Hereafter I will be cheerful. Life is worth living after all!"

Tom, who sat next to her at table (he usually managed to do that) smiled
at Ruth approvingly.

"Bravo!" he whispered. "There are other scenarios to write."

"Tom!" she whispered sharply, "I want to tell you something about that."

"About what?"

"My scenario."

"You don't mean----"

"I mean I know what has become of it."

"Never!" gasped Tom. "Are you--are--you----"

"I am not '_non compos_,' and-so-forth," laughed Ruth. "Oh, there is
nothing foolish about this, Tom. Let me tell you."

She spoke in so low a tone that the others could not have heard had they
desired to. She and Tom put their heads together and within the next few
minutes Ruth had told him all about the hermit's scenario and her
conviction that he had stolen his idea and a large part of his story from
Ruth's lost manuscript.

"It seems almost impossible, Ruth," gasped her friend.

"No. Not impossible or improbable. Listen to what that man on Reef Island
told me about this hermit, so-called." And she repeated it all to the
excited Tom. "I am convinced," pursued Ruth, "that this hermit could
easily have been in the vicinity of the Red Mill on the day my manuscript
disappeared."

"But to prove it!" cried Tom.

"We'll see about that," said Ruth confidently. "You know, Ben told us he
had seen and spoken to a tramp-actor that day. Uncle Jabez saw him, too.
And you, Tom, followed his trail to the Cheslow railroad yards."

"So I did," admitted her friend.

"I believe," went on Ruth earnestly, "that this man who came here to live
on Beach Plum Point only three weeks ago, is that very vagrant. It is
plain that this fellow is playing the part of a hermit, just as he plays
the parts Mr. Hooley casts him for."

"Whew!" whistled Tom. "Almost do you convince me, Ruth Fielding. But to
prove it is another thing."

"We _will_ prove it. If this man was at the Red Mill on that particular
day, we can make sure of the fact."

"How will you do it, Ruth?"

"By getting one of the camera men to take a 'still' of the hermit, develop
it for us, and send the negative to Ben. He and Uncle Jabez must remember
how that traveling actor looked----"

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Tom, jumping up to the amazement of the rest of the
party. "That's a bully idea."

"What is it?" demanded Helen. "Let us in on it, too."

But Ruth shook her head and Tom calmed down.

"Can't tell the secret yet," Helen's twin dec