WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
The baggage-car door was wheeled wide open again and the lamps on the
platform shone in. There was the forward brakeman to "jump" her down
from the high doorway, and Reno, with the little red light still hung
to his collar, bounded after her.
The conductor bustled away to tell the station master about the dog
with the red light, and of the word scrawled on the cloth which Ruth
had found wound around his collar. Indeed, Ruth herself was very
anxious and very much excited regarding this mystery; but she was
anxious, too, about herself. Was Uncle Jabez here to meet her? Or had
he sent somebody to take her to the Red Mill? He had been informed by
Miss True Pettis the week before on which train to expect his niece.
Carrying her bag and followed dejectedly by the huge mastiff, Ruth
started down the long platform. The conductor ran out of the station,
signalled the train crew with his hand, and lanterns waved the length
of the train. Panting, with its huge springs squeaking, the locomotive
started the string of cars. Faster and faster the train moved, and
before Ruth reached the pent-house roof of the little brick station,
the tail-lights of the last car had passed her.
A short, bullet-headed old man, with close-cropped, whitish-yellow
hair, atop of which was a boy's baseball cap, his face smoothly shaven
and deeply lined, and the stain of tobacco at either corner of his
mouth, was standing on the platform. He was not a nice looking old man
at all, he was dressed in shabby and patched garments, and his little
eyes seemed so sly that they were even trying to hide from each other
on either side of a hawksbill nose.
He began to eye Ruth curiously as the girl approached, and she, seeing
that he was the only person who gave her any attention, jumped to the
conclusion that this was Uncle Jabez. The thought shocked her. She
instinctively feared and disliked this queer looking old man. The lump
in her throat that would not be swallowed almost choked her again, and
she winked her eyes fast to keep from crying.
She would, in her fear and disappointment, have passed the old man by
without speaking had he not stepped in front of her.
"Where d'ye wanter go, Miss?" he whined, looking at her still more
sharply out of his narrow eyes. "Yeou be a stranger here, eh?"
"Yes, sir," admitted Ruth.
"Where are you goin'?" asked the man again, and Ruth had enough Yankee
blood in her to answer the query by asking:
"Are you Mr. Jabez Potter?"
"Me Jabez Potter? Why, ef I was Jabe Potter I'd be owing myself money,
that's what I'd be doin'. You warn't never lookin' for Jabe Potter?"
Much relieved, Ruth admitted the fact frankly. "He is my uncle, sir,"
she said. "I am going to live at the Red Mill."
The strange old man puckered up his lips into a whistle, and shook his
head, eyeing her all the time so slily that Ruth was more and more
thankful that he had not proven to be Uncle Jabez.
"Do you know Mr. Potter?" she asked, undecided what to do.
"Do I know Jabe Potter?" repeated the man. "Well, I don't know much
good of him, I assure ye! I worked for him onct, I did. And I tell ye
he owes me money yet. You ax him if he don't owe Jasper Parloe money--
you jest ax him!"
He began to get excited and did not seem at all inclined to step out
of Ruth's path. But just then somebody spoke to her and she turned to
see the station master and two or three other men with him.
"This is the girl Mr. Mason spoke to me about, isn't it?" the railroad
man asked. "The conductor of the express, I mean. He said the dog
would mind you."
"He seems to like me," she replied, turning to the mastiff that had
stood all this time close to her.
"That is Tom Cameron's dog all right," said one of the other men. "And
that lantern is off his motorcycle, I bet anything! He went through
town about dark on that contraption, and I shouldn't wonder if he's
got a tumble."
Ruth showed the station master, whose name was Curtis, the bit of
handkerchief with the appeal for help traced upon it.
"That is blood," she said. "You see it's blood, don't you? Can't
somebody take Reno and hunt for him? He must be very badly hurt."
"Mason said he expected it was nothing but some fool joke of the boys.
But it doesn't look like a joke to me," Mr. Curtis said, gravely.
"Come, Parloe, you know that patch of woods well enough, over beyond
the swamp and Hiram Jennings' big field. Isn't there a steep and rocky
road down there, that shoots off the Osago Lake pike?"
"The Wilkins Corners road--yep," said the old man, snappishly.
"Then, can't you take the dog and see if you can find young Tom?"
"Who's going to pay me for it?" snarled Jasper Parloe. "I ain't got no
love for them Camerons. This here Tom is as sassy a boy as there is in
this county."
"But he may be seriously hurt," said Ruth, looking angrily at Jasper
Parloe.
"'Tain't nothin' to me--no more than your goin' out ter live with
Jabe Potter ain't nothin' to me," responded the old man, with an ugly
grin.
"You're a pretty fellow, you are, Jasper!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, and
turned his back upon the fellow. "I can't leave the station now--Ah!
here's Doctor Davison. He'll know what to do."
Doctor Davison came forward and put his hand upon Ruth's shoulder most
kindly. "What is all this?" he asked. "And there is the mastiff. They
tell me you are a dog tamer, Miss Fielding."
He listened very closely to what Mr. Curtis had to say, and looked,
too, at the smeared handkerchief.
"The dog can find him--no doubt of that. Come, boys, get some
lanterns and we'll go right along to the Wilkins Corners road and
search it." Then to Ruth he said: "You are a brave girl, sure enough."
But when the party was ready to start, half a dozen strong, with
Parloe trailing on behind, and with lanterns and a stretcher, Reno
would not budge. The man called him, but he looked up at Ruth and did
not move from her side.
"I declare for't," exclaimed one man. "That girl will have to go with
us, Doctor Davison. You see what the dog means to do."
Ruth spoke to the mastiff, commanded him to leave her and find "Tom."
But although the dog looked at her intelligently enough, and barked
his response--a deep, sudden, explosive bark--he refused to start
without her.
"It's a long way for the girl," objected Doctor Davison. "Besides, she
is waiting to meet her uncle."
"I am not tired," she told him, quickly. "Remember I've been sitting
all the afternoon. And perhaps every minute is precious. We don't know
how badly the dog's master may be hurt. I'll go. I'm sure I can keep
up with you."
Reno seemed to understand her words perfectly, and uttered another
short, sharp bark.
"Let us go, then," said Doctor Davison, hurriedly.
So the men picked up their lanterns and the stretcher again. They
crossed the tracks and came to a street that soon became a country
road. Cheslow did not spread itself very far in this direction. Doctor
Davison explained to Ruth that the settlement had begun to grow in the
parts beyond the railroad and that all this side of the tracks was
considered the old part of the town.
The street lights were soon behind them and they depended entirely
upon the lanterns the men carried. Ruth could see very little of the
houses they passed; but at one spot--although it was on the other
side of the road--there were two green lanterns, one on either side
of an arched gate, and there seemed to be a rather large, but gloomy,
house behind the hedge before which these lanterns burned.
"You will always know my house," Doctor Davison said, softly, and
still retaining her hand, "by its green eyes."
So Ruth knew she had passed his home, to which he had so kindly
invited her. And that made her think for a moment about Uncle Jabez
and Aunt Alvirah. Would she find somebody waiting to take her to the
Red Mill when she got back to the station?