“It was jest what Uncle Pete needed to wake him up,” Jerry declared to Ruth, when he saw her some weeks later.  “He knowed the box and had always carried the key of it about his neck on a string.  They didn’t know what it was at the ’sylum, but they let him keep the key.

“And when he opened it, sure enough there was lots of papers and a couple of bags of money.  I don’t know how much, but Mr. Tingley got Uncle Pete to trust a bank with the money, and it’ll be mine some day.  Uncle Pete’s going to pay my way through school with some of it, he says.”

“But the title to the island?” demanded the excited girl of the Red Mill.  “How did that come out?  Did your uncle have any deed to it?  What of that mean old Rufus Blent?”

“Jest you hold your hosses, Miss Ruth,” laughed Jerry.  “I’m comin’ to that.”

“But you are coming to it awfully slow, Jerry,” complained the eager girl.

“No.  I’ll tell you quick’s I can,” he declared.  “Uncle Pete had papers.  He had been buying a part of the island from Blent on installments, and had paid the old rascal a good part of the price.  But when Blent found out that uncle’s papers were buried under the landslide he thought he could play a sharp trick and resell to Mr. Tingley.  You see, the installment deeds were not recorded.

“However, Mr. Tingley’s lawyers made old Blent get right down and howl for mercy—­yes, they did!  There was a strong case of conspiracy against him.  That’s still hanging fire.

“But Mr. Tingley says he will not push that, considering Rufus did all he was told to about the title money.  He gave Uncle Pete back every cent he had paid in on the Cliff Island property, with interest compounded, and a good lump sum of money beside as a bonus.

“Then Uncle Pete made Mr. Tingley’s title good, and we’re going to live at the lodge during the closed season, as caretakers.  That pleases Uncle Pete, for he couldn’t be very well content anywhere else but on Cliff Island.”

“Oh, Jerry!  I am so glad it has come out all right for you,” cried the girl of the Red Mill.  “And so will all the other girls be when I tell them.  And Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah—­for they are interested in your welfare, too.”

“You’re mighty kind, Miss Ruth,” said the backwoods boy, bashfully.  “I—­I’m thinking I’ve got a lot more to thank you for than I ever can express right proper.”

“Oh, no! no more to me than to other folks,” cried Ruth Fielding, earnestly, for it had always been her natural instinct to help people, and she did not wish to be thanked for it.

That being the case, neither Jerry nor the writer must say anything more about the matter.

THE END