lk along the edge of the brook into this
hillside fastness.

Determined to solve the mystery of the strange creature's disappearance,
and quite convinced that it was a lost child or woman, Ruth Fielding
ventured through the brush clump and passed along the ragged bank of the
tumbling brook.

Suddenly, in the muddy ground at her feet, the girl spied a shoe. It was a
black oxford of good quality, and it had been, of course, wrenched from
the foot of the person she pursued. This girl, or woman, must be running
from Ruth in fear.

Ruth picked up the shoe. It was for a small foot, but might belong to
either a girl of fourteen or so or to a small woman. She could see the
print of the other shoe--yes! and there was the impress of the stockinged
foot in the mud.

"Whoever she may be," thought Ruth Fielding, "she is so frightened that
she abandoned this shoe. Poor thing! What can be the matter with her?"

Ruth shouted again, and yet again. She went on up the side of the
turbulent brook, staring all about for the hiding place of her quarry.

The rain ceased entirely and abruptly. But the whole forest was a-drip.
Far up through the trees she saw a sudden lightening of the sky. The
clouds were breaking.

But the smoke of the torrential downpour still rose from the saturated
earth. When Ruth jarred a bush in passing a perfect deluge fell from the
trembling leaves. The girl began to feel that she had come far enough in
what appeared to be a wild-goose chase.

Then suddenly, quite amazingly, she was halted. She plunged around a sharp
turn in the ravine, trying to step on the dryer places, and found herself
confronted by a man standing under the shelter of a wide-armed spruce.

"Oh!" gasped Ruth, starting back.

He was a heavy-set, bewhiskered man with gleaming eyes and rather a grim
look. Worst of all, he carried a gun with the lock sheltered under his
arm-pit from the rain.

At Ruth's appearance he seemed startled, too, and he advanced the muzzle
of the gun and took a stride forward at the same moment.

"Hello!" he growled. "Be you crazy, too? What in all git out be you
traipsing through these woods for in the rain?"

CHAPTER XI

MR. PETERBY PAUL AND "WHOSIS"

Ruth Fielding was more than a little startled, for the appearance of this
bearded and gruff-spoken man was much against him.

She had become familiar, however, during the past months with all sorts
and conditions of men--many of them much more danger