“Look here,” continued the boy, and drew forth the japanned box.

“Well!  Well!” and Jasper’s mean little eyes twinkled more than ever.  “You don’t mean to say you found that down yonder?”

“We did,” said Tom, tartly.

“Now, where was it?”

“Where it had been hidden,” snapped Tom, quite disgusted with the old man.  “Where it was supposed to be very safe, I reckon.”

“Like enough, Tom,” said Jasper, mildly.  “What do you reckon on doing with it?”

“You don’t claim it to be yours, then?” demanded Tom, in some surprise.

“No-o,” said Parloe, slowly.

“It has your initials on it,” said Helen, quickly.

“That’s odd, ain’t it?” returned Parloe, standing where he was and not offering to touch the box.  “But other people have the same initials that I have.”  His grin grew to huge proportions, and he looked so sly that nothing but his high, bony nose kept his two little eyes from running together and making one eye of it.  “Jabe Potter, for instance.”

“Then you think this is likely to be Mr. Potter’s?” queried Tom.

“Couldn’t say.  Jabe will probably claim it.  He would take advantage of the initials, sure enough.”

“And why don’t you?” asked Helen.

“’Cause me and Jabe are two different men,” declared Parloe, righteously.  “Nobody ever could say, with proof, that Jasper Parloe took what warn’t his own.”

“This is my uncle’s cash-box, I am very sure,” interposed Ruth, with some anger.  “It was not swept away the day of the flood.  You were there in his little office at the very moment the waters struck the mill, and we saw you running from the place as though you were scared.”

“Jefers-pelters!” croaked Jasper.  “It was enough to scare anybody!”

“That may be.  But you weren’t too scared to grab this box when you ran.  And you must have hidden it under your coat as you left the mill.  I am going to tell my uncle all about it—­ and how we saw you down the hill yonder, looking at this very box before you thrust it back in its hiding place.”

Jasper Parloe grew enraged rather than frightened by this threat.

“Tell!” he barked.  “You tell what ye please.  Provin’s another thing.  I don’t know nothin’ about the box.  I never opened it.  I don’t know what’s in it.  And you kin tell Jabe that if he tries to make me trouble over it I’ll make him trouble in a certain locality—­ he knows where and what about.”

“I shall give him the box and tell him how it came into my possession,” repeated Ruth, firmly, and then she and her friends drove away.

They hurried Tubby back to the Red Mill and Ruth ran in ahead of her friends with the cash-box in her hands.  The moment Uncle Jabez saw it he started forward with a loud cry.  He almost tore the box from her grasp; but then became gentle again in a moment.

“Gal!” he ejaculated, softly, “how’d ye git this away from Parloe?”