price for it. I have spent a good many thousand dollars in improvements
already. I'll protect myself and my investment if I can--and meanwhile
I'll do what I can for your friend, Jerry Sheming, too.

"They've got the boy away from the vicinity for the time being, but I
reckon he'll find his way back. You think so, too, Miss Fielding?"

"If he understands that we are trying to help him. And--yes!--I believe he
will come back anyway, for he is very anxious to find that treasure box
his Uncle Peter lost."

"Oh--as to that--Well, there may be something in it. But Pete Tilton was
really insane. I saw him myself. The asylum is the place for him, poor
man," concluded Mr. Tingley.

Ruth felt in secret very much worried over Jerry's disappearance. When she
once became interested in anybody, as Helen said, "she was interested all
the way through."

The others could laugh a little about how the crafty real estate agent had
fooled Mr. Tingley and gotten Jerry out of the way, but not Ruth. She
could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of what might have happened
to the ill-used youth.

But she tried to hide her anxiety from her companions the next morning
when plans were made for a fishing trip. All but Mercy joined in this
outing. They went on snowshoes to the far end of the island, keeping on
the beach under the huge cliffs, to a little cove where they would be
sheltered and where the fishing was supposed to be good.

Preston, the foreman, went with them. He and the boys dragged a bobsled
well laden with the paraphernalia considered necessary for fishing through
the ice.

First the holes were cut--thirteen of them. Then, near each hole, and on
the windward side, two stakes were set about four feet apart and a square
of canvas lashed between them for a wind-break. A folding campstool had
been brought for each fisherman and "fishergirl," and there were a lot of
old sacks for the latter, especially, to put under their feet as they
watched the "bobbers" in the little pool of water befor