<h3>CHAPTER XXV</h3>
<h4>ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS</h4>
<p>When the pony carriage drove into the little clearing about the squatter's
hut, Parloe was pottering about the yard and he stood up and looked at them
with arms akimbo and a growing grin upon his sly face.
</p>
<p>"Well, well, well!" he croaked. "All together, air ye? Havin' a picnic?"
</p>
<p>"We've been down yonder in the glen," said Tom, sternly.
</p>
<p>For an instant Jasper Parloe changed color and looked a bit worried. But
it was only for an instant. Then he grinned again and his little eyes twinkled
just as though he were amused. But Tom kept on, bluntly, saying:
</p>
<p>"We found something there, Parloe, and we came up here to see if it belongs
to you."
</p>
<p>"What's that?" asked the man, drawing nearer. "I ain't lost nothing."
</p>
<p>"Don't say that," said Tom, quickly. "At least, don't say you haven't <i>hidden
</i>something."
</p>
<p>But he could not catch Mr. Parloe again. The man shook his head slowly and
looked as though he hadn't the least idea of what Tom was driving at.
</p>
<p>"Look here," continued the boy, and drew forth the japanned box.
</p>
<p>"Well! Well!" and Jasper's mean little eyes twinkled more than ever. "You
don't mean to say you found that down yonder?"
</p>
<p>"We did," said Tom, tartly.
</p>
<p>"Now, where was it?"
</p>
<p>"Where it had been hidden," snapped Tom, quite disgusted with the old man.
"Where it was supposed to be very <i>safe,</i> I reckon."
</p>
<p>"Like enough, Tom," said Jasper, mildly. "What do you reckon on doing with
it?"
</p>
<p>"You don't claim it to be yours, then?" demanded Tom, in some surprise.
</p>
<p>"No-o," said Parloe, slowly.
</p>
<p>"It has your initials on it," said Helen, quickly.
</p>
<p>"That's odd, ain't it?" returned Parloe, standing where he was and not offering
to touch the box. "But other people have the same initials that I have."
His grin grew to huge proportions, and he looked so sly that nothing but
his high, bony nose kept his two little eyes from running together and making
one eye of it. "Jabe Potter, for instance."
</p>
<p>"Then you think this is likely to be Mr. Potter's?" queried Tom.
</p>
<p>"Couldn't say. Jabe will probably claim it. <i>He</i> would take advantage
of the initials, sure enough."
</p>
<p>"And why don't you?" asked Helen.
</p>
<p>"'Cause me and Jabe are two different men," declared Parloe, righteously.
"Nobody ever could say, with proof, that Jasper Parloe took what warn't his
own."
</p>
<p>"This is my uncle's cash-box, I am very sure," interposed Ruth, with some
anger. "It was not swept away the day of the flood. You were there in his
little office at the very moment the waters struck the mill, and we saw you
running from the place as though you were scared."
</p>
<p>"Jefers-pelters!" croaked Jasper. "It was enough to scare anybody!"
</p>
<p>"That may be. But you weren't too scared to grab this box when you ran. And
you must have hidden it under your coat as you left the mill. I am going
to tell my uncle all about it—and how we saw you down the hill yonder, looking
at this very box before you thrust it back in its hiding place."
</p>
<p>Jasper Parloe grew enraged rather than frightened by this threat.
</p>
<p>"Tell!" he barked. "You tell what ye please. Provin's another thing. I don't
know nothin' about the box. I never opened it. I don't know what's in it.
And you kin tell Jabe that if he tries to make me trouble over it I'll make
him trouble in a certain locality—he knows where and what about."
</p>
<p>"I shall give him the box and tell him how it came into my possession," repeated
Ruth, firmly, and then she and her friends drove away.
</p>
<p>They hurried Tubby back to the Red Mill and Ruth ran in ahead of her friends
with the cash-box in her hands. The moment Uncle Jabez saw it he started
forward with a loud cry. He almost tore the box from her grasp; but then
became gentle again in a moment.
</p>
<p>"Gal!" he ejaculated, softly, "how'd ye git this away from Parloe?"
</p>
<p>"Oh, Uncle! how did you know he had it?"
</p>
<p>"I've been suspicious. He couldn't scarce keep it to hisself. He ain't opened
it, I see."
</p>
<p>"I don't think he has."
</p>
<p>"We'll see. Tell me about it," urged the miller, staring at Helen and Tom
as they approached.
</p>
<p>Ruth told him all about it. She pointed, too, to the fact that Helen and
Tom—and especially Tom's dog—had had more to do with the recovery of the
cash-box than she had. Uncle Jabez listened and nodded as though he appreciated
that fact. Meanwhile, however, he hunted up the key to the japanned box and
unlocked it.
</p>
<p>It was plain that the contents of the box were for the most part securities
in the shape of stocks and bonds, with a good deal of currency in small notes.
There was a little coin—gold and silver—packed into one compartment. Uncle
Jabez counted it all with feverish anxiety.
</p>
<p>"Right to a penny!" he gasped, when he had finished, and mopped the perspiration
from his brow. "The rascal didn't touch it. He didn't dare!"
</p>
<p>"But he'll dare something else, Uncle," said Ruth, hastily. "I believe he's
going right to Mr. Cameron to make you trouble."
