!" chorused Belle and her brothers. "We must get to Cliff Island in
+some way--by hook or by crook," added the girl, who had set her heart upon
+this outing.
+
+Ruth was rather serious this morning. She waited for a chance to speak
+with Mrs. Tingley alone, and when it came, she blurted out what she wished
+to say:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Tingley! I couldn't help hearing what that man said to you. Must
+he discharge Jerry because Rufus Blent says so?"
+
+"Why, my dear! Oh! I remember. You were the girl who befriended the boy in
+the first place?"
+
+"Yes, I did, Mrs. Tingley. And I hope you won't let your foreman turn him
+off for nothing----"
+
+"Oh! I can't interfere. It is my husband's business, of course."
+
+"But let me tell you!" urged Ruth, and then she related all she knew about
+Jerry Sheming, and all about the story of the old hunter who had lived so
+many years on Cliff Island.
+
+"Mr. Tingley had a good deal of trouble over that squatter," said Belle's
+mother, slowly. "He was crazy."
+
+"That might be. But Jerry isn't crazy."
+
+"But they made some claim to owning a part of the island."
+
+"And after the old man had lived there for fifty years, perhaps he thought
+he had a right to it."
+
+"Why, my child, that sounds reasonable. But of course he didn't."
+
+"Just the same," said Ruth, "he maybe had the box of money and papers
+hidden on the island, as he said. That is what Jerry has been looking for.
+And I wager that man Blent is afraid he will find it."
+
+"How romantic!" laughed Mrs. Tingley.
+
+"But, do wait till Mr. Tingley comes and let him decide," begged Ruth.
+
+"Surely. And I will tell Mr. Preston to refuse any of Blent's demands. He
+is a queer old fellow, I know. And, come to think of it, he told us he
+wanted to make some investigations regarding the caves at the west end of
+the island. He wouldn't sell us the place without reserving in the deed
+the rights to all mineral deposits and to treasure trove."
+
+"What's 'treasure trove,' Mrs. Tingley?" asked Ruth, quickly.
+
+"Why--that would mean anything valuable found upon the land which is not
+naturally a part of it."
+
+"Like a box of money, or papers?"
+
+"Yes! I see. I declare, child, maybe the boy, Jerry, has told you the
+truth!"
+
+"I am sure he has. He seemed like a perfectly honest boy," declared Ruth,
+anxiously.
+
+"I will see Mr. Preston again," spoke Mrs. Tingley, decisively.
+
+The storm continued through the forenoon. But the boys and girls waiting
+for transportation to Cliff Island had plenty of fun.
+
+Behind the inn was an open field, and there they built a fort, the party
+being divided into opposing armies. Tom Cameron led one and Ann Hicks was
+chosen to head the other. Mercy could look at them from the windows, and
+urge the girls on in the fray.
+
+The boys might throw straighter, but numbers told. The girls could divide
+and attack the boy defenders of the fortress on both flanks. They came in
+rosy and breathless at noon--to sit down to a most heart-breaking
+luncheon.
+
+"Such an expanse of table and so little on it I never saw before,"
+grumbled Heavy, in a glum aside. "How long do you suppose we would exist
+on these rations?"
+
+"We're not dead yet," said Ruth, cheerfully, "so you needn't become a
+'gloom.'"
+
+"Jen ought to live on past meals--like a camel existing on its hump,"
+declared Madge.
+
+"I'm no camel," retorted the plump one, instantly. "And a meal to
+me--after it has been digested--is nothing more than a beautiful dream;
+and you can bet that I never gained my avoirdupois by dreaming!"
+
+Mrs. Tingley beckoned to Ruth after dinner. Together they went into the
+general room, where there was a huge fire of logs. Mr. Preston, the
+foreman, was there.
+
+"I have been making inquiries," the lady explained to Ruth, "and I find
+that this Rufus Blent has not a very enviable reputation. At least, he is
+considered, locally, a sharper."
+
+"Is this the girl who is interested in Jerry?" asked the foreman. "Well!
+he ought to be all right if she sticks up for him."
+
+"I believe his story is true," Ruth said, shaking her head.
+
+"And if that's so, then the boss hasn't got a clear title to Cliff
+Island--eh?" returned the big foreman, smiling at her quizzically.
+
+"That isn't Mr. Tingley's fault," cried Ruth, quickly.
+
+"He'd be the one to suffer, however, if it should be proved that old Pete
+Tilton had any vested right in the island," said Preston. "You can bet
+Blent is sharp enough to have covered his tracks if he has done anything
+foxy. He was never caught yet in any legal tangle."
+
+"Oh, I hope Mr. Tingley won't have trouble up here," declared Mrs.
+Tingley, quite disturbed.
+
+Ruth felt rather embarrassed. As much as she was interested in Jerry
+Sheming, she did not like to think she was stirring up trouble for her
+school-mate's father. Just then the outer door of the inn opened and a man
+entered, stamping the snow from his boots upon the wire mat.
+
+"S-s-t!" said Preston, his eyes twinkling. "Here's Rufus Blent himself."
+
+It seemed that Mrs. Tingley had never seen the real estate man and she was
+quite as much interested as Ruth in making his acquaintance. They both
+eyed him with growing disapproval as the old man finished freeing his
+feet of the clinging snow and then charged at Preston from across the big
+room.
+
+"I say! I say, you, Preston!" he snarled. "Have you done what I tol' you?
+Have you got that Jerry Sheming off the island? He'd never oughter been
+let to git on there ag'in. I've been away, or I'd heard of it before. Is
+he off?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Preston, smiling secretly.
+
+"I wanter know why not? I won't have him snoopin' around there. It was
+understood when I sold Tingley that island that I reserved sartain
+rights----"
+
+"This here is Mis' Tingley," interposed Preston, turning the old man's
+attention to the lady.
+
+He was a brown, wrinkled old man, with sparse pepper-and-salt whiskers and
+a parrot-like nose. "Sharper" was written all over his hatchet features;
+but probably his provincialism and lack of book education had kept him
+from being a very dangerous villain.
+
+"I wanter know!" exclaimed Rufus. "So you're Tingley's lady? Wal! do you
+take charge here?"
+
+"Oh, no," laughed Mrs. Tingley. "My husband will be up here Christmas
+morning."
+
+"Goin' to have Preston send that boy back to the mainland?"
+
+"Oh, no, I shall not interfere. Mr. Tingley will attend to it when he
+comes. I think that would be best."
+
+"Nothin' of the kind!" cried Blent, his little eyes snapping. "That boy's
+got no business over there--snooping round."
+
+"What are you afraid of, Rufus? What do you think he'll find?" queried
+Preston, who was evidently not above aggravating the old fellow.
+
+"Never you mind! Never you mind!" croaked Blent. "If you folks won't
+discharge him and put him off the island, I'll do it, myself."
+
+"How can you, Mr. Blent?" asked Mrs. Tingley, feeling some disposition to
+cross swords with him.
+
+"Never you mind. I'll do it. Goin' back to-day, of course, Preston; ain't
+you?"
+
+"I'm hoping to get this crowd of young folk--and Mrs. Tingley--across to
+the island. And I think the snow is going to stop soon."
+
+"I'll go with you," declared Blent, promptly. "Don't you go till I see you
+again, Preston. I gotter ketch 'Squire Keller fust."
+
+He hurried out of the inn. Mrs. Tingley and Ruth looked at the foreman
+questioningly. The girl cried:
+
+"Oh! what will he do?"
+
+"He's going to get a warrant for the boy," answered Preston, scowling.
+
+"How can he? What has Jerry done?"
+
+"That don't make no difference," said the woodsman. "Old Rufus just about
+runs the politics of this town. Keller will do what he says. Rufus will
+get the boy off the island by foul means if he can't by fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE
+
+
+Ruth felt her heart swell in anger against Rufus Blent, the Logwood real
+estate man. If she had not been determined before to aid Jerry Sheming in
+every way possible, she was now.
+
+If there was a box of money and papers hidden on Cliff Island, once
+belonging to Pete Tilton, the old hunter, Ruth desired to keep Blent from
+finding it.
+
+She believed Jerry's story--about the treasure box and all. Rufus Blent's
+actions now seemed to prove the existence of such a box. He wanted to find
+it. But if the money and papers in the box had belonged to old Pete
+Tilton, surely Jerry, as his single living relative, should have the best
+right to the "treasure trove."
+
+How to thwart Blent was the question disturbing Ruth Fielding's mind. Of
+course, nobody but Jerry had as strong a desire as she to outwit the old
+real estate man. The other girls and boys--even Mrs. Tingley--would not
+feel as Ruth did about it. She knew that well enough.
+
+If anything was to be done to save Jerry from being arrested on a false
+charge and dragged from Cliff Island by Blent, _she_ must bring it about.
+Ruth watched the last flakes of the snow falling with a very serious
+feeling.
+
+The other young folk were delighted with the breaking of the weather. Now
+they could observe Logwood better, and its surroundings. The roughly built
+"shanty-town" was dropped down on the edge of the lake, in a clearing.
+Much of the stumpage around the place was still raw. The only roads were
+timber roads and they were now knee-deep in fresh snow.
+
+There was a dock with a good-sized steamer tied up at it, but there was
+too much ice for it to be got out into the lake. The railroad came out of
+the woods on one side and disappeared into just as thick a forest on the
+other.
+
+The interest of the young people, however, lay in the bit of land that
+loomed up some five miles away. Cliff Island contained several hundred
+acres of forest and meadow--all now covered with glittering white.
+
+At the nearer end was the new hunting lodge of the Tingleys, with the
+neighboring outbuildings. At the far end the island rose to a rugged
+promontory perhaps a hundred and fifty feet high, with a single tall pine
+tree at the apex.
+
+That western end of the island seemed to be built of huge boulders for the
+most part. Here and there the rocks were so steep that the snow did not
+cling to them, and they looked black and raw against the background of
+dazzling white.
+
+The face of the real cliff--because of which the island had received its
+name--was scarcely visible from Logwood. Jerry had told Ruth it was a very
+wild and desolate place, and the girl of the Red Hill could easily believe
+it.
+
+The crowd had left the inn as soon as the clouds began to break and a ray
+or two of sunshine shone forth. Two ox teams were breaking the paths
+through the town. The boys and girls went down to the dock, singing and
+shouting. Mrs. Tingley and the foreman came behind.
+
+Three other men were making ready a huge punt in which the entire party
+might be transported to the island. Later the punt would return for the
+extra baggage.
+
+This vehicle for water-travel was a shallow, skiff-like boat, almost as
+broad as it was long, and with a square bow and stern. There was a place
+for a short mast to be stepped, but, with the lake covered with drifting
+ice cakes, it was judged safer to depend upon huge sweeps for motive
+power.
+
+With these sweeps, not only could the punt be urged forward at a speed of
+perhaps two miles an hour, but the ice-cakes could be pushed aside and a
+channel opened through the drifting mass for the passage of the awkward
+boat.
+
+Mr. Preston had explained all this to Mrs. Tingley, who was used to
+neither the woods nor the lake, and she had agreed that this means of
+transportation to Cliff Island was sufficiently safe, though
+extraordinary.
+
+"Let's pile in and make a start," urged Ralph Tingley, eagerly. "Why! we
+won't get there by dark if we don't hurry."
+
+"And goodness knows we need to get somewhere to eat before long," cried
+Jennie Stone. "I am willing to help propel the boat myself, if they'll
+show me how."
+
+"You might get out and swim, and drag us behind you, Heavy," suggested one
+of the girls. "You're so anxious to get over to the island."
+
+They all were desirous of gaining their destination--there could be no
+doubt of that. As they were getting aboard, however, there came a hail
+from up the main street of Logwood.
+
+"Hi, yi! Don't you folks go without me! Hi, Preston!"
+
+"Here comes that Blent man," said Mrs. Tingley, with some disgust. "I
+suppose we must take him?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't advise ye to turn him down, Mis' Tingley," urged the
+foreman. "No use making him your enemy. I tell you he's got a big
+political pull in these parts."
+
+"Is there room for him?"
+
+"Yes. And for the fellow with him. That's Lem Daggett, the constable. Oh,
+Rufe is going over with all the legal right on his side. He'll bring Jerry
+back here and shut him up for a few days, I suppose."
+
+"But on what charge?" Mrs. Tingley asked, in some distress.
+
+"That won't matter. Some trumped-up charge. Easy enough to do it when you
+have a feller like 'Squire Keller to deal with. Oh," said Preston, shaking
+his head, "Rufe Blent knows what he's about, you may believe!"
+
+"Who's the old gee-gee with the whiskers?" asked the disrespectful
+Isadore, when the real estate man came down to the dock, with the
+constable slouching behind him.
+
+"Hurry up, Grandpop!" shouted one of the Tingley boys. "This expedition is
+about to start."
+
+Blent scowled at the hilarious crowd. It was plain to be seen that any
+supply of milk of human kindness he may have had was long since soured.
+
+Ruth caught Tom Cameron's eye and nodded to him. Helen's twin was a very
+good friend of the girl from the Red Mill and he quickly grasped her wish
+to speak with him alone.
+
+In a minute he maneuvered so as to get into the stern with his sister's
+chum, and there Ruth whispered to him her fears and desires regarding
+Blent and Jerry Sheming.
+
+"Say! we ought to help that fellow. See what he did for Jane Ann," said
+Tom. "And that old fellow looks so sour he sets my teeth on edge, anyway."
+
+"He is going to do a very mean thing," declared Ruth, decidedly. "Jerry
+has done nothing wrong, I am sure."
+
+"We must beat the old fellow."
+
+"But how, Tom? They say he is all-powerful here at Logwood."
+
+"Let me think. I'll be back again," replied Tom, as the boys called him to
+come up front.
+
+The punt was already under way. Preston and his three men worked the craft
+out slowly into the drifting ice. The grinding of the cakes against the
+sides of the boat did not frighten any of the passengers--unless perhaps
+Mrs. Tingley herself. She felt responsible for the safety of this whole
+party of her daughter's school friends.
+
+The wind was not strong and the drift of the broken ice was slow.
+Therefore there was really no danger to be apprehended. The punt was
+worked along its course with considerable ease.
+
+The boys had to take their turns at the sweeps; but Tom found time to slip
+back to Ruth before they were half-way across to the island.
+
+"Too bad the old fellow doesn't fall overboard," he growled in Ruth's ear.
+"Isn't he a snarly old customer?"
+
+"But I suppose the constable has the warrant," Ruth returned, smiling. "So
+Mr. Blent's elimination from the scene would not help Jerry much."
