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plainly that the object he had withdrawn from the tree trunk was a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.
"Whew!" ejaculated Tom. "So they are. 'J. P.--Jabez Potter.' Can't
get around that."
"Well, I never!" gasped Helen.
"Do you suppose all old Jabe's money is in this?" muttered Tom,
weighing the cash-box in his hands. "It can't be in coin."
"I do not know that he had much money in coin," said Ruth. "I think he
used to change the gold and silver for notes, quite frequently. At
least, Aunt Alvirah says so."
"But suppose it should be Parloe's after all?" objected Helen.
"Let's find that out," said Tom, vigorously. "Come on, girls. We'll
finish eating, pack up, and start back. We'll drive right up to
Parloe's and show him this box, and ask him if it is his. If he says
yes, we'll make him come along to the mill and face Mr. Potter, and
then if there is any doubt of it, let them go before a magistrate and
fight it out!"
The girls were impressed with the wisdom of this declaration, and all
went back to rescue the remains of their luncheon from the birds and
from a saucy gray squirrel that had already dropped down to the lowest
limb of the tree under which they had spread their cloth, and who sat
there and chattered angrily while they remained thereafter, as though
he considered that he had been personally cheated out of a banquet.
The girls and Tom were so excited that they could not enjoy the
remainder of the nice things that Babette had packed in their lunch
basket They were soon in the carriage, and Tubby was startled out of a
pleasant dream and urged up the hilly road that led through the woods
to the squatter's cabin, where Jasper Parloe had taken up his quarters
after he had been discharged from employment at the Red Mill.