l beat ye. And ye'll pay for tryin' to balk me, too."

"Don't you be too loose with your threats, Rufe," sang out Preston, the
foreman. "If anything happens over here on the island--any of Mr.
Tingley's property is destroyed--we'll know who to look to for damages."

"Yah!" snarled Blent, and drove away.

The fact remained, however, that, for the time being at least, Rufus Blent
was master of the situation.

CHAPTER XX

THE FISHING PARTY

Ruth felt so unhappy she wept openly. It seemed too bad that Jerry Sheming
should be taken away to the mainland a prisoner.

"They'll find some way of driving him out of this country again," remarked
Preston, the foreman. "You don't know Blent, Mr. Tingley, as well as the
rest of us do. Other city men have come up here and bucked against him in
times past--and they were sorry before they got through."

"What do you mean?" demanded the angry owner of Cliff Island.

"Blent can hire those fellows from the lumber camps, and some of the
guides, to do his dirty work. That's all I've got to say. Hunting camps
have burned down in these woods before now," observed the foreman,
significantly.

"Why! the scoundrel sold me this island himself!"

"And he's sold other outsiders camp sites. But they have had to leave if
they angered Blent."

"He is a dangerous man, then?"

"Well--things just happen," returned Preston, shaking his head. "I'd keep
watch if I were you."

"I will. I'll hire guards--and arm 'em, if need be," declared Mr. Tingley,
emphatically. "But take it from me--I am going to see that that boy Jerry
is treated right in these backwoods courts. That's the way I feel about
it."

Ruth was glad to hear him say this. As she had decided when she first saw
him, Mr. Tingley could be very firm if he wished to be. At once he went
back to the house, had a team hitched to a sleigh, and drove over to the
mainland so as to be sure that Blent did not get ahead of him and have
court convened before the proper hour.

The day was spoiled for Ruth and for some of the other young folk who had
taken such a deep interest in Jerry. The boy had been caught because he
tried to get the mattock Ruth and Tom had put out for him. Ruth wished now
that she and Tom had not gone down to the brook.

There was too much going on at Cliff Island for even Ruth to mope long.
Mr. Tingley came back at dark and said he had succeeded in getting Jerry's
case put over until a lawyer could familiarize hi