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 protege 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.