But although neither of the old folks at the Red Mill came to see the graduating exercises, Ruth was not exactly unhappy. The little children showing her that they liked her so well, could not fail to be a lasting pleasure to Ruth. And Helen and Tom, with their governess, Mrs. Murchiston, attended the exercises, and Helen sat with Ruth.

"And we're going to take you home; the carriage will come for us," Helen whispered in her ear.

"No," Ruth said, shaking her head, "I cannot go home with you. You know, Uncle—"

"He is an ogre," whispered Helen, with vigor.

That made Ruth smile a little, and she told Helen what Mercy Curtis called the owner of the Red Mill, and of the fancy the lame girl had taken for Uncle Jabez. "He is 'Dusty Miller' to Mercy, and I shouldn't be surprised if Uncle Jabez had her out for a day or two, if the doctor will let her come. And you mustn't call him names, I tell you. See how good he has been to me. He gave me this new dress."

"That must have hurt him awfully," said Helen, sharply. "Not but that the dress is becoming and pretty, dear. But that's the only thing he's ever given you, I warrant— and he lost your trunk!"

The Camerons insisted upon driving Ruth as far as the Red Mill, just the same. Mrs. Murchiston was a very pleasant lady, and Helen and Tom evidently thought a good deal of her.

"I should have been glad to have you for Helen's playmate this summer, my dear," said the governess to Ruth. "And I wish you were fortunate enough to be able to go with Helen this fall. You have just the characteristics in your nature to balance dear Helen's impetuosity."

"Oh, I wish indeed she was going to Briarwood Hall," cried Helen.

"I shall be satisfied if the way is opened for me to go to high school," Ruth declared, smiling. "Uncle has said nothing against it, and I shall begin next week walking in to Miss Cramp's to recite."

Helen asked very minutely about Ruth's plans for going to Cheslow to recite, and the very first day of the next week, when the girl of the Red Mill started for town, who should overtake her within half a mile of the mill, but Helen and her governess going to Cheslow on a shopping errand, and drawn by Tubby, the pony. Of course, there was room for Ruth in the phaeton, and Helen and Mrs. Murchiston remained in town as long as Ruth did and brought her back with them. Ruth had time to run in and see Mercy Curtis.

"I'm coming out to the Red Mill, so now!" declared the lame girl. "I asked Doctor Davison, and he says yes. And if he says so, that uncle of yours, Dusty Miller, will have to let me. Folks have to do as Doctor Davison says, you know. And your uncle— isn't he just an ugly dear? Does he look just that cross all the time? I bet he never forgives his Enemy!"

This novel reason for liking Uncle Jabez would have been amusing had there not been a serious side to it. This odd child, with her warped and twisted fancies, was to be pitied, and Ruth secretly pitied her with all her heart. But she was careful now not to show Mercy that she commiserated her condition; that way was not the way to the cripple's heart.

Nevertheless, being a little less afraid of Uncle Jabez than she once was, that very evening she mentioned Mercy's desire to him. Uncle Jabez never smiled, but it could be said that his face relaxed when she called up the memory of Sam Curtis' crippled daughter.

"Yes; why not?" rejoined Aunt Alvirah. "Have the poor leetle creetur out here, Jabez. She'll be no bother to you. And she kin sleep with Ruthie."

"How'll she get up and down stairs?" demanded the miller, quite surprising Ruth and Aunt Alvirah by considering this phase of the matter. "You'll have to open the East bedroom, Alviry."

"Jest as you say, Jabez," answered the old woman, very meekly, but her bright eyes sparkling as she glanced aside at Ruth. "She kin roll herself in her chair in and out of that room, and onto the porch."

"I'll see Doc. Davison when he drives by to-morrer," promised Uncle Jabez, with his usual bruskness. "If he says it's all right, she can come. I'll bring her chair and her luggage out in the wagon on Saturday. The Doc. will arrange about her being brought out comfortably."

