ow did you find your way back here to the island?" Bob demanded
again.

"I ain't going to be beat by Blent," declared Jerry Sheming, doggedly. "I
am going to have another look through the caves before I leave for good,
and don't you forget it.

"The engine on that train yesterday morning broke a piston rod and had to
stop down the lake shore. I hopped off and hid on the far bank, watching
the island. If you folks hadn't come over this way to fish this morning,
I'd been across before the storm began.

"I was pretty well turned around in the storm, and have been traveling a
long time. But I got to the brook at last, and then worked my way up it
and into the other end of this cave. I was going up there after my
lantern----"

"Ruth and the others have it," explained Helen, quickly.

"Then I'll go find them at once. I know my way around pretty well in the
dark. I couldn't get really lost in this cave," and Jerry laughed,
shortly.

"I've got matches if you want them," said Bob.

"Got a plenty, thanks. You folks go back to your friends, and I'll hunt
out Miss Fielding in a jiffy."

Jerry turned away at once, and soon passed out of their sight in the
gloom. As Helen and the others hurried back to the anxious party at the
campfire, Jerry went straightway to the most satisfactory discovery of all
his life.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TREASURE BOX

When Jerry met Ruth and her companions coming slowly from the little cave,
the boys bearing the heavy, ironbound box between them, he knew instantly
what it was--his uncle's chest in which he had kept his money and papers.

"It's yours to hide again if you want to, Jerry," Ruth told him, when the
excitement of the meeting had passed, and explanations were over. "It was
what both you and Rufus Blent have been looking for, and I believe you
have the best right to it"

"It belongs to Uncle Pete. And Uncle Pete shall have it," declared the
backwoods boy. "Why, do you know, I believe if Uncle Pete once had this
box in his possession again that he might recover his mind?"

"Oh, I hope so!" Ruth cried.

First, however, the crowd of young folk had to be led through the long
tunnel and out into the open air. It was agreed that nothing was to be
said to anybody but Mr. Tingley about the treasure box. And the boys and
girls, too, agreed to say nothing at the house about Jerry's having
returned to his cave.

When they reached the brook, there were lights about the island, and gun