It was her pride that was hurt.  Had she taken the teasing of the meaner girls in a wiser spirit, she knew they would not have sent her the dunce cap.  They continued to tease her because they knew they could hurt her.

“I—­I wish I could show them I could do things that they never dreamed of doing!” muttered Ann, angrily, yet wistfully, too.  “I’d like to fling a rope, or manage a bad bronc’, or something they never saw a girl do before.

“Book learning isn’t everything.  Oh!  I have half a mind to give up and go back to the ranch.  Nobody made fun of me out there—­they didn’t dare!  And our folks are too kind to tease that way, anyhow,” thought the western girl.

“Uncle Bill is just paying out his good money for nothing.  He said Ruth was a little lady—­and Helen, too.  I knew he wanted me to be the same, after he got acquainted with them and saw how fine they were.

“But you sure ‘can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’  That’s as certain as shootin’!  If I stay here I’ve got a mighty hard row to hoe—­and—­and I don’t believe I’ve got the pluck to hoe it.”  Ann groaned, and shook her tousled black head.

CHAPTER VIII

JERRY SHEMING AGAIN

Ruth, with all the fun and study of the opening of the fall term at Briarwood, could not entirely forget Jerry Sheming.  More particularly did she think of him because of the invitation Belle Tingley had extended to her the day of their arrival.

It was a coincidence that none of the other girls appreciated, for none of them had talked much with the young fellow who had saved Ann Hicks from the wrecked car at Applegate Crossing.  Even Ann herself had not become as friendly with the boy as had Ruth.

The fact that he had lived a good share of his life on the very island Belle said her father had bought for a hunting camp, served to spur Ruth’s interest in both the youth and the island itself.  Then, what Jerry had told her about his uncle’s lost treasure box added to the zest of the affair.

Somewhere on the island Peter Tilton had lost a box containing money and private papers.  Jerry believed it to have been buried by a landslide that had occurred months before.

There must be something in this story, or why should “Uncle Pete,” as Jerry called him, have lost his mind over the catastrophe?  Uncle Pete must be really mad or they would not have shut him up in the county asylum.

The loss of the papers supposed to be in the box made it possible for some man named Blent to cheat the old hunter out of his holdings on Cliff Island.

Not for a moment did Ruth suppose that Mr. Tingley, Belle’s father, was a party to any scheme for cheating the old hunter.  It was the work of the man Blent—­if true.

Ruth was very curious—­and very much interested.  Few letters ever passed between her and the Red Mill.  Aunt Alvirah’s gnarled and twisted fingers did not take kindly to the pen; and Uncle Jabez loved better to add up his earnings than to spend an evening retailing the gossip of the Mill for his grandniece to peruse.