“Gone!  Gone!” he murmured, shaking his head; and turning on his heel, he strode into the mill.

The boy had taken the mules around to the stable.  Ruth hesitated, then followed the old man into the mill.  There Jabez confronted Tom Cameron, sitting on a sack of meal and watching the turbid waters falling over the dam.

“Ha!  Young Cameron,” muttered Uncle Jabez.  “You didn’t see the cash-box, of course?”

“Where was it?” asked Tom, quietly.

“In that office—­ on a shelf, with an old coat thrown over it.  I believed it to be as safe there as in the house with nobody but an old woman to guard it.”

“Better put your money in the bank, sir,” said Tom, coolly.

“And have some sleek and oily scoundrel steal it, eh?” snarled Uncle Jabez.

“Well, the water stole it, I reckon,” Tom said.  “I’m sorry for you if there was much money in the box.  But I know nothing about it.  Jasper Parloe might have saved the box had be known about it; he was over there by the office when the water tore away the wall.”

“Jasper Parloe!” ejaculated Uncle Jabez, starting.  “Was he here?”

“He wasn’t here long,” chuckled Tom.  “He thought the mill was going and he lit out in a hurry.”

Uncle Jabez made another despairing gesture and walked away.  Ruth followed him and her hands closed upon the toil-hardened fist clenched at his side.

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” she whispered.

He suddenly stared down at her.

“There!  I believe you be, child.  But your being sorry can’t help it none.  The money’s gone—­ hard it come and it’s hard to part with in this way.”

“Was it a large sum, Uncle?”

“All the ready cash I had in the world.  Every cent I owned.  That boy said, put it in a bank.  I lost money when the Cheslow Bank failed forty year ago.  I don’t get caught twice in the same trap—­ no, sir!  I’ve lost more this time; but no dishonest blackleg will have the benefit of it, that’s sure.  The river’s got it, and nobody will ever be a cent the better off for it.  All!  All gone!”

He jerked his hand away from Ruth’s sympathetic pressure and walked moodily away.

CHAPTER XII

 The catastrophe

This was the beginning of some little confidence between Ruth and Uncle Jabez.  He had not been quite so stern and unbending, even in his passion, as before.  He said nothing more about the lost cash-box—­ Aunt Alviry dared not even broach the subject—­ but Ruth tried to show him in quiet ways that she was sorry for his loss.

Uncle Jabez was not a gentle man, however; his voice being so seldom heard did not make it the less rough and passionate.  There were times when, because of his black looks, Ruth did not even dare address him.  And there was one topic she longed to address him upon very much indeed.  She wanted to go to school.