All this was so amazing that Ruth could not speak. Except when he had been angry, or at the time his cash-box was lost when the flood came down the river, she had never heard Uncle Jabez make so long a speech. Aunt Alvirah was no person with whom she could discuss this great change in the miller; and when Doctor Davison was hailed by Mr. Potter the next day and stopped at the mill for quite half an hour to confer with him, Ruth was still more amazed.

Every other day Ruth was to go to town, if it was fair. Uncle Jabez made no comment upon her absence; nor did he put himself out in the least to arrange for any means of transportation for his niece. He seldom went to Cheslow himself, save on Saturdays.

Ruth's next trip to Miss Cramp's was on a very hot day indeed. There was a glare of hot sun on the long hill and just enough fitful breeze to sift the road-dust all over her as she walked. But— and how fortunate that was!— before she had gone far the purring of a motor-car engine aroused her attention and Tom Cameron ran along beside her in his father's auto and stopped.

"Ain't I lucky?" he cried. "Get in here, Ruthie, and I'll take you to town in a jiffy."

"I'm the lucky one, I think," said Ruth, smiling in return as she slipped into the seat beside him. "And I almost believe, Tommy Cameron, that you knew I was starting for town and came along just to give me a lift."

He grinned at her. "Don't you think you're mighty important?" he teased. "Suppose I haven't anything else to think about but you girls?"

Just the same, Ruth stuck to this belief. But she had to confess that she was glad of the ride to town. It would have been very, very hot in the sun and dust.

"And it's real summer, now," she said. "It will be hot in town. I'm so glad Mercy is going to get out of it."

"What do you mean?" demanded Tom. "Is she going to be taken away?"

Ruth told him of the remarkable interest Uncle Jabez had taken in the crippled girl. Tom could scarcely have been more surprised.

"Why, the old curmudgeon has got a decent streak in him, after all; hasn't he?" he exclaimed, rather thoughtlessly.

"Don't speak that way of him, Tom," urged Ruth. "I know you've got reason for disliking him—"

"What do you mean?" demanded Tom, turning on her sharply.

"Oh, I— Well, Tom, you know I believe I could easily find the man who almost drove the team over you the night you were hurt? And you've known it all the time, and kept still about it!"

"That mean, contemptible Jasper Parloe! He's told!" gasped Tom.

"Jasper Parloe told?" repeated Ruth. "Not me."

"Then—"

"You muttered it when they carried you to the doctor's house that night. You said it was my uncle," said Ruth, quietly. "I have known it all along, and so has Parloe, I suppose. He and I were the only persons who heard what you said when you were but half conscious. You've kept still about it so as to shield Uncle, and I thank you."

Tom looked abashed; but he was angry, too. "Confound that Parloe!" he exclaimed again. "He's been bleeding me, too! Threatened to go to my father and tell about it— and Dad would have been pretty hot with your uncle, I expect."

"It was just fine of you, Tommy," Ruth said, admiringly. "But I'd let that Parloe tell anything he liked. Uncle Jabez never meant to run you down, I'm sure."

"I tell you what," said Tom. "I'll go to him myself and talk with him. Guess I can do a little bargaining on my own hook. If I don't make him any trouble about my accident, he ought to let you and Helen be spoons again. She's just about worrying herself sick over you."

"It will come right, Tom, in the end," returned Ruth, quietly, and repeating Aunt Alvirah's favorite word of cheer. "Uncle is changed, I believe. Think of his taking so much interest in Mercy!"

"I'll see Doctor Davison," said Tom, eagerly; "and perhaps I'll bring the sick girl out on Saturday. She ought to be very comfortable in this machine. Helen would be glad to do something for her, too."

"But you don't want to make any show of doing anything for Mercy," returned Ruth, shaking her head as she got out before the station master's cottage. "There she is at the window. She'll be curious about you, I've no doubt."

She only ran in for a few moments to see Mercy before going on to Miss Cramp's.

"That's that Cameron boy," said the crippled girl, in her sharp way. "I see him and that sister of his whizzing through this street before in their car. Wish it'd blow up some day when they're showing off."