+
+"I tell you what--you've got to fight fire with fire," observed Tom, after
+a moment of deep reflection.
+
+"Well? What meanest thou, Sir Oracle?"
+
+"Why, they haven't any business to arrest Jerry."
+
+"Agreed."
+
+"Then let's tip him off so that he can run."
+
+"Where will he run to?" demanded Ruth, eagerly.
+
+"Say! that's a big island. And I bet he knows his way all over it."
+
+"Oh! the caves!" exclaimed Ruth.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"He told me there were caves in it. He can hide in one. And we can get
+food to him. Great, Tom--great!"
+
+"Sure it's great. When your Uncle Dudley----"
+
+"But how are we going to warn Jerry to run before this constable catches
+him?" interposed Ruth, with less confidence.
+
+"How? You leave that to me," Tom returned, mysteriously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE HUE AND CRY
+
+
+Ruth and Tom Cameron had no further opportunity of speaking together until
+the punt came very close to the island. Here the current ran more swiftly
+and the ice-blocks seemed to have been cleared away.
+
+There was a new stone dock, and up the slight rise from it, about a
+hundred yards back from the shore, was the heavily-framed lodge. It
+consisted of two stories, the upper one extending over the lower. Big
+beams crossed at the corners of this upper story and the outer walls were
+of roughly hewn logs. The great veranda was arranged for screening, in the
+summer, but now the west side was enclosed with glass. It was an expensive
+and comfortable looking camp.
+
+There were several men on the dock as the punt came in, but Jerry Sheming
+was not in sight. Tom had, from time to time, been seen whispering with
+the boys. They all now gathered in the bow of the slowly moving punt,
+ready to leap ashore the moment she bumped into the dock.
+
+"Do be careful, boys," begged Mrs. Tingley. "Don't fall into the water, or
+get hurt. I certainly shall be glad when Mr. Tingley comes up for
+Christmas and takes all this responsibility off my hands."
+
+"Don't have any fear for us, Mrs. Tingley, I beg," said Tom. "We're only
+going to scramble ashore, and the first fellow who reaches the house is
+the best man. Now, fellows!"
+
+The punt bumped. Such a scrambling as there was! Ann Hicks showed her
+suppleness by being one of the first to land and beating some of the boys;
+but she did not run with them.
+
+"They might have stayed and helped us girls--and Mrs. Tingley--to land,"
+complained Helen. "I don't see what Tom was thinking of."
+
+But all of a sudden Ruth had an idea that she understood Tom's lack of
+gallantry. Jerry Sheming, not being at the dock to meet the newcomers,
+must be at the house. The boys, it proved later, had agreed to help "tip"
+Jerry. The first fellow to see him was to tell him of the approach of
+Blent and the constable.
+
+Therefore, when Rufus Blent and Lem Daggett reached the lodge, nobody
+seemed to know anything about Jerry. Tom winked knowingly at Ruth.
+
+"I tell ye, Preston, I gotter take that boy back to Logwood with me,"
+shouted Blent, who seemed greatly excited. "Where are you hidin' the
+rascal?"
+
+"You know very well I came over with you in the boat and walked up here
+with you, Blent," growled the foreman, in some anger. "How could I hide
+him?"
+
+"But the cook, nor nobody, knows what's become of him. He was here peelin'
+'taters for supper, cookie says, jest b'fore we landed. Now he's sloped."
+
+"He saw you comin', it's likely," rejoined Preston. "He suspected what you
+was after."
+
+"Well, I'm goin' to leave Daggett. And, Lem!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" said that slouching person.
+
+"You got to get him. Now mind that. The boy's to 'pear in 'Squire Keller's
+court to-morrow--or something will happen," threatened the real estate
+man.
+
+"And if he don't appear, what then?" drawled Preston, who was more amused
+by the old man than afraid of him.
+
+"You'd better not interfere with the course of the law, Preston," declared
+Blent, shaking his head.
+
+"You bet I won't. Especially the brand of law that's handed a feller by
+your man, Keller. But I don't know nothing about the boy nor where he's
+gone. I don't wanter know, either.
+
+"And none of they rest o' you wanter harbor that thief," snarled Blent,
+viciously, looking around at the gaping hired men and the boys who had
+come to visit Cliff Island. "The law's got a long arm. 'Member that!"
+
+"Will we be breaking the law if we don't report this poor fellow to the
+constable here, if we see him?" asked Tom Cameron, boldly.
+
+"You bet you will. And I'll see that you're punished if ye harbor or help
+the rascal. Don't think because Tingley's a rich man, and your fathers
+have probably more money than is good for them, that you will escape,"
+said Blent.
+
+"I don't believe he's so powerful as he makes out to be," grumbled Tom,
+later, to Ruth. "_I_ was the one who caught Jerry and whispered for him to
+get out. I didn't have to say much to him. He was wise about Blent."
+
+"Where did he go?" asked the eager Ruth, quickly.
+
+"I don't know. I didn't want to know--and you don't, either."
+
+"But suppose something happens to him?" objected the girl, fearfully.
+
+"Why, he knows all about this island. You said so yourself. I just told
+him we'd get some grub to him to-morrow."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Told him we'd leave it at the foot of that tall pine at the far end of
+the island. Then he slipped out of the kitchen and disappeared."
+
+But Blent was a crafty old party and did not easily give up the pursuit of
+the young fellow he had come to the island to nab. The coat of fresh snow
+over everything made tracking the fugitive an easy task.
+
+After a few minutes of sputtering anger, the real estate man organized a
+pursuit of Jerry. He made sure that the forest youth had run out of the
+kitchen at about the time the visitors came up from the dock.
+
+"He ain't got a long start," said Blent to his satellite, the constable.
+"Let's see if he didn't leave tracks."
+
+He had. There was still an hour of daylight, although the winter evening
+was closing in rapidly. Jerry had left by the back door of the lodge and
+had gone straight across the yard, through the unbroken snow, to the
+bunkhouse used by the male help.
+
+There he had stopped for his rifle and shotgun, and ammunition. Indeed, he
+had taken everything that belonged to him, and, loaded down with this
+loot, had gone right up the hill, keeping in the scrub so as to be hidden
+from the big house, and had so passed over the rising ground toward the
+middle of the island.
+
+"The track is plain enough," Blent said. "Ain't ye got a dog, Preston? We
+could foller him all night."
+
+"Not with our dogs," declared the foreman.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Don't think the boss would like it. We don't keep dogs to hunt men with."
+
+"You better take care how you try to block the law," threatened the old
+man. "That boy's goin' to be caught."
+
+"Not with these dogs," grunted Preston. "You can put _that_ in your pipe
+and smoke it."
+
+Blent and the constable went off over the ridge. Ruth was so much
+interested that she stole out to follow them, and Ann Hicks overtook her
+before she had gotten far up the track.
+
+"Ruth Fielding! whatever are you doing?" demanded the girl from the
+Montana ranch. "Don't you know it will soon be night? Mrs. Tingley says
+for you to come back."
+
+"Do you suppose those horrid men will find Jerry?"
+
+"No, I don't," replied Ann, shortly. "And if they do----"
+
+"Oh! you're not as interested in him as I am," sighed Ruth. "I am sure he
+is honest and that Mr. Blent is telling lies about him. I--I want to see
+that they don't abuse him if they catch him."
+
+"Abuse him! And he a backwoods boy, with two guns?" snorted Ann. "Why, he
+wouldn't even let them arrest him, I don't suppose. _I_ wouldn't if I were
+Jerry."
+
+"But that would be dreadful," sighed Ruth. "Let's go a little farther,
+Ann."
+
+Dusk was falling, however, and when they got down the far side of the
+ridge they came to a swift, open water-course. Blent and the constable
+were evidently "stumped." Blent was snarling at their ill-luck.
+
+"He's took to the water--that's all _I_ know," drawled Lem Daggett, the
+constable. "Ye see, there ain't a mark in the snow on 'tother side."
+
+"Him wadin' in that ice-cold stream in mid-winter," grunted Blent. "Ain't
+he a scoundrel?"
+
+"Can't do nothin' more to-night," announced the constable, who didn't like
+the job any too well, it was evident. "And dorgs wouldn't do us no good."
+
+"Ha! ye know what ye gotter do," threatened Blent. "I'm goin' back to town
+when the punt goes this evenin'. But you stay here, an' you git the hue
+an' cry out after him to-morrer bright and early.
+
+"I don't want him rummagin' around this island at all. You understand? Not
+at all! It's up to you to git him, Lem Daggett."
+
+Daggett grunted and followed his master back to the lodge. The girls went
+on before and Ruth was delighted that, for a time, at least, Jerry was to
+have his freedom.
+
+"If it froze over solid in the night he could get to the mainland from the
+other end of the island, and then they'd never find him," she confided to
+Tom.
+
+But when morning came the surface of the lake was still a mass of loose
+and shifting ice. Lem demanded of Mrs. Tingley the help of all the men at
+the camp, and they started right away after breakfast to "comb" the island
+in a thorough manner.
+
+There wasn't a trace near the running stream to show in which direction
+the fugitive had gone. Had Jerry gone up stream he could have reached the
+very heart of the rough end of the island without leaving the water-trail.
+
+A party of the boys, with Ruth, Helen, and Ann Hicks, stole out of the
+lodge after the main searching party, and struck off for the high point
+where the lone pine tree grew.
+
+"I'd hate to think we'd draw that constable over there and help him to
+catch Jerry," said Bobbins.
+
+"We won't," Tom replied. "We are just going to leave the tin box of grub
+for him. He probably won't come out of hiding and try to get the food
+until this foolish constable has given up the chase. And I put the food in
+the tin box so that no prowling animal would get it instead of Jerry."
+
+It was hard traveling in the snow, for the party of young folk had not
+thought to obtain snowshoes. "We'll string some when we go back," Tom
+promised. "I know there are some frames all ready."
+
+"But no more such tobogganing as we had last winter up at Snow Camp,"
+declared Busy Izzy, with deep feeling. "Remember the spill I had with Ruth
+and that Heavy girl? Gee! that was some spill."
+
+"The land here Is too rough for good sliding," said Tom. "But I wish the
+lake would freeze hard again. Ralph says there are a couple of good
+scooters, and we all have our skates."
+
+"And the fishing!" exclaimed Helen, eagerly. "I _do_ so want to fish
+through the ice again."
+
+"Oh! we're bound to have a bully good time," declared Bobbins. "But we'll
+do this Jerry Sheming a good turn, too, if we can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OVER THE PRECIPICE
+
+
+Under the soft snow that had fallen the day before was a hard-packed layer
+that had come earlier in the season and made a firm footing for the
+explorers. Ruth and her chum, with Ann Hicks, were quite as good walkers
+as the boys. At any rate, the three girls determined not to be at the end
+of the procession.
+
+The constable and his unwilling helpers (for none of the men about the
+Tingley camp cared to see Jerry Sheming in trouble) were hunting the banks
+of the stream higher up for traces of the trail the boy had taken when he
+ran away from Rufus Blent the previous afternoon.
+
+Therefore the girls and boys who had started for the rendezvous at the
+lone pine, were able to put the wooded ridge between them and the
+constable's party, and so make their way unobserved toward the western end
+of Cliff Island.
+
+"They may come back and follow us," growled Tom. "But they'll be some way
+behind, and we'll hurry. I have a note in this tin box warning Jerry what
+he must look out for. As long as that Lem Daggett is on the island, I
+suppose he will be in danger of arrest."
+
+"It is just as mean as it can be!" gasped Helen, plodding on.
+
+"The boys wouldn't leave much o' that constable if they caught him playin'
+tag for such a man as Blent, at Bullhide," Ann Hicks declared, with
+warmth.
+
+"This Blent," said Bobbins, seriously, "seems to have everybody about
+Logwood buffaloed. What do you suppose your father will say to the
+constable taking the men with him this morning to hunt Jerry down?"
+
+This question he put to Ralph Tingley and the latter flushed angrily.
+
+"You wait!" he exclaimed. "Father will be angry, I bet. I told mother not
+to let the men have anything to do with the hunt, but you know how women
+are. She was afraid. She said that if Blent and the constable were within
+their legal rights----"
+
+"All bosh!" snapped Isadore Phelps.
+
+"I do not think Mrs. Tingley would have let them go with Daggett if she'd
+had the least idea they would be able to find Jerry," observed Helen,
+sagely.
+
+"And they won't," put in Ruth, with assurance. "I know he can hide away on
+this island like a fox in a burrow."
+
+"But he'll find it mighty cold sleeping out, this weather," remarked
+Bobbins.
+
+"He sure will!" agreed Tom.
+
+The party went ahead as rapidly as possible, but even the stronger of the
+boys found it hard to climb the steeper ascents through the deep snow.
+
+"Crackey!" exclaimed Isadore. "I know I'm slipping back two steps to every
+one I get ahead."
+
+"Nonsense, Izzy," returned Helen. "For if you did _that_, you had better
+turn around and travel the other way; then you'd back up the hill!"
+
+They had to wait and rest every few yards. The rocks were so huge that
+they often had to go out of the way for some distance to get around them.
+Although it could not be more than five miles, as the crow flies, from the
+lodge to the lone pine, in two hours they still had the hardest part of
+the journey before them.
+
+"I had no idea we should be so long at it," Tom confessed.
+
+"It's lucky Heavy didn't come with us," chuckled Helen.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"She would have been starved to death before this, and the idea of going
+the rest of the distance before turning back for home and luncheon would
+have destroyed her reason, I am sure."
+
+"Then," said Ruth, amused by this extravagant language, "poor Heavy would
+have been first dead and then crazy! Consider an insane corpse!"
+
+They came out at last upon the foot of the last ascent. The eminence
+seemed to be a smooth, cone-shaped hill. On it grew a number of trees, but
+the enormous old pine, lightning-riven and dead at the top, stood much
+taller than any of the other trees.
+
+Here and there they caught glimpses of chasms and steep ravines that
+seemed to split the rocky island to the edge of the water. When the snow
+did not cover the ground there might be paths to follow, but at this time
+the young explorers had to use their judgment in climbing the heights as
+best they might.
+
+The boys had to help the girls up the steeper places, with all their
+independence, and even Ann admitted that their male comrades were "rather
+handy to have about."
+
+The old pine tree sprang out of a little hollow in the hill. Behind it was
+the peak of the island, and from this highest spot the party obtained an
+unobstructed view of the whole western end of Tallahaska.
