“How dare you ‘Miss’ me?” demanded the other girl, hugging her again.  “You’re a dear; I knew you must be!  And I was running back and intended to stop at the Red Mill to see you.  I took father to town this morning, as he had to take an early train to the city, and we wished to see Tom again,”

“He—­ he isn’t badly hurt, then—­ your brother, I mean?” said Ruth, timidly.

“He is going to stay at the doctor’s to-day, and then he can come home.  But he will carry his arm in a sling for a while, although no bone was broken, after all.  His head is badly cut, but his hair will hide that.  Poor Tom! he is always falling down, or getting bumped, or something.  And he’s just as reckless as he can be.  Father says he is not to be trusted with the car as much as I am.”

“How—­ how did he come to fall over that bank?” asked Ruth, anxiously.

“Why—­ it was dark, I suppose.  That was the way of it.  I don’t know as he really told me what made him do such a foolish thing.  And wasn’t it lucky Reno was along with him?” cried Tom’s sister.

“Now, I see you remained in town over night.  They thought somebody had come for yon and taken you out to the mill.  Is Jabez Potter really your uncle?”

“Yes.  He was my mother’s uncle.  And I have no other relative.”

“Well, dear, I am more than sorry for you,” declared the girl from the automobile.  “And now we will climb right in and I’ll take you along to the mill.”

But whether she was sorry for Ruth Fielding’s friendlessness, or sorry because she was related to Jabez Potter, the young traveler could not decide.

CHAPTER VI

 The red mill

“Now, my name’s Helen, and you are Ruth,” declared Miss Cameron, when she had carefully started the car once more.  “We are going to be the very best of friends, and we might as well begin by telling each other all about ourselves.  Tom and I are twins and he is an awful tease!  But, then, boys are.  He is a good brother generally.  We live in the first yellow house on the right—­ up among the trees—­ beyond Mr. Potter’s mill—­ near enough so that we can run back and forth and see each other just lots.”

Ruth found herself warmly drawn toward this vivacious miss.  Nor was she less frank in giving information about herself, her old home, in Darrowtown, that she still wore black for her father, and that she had been sent by her friends to Uncle Jabez because he was supposed to be better able to take care of and educate her.  Helen listened very earnestly to the tale, but she shook her head at the end of it.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Ruthie.  But Jabez Potter isn’t liked very well by people in general, although I guess he is a good miller.  He is stingy—­”

I must say it.  He isn’t given to kind actions, and I am surprised that he should have agreed to take and educate you.  Of course, he didn’t have to.”