intent a look that the little crippled girl was half frightened at him. He inspired confidence, however, and when he said to her, on departing: "You are going to see me again before long," Mercy was quite excited about it. She never asked a question of Doctor Davison, or of anybody else, about the strange surgeon, or his opinion of her case; but Ruth often heard her humming an odd little song (she often made up little tunes and put words to them herself) of which Ruth did not catch the burden for some days. When Mercy was singing it she mumbled the words, or dropped her voice to a whisper whenever anybody came near. But one morning Ruth was bringing the beaten egg and milk that she drank as a "pick-me-up" between breakfast and dinner, and Mercy did not hear her coming, and the odd little song came clearly to the ears of the girl of the Red Mill:

"He's going to cure me! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!

He's going to cure me! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"

Ruth knew instantly to what the little doggerel song referred. It is true Mercy had filched Aunt Alvirah's phrase and made it her own-- and it applied to the poor child as well as to the rheumatic old woman. But it was a song of joy-- a song of expectation.

Ruth tried to be even more kind to Mercy after that. She was with her almost all the time. But there were occasions when Helen and Tom Cameron really made her come out with them on some little jaunt. Since Mercy's arrival at the Red Mill the Camerons had fallen into the habit of calling occasionally, and Uncle Jabez had said nothing about it. Ostensibly they called on Mercy; but it was Ruth that they came for with the pony carriage one day and took away for a visit to Olakah Glen.

This beautiful spot was not so very far away, but it called for a picnic lunch, and Tubby was quite two hours in getting them there. It was a wild hollow, with great beech trees, and a noisy stream chaffing in a rocky bed down the middle of the glen. There were some farms thereabout; but many of the farmers were no more than squatters, for a vast tract of field and forest, including the glen, belonged to an estate which had long been in the courts for settlement.

Just before leaving all signs of civilization behind, Tom had pointed out a shanty and several outbuildings on a high hillock overlooking the road, and told the girls that that was where Jasper Parloe lived, all alone.

"I came up here fishing with some of the other fellows once, and Jasper tried to drive us out of the glen. Said he owned it. Likely story! He won't trouble us to-day."

Indeed, wild as the spot was, there was little likelihood of anybody troubling the young people, for they had Reno along. This faithful creature watched over the trio most jealously and, as they were eating on the grass, he found some sudden reason to become excited. He rose up, stiffening his back, the hair rising on his neck, and a low growl issuing from his throat. The girls were a little startled, but Tom sprang up, motioned to Helen and Ruth to keep still, and ran to the angry mastiff.

"What's the matter with you, Reno?" demanded Tom, softly, but putting a restraining hand upon his collar.

Reno lurched forward, and Tom gripped the collar tightly as he was dragged directly toward a thick dump of shrubbery not many yards away.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE INITIALS

There was no sound that Tom Cameron or the girls could hear from the shrubbery; but Reno evidently knew that somebody was lurking there. And by the dog's actions Tom thought it must be somebody whom Reno disliked.

"Oh, don't leave us, Tom!" begged Helen, running behind her brother and the mastiff.

"Come on-- both of you!" muttered Tom. "We'll see what this means. Stick close to me."

He had picked up a stout club; but it was in the huge and intelligent mastiff that they all put their confidence. The dog, although he snuffed now and then as though the scent that had first disturbed him still came down the wind, had ceased to growl.

They came to a path in the thicket and followed it for a few yards only, when Reno stopped and stiffened again.

"Hush!" whispered Tom, and parted the bushes with one hand, his other still clinging to the mastic's collar.

There was a tiny opening in the shrubbery. It surrounded the foot of a huge beech tree. In some past day a careless hunter had built a fire close to the trunk of this tree. It was now hollow at the base, but vines and creepers growing up the tall tree had hidden the opening.

A man was on his knees at the foot of the tree and had drawn the matted curtain of creepers aside with one hand while with the other he reached in to the full length of his arm. He had no suspicion of the presence of the young people and Reno.

Out of the hollow in the tree trunk he drew something wrapped in an old pair of overalls. He unwrapped it, still with his back to the spot where the dog and his master and the girls stood. But the three friends could see over his shoulder as he knelt on the ground, and saw plainly that the object he had withdrawn from the tree trunk was a flat black box, evidently japanned, and there was a fair-sized brass padlock which fastened it,

"Ha, ha, ha!" chuckled the man to himself, as he wrapped the box up again in the old clothes, and then thrust it hastily into the hollow tree. "Safe yet! safe yet!"

He rose up then and without even looking about him, started directly away from the glen. He plainly had no suspicion of the presence of the dog and the trio of young folks. When he was quite out of sight and sound, Tom whispered, patting Reno:

"I declare, girls! That was Jasper Parloe!"

"That mean thing!" returned his sister. "I guess he's a miser as well as a hermit; isn't he?"

"Looks like it. I've a good mind to take that thing he put in there and hide it somewhere else. He wouldn't be so sure about it's being safe then; would he?"

"No! Don't you touch his nasty things, Tom," advised Helen, turning away.

But Ruth still stared at the hidden hollow in the tree and suddenly she darted forward and knelt where Parloe had knelt.

"What are you going to do, Ruth?" demanded her chum.

"I want to see that box-- I must see it!" cried the girl from the Red Mill.

"Hold on!" said Tom. "I'll get it for you. You'll get your dress dirty."

"I wouldn't touch it," cried Helen, warningly.

"I must!" gasped Ruth, greatly excited.

"It don't belong to you," quoth Helen.

"And I'm very sure it doesn't belong to Jasper Parloe," declared Ruth, earnestly.

Tom glanced at the girl from the Red Mill suddenly, and with close attention. He seemed to understand her excitement.

"Let me in there," said the youth. "I can reach it, Ruthie."

He pushed her gently, and while Ruth and Helen held aside the mass of vines the boy crawled in and reached the bundle of rags. He carefully hauled it all forth and the japanned box tumbled out of its loose wrappings.

"There it is!" grunted Tom, getting up and wiping his hands on a tuft of grass. "What do you make of it?"

Ruth had the box in her hands. Helen, looking over her shoulder, pointed to two faded letters painted on the cover of the box.

"That belongs to Jasper Parloe. His initials are on the box," she said.

"'J. P.'-- that's right, I guess," muttered Tom.

It could not be gainsaid that Parloe's initials were there. Ruth stared at them for some moments in silence.

Better put it back. I don't know what he can possibly have to hide in this way," Tom said. "But we wouldn't want to get into trouble with him. He's a mean customer."

"It isn't his box!" said Ruth, quietly.

"Why isn't it?" cried Helen, in amazement.

"I never noticed the letters on the box before. The box has been cleaned since I saw it--"

"You don't mean that it is your uncle's cash-box, Ruth?" interrupted Tom, in excitement.

"Why, you ridiculous boy!" declared Helen. "You know that was lost in the flood."

"I don't know. Do you?" Tom demanded, shortly.

"But, Ruth!" gasped Helen.

"It looks like Uncle Jabez's box," Ruth whispered.

"But the letters! Jasper Parloe's initials," cried the hard-to-be-convinced Helen Cameron.

"They're uncle's initials, too," explained Ruth, quietly.