Mr. Cameron met the chums _en route_, and the next morning they arrived
at Seven Oaks in time to see Tom receive his diploma from the military
and preparatory school. Tom, black-eyed and as handsome in his way as
Helen was in hers, seemed to have interest only in Ruth.
"Goodness me! that boy's got a regular crush on you, Ruthie!" exclaimed
Helen, exasperated. "Did you ever see the like?"
"Dear Tom!" sighed Ruth Fielding. "He was the very first friend--of my
own age, I mean--that I found in Cheslow when I went there. I _have_ to
be good to Tommy, you know."
"But he's only a boy!" cried the twin sister, feeling herself to be
years older than her brother after spending so many months at college.
"He was born the same day you were," laughed Ruth.
"That makes no difference. Boys are never as wise or as old as girls----"
"Until the girls slip along too far. Then they sometimes want to appear
young instead of old," said the girl of the Red Mill practically. "I
suppose, in the case of girls who have not struck out for themselves and
gone to college or into business or taken up seriously one of the arts,
it is so the boys will continue to pay them attentions. Thank goodness,
Helen! you and I will be able to paddle our own canoes without depending
upon any 'mere male,' as Miss Cullam calls them, for our bread and
butter."
_"You_ certainly can paddle your own boat," Helen returned admiringly,
leaving the subject of the "mere male." "Father says you have become a
smart business woman already. He approves of this venture you are going
to make in the movies."
But Uncle Jabez did not approve. Ruth had written to Aunt Alvirah
regarding the manner in which she expected to spend the summer, and
there was a storm brewing when she reached the Red Mill.
Set upon the bank of the Lumano River, the old red mill with the
sprawling, comfortable story-and-a-half farmhouse attached, made a very
pretty picture indeed--so pretty that already one of Ruth's best
scenarios had been filmed at the mill and people all over the country
were able to see just how beautiful the locality was.
When Ruth got out of the automobile that had brought them all from the
Cheslow station and ran up the shaded walk to the porch, a little,
hoop-backed old woman came almost running to the door to greet her--a
dear old creature with a face like a withered russet apple and very
bright, twinkling eyes.
"Oh, my pretty! Oh, my pretty!" Aunt Alvirah cried. "I feared you never
_would_ come."
"Why, Auntie!" Ruth murmured, taking Aunt Alvirah in her arms and
leading her back to the low rocking chair by the window where she
usually sat.
There was a rosy-cheeked country girl hovering over the supper table,
who smiled bashfully at the college girl. Uncle Jabez, as he had
promised, had hired somebody to relieve the little old woman of the
heaviest of her housekeeping burdens.
"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" groaned Aunt Alvirah as she settled
back into her chair. "Dear child! how glad we shall be to have you at
home, if only for so short a while."
"What does Uncle Jabez say?" whispered Ruth.
"He don't approve, Ruthie. You know, he never has approved of your doing
things that other gals don't do."
"But, Aunt Alvirah, other girls _do_ do them. Can't he understand that
the present generation of girls is different from his mother's
generation?"
Aunt Alvirah wagged her head seriously. "I'm afraid not, my pretty.
Jabez Potter ain't one to l'arn new things easy. You know that."
Ruth nodded thoughtfully. She expected a scene with the old miller and
she was not disappointed. It came after supper--after Uncle Jabez had
retired to the sitting-room to count his day's receipts as usual; and
likewise to count the hoard of money he always kept in his cash-box.
Uncle Jabez Potter was of a miserly disposition. Aunt Alvirah often
proclaimed that the coming of his grand-niece to the Red Mill had barely
saved the old man from becoming utterly bound up in his riches.
Sometimes Ruth could scarcely see how he could have become more miserly
than he already was.
"No, Niece Ruth, I don't approve. You knowed I couldn't approve of no
sech doin's as this you're attemptin'. It's bad enough for a gal to
waste her money in l'arnin' more out o' books than what a man knows. But
to go right ahead and do as she plumb pleases with five thousand
dollars--or what ye've got left of it after goin' off to college and sech
nonsense. No----"
The miller's feelings on the subject were too deep for further
utterance. Ruth said, firmly:
"You know, Uncle Jabez, the money was given to me to do what I pleased
with."
"Another foolish thing," snarled Uncle Jabez. "That Miz Parsons had no
business to give ye five thousand dollars for gettin' back her necklace
from the Gypsies--a gal like you!"
"But she had offered the reward to anybody who would find it," Ruth
explained patiently.
Uncle Jabez ploughed right through this statement and shook his head
like an angry bull. "And then the court had no business givin' it over
to Mister Cameron to take care on't for ye. _I_ was the proper person to
be made your guardeen."
Ruth had no reply to make to this. She knew well enough that she would
never have touched any of the money until she was of age had Uncle Jabez
once got his hands upon it.
