CHAPTER XXV
AT THE OLD RED MILL AGAIN
The mist hovered over the river as though loth to uncover the dimpling current; yet the rising sun was insistent—its warm, soft September rays melting the jealous mist and uncovering, rod by rod, the sleeping stream. Ruth, fresh from her bed and looking out of the little window of her old room at the Red Mill farmhouse, thought that, after all, the scene was quite as soothing and beautiful as any of the fine landscapes she had observed during her far-western trip.
For the Briarwood Hall girls were back from their sojourn at Silver Ranch. They had arrived the night before. Montana, and the herds of cattle, and the vast canons and far-stretching plains, would be but a memory to them hereafter. Their vacation on the range was ended, and in another week Briarwood Hall would open again and lessons must be attended to.
Jane Ann Hicks would follow them East in time to join the school the opening week. Ruth looked back upon that first day at school a year ago when she and Helen Cameron had become "Infants" at Briarwood. They would make it easier for Jane Ann, remembering so keenly how strange they had felt before they attained the higher classes.
The last of the mist rolled away and the warm sun revealed all the river and the woods and pastures beyond. Ruth kissed her hand to it and then, hearing a door close softly below-stairs, she hurried her dressing and ran down to the farmhouse kitchen. The little, stooping figure of an old woman was bent above the stove, muttering in a sort of sing-song refrain:
"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
"Then let somebody else save your back and bones, Aunt Alviry!" cried Ruth, putting her arms around the old housekeeper's neck. "There! how good it is to see you again. Sit right down there. You are to play lady. I am going to get the breakfast."
"But your Uncle Jabez wants hot muffins, my pretty," objected Aunt Alvirah.
"And don't you suppose anybody can make muffins but you?" queried Ruth, blithely. "I made 'em out to Silver Ranch. Maria, the Mexican cook, taught me. Even Uncle Jabez will like them made by my recipe—now you see if he doesn't."
And the miller certainly praised the muffins—by eating a full half dozen of them. Of course, he did not say audibly that they were good.
And yet, Uncle Jabez had a much more companionable air about him than he had ever betrayed before—at least, within the knowledge of Ruth Fielding. He smiled—and that not grimly—as the girl related some of her experiences during her wonderful summer vacation.
"It was a great trip—and wonderful," she sighed, finally. "Of course, the last of it was rather spoiled by Mary Cox's brother being so ill. And the doctors found, when they got the better of the fever, that his head had been hurt some months before, and that is why he had wandered about there, without writing East—either to his folks or to you, Uncle Jabez. But he's all right now, and Mary expects to bring him home from Denver, where he stopped over, in a few days. She'll be home in time for the opening of school, at least," and here Ruth's voice halted and her face changed color, while she looked beseechingly at Uncle Jabez.
The miller cleared his throat and looked at her. Aunt Alvirah stopped eating, too, and she and Ruth gazed anxiously at the flint-like face of the old man.
"I got a letter from that lawyer at Bullhide, Montana, two days ago, Niece Ruth," said Uncle Jabez, in his harsh voice. "He has been going over the Tintacker affairs, and he has proved up on that young Cox's report. The young chap is as straight as a string. The money he got from me is all accounted for. And according to the assayers the new vein Cox discovered will mill as high as two hundred dollars to the ton of ore. If we work it as a stock company it will make us money; but young Cox being in such bad shape physically, and his finances being as they are, we'll probably decide to sell out to a syndicate of Denver people. Cox will close the contract with them before he comes East, it may be, and on such terms," added Uncle Jabez with a satisfaction that he could not hide, "that it will be the very best investment I ever made."
"Oh, Uncle!" cried Ruth Fielding.
"Yes," said Uncle Jabez, with complacency. "The mine is going to pay us well. Fortunately you was insistent on finding and speaking to young Cox. If you had not found him—and if he had not recovered his health—it might have been many months before I could have recovered even the money I had put into the young man's scheme. And—so he says—you saved his life, Ruthie."
"That's just talk, Uncle," cried the girl. "Don't you believe it. Anybody would have done the same."
"However that may be, and whether it is due to you in any particular that I can quickly realize on my investment," said the miller, rising suddenly from the table, "circumstances are such now that there is no reason why you shouldn't have another term or two at school—if you want to go."
"Want to go to Briarwood! Oh, Uncle!" gasped Ruth.
"Then I take it you do want to go?"
"More than anything else in the world!" declared his niece, reverently.
"Wall, Niece Ruth," he concluded, with his usual manner. "If your Aunt Alviry can spare ye"
"Don't think about me, Jabez, don't think about me," cried the little old woman. "Just what my pretty wants—that will please her Aunt Alviry."
Ruth ran and seized the hard hand of the miller before he could get out of the kitchen. "Oh, Uncle!" she cried, kissing his hand. "You are good to me!"
"Nonsense, child!" he returned, roughly, and went out.
Ruth turned to the little old woman, down whose face the tears were coursing unreproved.
"And you, too, Auntie! You are too good to me! Everybody is too good to me! Look at the Camerons! and Jennie Stone! and all the rest. And Mary Cox just hugged me tight when we came away and said she loved me—that I had saved her brother's life. And Mr. Bill Hicks—and Jimsey and the other boys. And Bashful Ike and Sally made me promise that if ever I could get out West again I should spend a long time at their home
"Oh, dear, me Aunt Alvirah," finished the girl of the Red Mill, with a tearful but happy sigh, "this world is a very beautiful place after all, and the people in it are just lovely!"
There were many more adventures in store for Ruth, and what some of them were will be related in the next volume of this series, to be entitled: "Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island; Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box," in which will be related the particulars of a most surprising mystery.
"Only one Ruthie!" mused old Jabez. "Only one, but she's quite a gal—yes, quite a gal!"
And we agree with him; don't we, reader?
THE END