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"Only since yeou was knocked down that bank inter the gully, an' yer arm an' head hurt. There warn't nothin' about Jabe ter interest yeou afore that," returned Parloe, quickly. Tom flushed suddenly and he looked at the old fellow with new interest. "Just what do you mean?" he asked, slowly. "Ye know well enough. Your dad, Tom Cameron, is mighty riled up over your bein' hurt.
Just before leaving all signs of civilization behind, Tom had pointed out a shanty and several outbuildings on a high hillock overlooking the road, and told the girls that that was where Jasper Parloe lived, all alone. "I came up here fishing with some of the other fellows once, and Jasper tried to drive us out of the glen. Said he owned it. Likely story! He won't trouble us to-day."
Don't you touch his nasty things, Tom," advised Helen, turning away. But Ruth still stared at the hidden hollow in the tree and suddenly she darted forward and knelt where Parloe had knelt. "What are you going to do, Ruth?" demanded her chum. "I want to see that box I must see it!" cried the girl from the Red Mill. "Hold on!" said Tom. "I'll get it for you. You'll get your dress dirty."
The spot where the boy was hurt must have been five miles from the Red Mill, and not even on the Osago Lake turnpike, on which highway she had been given to understand the Red Mill stood. Not many moments more and the little procession was at the gateway, on either side of which burned the two green lamps. Jasper Parloe, who had been relieved, shuffled off into the darkness.
"Well, I really believe, Tommy Cameron!" cried his sister Helen, when he overtook the girls and Reno, swinging the basket recklessly, "that you are developing a love for low company. I don't see how you can bear to talk with that Jasper Parloe."
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.
But you weren't too scared to grab this box when you ran. And you must have hidden it under your coat as you left the mill. I am going to tell my uncle all about it and how we saw you down the hill yonder, looking at this very box before you thrust it back in its hiding place." Jasper Parloe grew enraged rather than frightened by this threat. "Tell!" he barked. "You tell what ye please.
"Why I dunno," said the mill hand, puckering his brows. "Think!" she commanded again. "Why why old Jep Parloe drove up for a grinding." "He's not a stranger." "Oh, yes he is, Ruthie. Me nor Mr. Potter ain't seen him before for nigh three months. Your uncle up and said to him, 'Why, you're a stranger, Mr. Parloe."
"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.
"They've done enough altogether too much. We will stop this intimacy right here and now. At least, you will not go to their house, Ruth. Do as I tell you go in to your Aunt Alviry." Then, as the weeping girl turned away, she heard him say, even more harshly than he had spoken to her: "I don't want anything to do with people who are hand and glove with that Jasper Parloe.
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