+
+"It's one big old lake," sighed Isadore Phelps. "If it would only just
+freeze over, boys, and give us a chance to try out the iceboats!"
+
+"If it keeps on being as cold as it was this morning, and the wind dies
+down, there'll be all the ice you want to see to-morrow," declared Ralph
+Tingley. "Goodness! let's get down from this exposed place. I'm 'most
+frozen."
+
+"Shall we stop and make a fire here, girls, and warm up before we return?"
+asked Tom Cameron.
+
+"And draw that constable right to this place where you want to leave
+Jerry's tin box?" cried his sister. "No, indeed!"
+
+"We'd better keep moving, anyway," Ruth urged. "Less danger of frost-bite.
+The wind _is_ keen."
+
+Tom had already placed the box of food in a sheltered spot. "The meat will
+be frozen as solid as a rock, I s'pose," he grumbled. "I hope that poor
+fellow has some way of making a fire in his hide-out."
+
+They began to retrace their steps. Instead of following exactly the same
+path they had used in climbing to the summit, Tom struck off at an angle,
+believing he saw an easier way.
+
+His companions followed him in single file. Ruth happened to be the last
+of all to come down the smooth slope. The seven ahead of her managed to
+tramp quite a smooth track through the snow, and once or twice she slipped
+in stepping in their footprints.
+
+"Look out back there, Ruthie!" called Tom, from the lead. "The snow must
+have got balled on your boots. Knock it off----"
+
+His speech was halted by a startled cry from Ruth. She felt herself going
+and threw out both hands to say her sudden slide.
+
+But there was nothing for her hands to seize save the unstable snow
+itself. She fell on her side, and shot out from the narrow track her
+companions had trod.
+
+"Ruth!" shrieked Helen, in the wildest kind of dismay.
+
+But the girl of the Red Mill was already out of reach. The drifting snow
+had curled out over the brink of the tall rock across the brow of which
+Tom had unwisely led the way. They had not realized they were so near the
+verge of the precipice.
+
+Ruth's body was solid, and when she fell in the snow the undercrust broke
+like an eggshell. Amid a cloud of snow-dust she shot over the yawning edge
+of the chasm and disappeared.
+
+Several square yards of the snow-drift had broken away. At their very feet
+fell the unexpected precipice. The boys and girls shrank back from the
+peril with terrified cries, clinging to each other.
+
+"She is killed!" moaned Helen, and covered her face with her mittened
+hands.
+
+"Ruth! Ruth!" called Tom, charging back toward the broken snow-drift.
+
+But Bobbins caught and held him. "Don't make a fool of yourself, old man!"
+commanded the big fellow. "You can't help her by falling over the cliff
+yourself."
+
+"Oh! how deep can that place be?" gasped Ralph Tingley.
+
+"What will mother say?" cried his brother.
+
+"Ruth! Ruth!" shouted Ann Hicks, and dropped on her knees to crawl to the
+edge.
+
+"You'll be down there yourself, Ann!" exclaimed Helen, sobbing.
+
+"A couple of you useless boys grab me by the ankles," commanded the
+western girl. "Come! take a good hold. Now let me see----"
+
+She hung half over the verge of the rock. The fall was sheer for fifty
+feet at least. It was a narrow cut in the hill, with apparently unscalable
+sides and open only toward the lake.
+
+"I--I don't see a thing," panted the girl.
+
+"Shout again," urged Helen.
+
+"Let's all shout together!" cried Isadore. "Now!"
+
+They raised their voices in a long, lingering yell. Again and again they
+repeated it. They thought nothing now of the possibility of attracting the
+constable and his companions to the scene.
+
+Meanwhile nothing but the echoes replied to their hail. Down there in the
+chasm Ann Hicks saw no sign of the lost girl. The bottom of the place
+seemed heaped high with snow.
+
+"She plunged right into the drift, and perhaps she's smothered down
+there," gasped Ann. "Oh! what shall we do?"
+
+"If it's a deep drift Ruth may not be hurt at all," cried Tom. "Do let me
+look, Ann. That's a good girl."
+
+The western girl was drawn back and the boy took her place. Bobbins and
+Ralph Tingley let Tom slide farther over the verge of the precipice than
+they had Ann.
+
+"She went down feet first," panted Tom. "There isn't an obstruction she
+could have hit. She must have dropped right into the snowbank in the
+bottom--Ruth! Ruth Fielding!"
+
+But even his sharp eyes could discover no mark in the snow. Nothing of the
+lost girl appeared above the drift at the foot of this sheer cliff. She
+might have been smothered under the snow, as Ann suggested. And yet, that
+scarcely seemed probable.
+
+Surely the fall into the soft drift could not have injured Ruth fatally.
+She must have had strength enough to struggle to the surface of the snow.
+
+Her disappearance was a most mysterious thing. When Tom crept back from
+the brink of the precipice and stood on his feet again, they all stared
+at one another in growing wonder.
+
+"What could have happened to her down there?" groaned Helen, her own
+amazement stifling her sobs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HIDE AND SEEK
+
+
+Ruth had fallen with but a single shriek. From top to bottom of the
+precipice had been such a swift descent that she could not cry out a
+second time. And the great bank of snow into which she had plunged did--as
+Ann suggested--smother her.
+
+The shock of dropping fifty feet through the air, and landing without
+experiencing anything more dangerous than a greatly accelerated
+heart-action was enough, of itself, to make the girl of the Red Mill dumb
+for the moment.
+
+She heard faintly the frightened cries of her companions, and she
+struggled to get to the surface of the great, soft heap of snow that had
+saved her from instant death.
+
+Then she heard a voice pronounce her name, and a hand was thrust into the
+snow bank and seized her shoulder.
+
+"Ruth Fielding! Miss Ruth! That come nigh to being your last jump, that
+did!"
+
+"Jerry Sheming!" gasped the girl, as he drew her out of the snow.
+
+"In here--quick! Are they after me?"
+
+Ruth shook the snow from her eyes. She was like a half-drowned person
+suddenly coming to the surface.
+
+"Where--where are we?" she whispered.
+
+"All right! This is one of my hide-outs. Is that old Blent up yonder?"
+
+"Oh, Jerry! he's not on the island to-day. He's left the constable----"
+
+"Lem Daggett?"
+
+"Yes. They are searching for you. But I was with Tom and Helen and the
+others. We brought you some food----"
+
+He led her along a narrow shelf, which had been swept quite free of snow.
+Now a hollow in the rock-wall opened before them, and there a little fire
+of sticks burned, an old buffalo robe lay nearby, and there were other
+evidences of the fugitive's camp.
+
+Ruth was shaking now, but not from the cold. The shock of her fall had
+begun to awaken the nervous terror which is the afterclap of such an
+adventure. So near she had been to death!
+
+"You are sick, Miss Ruth?" exclaimed Jerry.
+
+"Oh, no! Oh, no!" repeated the girl of the Red Mill. "But so--so
+frightened."
+
+"Nothin' to be frightened over now," he returned, smiling broadly. "But
+you _did_ miss it close. If that pile of snow hadn't sifted down there
+yesterday----"
+
+"I know!" burst out Ruth. "It was providential."
+
+"You girls and boys want to be careful climbing around these rocks," said
+Jerry Sheming, gravely.
+
+At that moment the chorus of shouts from above reached their ears. Ruth
+turned about and her lips opened. She would have replied, but the
+backwoods boy leaped across the fire and seized her arm.
+
+"Don't make a sound!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh! Jerry----"
+
+"If that constable hears----"
+
+"He isn't with us, I tell you," said Ruth.
+
+"But wait. He might hear. I don't want him to find this place," spoke the
+boy, eagerly. "He may be within hearing."
+
+"No. I think not," Ruth explained. Then she told Jerry of the morning's
+hunt for him and the course followed by both parties. He shook his head
+for a moment, and then ran to a shelf at the other side of the little
+cavern.
+
+"I'll communicate with your friends. I'll make them understand. But we
+mustn't shout. Lem Daggett may be within hearing."
+
+"But I can't stay with you here, Jerry," objected the girl.
+
+"Of course you can't, Miss. I will get you out--another way. You'll see.
+But we'll explain to your friends above and they will stop yelling then.
+If they keep on that way they'll draw Lem Daggett here, if he isn't
+already snooping around."
+
+Meanwhile Jerry had found a scrap of paper and a pencil. He hurriedly
+wrote a few lines upon the paper. Then he produced a heavy bow and a long
+arrow. The message he tied around the shank of the arrow.
+
+"Oh! can you shoot with that?" cried Ruth, much interested.
+
+"Reckon so," grinned Jerry. "Uncle Pete wouldn't give me much powder and
+shot when I was a kid. And finally I could bring home a bigger bag of wild
+turkeys than he could, and all I had to get 'em with was this
+bow'n'arrer."
+
+He strung the bow, and Ruth saw that it took all his strength to do it.
+The boys and girls were still shouting for her in a desultory fashion.
+Jerry laid his finger on his lips, nodded at his visitor, and stepped
+swiftly out of sight along the cleared shelf of rock.
+
+Ruth left the fire to peer after him. She saw him bend the bow and saw the
+swift flight of the arrow as it shot out of the chasm and curved out of
+sight beyond the broken edge of the snow-wreath which masked the summit of
+the cliff.
+
+She heard the clamor of her friends' voices as they saw the arrow shoot
+over their heads. Then they were silent.
+
+Jerry ran back to her and unstrung the bow, putting it away in its niche.
+But from the same place he produced a blue-barrelled rifle.
+
+"I know you won't tell Blent, or any of them, how to reach me, Miss Ruth,"
+he said, looking at her with a smile.
+
+"I guess not!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+"I am going to show you the way out--to the other end. I wish you were
+wearing rubber boots like me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"So you could wade in the stream when we come to it. That's how I threw
+them off the track," explained Jerry, laughing. "Why, I know this old
+island better than Uncle Pete himself knowed it."
+
+"And yet you haven't found the box you say your uncle hid?" asked Ruth,
+curiously.
+
+"No. I never knowed anything about it until Blent came to drive us off and
+swore that Uncle Pete had never had nothin' but 'squatter rights.' But I'm
+not sure that I couldn't find that place where Uncle Pete hid his treasure
+box--if I had time to hunt for it," added Jerry, gravely.
+
+"That's what Mr. Blent is afraid of," declared Ruth, with conviction.
+"That's why he is afraid of your being here on the island."
+
+"You bet it is, Miss."
+
+"And we boys and girls will do everything we can to help you, Jerry,"
+Ruth assured him, warmly. "If you think you can find the place where your
+uncle hid his papers----"
+
+"But suppose I find them and the papers show that this Mr. Tingley hasn't
+a clear title to the island?" demanded the backwoods boy, looking at the
+girl of the Red Mill sharply.
+
+"Why should _that_ make a difference?" asked Ruth, coolly.
+
+"Well--you know how some of these rich folks be," returned the boy,
+dropping his gaze. "When it comes to hittin' their pocketbooks----"
+
+"That has nothing to do with it. Right is right."
+
+"Uh-huh!" grunted Jerry. "But sometimes they don't want to lose money any
+quicker than a poor man. If he's paid for the island----"
+
+"I don't see how he can lose," declared Ruth, quickly. "If Blent has
+claimed a title that cannot be proved, Blent will have to lose."
+
+"I bet Mr. Tingley didn't buy without having the title searched," observed
+Jerry. "Blent's covered his tracks. He'll declare he was within his
+rights, probably having bought Uncle Pete's share of the island through
+some dummy. You know, when deeds aren't recorded, it's mighty hard to
+establish them as valid. I know. I axed our town clerk. And he is one man
+that ain't under Blent's thumb."
+
+"I don't believe Mr. Tingley is a man who would stand idle and see you
+cheated even if he lost money through defending you," said Ruth, firmly.
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"No. I have never met him," Ruth admitted. "But his wife is a very nice
+lady. And Belle and the boys----"
+
+"Business is business," interrupted Jerry, shaking his head. "I don't want
+Tingley to know where I be--yet awhile, anyway."
+
+"But may I talk with him about you?"
+
+"Why--if you care enough to, Miss Ruth."
+
+"Of course I do," cried the girl. "Didn't I tell you we all want to help
+you?" and she stamped her foot upon the warm rock. "We'll bring you food,
+too. We'll see that the constable doesn't get you."
+
+"Well, it's mighty nice of you," admitted the suspicious young woodsman.
+"Now, come on. I'll take you through my hide-out to the creek. I told your
+friends you'd meet 'em there, and we want to get there by the time they
+arrive."
+
+"Oh, Jerry! that's a long way off," cried Ruth.
+
+"Not so very long by the way we'll travel," he returned, with a laugh.
+
+And this proved to be true. Jerry lighted a battered oil lantern and with
+his rifle in the other hand led the way.
+
+A narrow passage opened out of the back of this almost circular cave.
+Part of the time they traveled through a veritable tunnel. At other times
+Ruth saw the clear sky far above them as they passed along deep cuts in
+the hills.
+
+The descent was continuous, but gradual. Such a path wild animals might
+have traveled in times past. Originally it was probably a water-course.
+The action of the water had eaten out the softer rock until almost a
+direct passage had been made from the bottom of the cliff where Ruth had
+fallen to the edge of the swift stream that ran through the middle of the
+island.
+
+They came out behind a screen of thick brush through which Ruth could see
+the far bank of the brook, but through which nobody outside could see.
+Jerry set down the lantern, and later leaned the rifle against the wall
+when he had made sure that nobody was in sight.
+
+"I am going to carry you a ways, Miss Ruth," he said, "if you don't mind.
+You see, I must walk in the stream or they will find this entrance to my
+hide-out."
+
+"But--can you carry me?"
+
+"I bet you! If you only wore rubber boots I'd let you walk. Come on,
+please."
+
+"Oh! I am not afraid," she told him, quietly, and allowed him to take her
+into his arms after he had stepped down into the shallow, swiftly lowing
+current.
+
+"This water-trail confuses men and dogs completely," said Jerry, with a
+laugh. "That is--such men as Lem Daggett. If _I_ was hunting a fellow who
+took to the stream, with the water so shallow, I'd find which way he went
+in a jiffy."
+
+"How would you?" demanded Ruth, feeling perfectly secure in the strong
+arms of the young fellow.
+
+"That's telling," chuckled Jerry. "Mebbe--some time--I'll tell you. I
+hoped I'd get the chance of showing you and your friends around this
+island. But I guess I won't."
