ON THE WAY TO BRIARWOOD

If anything had been needed to interest Ruth Fielding deeply in the young fellow who had been injured at the scene of the railroad wreck, the occurrence that evening at the Red Mill would have provided it.

It was not enough for her to make a veritable hero of him to Helen, and Jane Ann, and Tom, when they came over from Outlook the following morning.  When the girl of the Red Mill was really interested in anything or anybody, she gave her whole-souled attention to it.

She could not be satisfied with Jerry Sheming’s brief account of his life with his half-crazed uncle on some distant place called Cliff Island, and the domestic tragedy that seemed to be the cause of the old man’s final incarceration in a madhouse.

“Tell me all about yourself—­do,” she pleaded with Jerry, who was to remain in bed for several days (Uncle Jabez insisted on it himself, too!), for the injured leg must be rested.  “Didn’t you live anywhere else but in the woods?”

“That’s right, Miss,” he said, slowly.  “I got a little schooling on the mainland; but it warn’t much.  Uncle Pete used to guide around parties of city men who wanted to fish and hunt.  At the last I did most of the guidin’.  He said he could trust me, for I hated liquor as bad as him. My dad was killed by it.

“Uncle Pete was a mite cracked over it, maybe.  But he was good enough to me until Rufus Blent came rummagin’ round.  Somehow he got Uncle Pete to ragin’.”

“Who is this Rufus Blent?” asked Ruth, curiously.

“He’s a real estate man.  He lives at Logwood.  That’s the landin’ at the east end o’ the lake.”

“What lake?”

“Tallahaska.  You’ve heard tell on’t?” he asked.

“Yes.  But I was never there, of course.”

“Well, Miss, Cliff Island is just the purtiest place!  And Uncle Pete must have had some title to it, for he’s lived there all his life—­and he’s old.  Fifty-odd year he was there, I know.  He was more than a squatter.

“I reckon he was a bit of a miser.  He had some money, and he didn’t trust to banks.  So he kept it hid on the island, of course.

“Then the landslide come, and he talked as though it had covered his treasure box—­and in it was papers he talked about.  If he could ha’ got those papers he could ha’ beat Rufus Blent off.

“That’s the understandin’ I got of him.  Of course, he talked right ragin’ and foolish; but some things he said was onderstandable.  But he couldn’t make the judge see it—­nor could I. They let Rufus Blent have his way, and Uncle Pete went to the ’sylum.

“Then they ordered me off the island.  I believe Blent wanted to s’arch it himself for the treasure box.  He’s a sneakin’ man—­I allus hated him,” said Jerry, clenching his fist angrily.

“But they could ha’ put me in the jug if I’d tried to fight him.  So I come away.  Don’t ’spect I’ll ever see Tallahaska—­or Cliff Island—­again,” and the young fellow’s voice broke and he turned his face away.