Ruth had got so now that she never showed surprise at Mercy's harsh speeches. She refused to admit that she took the lame girl seriously in her ugly moods.

"Now, you'd better not wish that, Mercy," she laughed. "Tom wants to take you out to the Red Mill on Saturday in that same automobile. Uncle Jabez is going to take the wheel chair and your baggage. You'll like riding in the car well enough."

For a moment the cripple was silent and her eyes fell before Ruth's gaze. Suddenly the guest saw that Mercy's shoulders shook and that tears were actually dropping from Mercy's eyes.

"My dear!" she cried.

"Go away!" murmured the crippled girl. "I want to be alone. I ain't never believed," she went on, with more vigor than grammar, "that I'd ever get out to your house. Is— is it really so that I can?"

"Uncle Jabez is determined you shall come. So is Doctor Davison. So am I. Everybody is helping. Why, Mercy, you'd have to come to the Red Mill on a visit now, even if you didn't want to!" cried Ruth, laughing happily.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN OLAKAH GLEN

And Mercy Curtis really came to the Red Mill. Perhaps it was because of Doctor Davison, for it was notorious that when the good physician set out to do a thing, or to have it done, it was accomplished.

Yet in this case it seemed as though the miller himself had as much to do with the successful outcome of the plan as anybody. He had little to say about it— or little to say at first to the crippled girl. But he saw that Aunt Alvirah and Ruth had the east bedroom ready for Mercy's occupancy before he started to town with his usual load of flour and meal on Saturday afternoon; and he was at home in good season for supper with the empty grain sacks, the fruits of his Saturday's trading, and Mercy's wheel chair in the wagon. But before he returned to the Red Mill the Camerons' big car, with Helen and Tom and the chauffeur, flashed past the Red Mill on its way to town and in a remarkably short time reappeared with Mercy sitting beside Helen in the tonneau. Doctor Davison arrived at about the same time, too, and superintended the removal of the cripple into the house.

Mercy was as excited as she could be. There was actually color in her face. She was so excited that she forgot to be snappy, and thanked them all for their kindness to her.

"Into bed you go at once, Mercy," commanded Doctor Davison; "and in the morning you may get up as early as you please— or as early as Ruth gets up." For Ruth was to sleep on the couch in the sick girl's room during her visit to the Red Mill.

The doctor drove the Camerons away then, and adjured Mercy to be quiet, leaving her to the tender nursing of Ruth and Aunt Alvirah. Mercy was in a mood to be friendly with everybody— for once. She was delighted with Aunt Alvirah. When Uncle Jabez arrived with the wheelchair she actually made him do errands for her and talked to him with a freedom that astonished both Ruth and Mrs. Alvirah Boggs.

"There! I knew you'd do it, Dusty Miller," Mercy said to the old man, tartly. "You men are all alike— just as forgetful as you can be. It's all very well to bring this old wheelchair; but where are my two sticks? Didn't they give you my canes, Dusty Miller? I assure you I have to move around a bit now and then without using this horseless carriage. I've got to have something to hobble on. I'm Goody Two-sticks, I am. You know very well that one of my legs isn't worth anything at all."

"Ha!" croaked Jabez Potter, eyeing her with his usual frown, "I didn't bring any canes; because why? There weren't any given me. They're not in the wagon."

"My! do you always frown just like that?" demanded Mercy Curtis, in a manner which would have been impertinent in any other person, but was her natural way of speaking. "You don't waste your time in smiling and smirking; do you?"

"I never saw any use in it— unless ye had something perticular to smile for," admitted Mr. Potter.

"Then it won't spoil your smile if I tell you that you'll have to find me canes somewhere if I'm to help myself at all," she said.

He gravely brought two rough staffs, measured them off at just the right height for her, and spent the bulk of the evening in smoothing the rough sticks and tacking on bits of leather at the small ends of the canes in lieu of ferrules.