+
+"Perhaps you will. And if there is anything we can do to help you----"
+
+"Just one thing you might do," remarked Jerry, finally setting her upright
+upon a flat rock on the side of the stream nearest the hunting camp, and
+some distance away from the secret entrance to his hide-out.
+
+"Oh! what is that?" cried Ruth, eagerly.
+
+"Find me a pickax, or a mattock, and put it right here on this rock. Do it
+at night, so no one will see you. Good bye, Miss!" he exclaimed, and
+hurried away.
+
+In another minute he had disappeared behind the screen of bushes, and Ruth
+heard the glad shouts of her friends as they came over the ridge and saw
+her standing safe and sound beside the stream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHRISTMAS MORNING
+
+
+"How under the sun did you get here, Ruth?" Helen shouted the moment she
+saw her chum.
+
+"Did that Jerry Sheming bring you?" demanded Ann.
+
+The other members of the party were quite as anxious to learn the
+particulars of her adventure, and when they had crossed on the stepping
+stones, they gathered about her eagerly.
+
+Ruth would tell just so much and no more. She explained how she had fallen
+into the snow-drift at the foot of the cliff, how Jerry had heard her
+scream and pulled her out. But beyond that she only said he had left her
+here to wait their coming.
+
+"You needn't be so mysterious, Miss!" ejaculated Helen, rather piqued.
+
+"I guess she doesn't want to say anything about his hide-out that might
+lead to his being hunted out by Lem Daggett," observed the wise Tom. "But
+Jerry signed his name to the note he tied on the arrow."
+
+"And we sure were surprised when we saw that arrow shoot up from the
+depths," said Isadore.
+
+"What do you suppose mother will say?" cried one of the Tingley boys.
+
+"Don't let's tell her," suggested Ruth, quickly. "There's no need. It will
+only add to her worries and she will be troubled enough by us as it is."
+
+"But----"
+
+"You see, I'm not a bit hurt," insisted Ruth. "And the less we talk about
+the matter the less likely we shall be to drop something that may lead to
+the discovery of Jerry Sheming's hiding place."
+
+"Oh, well, if you put it that way," agreed Ralph. "I suppose mother will
+have all the trouble she wants. And maybe if she knew, she'd keep you
+girls away from this end of the island."
+
+They tramped home to a late luncheon. It was so very cold that afternoon
+and evening that they were only too glad to remain in the house and "hug
+the fire."
+
+The inclement weather drove Lem Daggett and the men indoors, too. The
+constable had to go back to Logwood without his prisoner, and he evidently
+feared the anger of Rufus Blent.
+
+"I want to warn ye, Mis' Tingley," he said to the lady of the lodge,
+shaking his head, "that when Blent sets out ter do a thing, he does it.
+That boy's got to be found, and he's got to be kep' off this island."
+
+"I will see what my husband says when he comes," replied Mrs. Tingley,
+firmly. "I will not allow our men to chase the poor fellow further."
+
+"You'd better ketch him and signal us at Logwood. Run up that flag on the
+pole outside. I'll know what you mean."
+
+"Mr. Tingley will decide when he comes," was all the satisfaction the lady
+gave the constable.
+
+After he had gone, Mrs. Tingley told Ruth she hoped no harm would come to
+the poor boy, "sleeping out in the cold alone."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Tingley! I know he has a warm, dry place to sleep, and plenty of
+firewood--heaps and heaps of it."
+
+"You seem to know a good deal about him," the lady commented.
+
+"Yes, I do," admitted Ruth, honestly. "More about him and where he is
+hiding than he would care to have me tell you."
+
+So Mrs. Tingley did not catechise the girl further upon the subject of the
+fugitive.
+
+Just because they were shut in was no reason why the house party on Cliff
+Island should not have an extraordinarily good time. They played games and
+had charades that evening. They had a candy pull, too, but unlike that
+famous one at Snow Camp the winter before, Busy Izzy Phelps did not get a
+chance to put the walnut shells into the taffy instead of the kernels.
+
+The wind died down and it grew desperately cold during the night. The
+mercury soon left the zero point so far above that it threatened to be
+lost for the rest of the winter.
+
+They awoke the next morning to find the island chained fast to the
+mainland by old Jack Frost's fetters. A sheet of new ice extended for some
+hundreds of yards all around Cliff Island. Farther out the ice was of
+rougher texture, but that near at hand was clear and black.
+
+Out came the skates soon after breakfast, and everybody but Mercy went
+down to the lake. Later the boys made the lame girl and Mrs. Tingley come,
+too, and they arranged chairs in which the two non-skaters could be pushed
+over the smooth surface.
+
+Hockey was the game for the afternoon, and two "sides" were chosen to
+oppose each other, one of the boys and another of the girls. Although Ann
+Hicks had never had a hockey stick in her hand before, she quickly got
+into the game, and they all had a very merry time.
+
+The day before Ruth had not been able to find the implement that Jerry
+Sheming had spoken about, nor could she find a mattock, or pickax, on this
+second day. If she went to the toolshed and hunted for the thing herself
+she was afraid her quest would be observed by some of the men.
+
+She located the place where the tools were kept, but the shed was locked.
+However, there was a window, and that window could be easily slid back.
+Ruth shrank from attempting to creep in by it.
+
+"Just the same, I told him I'd get it--at least, I told myself I'd get it
+for him," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "And I will."
+
+Of course, Mrs. Tingley would have allowed her to borrow the tool, but it
+would have aroused comment had it become known that Jerry wanted it.
+
+"It must be that he really thinks now he knows where his uncle hid the
+treasure box. He wants to dig for it," was Ruth's thought.
+
+Yet she remembered that Jerry had said all along the old man had seemingly
+gone mad because his treasure box was buried under a landslide. She asked
+Mr. Preston, the foreman of the camp, where the landslide had occurred.
+
+"Why, right over yonder, little lady," explained the woodsman. "If the
+snow wasn't on the ground, you could easy see the scar of it down that
+hillside," and he pointed to a spot just beyond the secret opening of
+Jerry's cave.
+
+"The dirt and rock was heaped up so at the foot of the slide that the
+course of the brook was changed. That slide covered a monster lot of
+little caves in the rock," pursued the man. "But I expect there's others
+of 'em left and that Jerry's hidin' out in one now," he added, looking at
+Ruth with shrewd gaze.
+
+Ruth took him no further into her confidence. She felt that she must have
+somebody to help her, however, and naturally enough she chose Tom. Helen's
+twin thought a great deal of Ruth Fielding, and was never ashamed of
+showing this feeling before the other boys. On her side, Ruth felt that
+Tom Cameron was just about right.
+
+Nor was she mistaken in him when she placed her difficulty before the lad.
+Help her? Of course he would! They agreed to make the raid upon the
+toolshed that evening when the others were busily filling stockings and
+trimming the huge Christmas tree set up in the main hall of the hunting
+lodge.
+
+Ruth beckoned to her fellow-conspirator and Tom slipped out of the hall by
+one door while she made the outer air by another. The kitchen girls and
+the men hired about the camp were all in the big hall watching the fun, or
+aiding in decorating the lodge. Nobody saw Ruth and Tom.
+
+It was a very cold evening. There was a hazy moon and brilliant stars, but
+they did not think anybody would see their efforts to aid Jerry Sheming.
+
+Nevertheless, Ruth and Tom were very circumspect. They crept behind the
+toolshed and looked all about to make sure that nobody was watching. There
+was no light in the bunkhouse or in the cook's cabin.
+
+Although the toolshed was so carefully locked, Ruth knew that the window
+could be opened. Tom quickly slipped back the sash, and then dived into
+the dark interior of the place, head first.
+
+The moment he was on his feet, however, he drew from his pocket the
+electric spotlight he had supplied himself with, and flashed the ray about
+the shed.
+
+"Good! here's either one you want--pickax or mattock," were the words he
+whispered to Ruth.
+
+"Which do you suppose he would like best?"
+
+"A mattock is more practical, I believe," said Tom. "'Maddox,' they call
+it. We had a fellow working for us once who called it a 'mad-ax.' It has a
+broad blade and can be used to chop as well as dig."
+
+"Never mind giving a lecture on it," laughed Ruth, very softly, "hand it
+out."
+
+Tom chuckled and did as he was bid. In a minute he was with her and picked
+up the heavy implement.
+
+"I hope they don't come hunting for us," said the girl of the Red Mill,
+breathlessly.
+
+"We must take that risk. Come on, Ruth. Or do you want me to take it down
+to the brookside alone?"
+
+"I want to go along, too. Oh, dear! I do hope he will find it."
+
+"I have another cracker box full of food for him," said Tom. "I reckon he
+will be on the lookout for the pick, so he'll find the food, too."
+
+After a good deal of climbing, they reached the flat rock by the brookside
+where Jerry Sheming had requested Ruth to leave the mattock. There was no
+sign of the fugitive about. Ruth did not tell Tom where the mouth of the
+secret tunnel lay--nor did Tom ask for information.
+
+As they hurried back, mounting the ridge that separated the lodge and its
+outbuildings from the middle of the island, Ruth, looking back, suddenly
+grabbed Tom's hand.
+
+"See! see there!" she cried.
+
+Tom looked in the direction to which she pointed. The stars gave light
+enough for them to see miles across the ice. Several black figures were
+hurrying toward the western end of the island from the direction of the
+mainland--the southern shore of the lake.
+
+"Who do you suppose those men are?" asked Ruth, faintly.
+
+Tom shook his head slowly. "I expect it's Lem Daggett, the constable, and
+others to hunt for poor Jerry. I feel almost sure that the man in the
+lead is Daggett."
+
+"Isn't that mean?" exclaimed Ruth, her voice shaking.
+
+"It is. But I don't believe they will find Jerry very easily."
+
+Just the same, Ruth was not to be comforted. She was very quiet all the
+rest of the evening. Her absence, and Tom's, had not been noticed. The
+crowd went to bed before eleven, having spent a most delightful Christmas
+Eve.
+
+Ruth sat at a window that overlooked a part of the island. Once she saw
+the men who had crossed from the mainland climbing the hill toward the
+lone pine.
+
+"I hope they won't find a trace of him!" she murmured as she popped into
+bed.
+
+Ruth slept as soundly as any of her mates. A clanging bell at six o'clock
+aroused the whole household. The sun was not yet up, but there was a
+streak of gold across the eastern sky. It was Christmas morning.
+
+Ruth ran again to the west window. A pillar of smoke rose straight from a
+hollow on the higher part of the island. The searching party was still
+there.
+
+There was no time now to think of Jerry Sheming and his affairs. The girls
+raced to see who should dress first. Downstairs there were "loads" of
+presents waiting for them, so Belle declared.
+
+"Come on!" cried Heavy, leading the way. "Ready all? March!"
+
+The nine girls started through the hall and down the broad stairway in
+single file. Heavy began to cheer and the others chimed in:
+
+    "'S.B.--Ah-h-h!
+      S.B.--Ah-h-h!
+      Sound our battle-cry
+      Near and far!
+      S.B.--All!
+      Briarwood Hall!
+      Sweetbriars, do or die--
+      This be our battle-cry--
+      Briarwood Hall!
+      _That's All_!'"
+
+So sounding the Sweetbriars' challenge, they met the grinning boys at the
+foot of the flight, before the huge, sparkling tree.
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed Tom. "I'm mighty glad I suggested that name for your
+secret society, Ruth. 'Sweetbriars'--it just fits you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FUN ON THE ICE
+
+
+Of course, the girls had prepared one another's presents long before. Each
+had been tied in a queer bundle so, in trimming the tree, the nature of
+the contents could not be guessed.
+
+The oddest shaped things hung from the branches of the Christmas tree, and
+the boys had excelled in making up these "surprise packages." Mrs. Tingley
+handed the presents out, while the boys lifted them down for her. A long,
+tightly rolled parcel, which looked as though it ought to contain an
+umbrella, and was marked "To Helen from Tom," finally proved to contain a
+jeweler's box, in which nestled a pretty ring, which delighted his twin.
+
+A large, flat package, big enough to hold a large kite, was carefully
+opened by Belle, who finally found in it, among the many tissue wrappings,
+a pretty set of hair combs set with stones. In a roughly-done-up parcel
+was a most disreputable old shoe addressed to Lluella. She was going to
+throw it out, but the boys advised her so strongly not to that she finally
+burrowed to the toe and found, to her amazement, a gold bracelet.
+
+There was a good-sized box for Ann Hicks--just as it had come from the
+express office at Lumberton a week before. Having been addressed in Mrs.
+Tellingham's care, the western girl had known nothing about it.
+
+Now it was opened last. It had come all the way from Silver Ranch, of
+course. Such a set of furs no girl at Briarwood possessed. There were a
+number of other presents from the cowboys, from Mrs. Sally, and from
+Bashful Ike himself. Ann was so pleased and touched that she ran away to
+hide her tears.
+
+There were presents for each of the girls and boys who had been at
+Bullhide the previous summer. Bill Hicks had forgotten nobody, and, as
+Mrs. Tellingham had once said, the ranchman certainly was a generous man.
+
+No member of the house party was overlooked on this bright Christmas
+morning. Mercy's presents were as costly and numerous as those of any
+other girl. Besides, the lame girl had been able to give her mates
+beautiful little keepsakes that expressed her love for them quite as much
+as would have articles that cost more money.
+
+Her presents to the boys were funny, including a jumping jack on a stick
+to Isadore, the face of which Mercy had whittled out and painted to look
+a good deal like the features of that active youth.
+
+For two hours the young folk reveled in their presents. Then suddenly
+Heavy smelled the breakfast coffee and she led the charge to the long
+dining room. They were in the midst of the meal when Mr. Tingley himself
+arrived, having reached Logwood on the early train and driven across the
+ice in a sleigh.
+
+The Tingley young people met him hilariously. He was a big, bewhiskered
+man, with a jolly laugh and amiable manner. His eye could flash, too, if
+need be, Ruth judged. And almost at once she had an opportunity of seeing
+him stern.
+
+"What crowd is that over at the west end of the island?" he asked his
+wife. "I see they have a fire. There must be four or five men there. Is it
+some of Blent's doings?"
+
+"Oh, Dad!" cried Ralph Tingley, eagerly. "You ought to stop that. Those
+fellows are hunting Jerry Sheming."
+
+"Who is Jerry Sheming?" he asked, quickly.
+
+Mrs. Tingley explained briefly.
+
+"I remember now," said her husband. "And this is the young lady who spoke
+a good word for the boy in the first place?" and he beckoned the eager
+Ruth to them. "What have you to say for your protégé now, Miss?"
