"Do you know what's the worst wish I'd wish on My Enemy?"

Ruth looked her astonishment and hesitated to reply. But Mercy did not expect a reply, for she continued quickly:

"I'd wish My Enemy to have to eat every morning for breakfast two soft fried eggs with his best clothes on--that's what I'd wish!"

And this is every word she would say to the visitor while Ruth remained. But Mr. Curtis bade Ruth good-bye very kindly when he hurried away to the station, and Mrs. Curtis urged her to come and see them whenever she came to town after getting settled at the Red Mill.

It was a fresh and lovely morning, although to the weather-wise the haze in the West foredoomed the end of the day to disaster. Ruth felt more cheerful as she crossed the railroad tracks and struck into the same street she had followed with the searching party the evening before. She could not mistake Doctor Davison's house when she pa.s.sed it, and there was a fine big automobile standing before the gate where the two green lanterns were. But there was n.o.body in the car, nor did she see anybody about the doctor's house.

Beyond the doctor's abode the houses were far apart--farther and farther apart as she trudged on. n.o.body noticed or spoke to the girl as she went on with her small bag--the bag that grew heavy, despite its smallness, as she progressed. And so she traveled two miles, or more, along the pleasant road. Then she heard the purring of an automobile behind her--the first vehicle that she had seen since leaving town.

It was the big gray car that had been standing before Doctor Davison's house when she had pa.s.sed, and Ruth would have known the girl who sat at the steering wheel and was driving the car alone, even had Reno, the big mastiff, not sat in great dignity on the seat beside her. For no girl could look so much like Tom Cameron without being Tom Cameron's sister.

And the girl, the moment she saw Ruth on the road, r.e.t.a.r.ded the speed of the machine. Reno, too, lost all semblance of dignity and would not wait for the car to completely stop before bounding into the road and coming to caress her hand.

"I know who you are!" cried the girl in the automobile. "You are Ruth Fielding."

She was a brilliant, black-eyed, vivacious girl, perhaps a year or more older than Ruth, and really handsome, having her brother's olive complexion with plenty of color in cheeks and lips. And that her nature was impulsive and frank there could be no doubt, for she immediately leaped out of the automobile, when it had stopped, and ran to embrace Ruth.

"Thank you! thank you!" she cried. "Doctor Davison has told us all about you--and how brave you are! And see how fond Reno is of you! He knows who found his master; don't you, Reno?"

"Oh, dear me," said Ruth, breathlessly, "Doctor Davison has been too kind. I did nothing at all toward finding your brother--I suppose he is your brother, Miss?"

"How dare you 'Miss' me?" demanded the other girl, hugging her again.

"You're a dear; I knew you must be! And I was running back and intended to stop at the Red Mill to see you. I took father to town this morning, as he had to take an early train to the city, and we wished to see Tom again."

"He--he isn't badly hurt, then--your brother, I mean?" said Ruth, timidly.

"He is going to stay at the doctor's to-day, and then he can come home. But he will carry his arm in a sling for a while, although no bone was broken, after all. His head is badly cut, but his hair will hide that. Poor Tom! he is always falling down, or getting b.u.mped, or something. And he's just as reckless as he can be. Father says he is not to be trusted with the car as much as I am."

"How--how did he come to fall over that bank?" asked Ruth, anxiously.

"Why--it was dark, I suppose. That was the way of it. I don't know as he really told me what made him do such a foolish thing. And wasn't it lucky Reno was along with him?" cried Tom's sister.

"Now, I see you remained in town over night. They thought somebody had come for yon and taken you out to the mill. Is Jabez Potter really your uncle?"

"Yes. He was my mother's uncle. And I have no other relative."

"Well, dear, I am more than sorry for you," declared the girl from the automobile. "And now we will climb right in and I'll take you along to the mill."

But whether she was sorry for Ruth Fielding's friendlessness, or sorry because she was related to Jabez Potter, the young traveler could not decide.

CHAPTER VI

THE RED MILL

"Now, my name's Helen, and you are Ruth," declared Miss Cameron, when she had carefully started the car once more. "We are going to be the very best of friends, and we might as well begin by telling each other all about ourselves. Tom and I are twins and he is an awful tease!

But, then, boys are. He is a good brother generally. We live in the first yellow house on the right--up among the trees--beyond Mr.

Potter's mill--near enough so that we can run back and forth and see each other just lots."

Ruth found herself warmly drawn toward this vivacious miss. Nor was she less frank in giving information about herself, her old home, in Darrowtown, that she still wore black for her father, and that she had been sent by her friends to Uncle Jabez because he was supposed to be better able to take care of and educate her. Helen listened very earnestly to the tale, but she shook her head at the end of it.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Ruthie.

