. And I'll see if Belle won't ask her father to give you work at Cliff
Island. Then, in your off time, you can look for that box your uncle
lost. Don't you see?"

"Oh, Miss! I guess that's gone for good. Near as I could make out o' Uncle
Pete, the landslide at the west end of the island buried his treasure box
a mile deep! It was in one o' the little caves, I s'pose."

"Caves? Are there caves on the island?"

"Lots of 'em. Big ones as well as small. If Uncle Pete wasn't plumb crazy,
he had his money and papers in a hide-out that I'd never found."

"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with
'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few
days where you are, Jerry?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."

"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"

"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice
black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."

"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because
she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic
ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.

"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud
of her--them that was in that boat."

"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must
run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."

She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had
gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little
attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going
over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.

"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be
in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on,
Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."

"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make
any difference," growled the western girl.

"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'