Helen found time for a little private investigation; but it was not until she and Ruth were on the way home to Cheslow in the parlor car that she related her meager discoveries to her chum.
"What did you ever learn about Edie Phelps?" Helen asked.
"Well, I didn't forget. The mystery piques me, as the story writers say," laughed Helen. "Do you know that her father is an awfully rich man?"
"Why, no. Edith doesn't make a point of telling everybody perhaps," returned Ruth, smiling.
"No; she doesn't. You've got to hand it to her for that. But, then, to blow about one's wealth is about as crude a thing as one can do, isn't it?"
"Well, what about Edith's father?" asked Ruth, curiously.
"Nothing particular. Only he is one of our 'captains of industry' that the Sunday papers tell about. Makes oodles of money in mines, so I was told. Edith has no mother. She had a brother----"
"Oh! is he dead?" cried Ruth, with sympathy.
"Perhaps he'd better be. He was rusticated from his college last year. It was quite a scandal. His father disowned him and he disappeared. Edith felt awfully, May says."
"Why, of course, it's too bad," grumbled Helen. "But that doesn't help us find out why Edie is so much interested in our going to Yucca; nor how she comes to be in correspondence with anybody in that far, far western town. What do you think it means, Ruthie?"
"I haven't the least idea," declared the girl of the Red Mill, shaking her head.
Mr. Cameron met the chums _en route_, and the next morning they arrived at Seven Oaks in time to see Tom receive his diploma from the military and preparatory school. Tom, black-eyed and as handsome in his way as Helen was in hers, seemed to have interest only in Ruth.
"Goodness me! that boy's got a regular crush on you, Ruthie!" exclaimed Helen, exasperated. "Did you ever see the like?"
"Dear Tom!" sighed Ruth Fielding. "He was the very first friend--of my own age, I mean--that I found in Cheslow when I went there. I _have_ to be good to Tommy, you know."
"But he's only a boy!" cried the twin sister, feeling herself to be years older than her brother after spending so many months at college.
"He was born the same day you were," laughed Ruth.
"That makes no difference. Boys are never as wise or as old as girls----"