+
+"Everything that is good," declared the girl of the Red Mill, quickly. "I
+am sure he is not at all the sort of boy this man Blent would have you
+believe. And perhaps, Mr. Tingley, his old uncle _may_ have had some title
+to a part of this island."
+
+"That puts _me_ in bad, then--eh?" chuckled Mr. Tingley.
+
+"Unless Mr. Blent has cheated you, sir," suggested Ruth, hesitatingly.
+
+"He's a foxy old fellow. But I believe I have safeguarded myself. This
+trouble about something being buried on the island--Well! I don't know
+about that."
+
+"I believe Jerry really has some idea now where his uncle put the box.
+Even if the old hunter _was_ crazy, he might have had some valuables. And
+surely Jerry has a better right to the box than Blent," Ruth said,
+indignantly.
+
+"I'll see about that. Just as soon as I have had breakfast, I'll take
+Preston and go over and interview this gang of Blent's henchmen. I am not
+at all sure that he has any right to hunt the boy down, warrant or no
+warrant!"
+
+That was when he looked grim and his eyes flashed. Ruth felt that her
+friend's father was just the man to give Jerry Sheming a fair deal if he
+had the chance.
+
+When the boys proposed getting out the two iceboats and giving the girls a
+sail (for the wind was fresh), Ruth was as eager as the others to join in
+the sport.
+
+Not all the girls would trust themselves to the scooters, but there were
+enough who went down to the ice to make an exceedingly hilarious party.
+
+Ralph Tingley and Tom Cameron were the best pilots. The small iceboats
+were built so that two passengers could ride beside the steersman and
+sheet tender. So the girls took turns in racing up and down the smooth ice
+on the south side of the island.
+
+Ruth and Helen liked to go together with Tom, who had Busy Izzy to tend
+sheet. It was "no fair" if one party traveled farther than from the dock
+to the mouth of the creek and back again.
+
+The four friends--Ruth and her chum, and Tom and Busy Izzy--were making
+their second trip over the smooth course. Bobbins, with his sister and The
+Fox, and Ralph Tingley, manned the other boat.
+
+The two swift craft had a splendid race to the mouth of that brook which,
+because of its swiftness, still remained unshackled by the frost. The
+shallow stream of water poured down over the rocks into the lake, but
+there was only a small open place at the point where the brook emptied
+into its waters into the larger and more placid body.
+
+When the two iceboats swung about, the one Bobbins manned got away at once
+and swiftly passed down the lake. The sheet fouled in Tom's boat. Busy
+Izzy had to drop the sail and the boat was brought to a halt.
+
+"There are Mr. Tingley and Preston going over to talk to the constable and
+his crowd," remarked Isadore. "See yonder?"
+
+"I hope he sends those men off the island. I don't see what right they
+have here, anyway," Helen exclaimed.
+
+"If only Jerry knows enough to keep under cover while they are here," said
+Tom, looking meaningly at Ruth. They both wondered if the fugitive had
+ventured out of his cave to find the mattock and box of food they had left
+for him the evening before.
+
+The craft was under way again in a minute or two, and they swept down the
+course in the wake of the other boat. Suddenly the sharp crack of a rifle
+echoed across the island. Helen screamed. Ruth risked the boom and sat up
+to look behind.
+
+"There's a fight!" yelled Busy Izzy. "I believe they're after Jerry."
+
+They saw Mr. Tingley and Preston hastening their steps toward the brook.
+As the iceboat swept out farther from the shore, the four friends aboard
+her could see several men running in the same direction. One bore a
+smoking gun in his hand.
+
+"Right towards that rock, Ruthie!" gasped Tom, venturing a glance behind
+him.
+
+"What rock do you mean?" demanded his sister.
+
+"The rock where you folks found me the other day. It's near the opening to
+Jerry's cave. I see them!"
+
+"'Ware boom!" yelled Tom, and shifted his helm.
+
+The great sail went slowly over; the iceboat swooped around like a great
+bird skimming the ice. Then, in a minute, it was headed back up the lake
+toward the scene of the trouble.
+
+Another rifle shot echoed across the ice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BLENT IS MASTER
+
+
+Ruth was truly frightened, and so was her chum. Could it be possible that
+those rough men dared fire their guns at Jerry Sheming? Or was the poor
+boy foolish enough to try to frighten his pursuers off with the weapons
+which Ruth very well knew he had in the cave with him?
+
+"Oh, I'm glad Mr. Tingley's here to-day," cried Busy Izzy. "He'll give
+that Lem Daggett what's coming to him--that's what _he'll_ do!"
+
+"Hope so," agreed Tom, grimly.
+
+The latter brought the iceboat into the wind near the shore, and Isadore
+dropped the sail again. They all tumbled out and ran up the bank. A little
+climb brought them to the plateau where they could see all that was going
+on near the rock on which Ruth and Tom had left the mattock the evening
+before.
+
+Lem Daggett had four men with him--all rough-looking fellows, and armed
+with rifles. Jerry Sheming was standing half-leg deep in the running
+stream, his hands over his head, and the men were holding him under the
+muzzles of their guns.
+
+"Why! it beats the 'wild and woolly'!" gasped Tom Cameron. "Silver Ranch
+and Bullhide weren't as bad as this. The scoundrels!"
+
+"Come out o' that brook, Jerry, or it'll be the wuss for ye." Lem Daggett
+drawled, standing on the flat rock and grinning at his captive.
+
+"What do you want of me?" demanded the fugitive, sullenly.
+
+"You know well enough. Oh, I got a warrant for ye, all right. Ev'rything's
+all right an' proper. Ye know Rufe Blent don't make no mistakes. He's got
+ye."
+
+"An' here he comes now!" ejaculated another of the rough men, looking
+toward the east end of the island.
+
+The four hurrying young folk looked back. Driving hastily from the lodge,
+and behind Mr. Tingley and Preston, came a heavy sleigh drawn by a pair of
+horses. Rufus Blent and a driver were in it.
+
+But Mr. Tingley approached first, and it was plain by a single glance at
+his face that he was angry.
+
+"What's all this shooting about?" he demanded. "Don't you men know that
+Cliff Island is private property? You are trespassing upon it."
+
+"Oh, I guess we're within our rights, boss," said Lem Daggett, laughing.
+"I'm the constable. And these here are helpers o' mine. We was arter a
+bird, and we got him."
+
+"A warrant from a justice of the peace does not allow you to go out with
+guns and rifles and shoot over private property," declared Mr. Tingley,
+angrily. "Be off with you--and don't you dare come to this island again
+without permission."
+
+"Hold on, thar!" yelled Rufus Blent, leaping from the sleigh with more
+agility than one would have given him credit for. "You air oversteppin'
+the line, Mr. Tingley. That officer's in the right."
+
+"No, he's not in the right. He'd never be in the right--hunting a boy with
+an armed posse. I should think you and these other men would be ashamed of
+yourselves."
+
+"You look out, Mr. Tingley," warned Blent, hotly. "You're a stranger in
+these parts. You try to balk me and you'll be sorry."
+
+"Why?" demanded the city man, quite as angrily. "Are you the law and the
+prophets here, Mr. Blent?"
+
+"I know my rights. And if you want to live in peace here, keep out o' my
+way!" snarled the real estate man.
+
+"You old scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Tingley, stepping swiftly toward him.
+"Get off Cliff Island--and get off quick. I'd spend a thousand dollars to
+get a penny's worth of damages from you. I'll sue you in the civil courts
+for trespass if you don't go--and go quick!
+
+"Don't think I went blindly into the transaction that gave me title to
+this island. I know all about your withholding the right to 'treasure
+trove,' and all that. But it doesn't give you the right to trespass here.
+Get out--and take your gang with you--or I'll have suit begun against you
+at once."
+
+Old Blent was troubled, but he had one good hold and he knew it. He
+shouted to Lem Daggett:
+
+"Serve that warrant, Lem, and come along. Bring that young rascal. I'll
+fix him."
+
+"Let me read that warrant!" exclaimed Mr. Tingley, suddenly.
+
+"No, ye don't!" yelled Blent. "Don't let him take it into his hand. Read
+it aloud to him. But make that pesky young Sheming come ashore first.
+Before ye know it, he'll be runnin' away ag'in."
+
+The men who "covered" Jerry motioned him to step up to the bank. They
+looked so threatening that he obeyed. Daggett produced a legal looking
+paper. He read this aloud, blunderingly, for he was an illiterate man.
+
+Its contents were easily gathered, however. Squire Keller had signed the
+warrant on complaint of Rufus Blent. Jerry was accused of having stolen
+several boxes of ammunition and a revolver. The property had been found in
+an old shed at Logwood where the boy had slept for a few nights after he
+had first been driven from Cliff Island.
+
+"Why, this is an old story, Blent," ejaculated Mr. Tingley, angrily. "The
+boy left that shed months ago. He came directly to the island, when I
+hired him, from the neighborhood of Lumberton, and Preston assures me he
+hasn't been to Logwood since arriving."
+
+"You can tell all that in court," snarled Blent, waving his hand. "If he's
+got witnesses to clear him, I guess they'll be given a chance to testify."
+
+"You're a villain!" declared the city man.
+
+"Lemme tell you something, Mr. Tingley. There's a law to punish callin'
+folks out o' their names! I know the law, an' don't you forgit it. Come
+here, you, Jerry Sheming! Git in this sleigh. And you, too, Lem. You other
+fellers can come back to Logwood and I'll pay ye as I agreed."
+
+Ruth had, meanwhile, met Jerry when he came ashore. She seized his hand
+and, almost in tears, told him how sorry she was he was captured.
+
+"Don't you mind, Miss Ruth. He's bound to git me out of the way if he
+can," whispered Jerry. "Rufe Blent is _all_ the law there is in Logwood, I
+guess."
+
+"But Mr. Tingley will help you."
+
+"Maybe. But if Blent can't prove this hatched up business against me,
+he'll keep right on persecuting me, if I don't light out. An' I believe I
+found something, Miss Ruth."
+
+"Your uncle's money?"
+
+"I wouldn't say that. But I was goin' to break into another little cave if
+I'd got hold of that mattock. The mouth is under the debris that fell with
+the landslide. It was about where Uncle Pete said he hid his treasure box.
+Poor Uncle Pete! Losin' that box was what sent him off his head complete,
+like."
+
+This had been said too low for the others to hear. But now Daggett came
+forward and clamped his big paw on Jerry's shoulder.
+
+"Come along, you!" commanded the constable, jerking his prisoner toward
+the sledge.
+
+"Oh, isn't it a mean, mean shame?" cried Helen Cameron.
+
+"Wish that old Blent was my size," grumbled Busy Izzy, clenching his fists
+and glaring at the real estate man.
+
+"I wish I could do something at the present moment to help you, Sheming,"
+said Mr. Tingley, his expression very angry. "But don't be afraid. You
+have friends. I shall come right over to Keller's court, and I shall hire
+a lawyer to defend you."
+
+"You kin do all ye like," sneered Blent, as the sledge started with the
+prisoner. "But I'll beat ye. And ye'll pay for tryin' to balk me, too."
+
+"Don't you be too loose with your threats, Rufe," sang out Preston, the
+foreman. "If anything happens over here on the island--any of Mr.
+Tingley's property is destroyed--we'll know who to look to for damages."
+
+"Yah!" snarled Blent, and drove away.
+
+The fact remained, however, that, for the time being at least, Rufus Blent
+was master of the situation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE FISHING PARTY
+
+
+Ruth felt so unhappy she wept openly. It seemed too bad that Jerry Sheming
+should be taken away to the mainland a prisoner.
+
+"They'll find some way of driving him out of this country again," remarked
+Preston, the foreman. "You don't know Blent, Mr. Tingley, as well as the
+rest of us do. Other city men have come up here and bucked against him in
+times past--and they were sorry before they got through."
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded the angry owner of Cliff Island.
+
+"Blent can hire those fellows from the lumber camps, and some of the
+guides, to do his dirty work. That's all I've got to say. Hunting camps
+have burned down in these woods before now," observed the foreman,
+significantly.
+
+"Why! the scoundrel sold me this island himself!"
+
+"And he's sold other outsiders camp sites. But they have had to leave if
+they angered Blent."
+
+"He is a dangerous man, then?"
+
+"Well--things just happen," returned Preston, shaking his head. "I'd keep
+watch if I were you."
+
+"I will. I'll hire guards--and arm 'em, if need be," declared Mr. Tingley,
+emphatically. "But take it from me--I am going to see that that boy Jerry
+is treated right in these backwoods courts. That's the way I feel about
+it."
+
+Ruth was glad to hear him say this. As she had decided when she first saw
+him, Mr. Tingley could be very firm if he wished to be. At once he went
+back to the house, had a team hitched to a sleigh, and drove over to the
+mainland so as to be sure that Blent did not get ahead of him and have
+court convened before the proper hour.
+
+The day was spoiled for Ruth and for some of the other young folk who had
+taken such a deep interest in Jerry. The boy had been caught because he
+tried to get the mattock Ruth and Tom had put out for him. Ruth wished now
+that she and Tom had not gone down to the brook.
+
+There was too much going on at Cliff Island for even Ruth to mope long.
+Mr. Tingley came back at dark and said he had succeeded in getting Jerry's
+case put over until a lawyer could familiarize himself with the details.
+Meanwhile Keller, Blent's man, had refused to accept bail. Jerry would
+have to remain in jail for a time.
+
+A man came across from the town that evening and brought a telegram for
+Mr. Tingley. That gentleman had without doubt shown his interest in Jerry
+Sheming. Fearing that the local legal lights might be somewhat backward
+about opposing Rufus Blent, he had telegraphed to his own firm of lawyers
+in New York and they were sending him a reputable attorney from an
+up-State city who would be at Logwood the next day.
+
+"Let's all go over to court to-morrow and see that lawyer get Jerry free,"
+suggested Belle Tingley, and the others agreed with enthusiasm. It would
+be as much fun as snow-shoeing; more fun for those who had not already
+learned that art.
+
+The day after Christmas, in the morning, the boys insisted that everybody
+but Mercy Curtis should get out and try the shoes. Those who had been at
+Snow Camp the year before were able to set out quite briskly--for it is an
+art that, like swimming and skating, is not easily forgotten.
+
+There were some very funny spills and by luncheon they were all in a glow.
