The day had begun brightly enough, but now it seemed about as dismal in the house as the shower was making it outside. Twice Jack thought of joining Ruth on the piazza, to smooth out the difficulty between them, but for some reason could not bring himself to do it.
“She’s got Sedley in her mind,” he told himself bitterly. “For all I know, she may hope he won.” Yet even as he thought this another thought came that perhaps he was doing Ruth an injustice.
When developed, it was found that Martha’s film had been completely ruined by the man who had jumped up in front of her when she snapped it. But those taken by Ruth and Mary, as well as by Fred and Randy, were fairly clear. But all of the pictures were rather small and none of them could be judged clearly in the dim red light of the developing pantry.
“We’ll have to dry them and get prints from them before we can be sure of what they show,” declared Fred; and then this rather tedious process was begun.
After the race Jack Ness had ridden over to Dexter’s Corners to get the mail. Now he came back with a handful of letters which were distributed to the young people.
“Here is something that you fellows will be interested in,” declared Fred, as he read a letter from his father. “Dad says old Josiah Crabtree is out of jail again.”
“Out of jail again?” cried Jack. “I thought he was let out of jail some years ago!”
“So he was,” answered Randy. “But I guess you’ve forgotten that he was put in again on account of some irregularities in connection with selling some stock in a fake university out in St. Louis.”
“Do you suppose old Crabtree will try to make trouble for our folks?” went on Fred.
“It’s more than likely,” answered Jack. He and his cousins had learned a great deal concerning this ex-teacher who had done so much harm to the older Rovers in the past.