"Didn't know but that he was playing for those 'crazy creeters'—as your Aunt Alvirah would call them, Ruthie—to dance by," went on Tom. "Come on! I've got this thing fixed up so it will hobble along a little farther. Let's take the lane there and go down by the river road, and see what it's all about."
"Good idea, Tommy-boy," agreed Ruth, as she got into the tonneau and sat down beside Helen.
"Fancy! taking moving pictures out in the open in mid-winter," Helen remarked. "Although this is a warm day."
"And no snow on the ground," chimed in Ruth. "Uncle Jabez was saying last evening that he doesn't remember another such open winter along the Lumano."
"Say, Ruthie, how does your Uncle Jabez treat you, now that you are a bloated capitalist?" asked Helen, pinching her chum's arm.
"Oh, Helen! don't," objected Ruth. "I don't feel puffed up at all—only vastly satisfied and content."
"Hear her! who wouldn't?" demanded Tom. "Five thousand dollars in bank—and all you did was to use your wits to get it. We had just as good a chance as you did to discover that necklace and cause the arrest of the old Gypsy," and the young fellow laughed, his black eyes twinkling.
"I never shall feel as though the reward should all have been mine," Ruth said, as Tom prepared to start the car.
"Pooh! I'd never worry over the possession of so much money," said Helen. "Not I! What does it matter how you got it? But you don't tell us what your Uncle Jabez thinks about it."
"I can't," responded Ruth, demurely.