ed he is, Ruthie. He won't talk about it."

"About _what?_" demanded Ruth, earnestly.

Aunt Alvirah rose with difficulty from her chair and, with her usual
murmured complaint of "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" went to the door
which led to the passage. Off this passage Uncle Jabez's room opened.
She closed the door and hobbled back to her chair, but halted before
sitting down.

"I never thought to ask ye, deary," she said. "Ye must be very hungry.
Ye ain't had no supper."

"You sit right down there and keep still," said Ruth, smiling as she
removed her coat. "I guess I can find something to eat."

"Well, there's cocoa. You make you a warm drink. There's plenty of
pie and cake--and there's eggs and ham if you want them."

"Don't you fret about me," repeated Ruth.

"What makes you so mussed up?" demanded Aunt Alvirah, the next moment.
"Why, Ruth Fielding! have you been in the water?"

"Yes, ma'am. But you know water doesn't hurt me."

"Dear child! how reckless you are! Did you fall in the lake?"

"No, Aunty. I jumped in," returned the girl, and then told her briefly
about her adventure on the _Lanawaxa_.

"Goodness me! Goodness me!" exclaimed Aunt Alvirah. "Whatever would
your uncle say if he knew about it?"

"And what is the matter with Uncle Jabez?" demanded Ruth, sitting
down at the end of the table to eat her "bite." "You haven't told
me that."

"I 'lowed to do so," sighed the old woman. "But I don't want him
to hear us a-gossipin' about it. You know how Jabez is. I dunno as he
knows _I_ know what I know----"

"That sounds just like a riddle, Aunt Alvirah!" laughed Ruth.

"And I reckon it _is_ a riddle," she said. "I only know from piecin'
this, that, and t'other together; but I reckon I fin'ly got it pretty
straight about the Tintacker Mine--and your uncle's lost a power o'
money by it, Ruthie."

"What's the Tintacker Mine?" demanded Ruth, in wonder.

"It's a silver mine. I dunno where it is, 'ceptin' it's fur out West
and that your uncle put a lot of money into it and he can't git it out."

"Why not?"

"'Cause it's busted, I reckon."

"The mine's 'busted'" repeated the puzzled Ruth.

"Yes. Or so I s'pect. I'll tell ye how it come about. The feller come
along here not long after you went to school last Fall, Ruthie."

"What fellow?" asked Ruth, trying to get at the meat in the nut, for
Aunt Alvirah was very discursive.

"Now, you lemme tell it my own way, Ruthie," admonished the old woman