Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island Part 31

"And how did you get back here to Cliff Island?" asked Bob. "We understood that you'd been railroaded out of the country."

"Hold on! hold on!" exclaimed Jerry. "Let's hear first about Miss Fielding. Where's she gone? How came you folks in this cave?"

Helen was the one who told him. She related all the circ.u.mstances very briefly, but in a way to give Jerry a clear understanding of the situation.

"They've wandered off to the right. I know where they must be," said Jerry, decidedly. "I'll go find them. And then I'll get you all out of here. It has almost stopped snowing now."

"But how did you find your way back here to the island?" Bob demanded again.

"I ain't going to be beat by Blent," declared Jerry Sheming, doggedly. "I am going to have another look through the caves before I leave for good, and don't you forget it.

"The engine on that train yesterday morning broke a piston rod and had to stop down the lake sh.o.r.e. I hopped off and hid on the far bank, watching the island. If you folks hadn't come over this way to fish this morning, I'd been across before the storm began.

"I was pretty well turned around in the storm, and have been traveling a long time. But I got to the brook at last, and then worked my way up it and into the other end of this cave. I was going up there after my lantern----"

"Ruth and the others have it," explained Helen, quickly.

"Then I'll go find them at once. I know my way around pretty well in the dark. I couldn't get really lost in this cave," and Jerry laughed, shortly.

"I've got matches if you want them," said Bob.

"Got a plenty, thanks. You folks go back to your friends, and I'll hunt out Miss Fielding in a jiffy."

Jerry turned away at once, and soon pa.s.sed out of their sight in the gloom. As Helen and the others hurried back to the anxious party at the campfire, Jerry went straightway to the most satisfactory discovery of all his life.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TREASURE BOX

When Jerry met Ruth and her companions coming slowly from the little cave, the boys bearing the heavy, ironbound box between them, he knew instantly what it was--his uncle's chest in which he had kept his money and papers.

"It's yours to hide again if you want to, Jerry," Ruth told him, when the excitement of the meeting had pa.s.sed, and explanations were over. "It was what both you and Rufus Blent have been looking for, and I believe you have the best right to it"

"It belongs to Uncle Pete. And Uncle Pete shall have it," declared the backwoods boy. "Why, do you know, I believe if Uncle Pete once had this box in his possession again that he might recover his mind?"

"Oh, I hope so!" Ruth cried.

First, however, the crowd of young folk had to be led through the long tunnel and out into the open air. It was agreed that nothing was to be said to anybody but Mr. Tingley about the treasure box. And the boys and girls, too, agreed to say nothing at the house about Jerry's having returned to his cave.

When they reached the brook, there were lights about the island, and guns being fired. The entire household of Tingley Lodge was out on the hunt for the lost ones.

The boys and girls were home and in bed in another hour, and Mrs. Tingley was vastly relieved.

"Never again will I take the responsibility of such a crowd!" declared the hara.s.sed lady. "My own children are enough; a dozen and a half active young ones like these would send me to the madhouse in another week!"

But the girls from Briarwood and their boy friends continued to have a delightful time during the remainder of their stay at Cliff Island, although their adventures were less strenuous than those that have been related. They went away, in the end, to take up their school duties, p.r.o.nouncing their vacation on the island one of the most enjoyable they had ever experienced.

"Something to keep up our hearts for the rest of the school year,"

declared Heavy. "And you'll like us better, too, when we're gone, Mrs.

Tingley. We _all_--even The Fox, here--have a good side to our characters."

Even Ann Hicks went back to Briarwood with pleasant expectations. She had learned to understand her mates better during this holiday, and all the girls at Briarwood were prepared to welcome the western girl now with more kindness than before.

We may believe that Ruth and her girl friends were all busy and happy during that next half-year at Briarwood, and we may meet them again in the midst of their work and fun in the next volume of the series, ent.i.tled "Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm; Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans."

Ruth Fielding, however, did not leave Cliff Island before being a.s.sured that the affairs of Jerry Sheming and his uncle would be set right. As it chanced, the very day the crowd had gone fishing Mr. Tingley had received a letter from the head doctor of the hospital, to whom the gentleman had written inquiring about old Peter Tilton.

The patient had improved immensely. That he was eccentric was true, but he had probably always been so, the doctor said. The old man was worrying over the loss of what he called his treasure box, and when Ruth confided to Mr. Tingley the truth about Jerry's return and the discovery of the ironbound box, Mr. Tingley determined to take matters into his own hands.

He first went to the cave and had a long talk with Jerry. Then he had his team of horses put to the sledge, and he and Jerry and the box drove the entire length of Lake Tallahaska, struck into a main road to the county asylum, and made an unexpected call upon the poor old hunter, who had been so long confined in that inst.i.tution.

"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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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