Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp | Page 7

this point. "Do you think your folks are trying to find
you?"
"I--I don't know," stammered the lad.
This was about all his questioner was able to get out of him.
"You'll be cared for here to-night--I'll speak to Mr. Potter," said Mr.
Cameron. "And in the morning I'll decide what's to be done with you."
"Why, Dad! we're going----"
Tom had begun this speech when his father warned him with a look to
be still.
"You'll be all right here," pursued Mr. Cameron, cheerfully. "Aunt
Alviry and Ruth will look after you. Why! I wouldn't want better nurses
if I was sick."
"But I'm not sick," said Fred Hatfield, as the little old woman hobbled
in with a steaming bowl. His eyes were wolfish when he saw the gruel,
however.
"No, you're not so sick but that a good, square meal would be your best
medicine, I'll be bound," cried the gentleman, laughing.
He went out to the mill then and was gone some moments; when he
returned he called Helen and Tom to come with him quickly to the car.
"Remember and be ready as early as nine o'clock, Ruth!" called Helen,
looking back as she climbed into the automobile.
When her friends had bowled away up the frozen road, Ruth came back
into the kitchen. Aunt Alvirah was still in the bedroom with their

strange guest. Of a sudden the girl's eye caught sight of the newspaper
clipping laid on the window sill to dry.
Mr. Cameron had placed the old wallet belonging to Fred Hatfield's
father on the table when he came out of the bedroom. Now Ruth picked
it up, found it dry, and went to the window to replace the clipping in it.
It was the most natural thing in the world for Ruth to glance at the slip
of paper when she picked it up. There is nothing secret about a
newspaper clipping; it was no infringement of good manners to read
the article.
And read it Ruth did when she had once seen the heading--she read it
all through with breathless attention. Her rosy face paled as she came to
the conclusion, and she glanced suddenly toward the bedroom as she
heard Aunt Alvirah's voice again.
Dropping the old wallet on the table, Ruth folded the clipping and
hastily thrust it into the bosom of her frock. She did not dare face the
old woman when she appeared, but kept her back turned until she was
sure the color had returned to her cheeks. And all the time she helped
Aunt Alvirah get supper, Ruth was very, very silent.
CHAPTER IV
THE MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOR OF FRED HATFIELD
Uncle Jabez Potter came in from the mill after a time. He was a gaunt,
gray-faced man, who seldom smiled, and whose stern, rugged
countenance had at first almost frightened Ruth whenever she looked at
it. But she had fortunately gotten under the crust of Mr. Potter's manner
and learned that there was something better there than the harsh surface
the miller turned to all the world.
Uncle Jabez hoarded money for the pleasure of hoarding it; but he had
been generous to Ruth, having put her at one of the best boarding
schools in the State. He could be charitable at times, too; Aunt Alvirah
could testify to that fact. So could a certain little lame friend of Ruth
Fielding, Mercy Curtis, who was attending Briarwood Hall as the result

of the combined charity of Uncle Jabez and Dr. Davison, of Cheslow.
But it is said that "charity begins at home"; when charity begins in a
man's very bed, that seems a little too near! At least, so Mr. Potter
thought.
"What's this I hear about a vagabond boy in my bed, Aunt Alviry?" he
demanded, when he came in.
"The poor child!" said the old woman. "Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!
Come in and see him, Jabez," she urged, hobbling toward the passage.
"No. Who is he? What is he here for? That Cameron talks so fast I
never can get the rights of what he's saying till afterward. Says the boy
belongs up there where he wants to take Ruth to-morrow?"
"He has run away from his home at Scarboro, Uncle," said Ruth.
"Young villain! A widder's son, too!" said her uncle.
"He says his father is dead," said Ruth, hesitating.
"I venture to say!" exclaimed Jabez Potter. "And he's in my bed; is he?"
He came back to this as being a reason for objection.
"Now, now, Jabez," said Aunt Alvirah, soothingly. "He ain't hurted the
bed. He was wet--the coat frozen right on him--when they brought him
in. I had to git him atween blankets jest as quick as I could. And your
bedroom isn't so cold as the rooms