"The money's airnin' ye good int'rest in the Cheslow bank. That's where
it oughter stay. Wastin' it makin' them foolish movin' pictuers----"
"But, Uncle!" she told him desperately; "you know that my scenarios are
earning money. See how much money my 'Heart of a Schoolgirl' has made
for the building of the new dormitory at Briarwood. And this last
picture that Mr. Hammond took here at the mill is bound to sell big."
"Huh!" grunted the miller, not much impressed. "Mebbe it's all right for
you to spend your spare time writin' them things; but it ain't no re'l
business. Can't tell me!"
"But it _is_ a business--a great, money-making business," sighed Ruth.
"And I am determined to have my part in it. It is my chance, Uncle
Jabez--my chance to begin something lasting----"
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" he declared angrily. "Ye'll lose your money--that's
what ye'll do. But lemme tell you, young lady, if you do lose it, don't
ye come back here to the Red Mill expectin' me ter support ye in
idleness. For I won't do it--I won't do it!" and he stamped away to bed.
The few days she spent at home were busy ones for Ruth Fielding.
Naturally, she and Helen had to do some shopping.
"For even if we are bound for the wilds of Arizona, there will be men to
see us," said the black-eyed girl frankly. "And it is the duty of all
females to preen their feathers for the males."
"Just so," growled her twin. "I expect I shall have to stand with a gun
in both hands to keep those wild cowpunchers and miners away from you
two when we reach Yucca. I remember how it was at Silver Ranch--and you
were only kids then."
"'Kids,' forsooth!" cried his sister. "When will you ever learn to have
respect for us, Tommy? Remember we are college girls."
"Oh! you aren't likely to let anybody forget that fact," grumbled Tom,
who felt a bit chagrined to think that his sister and her chum had
arrived at college a year ahead of him. He would enter Harvard in the
fall.
During this busy week, Ruth spent as much time as possible with Aunt
Alvirah, for the little old woman showed that she longed for "her
pretty's" company. Uncle Jabez went about with a thundercloud upon his
face and disapproval in his every act and word.
Before Saturday a telegram came from Ann Hicks. She had arrived at
Silver Ranch, conferred with Uncle Bill, and it was agreed that she
should meet Ruth and the other girls at Yucca on the date Ruth had named
in her letter. The addition of Ann to the party from the East would make
it nine strong, including Miss Cullam as chaperon and Tom Cameron as
"courier."
Tom was to make all the traveling arrangements, and he went on to New
York a day before Ruth and Helen started from Cheslow. There he had a
small experience which afterward proved to be important. At the time it
puzzled him a good deal.
It had been agreed that the party bound for Arizona should meet at the
Delorphion Hotel. Therefore, Tom took a taxicab at the Grand Central
Terminal for that hostelry. Mr. Cameron had engaged rooms for the whole
party by telephone, for he was well known at the Delorphion, and all Tom
had to do was to hand the clerk at the desk his card and sign his name
with a flourish on the register.
The instant he turned away from the desk to follow the bellhop Tom noted
a young man, after a penetrating glance at him, slide along to the
register, twirl it around again, and examine the line he, Tom, had
written there. The young fellow was a stranger to Tom. He was dressed
like a chauffeur. Tom was sure he had never seen the young man before.
"Now, wouldn't that bother you?" he muttered, eyeing the fellow sharply
as he crossed the marble-floored rotunda to the elevators. "Does he
think he knows me? Or is he looking for somebody and is putting every
new arrival through the third degree?"
He half expected the chauffeur person to follow him to the elevator, and
he lingered behind the impatient bellhop for half a minute to give the
stranger a chance to accost him if he wished to.
But immediately after the fellow had read Tom's name on the book, he
turned away and went out, without vouchsafing him another glance.
"Funny," thought Tom Cameron. "Wonder what it means."
However, as nothing more came of it--at least, not at once--he buried the
mystery under the manifold duties of the day. He met a couple of school
friends at noon and went to lunch with them; but he returned to the
hotel for dinner.
It was then he spied the same chauffeur again. He was helping a young
lady out of a private car before the hotel entrance and a porter was
going in ahead with two big traveling bags.
Tom was sure it was the same man who had examined the hotel register
after he had signed his name; and he was tempted to stop and speak to
him. But the young lady whisked into the hotel without his seeing her
face, while the chauffeur, after a curious, straight stare at Tom,
jumped into the car and started away. Tom noticed that there was a
monogram upon the motor-car door, but he did not notice the license
number.
"Maybe the girl is one of those going with us," Tom thought, as he went
inside.
The porter with the bags and the young lady in question has disappeared.
He went to the desk and asked the clerk if any of his party had arrived
and was informed to the contrary.
"Well, it gets me," ruminated Tom, as he went up to dress for dinner. "I
don't know whether I am the subject of a strange young lady's
attentions, or merely if the chauffeur was curious about me. Guess I
won't say anything to the girls about it. Helen would surely give me the
laugh."