a murmur from the injured boy.

"Hullo!" said one of the men. "He's a-talkin', ain't he?"

"Jest mutterin'," said Parloe, who was at Tom's head. "'Tain't nothi

But Ruth heard the murmur of the unconscious boy, and the words
startled her. They were:

"It was Jabe Potter-- he did it! It was Jabe Potter-- he did it!"

What did they mean? Or, was there no meaning at all to the muttering
of the wounded boy? Ruth saw that Parloe was looking at her in his sly
and disagreeable way, and she knew that he, too, had heard the words.

"It was Jabe Potter-- he did it!" Was it an accusation referring to
the boy's present plight? And how could her Uncle Jabez-- the relative
she had not as yet seen-- be the cause of Tom Cameron's injury? 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.
Reno after one pleading look into the face of the hesitating Ruth,
followed the stretcher on which his master lay, in at the gate.

And Ruth Fielding, beginning again to feel most embarrassed and