The east bedroom was at the end of the passage leading from the kitchen. It was right next to Uncle Jabez's own room. They all sat in the east room that evening, for its windows opened upon the wide, honeysuckle-shaded porch, and the breeze was cool. It was the beginning of many such evenings, for although Uncle Jabez sometimes retired to his bedroom where a lamp burned, and made up his cash-book and counted his money (or so Ruth supposed) not an evening went by that the miller was not, for a time at least, in the cripple's room.

He did not talk much. Indeed, if he talked to anyone more than to another it was to Ruth; but he seemed to take a quizzical interest in watching Mercy's wry faces when she was in one of her ugly moods, and in listening to her sharp speeches.

The outdoor air and sun, and the plentiful supply of fresh milk and vegetables and farm cooking, began to make another girl of Mercy before a week went over her head. She had actually some natural color, her hands became less like bird-claws, and her hollow cheeks began to fill out.

On Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Curtis drove out to see her. The Red Mill had not been so lively a place since Ruth came to it, she knew, and, she could imagine; for many a long year before. Doctor Davison was there every day. Other neighbors were continually running in to see Mercy, or to bring something for the invalid. At first, in her old, snappy, snarly way, Mercy would say:

"Old cat! just wanted to see how humpy and mean I look. Thought I was as ugly as a bullfrog, I s'pose. I know what they're after!"

But as she really began to feel better, and slept long and sweetly at night, and altogether to gain in health, she dropped such sharp speeches and had a smile when visitors came and when they left. Everybody who drove by and saw her sitting on the porch, or wheeling herself, or being wheeled by Ruth, about the paths, had something to say to her, or waved a hand at her, and Mercy Curtis began to be pleasant mannered.

She hobbled around her room more on the "two-sticks" Uncle Jabez had made for her; but she never liked to have even Ruth see her at these exercises. She certainly did get about in a very queer manner— "just like a crab with the St. Vitus dance," so she herself said.

The doctor watched her closely. He was more attentive than he had been when she was much worse off in health; and finally, after Mercy had been at the Red Mill for nearly a month, he brought a strange physician to see her. This gentleman was a great surgeon from New York, who asked Mercy a few questions, but who watched her with so intent a look that the little crippled girl was half frightened at him. He inspired confidence, however, and when he said to her, on departing: "You are going to see me again before long," Mercy was quite excited about it. She never asked a question of Doctor Davison, or of anybody else, about the strange surgeon, or his opinion of her case; but Ruth often heard her humming an odd little song (she often made up little tunes and put words to them herself) of which Ruth did not catch the burden for some days. When Mercy was singing it she mumbled the words, or dropped her voice to a whisper whenever anybody came near. But one morning Ruth was bringing the beaten egg and milk that she drank as a "pick-me-up" between breakfast and dinner, and Mercy did not hear her coming, and the odd little song came clearly to the ears of the girl of the Red Mill:

"He's going to cure me! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!

He's going to cure me! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"

Ruth knew instantly to what the little doggerel song referred. It is true Mercy had filched Aunt Alvirah's phrase and made it her own— and it applied to the poor child as well as to the rheumatic old woman. But it was a song of joy— a song of expectation.

Ruth tried to be even more kind to Mercy after that. She was with her almost all the time. But there were occasions when Helen and Tom Cameron really made her come out with them on some little jaunt. Since Mercy's arrival at the Red Mill the Camerons had fallen into the habit of calling occasionally, and Uncle Jabez had said nothing about it. Ostensibly they called on Mercy; but it was Ruth that they came for with the pony carriage one day and took away for a visit to Olakah Glen.

This beautiful spot was not so very far away, but it called for a picnic lunch, and Tubby was quite two hours in getting them there. It was a wild hollow, with great beech trees, and a noisy stream chaffing in a rocky bed down the middle of the glen. There were some farms thereabout; but many of the farmers were no more than squatters, for a vast tract of field and forest, including the glen, belonged to an estate which had long been in the courts for settlement.

Just before leaving all signs of civilization behind, Tom had pointed out a shanty and several outbuildings on a high hillock overlooking the road, and told the girls that that was where Jasper Parloe lived, all alone.

