Part 31 (1/2)
”And how did you get back here to Cliff Island?” asked Bob. ”We understood that you'd been railroaded out of the country.”
”Hold on! hold on!” exclaimed Jerry. ”Let's hear first about Miss Fielding. Where's she gone? How came you folks in this cave?”
Helen was the one who told him. She related all the circ.u.mstances very briefly, but in a way to give Jerry a clear understanding of the situation.
”They've wandered off to the right. I know where they must be,” said Jerry, decidedly. ”I'll go find them. And then I'll get you all out of here. It has almost stopped snowing now.”
”But how did you find your way back here to the island?” Bob demanded again.
”I ain't going to be beat by Blent,” declared Jerry Sheming, doggedly. ”I am going to have another look through the caves before I leave for good, and don't you forget it.
”The engine on that train yesterday morning broke a piston rod and had to stop down the lake sh.o.r.e. I hopped off and hid on the far bank, watching the island. If you folks hadn't come over this way to fish this morning, I'd been across before the storm began.
”I was pretty well turned around in the storm, and have been traveling a long time. But I got to the brook at last, and then worked my way up it and into the other end of this cave. I was going up there after my lantern----”
”Ruth and the others have it,” explained Helen, quickly.
”Then I'll go find them at once. I know my way around pretty well in the dark. I couldn't get really lost in this cave,” and Jerry laughed, shortly.
”I've got matches if you want them,” said Bob.
”Got a plenty, thanks. You folks go back to your friends, and I'll hunt out Miss Fielding in a jiffy.”
Jerry turned away at once, and soon pa.s.sed out of their sight in the gloom. As Helen and the others hurried back to the anxious party at the campfire, Jerry went straightway to the most satisfactory discovery of all his life.
CHAPTER XXV
THE TREASURE BOX
When Jerry met Ruth and her companions coming slowly from the little cave, the boys bearing the heavy, ironbound box between them, he knew instantly what it was--his uncle's chest in which he had kept his money and papers.
”It's yours to hide again if you want to, Jerry,” Ruth told him, when the excitement of the meeting had pa.s.sed, and explanations were over. ”It was what both you and Rufus Blent have been looking for, and I believe you have the best right to it”
”It belongs to Uncle Pete. And Uncle Pete shall have it,” declared the backwoods boy. ”Why, do you know, I believe if Uncle Pete once had this box in his possession again that he might recover his mind?”
”Oh, I hope so!” Ruth cried.
First, however, the crowd of young folk had to be led through the long tunnel and out into the open air. It was agreed that nothing was to be said to anybody but Mr. Tingley about the treasure box. And the boys and girls, too, agreed to say nothing at the house about Jerry's having returned to his cave.
When they reached the brook, there were lights about the island, and guns being fired. The entire household of Tingley Lodge was out on the hunt for the lost ones.
The boys and girls were home and in bed in another hour, and Mrs. Tingley was vastly relieved.
”Never again will I take the responsibility of such a crowd!” declared the hara.s.sed lady. ”My own children are enough; a dozen and a half active young ones like these would send me to the madhouse in another week!”
But the girls from Briarwood and their boy friends continued to have a delightful time during the remainder of their stay at Cliff Island, although their adventures were less strenuous than those that have been related. They went away, in the end, to take up their school duties, p.r.o.nouncing their vacation on the island one of the most enjoyable they had ever experienced.
”Something to keep up our hearts for the rest of the school year,”