But Jabez Potter isn't liked very well by people in general, although I guess he is a good miller. He is stingy--"

"I must say it. He isn't given to kind actions, and I am surprised that he should have agreed to take and educate you. Of course, he didn't have to."

"I don't suppose he did have to," Ruth said, slowly. "And it wasn't as though I couldn't have remained in Darrowtown. But Miss True Pettis--"

"Miss True?" repeated Helen, curiously.

"Short for Truthful. Her name is Rechelsea Truthful Tomlinson Pettis and she is the dearest little old spinster lady--much nicer than her name."

"Well!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the amazed Helen.

"Miss True isn't rich. Indeed, she is very poor. So are Patsy Hope's folks--Patsy is really Patricia, but that's too long for her. And all the other folks that knew me about Darrowtown had a hard time to get along, and most of them had plenty of children without taking another that wasn't any kin to them," concluded Ruth, who was worldly wise in some things, and had seen the harder side of life since she had opened her eyes upon this world.

"But your uncle is said to be a regular miser," declared Helen, earnestly. "And he is so gruff and grim! Didn't your friends know him?"

"I guess they never saw him, or heard much about him," said Ruth, slowly. "I'm sure I never did myself."

"But don't you be afraid," said the other, warmly. "If he isn't good to you there are friends enough here to look out for you. I know Doctor Davison thinks you are very brave, and Daddy will do anything for you that Tom and I ask him to."

"I am quite sure I shall get on nicely with Uncle Jabez," she said.

"And then, there is Aunt Alvirah."

"Oh, yes. There is an old lady who keeps house for Mr. Potter. And she seems kind enough, too. But she acts afraid of Mr. Potter. I don't blame her, he is so grim."

The automobile, wheeling so smoothly over the hard pike, just then was mounting a little hill. They came over the summit of this and there, lying before them, was the beautiful slope of farming country down to the very bank of the Lumano River. Fenced fields, tilled and untilled, checkered the slope, with here and there a white farmhouse with its group of outbuildings. There was no hamlet in sight, merely scattered farms. The river, swollen and yellow with the Spring rains, swept upon its bosom fence rails, hen-coops, and other flotsam of a Spring flood.

Yonder, at a crossing, part of the bridge had been carried away.

"If the dam at Minturn goes, we shall be flooded all through this low land again," Helen Cameron explained. "I remember seeing this valley covered with water once during the Spring. But we live on the shoulder of Mount Burgoyne, and you see, even the mill sets on quite high ground."

Ruth's eyes had already seen and lingered upon the mill. It was a rambling structure, the great, splashing millwheel at the far end, the long warehouse in the middle, and the dwelling attached to the other end. There were barns, corn-cribs and other outbuildings as well, and some little tillable land connected with the mill; and all the buildings were vividly painted with red mineral paint, trimmed with white. So bright and sparkling was the paint that it seemed to have been put on over night.

"Mr. Potter is considered a good miller," said Helen, again; "and he does not neglect his property. He is not miserly in that way. There isn't a picket off the fence, or a hinge loose anywhere. He isn't at all what you consider a miser must be and look like; yet he is always h.o.a.rding money and never spends any. But indeed I do not tell you this to trouble you, Ruthie. I want you to believe, my dear, that if you can't stand it at Mr. Potter's you can stand it at Mr. Cameron's--and you'll be welcome there.

"Our mother is dead. We talk of her a good deal, just as though she were living and had gone on a little journey somewhere, and we should see her again soon. G.o.d took her when Tom and I were only a few weeks old; but Daddy has made himself our playfellow and dear, dear friend; and there has always been Nurse Babette and Mrs. Murchiston--at least, Mrs. Murchiston has been with us since we can remember. But what Daddy says is law, and he said this morning that he'd like to have a girl like you come to our house to be company for me. It gets lonely for me sometimes, you see, for Tom doesn't want to play with girls much, now he is so big. Perhaps next fall I'll go away to boarding school--won't that be fun?"

"It will be fun for you, I hope, Helen," said Ruth, with rather a wistful smile. "I don't know where I shall go to school."

"There is your uncle now!" exclaimed Miss Cameron. "See that man in the old dusty suit?"

Ruth had already seen the tall, stoop-shouldered figure, who looked as though he had been powdered with flour, coming down the short path from one of the open doors of the mill to the road, where a little, one horse wagon stood. He bore a bag of meal or flour on his shoulder which he pitched into the wagon. The man on the seat was speaking as the automobile came to a stop immediately behind the wagon.

"Jefers pelters! Ef there's one thing yeou know how to do, it's to take toll, Jabe. Let the flour be poor, or good, there's little enough of it comes back to the man that raises the wheat."

"You don't have to bring your wheat here, Jasper Parloe," said the miller, in a strong, harsh voice. "There is no law compels ye."