"I came up here fishing with some of the other fellows once, and Jasper tried to drive us out of the glen. Said he owned it. Likely story! He won't trouble us to-day."

Indeed, wild as the spot was, there was little likelihood of anybody troubling the young people, for they had Reno along. This faithful creature watched over the trio most jealously and, as they were eating on the grass, he found some sudden reason to become excited. He rose up, stiffening his back, the hair rising on his neck, and a low growl issuing from his throat. The girls were a little startled, but Tom sprang up, motioned to Helen and Ruth to keep still, and ran to the angry mastiff.

"What's the matter with you, Reno?" demanded Tom, softly, but putting a restraining hand upon his collar.

Reno lurched forward, and Tom gripped the collar tightly as he was dragged directly toward a thick dump of shrubbery not many yards away.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE INITIALS

There was no sound that Tom Cameron or the girls could hear from the shrubbery; but Reno evidently knew that somebody was lurking there. And by the dog's actions Tom thought it must be somebody whom Reno disliked.

"Oh, don't leave us, Tom!" begged Helen, running behind her brother and the mastiff.

"Come on— both of you!" muttered Tom. "We'll see what this means. Stick close to me."

He had picked up a stout club; but it was in the huge and intelligent mastiff that they all put their confidence. The dog, although he snuffed now and then as though the scent that had first disturbed him still came down the wind, had ceased to growl.

They came to a path in the thicket and followed it for a few yards only, when Reno stopped and stiffened again.

"Hush!" whispered Tom, and parted the bushes with one hand, his other still clinging to the mastic's collar.

There was a tiny opening in the shrubbery. It surrounded the foot of a huge beech tree. In some past day a careless hunter had built a fire close to the trunk of this tree. It was now hollow at the base, but vines and creepers growing up the tall tree had hidden the opening.

A man was on his knees at the foot of the tree and had drawn the matted curtain of creepers aside with one hand while with the other he reached in to the full length of his arm. He had no suspicion of the presence of the young people and Reno.

Out of the hollow in the tree trunk he drew something wrapped in an old pair of overalls. He unwrapped it, still with his back to the spot where the dog and his master and the girls stood. But the three friends could see over his shoulder as he knelt on the ground, and saw plainly that the object he had withdrawn from the tree trunk was a flat black box, evidently japanned, and there was a fair-sized brass padlock which fastened it,

"Ha, ha, ha!" chuckled the man to himself, as he wrapped the box up again in the old clothes, and then thrust it hastily into the hollow tree. "Safe yet! safe yet!"

He rose up then and without even looking about him, started directly away from the glen. He plainly had no suspicion of the presence of the dog and the trio of young folks. When he was quite out of sight and sound, Tom whispered, patting Reno:

"I declare, girls! That was Jasper Parloe!"

"That mean thing!" returned his sister. "I guess he's a miser as well as a hermit; isn't he?"

"Looks like it. I've a good mind to take that thing he put in there and hide it somewhere else. He wouldn't be so sure about it's being safe then; would he?"

"No! Don't you touch his nasty things, Tom," advised Helen, turning away.

But Ruth still stared at the hidden hollow in the tree and suddenly she darted forward and knelt where Parloe had knelt.

"What are you going to do, Ruth?" demanded her chum.

"I want to see that box— I must see it!" cried the girl from the Red Mill.

"Hold on!" said Tom. "I'll get it for you. You'll get your dress dirty."

"I wouldn't touch it," cried Helen, warningly.

"I must!" gasped Ruth, greatly excited.

"It don't belong to you," quoth Helen.

"And I'm very sure it doesn't belong to Jasper Parloe," declared Ruth, earnestly.

Tom glanced at the girl from the Red Mill suddenly, and with close attention. He seemed to understand her excitement.

"Let me in there," said the youth. "I can reach it, Ruthie."

