Dropping the pickaxe, Ruth gained possession of the shovel and threw aside the loose earth. Yes! there was some object hidden there--some "treasure" which she desired to see.

In a few moments, becoming impatient of the shovel, she cast it aside and stooping, with her feet planted firmly in the muddy earth, she groped in the hole with both hands.

Before she dragged the object into sight Ruth Fielding was positive by its shape and the feel of it, of the nature of the object. As she rose up at last, firmly grasping the object, a sharp voice said behind her:

"Well, now that you've interfered and found it, suppose you hand it over to me. You haven't any business with that vase, you know!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE END OF A PERFECT YEAR

Helen Cameron came running over the hill and down the sloppy path through the grove. When she reached the Stone Face where Ruth and the strange girl were standing, she cried:

"What _is_ the matter with you, Ruthie Fielding? Come on over to the boat. Miss Mallory sent me after you.... Why! who's this?"

"Don't you remember this girl, Helen?" asked Ruth, seriously.

"Why! it's the girl who was camping in the snow, isn't it?" said Helen, curiously eyeing the stranger. "How-do?"

But the other was not pleased to allow the situation to develop into merely a well-bred meeting of three former acquaintances. She did not vouchsafe Helen a glance, but said, directing her words toward Ruth:

"I want that vase. It doesn't belong to you."

"Goodness, Ruthie!" put in her chum, for the first time seeing the object in Ruth's hands. "What is that thing?"

"I just dug it up here. It is the Egyptian vase taken from the Ardmore library last year I believe."

"It doesn't matter where it came from. I want it," cried the strange girl, and she stepped forward quickly as though to seize the muddy vase.

But Helen sprang forward and pushed her back.

"Hold on! I guess if Ruth's got it, you'll have to wait and prove property," said Helen. "How about it, Ruth?"

"She must tell us all about it," said Ruth, firmly. "Perhaps I may let her have it--if she tells us the truth."

"The truth!" exclaimed Helen.

"I won't tell you a thing!" cried the strange girl. "You haven't any right to that vase."

"Nor have you," Ruth told her.

"Well----"

"Nor has Margaret Rolff," went on Ruth, coolly. "I take it you are acting for her, aren't you?"

"Why," cried Helen, beginning to understand. "That is the girl who left Ardmore last year?"

"And came to the Red Mill after spending the summer at a camp on the Lumano and helped Aunt Alvirah," Ruth added, with a smile.

"Well, I never! Not Maggie?" demanded Helen.

"I think I am right," Ruth said quietly. "Am I not?" to the other girl.

"Our Maggie is Margaret Rolff, and _you_ must be her sister. At least, you look enough like her to be some relative."

The other made a gesture of resignation and dropped her hands. "I might as well confess it," she admitted. "You are Ruth Fielding, and Margy told me long ago you might be trusted."

"And this is my particular friend, Helen Cameron," Ruth said, "who is to be fully trusted, too."

"I suppose so," said the girl. "My name is Betty. I'm Margy's younger sister. Poor Margy. She never was very strong. I mean that she was always giving in to other people--was easily confused.

"She's bright enough, you know," pursued the other girl, warmly; "but she is nervous and easily put out. What those girls did to her last year at this college was a shame!"

Another hail from behind the hill warned Ruth that she must attend Miss Mallory's command or there would be trouble.

"We cannot wait to hear it all, Miss--Betty, did you say your name was?

Where are you staying?"

"I have been working in Greenburg all winter. We're poor girls and have no parents. Margy is with me now," said the girl. "And I want that vase.

I want it for Margy. She will never be satisfied until she can give it back to the dean of the college herself and explain how she came to hide it, and then forgot where she hid the vase."

"Tell me where to find you in Greenburg," said Ruth, hastily. "No! I'll not let you have the vase now. I will not show it to anybody else, however, and we'll come over to town this evening and bring it with us, and talk with Maggie."

"Oh, Miss Fielding----"

"That must satisfy you," said Ruth, firmly; and Betty Rolff had to be satisfied with this promise. She told the chums where she and Margaret were staying and then Ruth and Helen ran back to their friends, Ruth concealing the hastily wiped silver vase under the loose front of her blouse.

"Goodness!" she said to Helen, "I hope n.o.body will see it. Do I bulge _much_?"

There was so much excitement among the crew of the freshman eight, however, that Ruth's treasure-trove was not discovered. Under Miss Mallory's direction they launched the sh.e.l.l again, climbed aboard, and made a safe pa.s.sage to the dock.

A notice was put up that very evening, however, to the effect that none of the racing sh.e.l.ls were to be taken out unless the launch was manned and went with the frailer craft.

The students of Ardmore were allowed to leave the college grounds in the evening if they were properly chaperoned. And when Ruth went to Miss Cullam and explained a little of what was afoot, the mathematics instructor was only too glad to act in the capacity of chaperon.

Helen had telephoned for a car, and the three rode down to Greenburg immediately after dinner. Ruth carried the recovered vase, just as she had dug it out of the hole by the Stone Face on Bliss Island, wrapped in a paper. She had not had time either to clean it or to examine it more thoroughly.

They easily found the boarding house, the address of which Betty Rolff had given to Ruth. It was a respectable place, but was far from sumptuous. It was evident, as Ruth had been previously informed, that the Rolff girls were not very well off in this world's goods.

When the visitors climbed to the second floor bedroom where the sisters were lodged, Miss Cullam took the lead, walked straight in, seized Margaret Rolff in her arms and implanted a kiss upon the pale cheek of the girl who had for so many months been Aunt Alvirah's a.s.sistant at the Red Mill.

"You poor girl!" said the mathematics teacher. "What you must have been through! Now, I am delighted to see you again, and you must tell me all about it--how you came to take the vase, and bury it, and all."

There was a good deal of talk on both sides before all this that Miss Cullam asked was explained. But the facts were made clear at last.