"Just one thing you might do," remarked Jerry, finally setting her upright upon a flat rock on the side of the stream nearest the hunting camp, and some distance away from the secret entrance to his hide-out.

"Oh! what is that?" cried Ruth, eagerly.

"Find me a pickax, or a mattock, and put it right here on this rock. Do it at night, so no one will see you. Good bye, Miss!" he exclaimed, and hurried away.

In another minute he had disappeared behind the screen of bushes, and Ruth heard the glad shouts of her friends as they came over the ridge and saw her standing safe and sound beside the stream.

CHAPTER XVII

CHRISTMAS MORNING

"How under the sun did you get here, Ruth?" Helen shouted the moment she saw her chum.

"Did that Jerry Sheming bring you?" demanded Ann.

The other members of the party were quite as anxious to learn the particulars of her adventure, and when they had crossed on the stepping stones, they gathered about her eagerly.

Ruth would tell just so much and no more. She explained how she had fallen into the snow-drift at the foot of the cliff, how Jerry had heard her scream and pulled her out. But beyond that she only said he had left her here to wait their coming.

"You needn't be so mysterious, Miss!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Helen, rather piqued.

"I guess she doesn't want to say anything about his hide-out that might lead to his being hunted out by Lem Daggett," observed the wise Tom. "But Jerry signed his name to the note he tied on the arrow."

"And we sure were surprised when we saw that arrow shoot up from the depths," said Isadore.

"What do you suppose mother will say?" cried one of the Tingley boys.

"Don't let's tell her," suggested Ruth, quickly. "There's no need. It will only add to her worries and she will be troubled enough by us as it is."

"But----"

"You see, I'm not a bit hurt," insisted Ruth. "And the less we talk about the matter the less likely we shall be to drop something that may lead to the discovery of Jerry Sheming's hiding place."

"Oh, well, if you put it that way," agreed Ralph. "I suppose mother will have all the trouble she wants. And maybe if she knew, she'd keep you girls away from this end of the island."

They tramped home to a late luncheon. It was so very cold that afternoon and evening that they were only too glad to remain in the house and "hug the fire."

The inclement weather drove Lem Daggett and the men indoors, too. The constable had to go back to Logwood without his prisoner, and he evidently feared the anger of Rufus Blent.

"I want to warn ye, Mis' Tingley," he said to the lady of the lodge, shaking his head, "that when Blent sets out ter do a thing, he does it.

That boy's got to be found, and he's got to be kep' off this island."

"I will see what my husband says when he comes," replied Mrs. Tingley, firmly. "I will not allow our men to chase the poor fellow further."

"You'd better ketch him and signal us at Logwood. Run up that flag on the pole outside. I'll know what you mean."

"Mr. Tingley will decide when he comes," was all the satisfaction the lady gave the constable.

After he had gone, Mrs. Tingley told Ruth she hoped no harm would come to the poor boy, "sleeping out in the cold alone."

"Oh, Mrs. Tingley! I know he has a warm, dry place to sleep, and plenty of firewood--heaps and heaps of it."

"You seem to know a good deal about him," the lady commented.

"Yes, I do," admitted Ruth, honestly. "More about him and where he is hiding than he would care to have me tell you."

So Mrs. Tingley did not catechise the girl further upon the subject of the fugitive.

Just because they were shut in was no reason why the house party on Cliff Island should not have an extraordinarily good time. They played games and had charades that evening. They had a candy pull, too, but unlike that famous one at Snow Camp the winter before, Busy Izzy Phelps did not get a chance to put the walnut sh.e.l.ls into the taffy instead of the kernels.

The wind died down and it grew desperately cold during the night. The mercury soon left the zero point so far above that it threatened to be lost for the rest of the winter.

They awoke the next morning to find the island chained fast to the mainland by old Jack Frost's fetters. A sheet of new ice extended for some hundreds of yards all around Cliff Island. Farther out the ice was of rougher texture, but that near at hand was clear and black.

Out came the skates soon after breakfast, and everybody but Mercy went down to the lake. Later the boys made the lame girl and Mrs. Tingley come, too, and they arranged chairs in which the two non-skaters could be pushed over the smooth surface.

Hockey was the game for the afternoon, and two "sides" were chosen to oppose each other, one of the boys and another of the girls. Although Ann Hicks had never had a hockey stick in her hand before, she quickly got into the game, and they all had a very merry time.

The day before Ruth had not been able to find the implement that Jerry Sheming had spoken about, nor could she find a mattock, or pickax, on this second day. If she went to the toolshed and hunted for the thing herself she was afraid her quest would be observed by some of the men.

She located the place where the tools were kept, but the shed was locked.

However, there was a window, and that window could be easily slid back.

Ruth shrank from attempting to creep in by it.

"Just the same, I told him I'd get it--at least, I told myself I'd get it for him," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "And I will."

Of course, Mrs. Tingley would have allowed her to borrow the tool, but it would have aroused comment had it become known that Jerry wanted it.

"It must be that he really thinks now he knows where his uncle hid the treasure box. He wants to dig for it," was Ruth's thought.

Yet she remembered that Jerry had said all along the old man had seemingly gone mad because his treasure box was buried under a landslide. She asked Mr. Preston, the foreman of the camp, where the landslide had occurred.

"Why, right over yonder, little lady," explained the woodsman. "If the snow wasn't on the ground, you could easy see the scar of it down that hillside," and he pointed to a spot just beyond the secret opening of Jerry's cave.

"The dirt and rock was heaped up so at the foot of the slide that the course of the brook was changed. That slide covered a monster lot of little caves in the rock," pursued the man. "But I expect there's others of 'em left and that Jerry's hidin' out in one now," he added, looking at Ruth with shrewd gaze.

Ruth took him no further into her confidence. She felt that she must have somebody to help her, however, and naturally enough she chose Tom. Helen's twin thought a great deal of Ruth Fielding, and was never ashamed of showing this feeling before the other boys. On her side, Ruth felt that Tom Cameron was just about right.

Nor was she mistaken in him when she placed her difficulty before the lad.

Help her? Of course he would! They agreed to make the raid upon the toolshed that evening when the others were busily filling stockings and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the huge Christmas tree set up in the main hall of the hunting lodge.

Ruth beckoned to her fellow-conspirator and Tom slipped out of the hall by one door while she made the outer air by another. The kitchen girls and the men hired about the camp were all in the big hall watching the fun, or aiding in decorating the lodge. n.o.body saw Ruth and Tom.

It was a very cold evening. There was a hazy moon and brilliant stars, but they did not think anybody would see their efforts to aid Jerry Sheming.