He pushed her gently, and while Ruth and Helen held aside the mass of vines the boy crawled in and reached the bundle of rags. He carefully hauled it all forth and the japanned box tumbled out of its loose wrappings.

"There it is!" grunted Tom, getting up and wiping his hands on a tuft of grass. "What do you make of it?"

Ruth had the box in her hands. Helen, looking over her shoulder, pointed to two faded letters painted on the cover of the box.

"That belongs to Jasper Parloe. His initials are on the box," she said.

"'J. P.'— that's right, I guess," muttered Tom.

It could not be gainsaid that Parloe's initials were there. Ruth stared at them for some moments in silence.

Better put it back. I don't know what he can possibly have to hide in this way," Tom said. "But we wouldn't want to get into trouble with him. He's a mean customer."

"It isn't his box!" said Ruth, quietly.

"Why isn't it?" cried Helen, in amazement.

"I never noticed the letters on the box before. The box has been cleaned since I saw it—"

"You don't mean that it is your uncle's cash-box, Ruth?" interrupted Tom, in excitement.

"Why, you ridiculous boy!" declared Helen. "You know that was lost in the flood."

"I don't know. Do you?" Tom demanded, shortly.

"But, Ruth!" gasped Helen.

"It looks like Uncle Jabez's box," Ruth whispered.

"But the letters! Jasper Parloe's initials," cried the hard-to-be-convinced Helen Cameron.

"They're uncle's initials, too," explained Ruth, quietly.

"Whew!" ejaculated Tom. "So they are. 'J. P.— Jabez Potter.' Can't get around that."

"Well, I never!" gasped Helen.

"Do you suppose all old Jabe's money is in this?" muttered Tom, weighing the cash-box in his hands. "It can't be in coin."

"I do not know that he had much money in coin," said Ruth. "I think he used to change the gold and silver for notes, quite frequently. At least, Aunt Alvirah says so."

"But suppose it should be Parloe's after all?" objected Helen.

"Let's find that out," said Tom, vigorously. "Come on, girls. We'll finish eating, pack up, and start back. We'll drive right up to Parloe's and show him this box, and ask him if it is his. If he says yes, we'll make him come along to the mill and face Mr. Potter, and then if there is any doubt of it, let them go before a magistrate and fight it out!"

The girls were impressed with the wisdom of this declaration, and all went back to rescue the remains of their luncheon from the birds and from a saucy gray squirrel that had already dropped down to the lowest limb of the tree under which they had spread their cloth, and who sat there and chattered angrily while they remained thereafter, as though he considered that he had been personally cheated out of a banquet.

The girls and Tom were so excited that they could not enjoy the remainder of the nice things that Babette had packed in their lunch basket They were soon in the carriage, and Tubby was startled out of a pleasant dream and urged up the hilly road that led through the woods to the squatter's cabin, where Jasper Parloe had taken up his quarters after he had been discharged from employment at the Red Mill.

CHAPTER XXV

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

When the pony carriage drove into the little clearing about the squatter's hut, Parloe was pottering about the yard and he stood up and looked at them with arms akimbo and a growing grin upon his sly face.

"Well, well, well!" he croaked. "All together, air ye? Havin' a picnic?"

"We've been down yonder in the glen," said Tom, sternly.

For an instant Jasper Parloe changed color and looked a bit worried. But it was only for an instant. Then he grinned again and his little eyes twinkled just as though he were amused. But Tom kept on, bluntly, saying:

"We found something there, Parloe, and we came up here to see if it belongs to you."

"What's that?" asked the man, drawing nearer. "I ain't lost nothing."

"Don't say that," said Tom, quickly. "At least, don't say you haven't hidden something."

But he could not catch Mr. Parloe again. The man shook his head slowly and looked as though he hadn't the least idea of what Tom was driving at.

"Look here," continued the boy, and drew forth the japanned box.

"Well! Well!" and Jasper's mean little eyes twinkled more than ever. "You don't mean to say you found that down yonder?"

"We did," said Tom, tartly.

"Now, where was it?"

