And so Ruth Fielding was sitting on her own trunk, with her bag in her
lap, and the great mastiff lying on the floor of the baggage car
beside her, when the train slowed down and stopped beside the Cheslow
platform. She had not expected to arrive just in this way at her
journey's end.

CHAPTER III

WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

The baggage-car door was wheeled wide open again and the lamps on the
platform shone in. There was the forward brakeman to "jump" her down
from the high doorway, and Reno, with the little red light still hung
to his collar, bounded after her.

The conductor bustled away to tell the station master about the dog
with the red light, and of the word scrawled on the cloth which Ruth
had found wound around his collar. Indeed, Ruth herself was very
anxious and very much excited regarding this mystery; but she was
anxious, too, about herself. Was Uncle Jabez here to meet her? Or had
he sent somebody to take her to the Red Mill? He had been informed by
Miss True Pettis the week before on which train to expect his niece.

Carrying her bag and followed dejectedly by the huge mastiff, Ruth
started down the long platform. The conductor ran out of the station,
signalled the train crew with his hand, and lanterns waved the length
of the train. Panting, with its huge springs squeaking, the locomotive
started the string of cars. Faster and faster the train moved, and
before Ruth reached the pent-house roof of the little brick station,
the tail-lights of the last car had passed her.