+Later the big sledge was brought around and behind that the boys strung a
+couple of bobs. The horses drew them down to the ice and there it was easy
+for the team to pull the whole crowd across to Logwood.
+
+The town seemed to have turned out to meet the party from Cliff Island.
+
+Ruth and her friends noted the fact that many of the half-grown boys and
+young men--those of the rougher class--seemed greatly amused by the
+appearance of the city folk.
+
+"But what can you expect from a lot of rubes?" demanded Tom, rather
+angrily. "See 'em snickering and grinning? What d'ye s'pose is the matter
+with them?"
+
+"Whatever the joke is, it's on us and we don't know it," remarked Heavy,
+who was easily angered by ridicule, too. "There! Mr. Tingley has gone off
+with the lawyer. I guess we'll know what it's all about pretty soon."
+
+And _that_ was true, sure enough. It came out that there would be no case
+to try. Justice Keller announced that the accusation against Jerry Sheming
+had been withdrawn. Mr. Blent had "considered Mr. Tingley's plea for
+mercy," the old fox said, and there was nothing the justice could do but
+to turn the prisoner loose.
+
+"But what's become of him?" Mr. Tingley wanted to know.
+
+"Oh, that does not enter into my jurisdiction," replied Keller, blandly.
+"I am not his keeper. He was let out of jail early this morning. After
+that I cannot say what became of him."
+
+Blent was not even at the court. It was learned that he had gone out of
+town. Blent could always find somebody to handle pitch for him.
+
+It was later discovered that when Lem Daggett had opened the jail to
+Jerry, several of Blent's ruffians had rushed the boy to the railroad
+yard, put him aboard a moving freight, given a brakeman a two-dollar bill
+as per instructions from the real estate man, and Jerry wasn't likely to
+get off the train, unless he jumped while it was moving, until it was
+fifty miles farther west.
+
+But, of course, this story did not come out right away. The whole town was
+laughing at Mr. Tingley. Nobody cared enough about the city man, or knew
+him well enough, to explain the details of Jerry's disappearance at that
+time.
+
+Mr. Tingley looked very serious when he rejoined the young folk and he had
+little to say on the way home, save to Ruth, whom he beckoned to the seat
+beside him.
+
+"I am very sorry that the old fox got the best of us, Miss Fielding. As
+Preston says, I must look out for him. He is sly, wicked, and powerful. My
+Albany lawyer tells me that Blent is notorious in this part of the State,
+and that he has great political influence, illiterate as he is.
+
+"But I am going to fight. I have bought Cliff Island, and paid a good
+price for it. I have spent a good many thousand dollars in improvements
+already. I'll protect myself and my investment if I can--and meanwhile
+I'll do what I can for your friend, Jerry Sheming, too.
+
+"They've got the boy away from the vicinity for the time being, but I
+reckon he'll find his way back. You think so, too, Miss Fielding?"
+
+"If he understands that we are trying to help him. And--yes!--I believe he
+will come back anyway, for he is very anxious to find that treasure box
+his Uncle Peter lost."
+
+"Oh--as to that--Well, there may be something in it. But Pete Tilton was
+really insane. I saw him myself. The asylum is the place for him, poor
+man," concluded Mr. Tingley.
+
+Ruth felt in secret very much worried over Jerry's disappearance. When she
+once became interested in anybody, as Helen said, "she was interested all
+the way through."
+
+The others could laugh a little about how the crafty real estate agent had
+fooled Mr. Tingley and gotten Jerry out of the way, but not Ruth. She
+could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of what might have happened
+to the ill-used youth.
+
+But she tried to hide her anxiety from her companions the next morning
+when plans were made for a fishing trip. All but Mercy joined in this
+outing. They went on snowshoes to the far end of the island, keeping on
+the beach under the huge cliffs, to a little cove where they would be
+sheltered and where the fishing was supposed to be good.
+
+Preston, the foreman, went with them. He and the boys dragged a bobsled
+well laden with the paraphernalia considered necessary for fishing through
+the ice.
+
+First the holes were cut--thirteen of them. Then, near each hole, and on
+the windward side, two stakes were set about four feet apart and a square
+of canvas lashed between them for a wind-break. A folding campstool had
+been brought for each fisherman and "fishergirl," and there were a lot of
+old sacks for the latter, especially, to put under their feet as they
+watched the "bobbers" in the little pool of water before which they sat.
+
+After Preston saw them well started, he went back to the house. The crowd
+intended to remain until evening, and planned to make their dinner on the
+shore of the cove, frying some of the fish they expected to catch, and
+making coffee in a battered camp pot that had been brought along.
+
+The fish were there, as the foreman had assured them. Each member of the
+party watched and baited two lines. At first some of the girls had
+considerable trouble with the bait, and the boys had to show them how to
+put it on the hook; but it was fun, and soon all were interested in
+pulling out the flopping fish, vying with each other in the catch,
+calling back and forth about their luck, and having a splendid time.
+
+It was so cold that the fish froze almost as soon as they were thrown upon
+the ice. Had they been catching for shipment, the fish could have been
+boxed and sent some distance by express without being iced.
+
+But the young folk did not mind the cold much, nor the fact that the sun
+did not shine and the clouds grew thicker as the day advanced.
+
+"I'm going to beat you all!" declared The Fox, after a great run of luck,
+in which she could scarcely bait rapidly enough to satisfy the ravenous
+fish. "Might as well award me the laurel wreath right now."
+
+"Don't you be too sure," drawled Heavy. "You know, 'He laughs best who
+laughs last.'"
+
+"Wrong!" returned Mary Cox. "The true quotation should be, 'He laughs best
+whose laugh lasts.' And mine is going to last--oh-he! here comes another!"
+
+Tom and Ruth got the dinner. There was plenty of dry wood under the fir
+trees. Tom cleaned the fish and Ruth fried them to a delicious brownness
+and crispness. With the other viands brought from home and cups of good,
+hot coffee, the thirteen friends made a hearty and hilarious meal.
+
+They were sheltered by the high cliff at their backs and did not notice
+when the snow began to fall. But, after a time, they suddenly discovered
+that the flakes were coming so thick and fast that it was all but
+impossible to see the farthest fishing shelters.
+
+"Oh, dear me! we don't want to go back yet," wailed The Fox. "And we were
+catching them so fast. Do, do let's wait a while longer."
+
+"Not much fun if it keeps on snowing this way," objected Bobbins.
+
+"Don't begin croaking, little boy," advised his sister. "A few flakes of
+snow won't hurt us."
+
+Nevertheless, the storm did not hold up. It was more than a "flurry" and
+some of the others, as well as Bob Steele, began to feel anxious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JERRY'S CAVE
+
+
+For a while they tried to shelter themselves with the canvas, and shouted
+back and forth through the falling snow that they were having a
+"scrumptious" time. But some of the girls, as Isadore said, "began to
+weaken."
+
+"We don't want to be lost in the snow as we were the time we went for
+balsam at Snow Camp," said Helen.
+
+"How can you get lost--with us fellows along?" demanded Busy Izzy, in vast
+disgust.
+
+"Can't a boy be lost?" demanded Ann Hicks, laughing.
+
+"Not on your life!" declared the irrepressible Isadore.
+
+But just then Madge Steele got up and declared she had had enough. "This
+hole in the ice is filling up with snow. We'll lose the fish we've already
+caught if we don't look out. Come on, Bobby, and get mine."
+
+So it was agreed to cut the fishing short for that day, although The Fox
+declared she could have beaten them all in another hour.
+
+However, they had a great load of the frozen fish. Besides what they had
+eaten for dinner, there were at least a hundred handsome fellows, and the
+boys had strung each fisher's catch on a birch twig which they had cut and
+trimmed while coming down to the lake that morning.
+
+Tom and Ruth, left at the campfire to clean up after the mid-day meal,
+were shouting for them to come in. The girls left the boys to wind up the
+fishlines and "strike camp," as Ralph called taking down the pieces of
+canvas, and all hustled for the shore. They crowded around the fire, threw
+on more fuel, danced to get their feet warm, and called to the boys to
+hurry.
+
+The five boys had their hands full in retrieving all the chairs, and
+canvas sheets, and fish lines, and sacks. When they got them all in and
+packed upon the bobsled for transportation, the snow was a foot deep on
+the ice and it was snowing so fast that one could not see ten feet into
+the swirling heart of the storm.
+
+"I declare! it looks as though we were in a mess, with all this snow,"
+complained Tom Cameron.
+
+"And with all these girls," growled Ralph Tingley. "Wish we'd started an
+hour ago."
+
+"I don't know about starting _at all_," observed Bobbins. "Don't you see
+that the girls will give out before we're half-way there? We can't use
+snowshoes with the snow coming down like this. They clog too fast."
+
+"Oh, they'll have to wade the same as we do," said Isadore.
+
+"Yah! Wade! And us pulling this sled, too? I wish Preston had stayed with
+us. Don't you, Ralph?" asked his brother.
+
+"Hush! don't let the girls hear you," was the whispered reply.
+
+Already the girls were comparing notes in a group around the fire. Now
+Madge turned and shouted for them:
+
+"Come here, boys! Don't be mumbling together there. We have an idea."
+
+"If it's any good, let's have it," answered Tom, cheerfully.
+
+"It is good. It was born of experience. Some of us got all the tramping in
+a blinding snowstorm that we wanted a year ago. Never again! Eh, girls?"
+
+"Quite right, Madge," said Ralph. "It is foolish to run into danger. We
+are all right here----"
+
+"Why, the snow will drown out your fire in half an hour," scoffed Isadore.
+"And there isn't so much dry fuel."
+
+"I know where there is plenty of wood--and shelter, too!" cried Ruth,
+suddenly.
+
+"So do I. At the lodge," scoffed Belle.
+
+"No. Nearby. Tom and I were just talking about it. Up that ravine yonder
+is the place where I fell over the cliff. And Jerry's cave is right
+there--one end of it."
+
+"A cave!" ejaculated Helen. "That would be bully."
+
+"If only we could have a good fire and get dry and warm again," quoth
+Lluella, her teeth already chattering.
+
+"I believe that would be best," admitted Madge Steele. "We never could get
+back to the lodge through this snow. The shore is so rough."
+
+"We can travel on the ice," ventured Ann Hicks, doubtfully.
+
+"And get turned around," put in Tom. "Easiest thing in the world to get
+lost out there on that ice without a compass and in such a whirlwind of
+snow. Ruth's right. Let's try to find the cave."
+
+"I'm game!" exclaimed Heavy. "Why, with all this fish we could live a week
+in a cave. It would be bully."
+
+"'Charming' is the better word, Miss Stone," suggested The Fox.
+
+"Don't correct me when I'm on a vacation," exclaimed the plump girl. "I
+won't stand for it----"
+
+Just then she slipped and sat down hard and they all laughed.
+
+"Lucky you weren't on the ice. You'd gone right through that time,
+Jennie," declared The Fox. "Now, let's come on to the cave if we're all
+agreed. I guess Ruth has the right idea."
+
+"We'll drag the sled and break a path for you girls," announced Tom. "All
+ready, now! Bring your snowshoes. If it stops snowing, we can get home on
+them to-night."
+
+"Oh, dear, me! I hope so," cried Belle Tingley. "What will mother and
+father say if we're not home by dark?"
+
+"They'll be pretty sure we wouldn't travel far in this storm. Preston and
+the other men will find us, anyway."
+
+"I expect that is so," admitted Ruth, thoughtfully, "And they'll find
+Jerry's cave. I hope he won't be mad at me for taking you all there."
+
+However that might be, it seemed to the girl of the Red Mill, as well as
+to Tom Cameron, that it was wisdom to seek the nearest shelter. The ravine
+was steep, but it was sheltered. There were not many big drifts until they
+reached that great one at the head of it, into which Ruth had fallen when
+she slipped over the brink of the precipice.
+
+Nevertheless, they were half an hour beating their way up the gully and
+out upon that ledge which led to the mouth of Jerry's cave. The boys
+found the laden sled a good deal of a load and the girls had all they
+could do to follow in the track the sled made.
+
+"We never _could_ have reached home safely through this storm," declared
+Madge. "How clever of you to remember the cave, Ruthie."
+
+"Ruth is always doing something clever," said Helen, loyally. "Why, she
+even falls over a cliff, so as to find a cave that, later, shelters us all
+from the inclement elements."
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!" jeered Isadore. "You girls think a lot of each other;
+don't you? Better thank that Jerry boy for finding the cave in the first
+place."
+
+They were all crowding into the place by this time. It was not very light
+in the cave, for the snow had already veiled the entrance. But there was a
+great store of wood piled up along one side, and the boys soon had a fresh
+fire built.
+
+The girls and boys stamped off the clinging snow and began to feel more
+comfortable. The flames danced among the sticks, and soon an appreciable
+sense of warmth stole through the cave. The crowd began to laugh and
+chatter. The girls brushed out the cave and the boys rolled forward loose
+stones for seats.
+
+Isadore found Jerry's shotgun, ammunition, bow and arrow, and other
+possessions.
+
+"He must have taken the rifle with him when he went to the other end of
+the tunnel," Ruth said.
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Ralph Tingley. "You could find the way through the hill
+to where you came out of the cave with Jerry; couldn't you, Ruth?"
+
+"Oh! I believe so," cried Ruth.
+
+"Then we needn't worry," said the boy. "We can go home that way. Even if
+the storm doesn't stop to-night, we ought to be able to find the lodge
+from _that_ end of the cave."
+
+"We've nothing to worry about, then," said Madge, cheerfully. "We're
+supplied with all the comforts of home----"
+
+"And plenty to eat," sighed Heavy, with satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+SNOWED IN
+
+
+Naturally, thirteen young folk in a cave could not be content to sit
+before the fire inactive. They played games, they sang songs, they made up
+verses, and finally Madge produced a pencil and a notebook and they wrote
+a burlesque history of "George Washington and the Cherry Tree."
+
+The first author wrote a page of the history and two lines on the second
+page. Then the second read those last two lines and went on with the
+story, leaving another two lines at the top of the next page, and so on.
+It was a wonderful piece of literary work when it was finished, and Madge
+kept it to read to the S.B.'s when they got back to Briarwood Hall.
+
+"For, of course," she said, "we're not going to be forever shut up in this
+cave. I don't want to turn into a 'cave man'--nor yet a 'cave woman'!"
+
+"See if the snow has stopped--that's a good boy, Tommy," urged Helen.
+
+"Of course it hasn't. Don't you see how dark it is, sis?" returned her
+twin.