"Where it had been hidden," snapped Tom, quite disgusted with the old man. "Where it was supposed to be very safe, I reckon."

"Like enough, Tom," said Jasper, mildly. "What do you reckon on doing with it?"

"You don't claim it to be yours, then?" demanded Tom, in some surprise.

"No-o," said Parloe, slowly.

"It has your initials on it," said Helen, quickly.

"That's odd, ain't it?" returned Parloe, standing where he was and not offering to touch the box. "But other people have the same initials that I have." His grin grew to huge proportions, and he looked so sly that nothing but his high, bony nose kept his two little eyes from running together and making one eye of it. "Jabe Potter, for instance."

"Then you think this is likely to be Mr. Potter's?" queried Tom.

"Couldn't say. Jabe will probably claim it. He would take advantage of the initials, sure enough."

"And why don't you?" asked Helen.

"'Cause me and Jabe are two different men," declared Parloe, righteously. "Nobody ever could say, with proof, that Jasper Parloe took what warn't his own."

"This is my uncle's cash-box, I am very sure," interposed Ruth, with some anger. "It was not swept away the day of the flood. You were there in his little office at the very moment the waters struck the mill, and we saw you running from the place as though you were scared."

"Jefers-pelters!" croaked Jasper. "It was enough to scare anybody!"

"That may be. But you weren't too scared to grab this box when you ran. And you must have hidden it under your coat as you left the mill. I am going to tell my uncle all about it— and how we saw you down the hill yonder, looking at this very box before you thrust it back in its hiding place."

Jasper Parloe grew enraged rather than frightened by this threat.

"Tell!" he barked. "You tell what ye please. Provin's another thing. I don't know nothin' about the box. I never opened it. I don't know what's in it. And you kin tell Jabe that if he tries to make me trouble over it I'll make him trouble in a certain locality— he knows where and what about."

"I shall give him the box and tell him how it came into my possession," repeated Ruth, firmly, and then she and her friends drove away.

They hurried Tubby back to the Red Mill and Ruth ran in ahead of her friends with the cash-box in her hands. The moment Uncle Jabez saw it he started forward with a loud cry. He almost tore the box from her grasp; but then became gentle again in a moment.

"Gal!" he ejaculated, softly, "how'd ye git this away from Parloe?"

"Oh, Uncle! how did you know he had it?"

"I've been suspicious. He couldn't scarce keep it to hisself. He ain't opened it, I see."

"I don't think he has."

"We'll see. Tell me about it," urged the miller, staring at Helen and Tom as they approached.

Ruth told him all about it. She pointed, too, to the fact that Helen and Tom— and especially Tom's dog— had had more to do with the recovery of the cash-box than she had. Uncle Jabez listened and nodded as though he appreciated that fact. Meanwhile, however, he hunted up the key to the japanned box and unlocked it.

It was plain that the contents of the box were for the most part securities in the shape of stocks and bonds, with a good deal of currency in small notes. There was a little coin— gold and silver— packed into one compartment. Uncle Jabez counted it all with feverish anxiety.

"Right to a penny!" he gasped, when he had finished, and mopped the perspiration from his brow. "The rascal didn't touch it. He didn't dare!"

"But he'll dare something else, Uncle," said Ruth, hastily. "I believe he's going right to Mr. Cameron to make you trouble."

"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Uncle Jabez, and looked hard at Tom.

"I'm sorry if he makes trouble about that old thing, Mr. Potter," said Tom, stumblingly. "I've tried to keep his mouth shut—"

"Ah-ha!" said Uncle Jabez, again. Then he added: "And I shouldn't be at all surprised, young man, if you'd given Jasper money to keep his mouth shut— eh?"

Tom flushed and nodded "I didn't want any row— especially when Helen and I think so much of Ruth."

"You wouldn't have bought Jasper off for my sake, I reckon," said Jabez, sharply. "You wouldn't have done it for my sake?"

"Why should I?" returned Tom, coolly. "You never have been any too friendly towards me."

