tes soon after breakfast, and everybody but Mercy went
down to the lake. Later the boys made the lame girl and Mrs. Tingley come,
too, and they arranged chairs in which the two non-skaters could be pushed
over the smooth surface.

Hockey was the game for the afternoon, and two "sides" were chosen to
oppose each other, one of the boys and another of the girls. Although Ann
Hicks had never had a hockey stick in her hand before, she quickly got
into the game, and they all had a very merry time.

The day before Ruth had not been able to find the implement that Jerry
Sheming had spoken about, nor could she find a mattock, or pickax, on this
second day. If she went to the toolshed and hunted for the thing herself
she was afraid her quest would be observed by some of the men.

She located the place where the tools were kept, but the shed was locked.
However, there was a window, and that window could be easily slid back.
Ruth shrank from attempting to creep in by it.

"Just the same, I told him I'd get it--at least, I told myself I'd get it
for him," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "And I will."

Of course, Mrs. Tingley would have allowed her to borrow the tool, but it
would have aroused comment had it become known that Jerry wanted it.

"It must be that he really thinks now he knows where his uncle hid the
treasure box. He wants to dig for it," was Ruth's thought.

Yet she remembered that Jerry had said all along the old man had seemingly
gone mad because his treasure box was buried under a landslide. She asked
Mr. Preston, the foreman of the camp, where the landslide had occurred.

"Why, right over yonder, little lady," explained the woodsman. "If the
snow wasn't on the ground, you could easy see the scar of it down that
hillside," and he pointed to a spot just beyond the secret opening of
Jerry's cave.

"The dirt and rock was heaped up so at the foot of the slide that the
course of the brook was changed. That slide covered a monster lot of
little caves in the rock," pursued the man. "But I expect there's others
of 'em left and that Jerry's hidin' out in one now," he added, looking at
Ruth with shrewd gaze.

Ruth took him no further into her confidence. She felt that she must have
somebody to help her, however, and naturally enough she chose Tom. Helen's
twin thought a great deal of Ruth Fielding, and was never ashamed of
showing this feeling before the other boys. On her side, Ruth felt that
Tom Cameron was just