As the school year draws to a close, Ruth and her friends plan a trip to Lighthouse Point with Jennie "Heavy" Stone. Mary Cox makes a point of telling Heavy that she has been slighted and that only members of Ruth's club are invited to go on the trip. At Ruth's insistence and under the other girls' protests, Heavy invites Mary along on the trip.

On the way home after the last day of school, Mary Cox slips and falls off the boat into the water. Ruth saves Mary, who cannot swim, from drowning. Mary snubs Ruth and refuses to thank her. Later, Ruth returns to the Red Mill and finds that Uncle Jabez has lost a large sum of money by investing it in an old mine out west. Uncle Jabez feels that he cannot afford to send Ruth back to Briarwood Hall for a second year. Ruth leaves for Lighthouse Point with this unpleasant thought uppermost in her thoughts.

During their stay at Lighthouse Point, a girl named Nita is rescued from a sinking ship. It turns out that Nita has run away from a western ranch, and her real name is Jane Hicks. Before Ruth and her friends leave Lighthouse Point, Jane Hicks is reunited with her uncle, and the Hickses invite Ruth and her friends out to Silver Ranch on a vacation.