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.
"You"re a pretty fellow, you are, Jasper!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, and turned his back upon the fellow. "I can"t leave the station now--Ah!
here"s Doctor Davison. He"ll know what to do."
Doctor Davison came forward and put his hand upon Ruth"s shoulder most kindly. "What is all this?" he asked. "And there is the mastiff. They tell me you are a dog tamer, Miss Fielding."
He listened very closely to what Mr. Curtis had to say, and looked, too, at the smeared handkerchief.
"The dog can find him--no doubt of that. Come, boys, get some lanterns and we"ll go right along to the Wilkins Corners road and search it." Then to Ruth he said: "You are a brave girl, sure enough."
But when the party was ready to start, half a dozen strong, with Parloe trailing on behind, and with lanterns and a stretcher, Reno would not budge. The man called him, but he looked up at Ruth and did not move from her side.
"I declare for"t," exclaimed one man. "That girl will have to go with us, Doctor Davison. You see what the dog means to do."
Ruth spoke to the mastiff, commanded him to leave her and find "Tom."
But although the dog looked at her intelligently enough, and barked his response--a deep, sudden, explosive bark--he refused to start without her.
"It"s a long way for the girl," objected Doctor Davison. "Besides, she is waiting to meet her uncle."
"I am not tired," she told him, quickly. "Remember I"ve been sitting all the afternoon. And perhaps every minute is precious. We don"t know how badly the dog"s master may be hurt. I"ll go. I"m sure I can keep up with you."
Reno seemed to understand her words perfectly, and uttered another short, sharp bark.
"Let us go, then," said Doctor Davison, hurriedly.
So the men picked up their lanterns and the stretcher again. They crossed the tracks and came to a street that soon became a country road. Cheslow did not spread itself very far in this direction. Doctor Davison explained to Ruth that the settlement had begun to grow in the parts beyond the railroad and that all this side of the tracks was considered the old part of the town.
The street lights were soon behind them and they depended entirely upon the lanterns the men carried. Ruth could see very little of the houses they pa.s.sed; but at one spot--although it was on the other side of the road--there were two green lanterns, one on either side of an arched gate, and there seemed to be a rather large, but gloomy, house behind the hedge before which these lanterns burned.
"You will always know my house," Doctor Davison said, softly, and still retaining her hand, "by its green eyes."
So Ruth knew she had pa.s.sed his home, to which he had so kindly invited her. And that made her think for a moment about Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah. Would she find somebody waiting to take her to the Red Mill when she got back to the station?
CHAPTER IV
THE GATE OF THE GREEN EYES
It was a dark lane, beneath overhanging oaks, that met and intertwined their branches from either side--this was the Wilkins Corners road.
And it was very steep and stony--up hill and down dale--with deep ruts in places and other spots where the Spring rains had washed out the gravel and sand and left exposed the very foundations of the world.
It seemed as though no bicyclist, or motor-cyclist would have chosen this road to travel after dark. Yet there was a narrow path at the side--just wide enough for Ruth and Doctor Davison to walk abreast, and Reno to trot by the girl"s side which seemed pretty smooth.
"We don"t want to go by the spot, Doctor," said one of the men walking ahead with the lights. "Don"t the dog show no signs of looking for Tom?"
"Where"s Tom, Reno? Where"s Tom?" asked Ruth, earnestly, believing that the dog would recognize his master"s name.
The mastiff raised his muzzle and barked sharply again, but trotted onward.
"He might have fallen down any of these gullies, and we"d miss him, it"s so dark," observed the previous speaker.