Part 2 (1/2)
A short, bullet-headed old man, with close-cropped, whitish-yellow hair, atop of which was a boy's baseball cap, his face smoothly shaven and deeply lined, and the stain of tobacco at either corner of his mouth, was standing on the platform. He was not a nice looking old man at all, he was dressed in shabby and patched garments, and his little eyes seemed so sly that they were even trying to hide from each other on either side of a hawksbill nose.
He began to eye Ruth curiously as the girl approached, and she, seeing that he was the only person who gave her any attention, jumped to the conclusion that this was Uncle Jabez. The thought shocked her. She instinctively feared and disliked this queer looking old man. The lump in her throat that would not be swallowed almost choked her again, and she winked her eyes fast to keep from crying.
She would, in her fear and disappointment, have pa.s.sed the old man by without speaking had he not stepped in front of her.
”Where d'ye wanter go, Miss?” he whined, looking at her still more sharply out of his narrow eyes. ”Yeou be a stranger here, eh?”
”Yes, sir,” admitted Ruth.
”Where are you goin'?” asked the man again, and Ruth had enough Yankee blood in her to answer the query by asking:
”Are you Mr. Jabez Potter?”
”Me Jabez Potter? Why, ef I was Jabe Potter I'd be owing myself money, that's what I'd be doin'. You warn't never lookin' for Jabe Potter?”
Much relieved, Ruth admitted the fact frankly. ”He is my uncle, sir,”
she said. ”I am going to live at the Red Mill.”
The strange old man puckered up his lips into a whistle, and shook his head, eyeing her all the time so slily that Ruth was more and more thankful that he had not proven to be Uncle Jabez.
”Do you know Mr. Potter?” she asked, undecided what to do.
”Do I know Jabe Potter?” repeated the man. ”Well, I don't know much good of him, I a.s.sure ye! I worked for him onct, I did. And I tell ye he owes me money yet. You ax him if he don't owe Jasper Parloe money-- you jest ax him!”
He began to get excited and did not seem at all inclined to step out of Ruth's path. But just then somebody spoke to her and she turned to see the station master and two or three other men with him.
”This is the girl Mr. Mason spoke to me about, isn't it?” the railroad man asked. ”The conductor of the express, I mean. He said the dog would mind you.”
”He seems to like me,” she replied, turning to the mastiff that had stood all this time close to her.
”That is Tom Cameron's dog all right,” said one of the other men. ”And that lantern is off his motorcycle, I bet anything! He went through town about dark on that contraption, and I shouldn't wonder if he's got a tumble.”
Ruth showed the station master, whose name was Curtis, the bit of handkerchief with the appeal for help traced upon it.
”That is blood,” she said. ”You see it's blood, don't you? Can't somebody take Reno and hunt for him? He must be very badly hurt.”
”Mason said he expected it was nothing but some fool joke of the boys.
But it doesn't look like a joke to me,” Mr. Curtis said, gravely.
”Come, Parloe, you know that patch of woods well enough, over beyond the swamp and Hiram Jennings' big field. Isn't there a steep and rocky road down there, that shoots off the Osago Lake pike?”
”The Wilkins Corners road--yep,” said the old man, snappishly.
”Then, can't you take the dog and see if you can find young Tom?”
”Who's going to pay me for it?” snarled Jasper Parloe. ”I ain't got no love for them Camerons. This here Tom is as sa.s.sy a boy as there is in this county.”
”But he may be seriously hurt,” said Ruth, looking angrily at Jasper Parloe.
”'Tain't nothin' to me--no more than your goin' out ter live with Jabe Potter ain't nothin' to me,” responded the old man, with an ugly grin.