CHAPTER VII—WHAT TOM CAMERON SAW
Of course, Ruth was not at all sure that she could do anything for Sadie Raby if she found her. Perhaps, as Helen said, she was fond of shouldering other people’s burdens.
It did seem to the girl of the Red Mill as though it were a very dreadful thing for Sadie to be wandering about the country all alone, and without means to feed herself, or get anything like proper shelter.
In her secret heart Ruth was thinking that she might have been as wild and neglected if Uncle Jabez, with all his crankiness, had not taken her in and given her a home at the Red Mill.
They stopped and saw Ruth’s old school teacher and then, it being past mid-afternoon, Helen turned the headlights of the car toward home again. As the machine slid so smoothly along the road toward the Lumano and the Red Mill, Ruth suddenly uttered a cry and pointed ahead. A huge dog had leaped out of a side road and stood, barring their way and barking.
“Reno! dear old fellow!” Ruth said, as Helen shut off the power. “He knows us.”
“Tom must be near, then. That’s the Wilkins Corner road,” Helen observed.
As the car came to a halt and the big mastiff tried to jump in and caress the girls with his tongue—poor fellow! he knew no better, though Helen scolded him—Ruth stood up and shouted for her friend’s twin brother.
“Tom! Tom! A rescue! a rescue! We’re being eaten up by a great four-legged beast—get down, Reno! Oh, don’t!”
She fell back in her seat, laughing merrily, and keeping the big dog off with both hands. A cheery whistle came from the wood. Reno started and turned to look. He had had his master back for only a day, but Tom’s word was always law to the big mastiff.