+
+But he started toward the mouth of the cavern. Just then Bob looked at his
+watch in the firelight, and exclaimed:
+
+"No wonder it seems dark--do you know it's half after four right now?"
+
+"Wow! mother will be scared," said Ralph Tingley.
+
+Just then there came a cry from Tom. Then followed a heavy, smothered
+thud. The boys dashed to the entrance. It was pitch dark. A great mass of
+hard packed snow filled the opening, and was being forced into the cave
+itself. In this heap of snow struggled Tom, fairly smothered.
+
+They laid hold upon him--by a leg and an arm--and dragged him out. He
+could not speak for a moment and he had lost his cap.
+
+"How did you do that?" demanded Bob. "What does it mean?"
+
+"Think--think I did it on purpose?" demanded the overwhelmed youth. "I'm
+no Samson to pull down the pillars on top of me. Gee! that snow came
+sudden."
+
+"Where--where did it all come from?" demanded his sister.
+
+"From the top of the cliff, of course. It must have made a big drift there
+and tumbled down--regular avalanche, you know--just as I tried to look
+out. Why! the place out there is filled up yards deep! We'd never be able
+to dig out in a week."
+
+"Oh, dear me! what shall we do?" groaned Belle, who was beginning to get
+nervous.
+
+"Have supper," suggested Heavy, calmly. "No matter what we have to face,
+we can do it better after eating."
+
+They laughed, but took her advice. Nobody failed to produce an appetite at
+the proper time.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Belle, "if only mother knew we were safe I'd be
+content to stay all night. It's fun."
+
+"And if we had some salt," complained Lluella. "I don't like fish without
+salt--not much."
+
+"You're a fine female Robinson Crusoe," laughed Tom. "This is real
+'roughing it.' I expect all you girls will weaken by morning."
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried his sister, "you talk as though you thought we would be
+obliged to stay here, Tom."
+
+"I don't just see how we're to get out to-night," Tom returned, grimly.
+"Not from this end of the cave, at any rate. I tell you, tons and _tons_
+of snow fell into its mouth."
+
+"But you know the other way out, Ruthie?" urged Lluella, half inclined to
+cry.
+
+"I think so," returned the girl of the Red Mill.
+
+"Then just hunt for the way," said Belle, firmly. "If it has stopped
+snowing I want to go home."
+
+"Don't be a baby, Belle," advised her brother Ralph. "Nothing is going to
+hurt us here."
+
+"Especially as we have plenty of fuel and grub," added Bobbins,
+thoughtfully.
+
+But Ruth saw that it would be wiser to try to get through the tunnel to
+the brookside. Nobody could dig them out at this end, that was sure. So
+she agreed with Tom and Ralph Tingley to try to follow the same passages
+that Jerry Sheming had taken her through upon the occasion of her first
+visit.
+
+"How shall we find our way, though, if it's dark?" questioned Ralph,
+suddenly. "_I_ can't see in the dark."
+
+"Neither can the rest of us, I guess," said Tom. "Do you suppose we could
+find torchwood in that pile yonder?"
+
+"Not much," Bobbins told them. "And a torch is a smoky thing, anyway."
+
+Ruth was hunting the dark corners of the big cavern in which they had
+camped. Although Jerry had been at the far end of the tunnel when he was
+captured by the constable and his helpers--outside that end of the tunnel,
+in fact--she hoped that he had left his lantern at this end.
+
+As it proved, she was not mistaken. Here it was, all filled and cleaned,
+hidden on a shelf with a half-gallon can of kerosene. Jerry had been in
+the habit of coming to the cave frequently in the old days when his uncle
+and he lived alone on the island.
+
+So Tom lit the lantern and the trio started. The opening of the tunnel
+through the hill could not be missed; but farther along Ruth had a dim
+recollection of passing cross galleries and passages. Should she know the
+direct tunnel then?
+
+She put that anxiety aside for the present. At first it was all plain
+traveling, and Tom with the lantern went ahead to illuminate the path.
+
+They came out into one of the narrow open cuts, but there was little snow
+in it. However, a flake or two floated down to them, and they knew that
+the storm still continued to rage. The moaning of the wind in the tree
+tops far up on the hill reached their ears.
+
+"Some storm, this," observed Tom.
+
+"I should say it was! You don't suppose the folks will be foolish enough
+to start out hunting for us till it's over; do you?" Ralph asked,
+anxiously.
+
+"They would better not. We're safe. They ought to know that. Preston will
+tell them about the caves in this end of the island and they ought to know
+we'd find one of 'em."
+
+"It's a wild spot, just the same," remarked Ralph. "And I suppose mother
+will be worried."
+
+"Ruth isn't afraid--nor Helen--nor the other girls," said Tom. "I think
+these Briarwood girls are pretty plucky, anyway. Don't _you_ get to
+grouching, Rafe."
+
+They pursued their way, Tom ahead with the lantern, for some rods further.
+Suddenly the leader stopped.
+
+"Now what, Ruthie?" he demanded. "Which way do we go?"
+
+The passage forked. Ruth was uncertain. She could not for the life of her
+remember having seen this spot before.
+
+But, then, she and Jerry must have passed it. She had not given her
+attention to the direction at that time, for she had been talking with the
+backwoods boy.
+
+She took the lantern from Tom now, and walked a little way into first the
+left-hand passage and then the right-hand one. It seemed to her as though
+there were places in the sand on the floor of this latter tunnel which had
+been disturbed by human feet.
+
+"_This_ is the path, I guess," she said, laughing and so hiding her own
+anxiety. "But let's take a good look at the place so we can find our way
+back to it if we have to return."
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Ralph Tingley. "You're not so awfully sure; are you?"
+
+"That's all right. Ruth was only through here once," Tom spoke up,
+loyally. "And we can't get really lost."
+
+In five minutes they came into a little circular room out of which no less
+than four passages opened. Ruth was confident now that she was "turned
+around." She had to admit it to her companions.
+
+"Well! what do you know about that?" cried Ralph. "I thought you said you
+could find the way?"
+
+"I guess I can," said Ruth, cheerfully. "But we'll have to try each one of
+these openings. I can't be sure which is the right one."
+
+Ralph sniffed, but Tom was unshaken in his confidence in his girl friend.
+
+"Let me have the lantern, Tom, and you boys stay here," Ruth said,
+quickly. "I'll try them myself."
+
+"Say! don't you get lost," cried Tom.
+
+"And don't you leave us long in the dark," complained Ralph. "I don't
+believe we ought to let her take that lantern, Tom----"
+
+"Aw, stop croaking!" commanded young Cameron. "You're worse than any girl
+yourself, Tingley."
+
+Ruth hated to hear them quarrel, but she would not give up and admit that
+she was beaten. She took the lantern and ventured into the first tunnel.
+Her carriage was firmer than her mind, and before she had gone a dozen
+steps she was nervously sobbing, but smothered the sounds with her
+handkerchief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"A BLOW FOR LIBERTY"
+
+
+Ruth was a healthy girl and particularly free from "nerves"; but she _was_
+frightened. She was so proud that she determined not to admit to her
+companions that she was lost In the caves.
+
+Indeed, she was not entirely sure that she _was_ lost. Perhaps this was
+the way she had come with Jerry. Only, she did not remember passing the
+little room with the four tunnels opening out of it.
+
+This first passage into which she had ventured with so much apparent
+boldness proved to be the wrong one within a very few moments. She came to
+the end of it--against an unbroken wall.
+
+There she remained until she had conquered her nervous sobbing and removed
+as well as she could the traces of tears from her face. When she returned
+to Tom and Ralph she held the lantern well down, so that the shadow was
+cast upon her face.
+
+"How about it, Ruth?" demanded Tom, cheerfully, when she reappeared.
+
+"That's not the one. It is just a pocket," declared Ruth. "Wait till I try
+another."
+
+"Well, don't be all night about it," growled Tingley, ungraciously. "We're
+wasting a lot of time here."
+
+Ruth did not reply, but took the next tunnel. She followed this for even a
+shorter distance before finding it closed.
+
+"Only two more. That's all right!" exclaimed Tom. "Narrows the choice
+down, and we'll be surer of hitting the right one--eh, Ruthie?"
+
+She knew that he was talking thus to keep her courage up. Dear old Tom! he
+was always to be depended upon.
+
+She gathered confidence herself, however, when she had gone some distance
+into the third passage. There was a place where she had to climb upon a
+shelf to get along, because the floor was covered with big stones, and she
+remembered this place clearly.
+
+So she turned and swung her Tight, calling to the boys. Her voice went
+echoing through the tunnel and soon brought a reply and the sound of
+scrambling feet.
+
+"Hold up that lantern!" yelled Ralph, rather crossly. "How do you expect
+us to see?"
+
+Young Tingley's nerves were "on edge," and like a good many other people
+when they get that way, he was short-tempered.
+
+"Now we're all right, are we, Ruth?" cried Tom.
+
+"I remember this place," the girl of the Red Mill replied. "I couldn't be
+mistaken. Now you take the lantern, Tom, and lead on."
+
+They pursued the tunnel to its very end. There it branched again and Ruth
+boldly took the right hand passage. Whether it was right, or no, she
+proposed to attack it firmly.
+
+After a time Tom exclaimed: "Hullo, Ruthie! do you really think this is
+right?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+He held up the lantern in silence. Ruth and Ralph crowded forward to look
+over his shoulders.
+
+There was a heap of rubbish and earth half-filling the tunnel. It had not
+fallen from the roof, although neither that nor the sides of the tunnel
+were of solid rock.
+
+"You never came through this place, Ruth!" exclaimed Ralph, in that
+"I-told-you-so" tone that is so hard to bear.
+
+"I--I didn't see this place--no," admitted Ruth.
+
+"Of course you didn't!" declared Ralph, crossly. "Why! it's right up
+against the end of the tunnel."
+
+"It _does_ look as though we were blocked, Ruthie," said Tom, with less
+confidence.
+
+"Then we'll have to go back and try the other passage," returned the girl,
+choking a little.
+
+"See here!" cried Tom, suddenly. "Somebody's been digging here. That's
+where all this stuff comes from, underfoot."
+
+"Where?" asked the others, crowding forward to look closer. Tom set down
+the lantern and picked up a broken spade. There was a cavity in the wall
+of this pocket-like passage. With a flourish Tom dug the broken blade of
+the spade into the gritty earth.
+
+"This is what Jerry wanted that mattock for, I bet!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, dear, me! do you believe so?" cried Ruth. "Then, right here, is where
+he thought he might find his uncle's treasure box."
+
+"Ho, ho!" ejaculated Ralph. "That old hunter was just as crazy as he could
+be--father says so."
+
+"Well, that wouldn't keep him from having money; would it?--and might be a
+very good reason for his burying it."
+
+"And the papers he declared would prove his title to a part of this
+island," Ruth hastened to add.
+
+That didn't please Ralph any too well. "My father owns the island, and
+don't you forget it!" he declared.
+
+"Well, we don't have to quarrel about it," snapped Tom, rather disgusted
+with the way Ralph was behaving. "Come on! we might as well go back. But
+here's one blow for liberty!" and he laughed and flung the spade forward
+with all his strength.
+
+Jerry Sheming had never suspected it, or he would not have left the
+excavation just as he had. There was but a thin shell beyond where he had
+been digging, and the spade in Tom's hand went clear through.
+
+"For the goodness gracious grannies!" gasped Tom, scrambling off his
+knees. "I--I came near losing that spade altogether."
+
+There was a fall of earth beyond the hole. They heard it rolling and
+tumbling down a sharp descent.
+
+"Hold the lantern here, Ruth!" cried Tom, trying to peer into the opening.
+
+Ruth did so. The rays revealed a hole, big enough for a man to creep
+through. It gave entrance, it seemed, to another cavern--and one of good
+size.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Ruth, seizing Tom's arm. "I just know what this
+means."
+
+"You may. _I_ don't," laughed Tom Cameron.
+
+"Why, this other cavern is the one that was buried under the landslide.
+Jerry said he knew about where it was, and he's been trying to dig into
+it."
+
+"Oh, yes; there was a landslide on this side of the cliff just about the
+time father was negotiating for the purchase of the island last summer,"
+said Ralph. "We all came up here to look at the place a while afterward.
+We camped in a tent about where the lodge now stands. That old crazy
+hunter had just been taken away from here. They say he tried to kill
+Blent."
+
+"And maybe he had good reason," said Tom. "Blent is without a doubt a
+pretty mean proposition."
+
+"Just the same, the island is my father's," declared Ralph, with
+confidence. "He bought it, right enough."
+
+"All right. But you think, Ruth, that perhaps it was in this buried cave
+that old Mr. Tilton hid his money box?"
+
+"So Jerry said. It looks as though Jerry had been digging here----"
+
+"Let's have another crack at it!" cried Tom, and went to work with the
+spade again.
+
+In ten minutes he had scattered considerable earth and made the hole much
+larger. They held the lantern inside and saw that the floor of the other
+cavity was about on a level with the one in which they stood. Tom slid the
+old spade through the hole, and then went through himself.
+
+"Come on! let's take a look," he said, reaching up for Ruth and the
+lantern.
+
+"But this isn't finding a way out," complained Ralph. "What will the other
+folks say?"
+
+"We'll find the opening later. We couldn't venture outside now, anyway. It
+is still storming, you can bet," declared the eager Tom.
+
+Ruth's sharp eyes were peering here and there. The cavern they had entered
+was almost circular and had a dome-shaped roof. There were shelves all
+around several feet above the floor. Some of these ledges slanted inward
+toward the rock, and one could not see much of them.
+
+"Lift me up here, Tom!" commanded the girl. "I want to scramble up on the
+ledge."
+
+"You'll hurt yourself."
+
+"Nonsense! Can't I climb a tree almost as well as Ann Hicks?"
+
+He gave her a lift and Ruth scrambled over the edge with a little squeal.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried. "Here's something."
+
+"Must be," grunted Tom, trying to climb up himself. "Why, I declare,
+Ruthie! that's a box."
+
+"It's a little chest. It's ironbound, too. My! how heavy. I can't lift
+it."
+
+"Tumble it down and let's see," commanded Ralph, holding the lantern.
+
+Ruth sat down suddenly and looked at the boys.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I don't know that we've got any right to touch
+it. It's padlocked. Maybe it is old Mr. Tilton's treasure-box."
+
+"That would be great!" cried Tom.
