promised Ruth that
he would make a hot drink for himself and remove his wet garments and lie
down. But he only seemed moderately grateful for their assistance, and
shut the door of the shack promptly in their faces when he got inside.

"Just as friendly as a sore-headed dog," remarked Tom, as they went back
to the bay side of the Point.

"Perhaps the others have played so many tricks on him that he is
suspicious of even our assistance," Ruth said.

Thus speaking, she stooped to pick up a bit of paper in the path. It had
been half covered by the sand and might have lain there a long time, or
only a day.

Just why this bit of brown wrapping paper had caught her attention, it
would be hard to say. Ruth might have passed it a dozen times without
noticing it.

But now she must needs turn the paper over and over in her hands as she
watched Tom, with the help of the rather abashed practical jokers, haul
the water-logged skiff ashore.

She had forgotten the fishing poles they had abandoned on the rocks, and
sat down upon a boulder. Suddenly she discovered that there was writing on
the bit of paper she had picked up. It was then that her attention really
became fixed upon her find.

The characters had been written with an indelible pencil. The dampness had
only blurred the writing instead of erasing it. Her attention thus
engaged, she idly scrutinized more than the blurred lines. Her attitude as
she sat there on the boulder slowly stiffened; her gaze focused upon the
paper.

"Why! what is it?" she murmured at last.

The blurred lines became clearer to her vision. It was the wording of the
phrase rather than the handwriting that enthralled her. This that follows
was all that was written on the paper:

"Flash:--

"As in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be----"

To the ordinary observer, with no knowledge of what went before or
followed this quotation, the phrase must seem idle. But the word "flash"
is used by scenario writers and motion picture makers, indicating an
explanatory phrase thrown on the screen.

And this quoted phrase struck poignantly to Ruth Fielding's mind. For it
was one she had used in that last scenario--the one that had so strangely
disappeared from the summer-house back at the Red Mill!

Amazed--almost stunned--by this discovery, she sat on the boulder scarcely
seeing what Tom and the others were doing toward salvaging the old
hermit's skiff and other property.

Thoughts regar