</p>
<p>"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Uncle Jabez, and looked hard at Tom.
</p>
<p>"I'm sorry if he makes trouble about that old thing, Mr. Potter," said Tom,
stumblingly. "I've tried to keep his mouth shut—"
</p>
<p>"Ah-ha!" said Uncle Jabez, again. Then he added: "And I shouldn't be at all
surprised, young man, if you'd given Jasper money to keep his mouth shut—eh?"
</p>
<p>Tom flushed and nodded "I didn't want any row—especially when Helen and
I think so much of Ruth."
</p>
<p>"You wouldn't have bought Jasper off for my sake, I reckon," said Jabez,
sharply. "You wouldn't have done it for my sake?"
</p>
<p>"Why should I?" returned Tom, coolly. "You never have been any too friendly
towards me."
</p>
<p>"Hah!" said the miller, nodding. "That's true. But let me tell you, young
man, that I saw your father about the time I ran you down. We don't get along
very well, I admit. I ain't got much use for you Camerons. But I had no intention
of doing you harm. You can believe that, or not. If you will remember, the
evening you went over that embankment on the Wilkins Corners road, I came
up behind you. My mules were young, and your dog jumped out at them and scared
them. They bolted, and I never knew till next day that you had been knocked
over the embankment."
</p>
<p>"We'll let bygones be bygones, Mr. Potter," said Tom, good-humoredly. "I
came out of it all right."
</p>
<p>"But you had no business to pay Jasper Parloe money for keeping still about
it," said the miller, sourly. "Being bled by a blackmailer is never the action
of a wise man. When he threatened <i>me</i> I went to your father at once
and got ahead of Parloe. We agreed to say nothing about it—that's about
all we <i>did</i> agree on, however," added Mr. Potter, grimly. "Now you
children run along. Ruth, come here. I figger I owe you something because
of the finding of this box. Yes! I know how much the others had to do with
it, too. But they'd never been over there in Olakah Glen if it hadn't been
for you. I'll make this up to you. I never yet owed a debt that I didn't
repay in full. I'll remember this one, gal."
</p>
<p>But so much happened in those next two weeks, following the finding of the
cash-box, that Ruth quite forgot this promise on her uncle's part. She realized,
however, that he seemed really desirous of being kind to her, and that much
of his grimness had disappeared.
</p>
<p>Everybody at the Red Mill—and many other people, too—had their thoughts
fixed upon Mercy Curtis at this time. She had been getting stronger all the
while. She had been able to hobble on her two sticks from her bedroom to
the porch. She had been to ride half a dozen times in the Camerons' automobile.
And then, suddenly, without other warning, Doctor Davison and the strange
surgeon who had once examined Mercy, appeared in a big limousine car, with
a couch arranged inside, and they whisked Mercy off to a sanitarium some
miles away, where she was operated on by the famous surgeon, with Doctor
Davison's help, and from which place the report came back in a few days that
the operation had been successful and that Mercy Curtis would—in time—walk
again!
</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ruth had kept up her recitations to Miss Cramp, often walking
back and forth to town, but sometimes getting "a lift," and the teacher
pronounced her prepared to enter the Cheslow High School. She had taken the
studies that Helen Cameron had taken, and, on comparing notes, the chums
found that they were in much the same condition of advancement.
</p>
<p>"Oh, if you were only going to Briarwood with me, instead of to Cheslow High!"
wailed Helen, one day, as they sat on the porch of the Red Mill house.
</p>
<p>"Ah, dear!" said Ruth, quietly, "don't talk about it. I want to go with you
more than I ever wanted to do anything in my whole life—"
</p>
<p>"What's that?" exclaimed Uncle Jabez's gruff voice behind them. "What's that
you want to do, Ruth?"
</p>
<p>"To—to go to boarding school, Uncle," stammered his niece.
</p>
<p>"Hah!" grunted the miller. "Ain't you calculatin' on going to high school?"
</p>
<p>"Oh, Mr. Potter!" broke in Helen, frightened by her own temerity. "That isn't
the school Ruth wants to go to. I am going to Briarwood Hall, and she wants
to go, too. Do, <i>do</i> let her. It would be—it would be <i>just
heavenly,</i> if she could go there, and we could be together!"
</p>
<p>Jabez Potter came out upon the porch and looked down upon his niece. The
grim lines of his face could not relax, it seemed; but his eyes did seem
to twinkle as he said:
</p>
<p>"And that's the greatest wish of your life; is it, Ruth?"
</p>
<p>"I—I believe it is, Uncle Jabez," she whispered, looking at him in wonder.
</p>
<p>"Well, well!" he said, gruffly, dropping his gaze. "Mebbe I owe it ye. My
savin's of years was in that cash-box, Ruth. I—I—Well, I'll think it over
and see if it can be arranged about this Briarwood business. I'll—I'll see
your Aunt Alvirah."
</p>
<p>And that Uncle Jabez Potter "saw about it" to some purpose is proven by the
fact that the reader may meet Ruth and her friends again in the next volume
of this series to be entitled "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving
the Campus Mystery."
</p>
<p>"Perhaps he isn't such an ogre after all," whispered Helen, when she and
Ruth were alone.
</p>
<p>"Not after you get to know him," replied the girl of the Red Mill, with a
quiet smile.</p>
<h4>THE END</h4>
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