+
+"But I don't know," continued Ruth, reflectively. "We would better not
+touch it. I wouldn't undertake to advise Jerry what to do if _he_ found
+it. But this is what they call 'treasure trove,' I guess. At least, it was
+what that Rufus Blent had in mind, all right, when he sold Mr. Tingley the
+island with the peculiar reservation clause in the deed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A MIDNIGHT MARAUDER
+
+
+Meanwhile the boys and girls left behind in Jerry Sheming's old camp began
+to find the absence of Ruth and her two companions rather trying. The time
+which had elapsed since the three explorers started to find the eastern
+outlet of the cave seemed much longer to those around the campfire than to
+the trio themselves.
+
+Before the searching party could have reached the brookside, had the
+tunnel been perfectly straight, the nervous Belle Tingley wanted to send
+out a relief expedition.
+
+"We never should have allowed Ruthie to go," she wailed. "We all should
+have kept together. How do we know but they'll find the cave a regular
+labyrinth, and get lost in it, and wander around and around, and never
+find their way out, or back, and----"
+
+"Oh, for the goodness sake!" ejaculated Mary Cox, "don't be such a
+weeping, wailing Sister of Misery, Belle! You not only cross bridges
+before you come to them, but, I declare, you build new ones!"
+
+"She's Old Man Trouble's favorite daughter," said Heavy. "Didn't you know
+_that_? Now, Miss Fuss-Budget, stop croaking. Nothing's going to happen to
+Ruthie."
+
+"Not with Tom on hand, you can wager," added Helen, with every confidence
+in her twin brother.
+
+But at last the watches of the party could not be doubted. Two hours had
+crept by and it was getting very late in the evening. Some of the party
+were, as Ann said, "yawning their heads off." Lluella and Heavy had camped
+down upon the old buffalo-robe before the fire and were already more than
+half asleep.
+
+"I do wish they'd come back," muttered Bob Steele to Isadore Phelps. "We
+can't tell in here whether the storm has stopped, or not. I don't just
+fancy staying in this cave all night if there's any possible chance of
+getting to Mr. Tingley's house."
+
+"Don't know what can be keeping those folks. I believe I could have crept
+on my hands and knees through the whole hill, and back again, before this
+time," returned Busy Izzy, in a very sleepy voice.
+
+"Now, you can talk as you please," said Ann Hicks, with sudden decision,
+"but I'm going a short distance along that tunnel and see if the lantern
+is in sight."
+
+"I'm with you!" exclaimed Bob.
+
+"Me, too," joined in Helen, jumping up with alacrity.
+
+"Now, some more of you will go off and get lost," cried Belle. "I--I wish
+we were all home. I'm--I'm sorry we came to this old island."
+
+"Baby!" ejaculated her brother, poking her. "Do be still. Ralph isn't
+going to get lost--what d'ye think he is?"
+
+"How'll we see our way?" Helen asked Bob and Ann.
+
+"Feel it. We'll go in the dark. Then we can see their lantern the
+quicker."
+
+"There's no wood here fit for torches," Bob admitted. "And I have plenty
+of matches. Come on! We sha'n't get lost."
+
+"What do you really suppose has happened to them?" demanded Helen of Bob,
+as soon as they were out of hearing of the camp.
+
+"Give it up. Something extraordinary--that's positive," declared the big
+fellow.
+
+They crept through the tunnel, Bob lighting a match occasionally, until
+they reached the first crack in the roof, open to the sky. It was not
+snowing very hard.
+
+"Of course they wouldn't have tried climbing up here to get out," queried
+Helen.
+
+"Of course not!" exclaimed Ann. "What for?"
+
+"No," said Bobbins. "They kept straight ahead--and so will we."
+
+In five minutes, however, when they stopped, whispering, in a little
+chamber, Ann suddenly seized her companions and commanded them to hold
+their breath!
+
+"I hear something," she whispered.
+
+The others strained their ears to hear, too. In a moment a stone rattled.
+Then there sounded an unmistakable footstep upon the rock. Somebody was
+approaching.
+
+"They're coming back?" asked Helen, doubtfully.
+
+"Hush!" commanded Ann again. "Whoever it is, he has no light. It can't be
+Ruth."
+
+Much heavier boots than those the girl of the Red Mill wore now rattled
+over the loose stones. Ann pulled the other two down beside her where she
+crouched in the corner.
+
+"Wait!" she breathed.
+
+"Can it be some wild animal?" asked Helen.
+
+"With boots on? I bet!" scoffed Bob.
+
+It was pitch dark. The three crouching together in the corner of the
+little chamber were not likely to attract the attention of this marauder,
+if all went well. But their hearts beat fast as the rustle of the
+approaching footsteps grew louder.
+
+There loomed up a man's figure. It looked too big to be either Tom or
+Ralph, and it passed on with an assured step. He needed no lamp to find a
+path that seemed well known.
+
+"Who--what----"
+
+"Hush, Helen!" commanded Ann.
+
+"But he's going right to the cave--and he carried a gun."
+
+"I didn't see the gun," whispered Ann.
+
+"I did," agreed Bob, squeezing Helen's arm. "It was a rifle. Do you
+suppose there is any danger?"
+
+"It couldn't be anybody hunting us, do you suppose?" queried Helen, in a
+shaken voice. "Anybody from the house?"
+
+"Preston!" exclaimed Ann.
+
+"How would he know the way to get into this tunnel?" returned Bob. "Come
+on! let's spy on him. I'm worried now about Tom and the others."
+
+"You don't suppose anything has happened to Ruthie?" whispered Helen. "Oh!
+you don't believe _that_, Bobbins?"
+
+"Come on!" grunted the big fellow, and took the advance.
+
+They were careful of their own footsteps over the loose stones. The person
+ahead acted as though he had an idea he was alone.
+
+Nor did they overtake him until they had passed the open crack in the roof
+of the tunnel. Somebody laughed in the cavern ahead--then the girls all
+shouted.
+
+The marauder stopped, uttering an astonished ejaculation. Bob and the two
+girls halted, too, but in a moment the person ahead turned, and came
+striding toward them, evidently fleeing from the sound of the voices.
+
+Ann and Helen were really frightened, and with faint cries, shrank back.
+Bob _had_ to be brave. He leaped forward to meet the person with the
+rifle, crying:
+
+"Hold on, there!"
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed the other and advanced the rifle until the muzzle touched
+Bob Steele's breast. The boy was naturally frightened--how could he help
+being? But he showed pluck. He did not move.
+
+"What do you want in here? Who are you?" asked Bob, quietly.
+
+"Goodness me!" gasped the other, and dropped the butt of his rifle to the
+ground. "You sure did startle me. You're one of those boys staying with
+the Tingleys?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And here's a couple of the girls. Not Ruth Fielding?"
+
+"Oh, Jerry Sheming!" cried Ann, running forward. "You might have shot him
+with that gun."
+
+"Not unless I'd loaded it first," replied Jerry, with a quiet chuckle.
+"But you folks scared me quite as much as I did you--Why, it's Miss Hicks
+and Miss Cameron."
+
+"Where is Ruth?" demanded Ann, anxiously.
+
+"And Tom?" joined in Helen.
+
+"And how did you get back here to Cliff Island?" asked Bob. "We understood
+that you'd been railroaded out of the country."
+
+"Hold on! hold on!" exclaimed Jerry. "Let's hear first about Miss
+Fielding. Where's she gone? How came you folks in this cave?"
+
+Helen was the one who told him. She related all the circumstances very
+briefly, but in a way to give Jerry a clear understanding of the
+situation.
+
+"They've wandered off to the right. I know where they must be," said
+Jerry, decidedly. "I'll go find them. And then I'll get you all out of
+here. It has almost stopped snowing now."
+
+"But how did you find your way back here to the island?" Bob demanded
+again.
+
+"I ain't going to be beat by Blent," declared Jerry Sheming, doggedly. "I
+am going to have another look through the caves before I leave for good,
+and don't you forget it.
+
+"The engine on that train yesterday morning broke a piston rod and had to
+stop down the lake shore. I hopped off and hid on the far bank, watching
+the island. If you folks hadn't come over this way to fish this morning,
+I'd been across before the storm began.
+
+"I was pretty well turned around in the storm, and have been traveling a
+long time. But I got to the brook at last, and then worked my way up it
+and into the other end of this cave. I was going up there after my
+lantern----"
+
+"Ruth and the others have it," explained Helen, quickly.
+
+"Then I'll go find them at once. I know my way around pretty well in the
+dark. I couldn't get really lost in this cave," and Jerry laughed,
+shortly.
+
+"I've got matches if you want them," said Bob.
+
+"Got a plenty, thanks. You folks go back to your friends, and I'll hunt
+out Miss Fielding in a jiffy."
+
+Jerry turned away at once, and soon passed out of their sight in the
+gloom. As Helen and the others hurried back to the anxious party at the
+campfire, Jerry went straightway to the most satisfactory discovery of all
+his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE TREASURE BOX
+
+
+When Jerry met Ruth and her companions coming slowly from the little cave,
+the boys bearing the heavy, ironbound box between them, he knew instantly
+what it was--his uncle's chest in which he had kept his money and papers.
+
+"It's yours to hide again if you want to, Jerry," Ruth told him, when the
+excitement of the meeting had passed, and explanations were over. "It was
+what both you and Rufus Blent have been looking for, and I believe you
+have the best right to it"
+
+"It belongs to Uncle Pete. And Uncle Pete shall have it," declared the
+backwoods boy. "Why, do you know, I believe if Uncle Pete once had this
+box in his possession again that he might recover his mind?"
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" Ruth cried.
+
+First, however, the crowd of young folk had to be led through the long
+tunnel and out into the open air. It was agreed that nothing was to be
+said to anybody but Mr. Tingley about the treasure box. And the boys and
+girls, too, agreed to say nothing at the house about Jerry's having
+returned to his cave.
+
+When they reached the brook, there were lights about the island, and guns
+being fired. The entire household of Tingley Lodge was out on the hunt for
+the lost ones.
+
+The boys and girls were home and in bed in another hour, and Mrs. Tingley
+was vastly relieved.
+
+"Never again will I take the responsibility of such a crowd!" declared the
+harassed lady. "My own children are enough; a dozen and a half active
+young ones like these would send me to the madhouse in another week!"
+
+But the girls from Briarwood and their boy friends continued to have a
+delightful time during the remainder of their stay at Cliff Island,
+although their adventures were less strenuous than those that have been
+related. They went away, in the end, to take up their school duties,
+pronouncing their vacation on the island one of the most enjoyable they
+had ever experienced.
+
+"Something to keep up our hearts for the rest of the school year,"
+declared Heavy. "And you'll like us better, too, when we're gone, Mrs.
+Tingley. We _all_--even The Fox, here--have a good side to our
+characters."
+
+Even Ann Hicks went back to Briarwood with pleasant expectations. She had
+learned to understand her mates better during this holiday, and all the
+girls at Briarwood were prepared to welcome the western girl now with more
+kindness than before.
+
+We may believe that Ruth and her girl friends were all busy and happy
+during that next half-year at Briarwood, and we may meet them again in the
+midst of their work and fun in the next volume of the series, entitled
+"Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm; Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans."
+
+Ruth Fielding, however, did not leave Cliff Island before being assured
+that the affairs of Jerry Sheming and his uncle would be set right. As it
+chanced, the very day the crowd had gone fishing Mr. Tingley had received
+a letter from the head doctor of the hospital, to whom the gentleman had
+written inquiring about old Peter Tilton.
+
+The patient had improved immensely. That he was eccentric was true, but he
+had probably always been so, the doctor said. The old man was worrying
+over the loss of what he called his treasure box, and when Ruth confided
+to Mr. Tingley the truth about Jerry's return and the discovery of the
+ironbound box, Mr. Tingley determined to take matters into his own hands.
+
+He first went to the cave and had a long talk with Jerry. Then he had his
+team of horses put to the sledge, and he and Jerry and the box drove the
+entire length of Lake Tallahaska, struck into a main road to the county
+asylum, and made an unexpected call upon the poor old hunter, who had been
+so long confined in that institution.
+
+"It was jest what Uncle Pete needed to wake him up," Jerry declared to
+Ruth, when he saw her some weeks later. "He knowed the box and had always
+carried the key of it about his neck on a string. They didn't know what it
+was at the 'sylum, but they let him keep the key.
+
+"And when he opened it, sure enough there was lots of papers and a couple
+of bags of money. I don't know how much, but Mr. Tingley got Uncle Pete to
+trust a bank with the money, and it'll be mine some day. Uncle Pete's
+going to pay my way through school with some of it, he says."
+
+"But the title to the island?" demanded the excited girl of the Red Mill.
+"How did that come out? Did your uncle have any deed to it? What of that
+mean old Rufus Blent?"
+
+"Jest you hold your hosses, Miss Ruth," laughed Jerry. "I'm comin' to
+that."
+
+"But you are coming to it awfully slow, Jerry," complained the eager girl.
+
+"No. I'll tell you quick's I can," he declared. "Uncle Pete had papers. He
+had been buying a part of the island from Blent on installments, and had
+paid the old rascal a good part of the price. But when Blent found out
+that uncle's papers were buried under the landslide he thought he could
+play a sharp trick and resell to Mr. Tingley. You see, the installment
+deeds were not recorded.
+
+"However, Mr. Tingley's lawyers made old Blent get right down and howl for
+mercy--yes, they did! There was a strong case of conspiracy against him.
+That's still hanging fire.
+
+"But Mr. Tingley says he will not push that, considering Rufus did all he
+was told to about the title money. He gave Uncle Pete back every cent he
+had paid in on the Cliff Island property, with interest compounded, and a
+good lump sum of money beside as a bonus.
+
+"Then Uncle Pete made Mr. Tingley's title good, and we're going to live at
+the lodge during the closed season, as caretakers. That pleases Uncle
+Pete, for he couldn't be very well content anywhere else but on Cliff
+Island."
+
+"Oh, Jerry! I am so glad it has come out all right for you," cried the
+girl of the Red Mill. "And so will all the other girls be when I tell
+them. And Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah--for _they_ are interested in your
+welfare, too."
+
+"You're mighty kind, Miss Ruth," said the backwoods boy, bashfully.
+"I--I'm thinking I've got a lot more to thank _you_ for than I ever can
+express right proper."
+
+"Oh, no! no more to me than to other folks," cried Ruth Fielding,
+earnestly, for it had always been her natural instinct to help people, and
+she did not wish to be thanked for it.
+
+That being the case, neither Jerry nor the writer must say anything more
+about the matter.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island, by Alice Emerson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14630 ***