"Hah!" said the miller, nodding. "That's true. But let me tell you, young man, that I saw your father about the time I ran you down. We don't get along very well, I admit. I ain't got much use for you Camerons. But I had no intention of doing you harm. You can believe that, or not. If you will remember, the evening you went over that embankment on the Wilkins Corners road, I came up behind you. My mules were young, and your dog jumped out at them and scared them. They bolted, and I never knew till next day that you had been knocked over the embankment."

"We'll let bygones be bygones, Mr. Potter," said Tom, good-humoredly. "I came out of it all right."

"But you had no business to pay Jasper Parloe money for keeping still about it," said the miller, sourly. "Being bled by a blackmailer is never the action of a wise man. When he threatened me I went to your father at once and got ahead of Parloe. We agreed to say nothing about it— that's about all we did agree on, however," added Mr. Potter, grimly. "Now you children run along. Ruth, come here. I figger I owe you something because of the finding of this box. Yes! I know how much the others had to do with it, too. But they'd never been over there in Olakah Glen if it hadn't been for you. I'll make this up to you. I never yet owed a debt that I didn't repay in full. I'll remember this one, gal."

But so much happened in those next two weeks, following the finding of the cash-box, that Ruth quite forgot this promise on her uncle's part. She realized, however, that he seemed really desirous of being kind to her, and that much of his grimness had disappeared.

Everybody at the Red Mill— and many other people, too— had their thoughts fixed upon Mercy Curtis at this time. She had been getting stronger all the while. She had been able to hobble on her two sticks from her bedroom to the porch. She had been to ride half a dozen times in the Camerons' automobile. And then, suddenly, without other warning, Doctor Davison and the strange surgeon who had once examined Mercy, appeared in a big limousine car, with a couch arranged inside, and they whisked Mercy off to a sanitarium some miles away, where she was operated on by the famous surgeon, with Doctor Davison's help, and from which place the report came back in a few days that the operation had been successful and that Mercy Curtis would— in time— walk again!

Meanwhile, Ruth had kept up her recitations to Miss Cramp, often walking back and forth to town, but sometimes getting "a lift," and the teacher pronounced her prepared to enter the Cheslow High School. She had taken the studies that Helen Cameron had taken, and, on comparing notes, the chums found that they were in much the same condition of advancement.

"Oh, if you were only going to Briarwood with me, instead of to Cheslow High!" wailed Helen, one day, as they sat on the porch of the Red Mill house.

"Ah, dear!" said Ruth, quietly, "don't talk about it. I want to go with you more than I ever wanted to do anything in my whole life—"

"What's that?" exclaimed Uncle Jabez's gruff voice behind them. "What's that you want to do, Ruth?"

"To— to go to boarding school, Uncle," stammered his niece.

"Hah!" grunted the miller. "Ain't you calculatin' on going to high school?"

"Oh, Mr. Potter!" broke in Helen, frightened by her own temerity. "That isn't the school Ruth wants to go to. I am going to Briarwood Hall, and she wants to go, too. Do, do let her. It would be— it would be just heavenly, if she could go there, and we could be together!"

Jabez Potter came out upon the porch and looked down upon his niece. The grim lines of his face could not relax, it seemed; but his eyes did seem to twinkle as he said:

"And that's the greatest wish of your life; is it, Ruth?"

"I— I believe it is, Uncle Jabez," she whispered, looking at him in wonder.

"Well, well!" he said, gruffly, dropping his gaze. "Mebbe I owe it ye. My savin's of years was in that cash-box, Ruth. I— I— Well, I'll think it over and see if it can be arranged about this Briarwood business. I'll— I'll see your Aunt Alvirah."

And that Uncle Jabez Potter "saw about it" to some purpose is proven by the fact that the reader may meet Ruth and her friends again in the next volume of this series to be entitled "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the Campus Mystery."

"Perhaps he isn't such an ogre after all," whispered Helen, when she and Ruth were alone.

"Not after you get to know him," replied the girl of the Red Mill, with a quiet smile.

THE END