ot returned from town.

Dinner had been a farce. Ben, the hired man, was fed as usual; but Ruth
and Aunt Alvirah did not feel like eating; and, considering his fever, it
was just as well, the doctor said, if the patient did not eat until later.

Jerry Sheming was a fellow of infinite pluck. The pain he had endured
during his rough ride in the automobile must have been terrific. Yet he
was only ashamed, now, that he had fainted.

"First time I ever heard of a Sheming fainting--or yet a Tilton, Miss," he
told Ruth.

"I don't believe you belong near here?" suggested Ruth, who sat beside
him, for he seemed restless. "I don't remember hearing either of those
names around the Red Mill."

"No. I--I lived away west of here," replied Jerry, slowly. "Oh, a long
ways."

"Not as far as Montana? That is where Jane Ann comes from."

"The girl I helped through the car window?" he asked, quickly.

"Yes. Miss Hicks."

"I did not mean really West," he said. "But it's quite some miles. I had
been walking two days--and I'm some walker," he added, with a smile.

"Looking for work, you said?" questioned Ruth, diffident about showing her
interest in the young fellow, yet deeply curious.

"Yes. I've got to support myself some way."

"Haven't you any folks at all, Mr. Jerry?"

"I ain't a 'mister,'" said the youth. "I'm not so much older than you and
your friends."

"You seem a lot older," laughed Ruth, tossing back her hair.

"That's because I have been working most of my life--and I guess livin' in
the woods all the time makes a chap seem old."

"And you've lived in the woods?"

"With my uncle. I can't remember anybody else belongin' to me--not very
well. Pete Tilton is _his_ name. He's been a guide and hunter all his
life. And of late years he got so queer--before they took him away----"

"Took him away?" interrupted Ruth, "What do you mean by that?"

"Why, I'll tell you," said Jerry, slowly. "He got wild towards the last.
It was something about his money and papers that he lost. He kep' 'em in a
box somewhere. There was a landslide at the west end of the island."

"The island? What island?"

"Cliff Island. That's where we lived. Uncle Pete said he owned half the
island, but Rufe Blent cheated him out of it. That's what made him so
savage with Blent, and he come pretty near killin' him. At least, Blent
told it that way.

"So they took poor Uncle Pete into court, and they said he wasn't safe to
be at large, and sent