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diff --git a/23116-h/23116-h.htm b/23116-h/23116-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8d9306 --- /dev/null +++ b/23116-h/23116-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6645 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ruth Fielding Down East, by Alice B. Emerson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + .indent { margin-left: 14%; margin-right: 14%; } + .ralign {position: absolute; right: 22%;} + + .books { margin-top: 1em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-size: 1.2em; + } + + .small { font-size: smaller; + text-align: center; + } + + h1 { text-align: center; + clear: both; + font-size: 3.5em; + letter-spacing: .5em; + } + + h1.pg { text-align: center; + clear: both; + font-size: 200%; + letter-spacing: 0em; + } + + h5 { text-align: center; + clear: both; + font-size: 2.3em; + } + + h6 { text-align: center; + clear: both; + font-size: 1.2em; + } + + h2,h3 { text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + .line { width: 72%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + a { text-decoration: none; } + + .pagenum { visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bbox {border: thick double} + + .centerbox { width: 60%; + margin: 0 auto; + text-align: center; + padding: 2em; } + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1a {display: block; margin-left: .5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ruth Fielding Down East, by Alice B. Emerson</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Ruth Fielding Down East</p> +<p> Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point</p> +<p>Author: Alice B. Emerson</p> +<p>Release Date: October 20, 2007 [eBook #23116]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by David Edwards, Anne Storer, D. Alexander,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;"> +<img src="images/imgfrontis.jpg" width="387" height="600" alt="Tom cast aside his sweater" title="" /> +<span class="caption">TOM CAST ASIDE HIS SWEATER<br /> +AND PLUNGED INTO THE TIDE.<br /><br /> +<em>Ruth Fielding Down East <a href="#Page_113">Page 113</a></em></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>Ruth Fielding<br /> +Down East</h1> + +<h2>OR</h2> + +<h2>THE HERMIT OF<br /> +BEACH PLUM POINT</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<h2>BY<br /> +ALICE B. EMERSON</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong><span class="smcap">Author of “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” “Ruth</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Fielding at Sunrise Farm,” “Ruth Fielding</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Homeward Bound,” Etc.</span></strong></p> + +<p> </p> + +<h6><em>ILLUSTRATED</em></h6> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h6>NEW YORK</h6> +<h2>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY</h2> +<h6>PUBLISHERS</h6> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="centerbox bbox"> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 237px;"> +<img src="images/books.jpg" width="237" height="35" alt="Books for Girls" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2>BY ALICE B. EMERSON</h2> + +<h6>RUTH FIELDING SERIES</h6> + +<p class="center">12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</p> + +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND</p> +<p class="books">RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York.</span></p> +</div> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1920, By</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Cupples & Leon Company</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Ruth Fielding Down East</span></p> +<p class="small">Printed in U. S. A.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="14" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr> <td align='right'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td> <td align='left'></td> <td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#I">I.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Wind Storm</span></td> <td align='right'>1</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#II">II.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Mystery of It</span></td> <td align='right'>7</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#III">III.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Derelict</span></td> <td align='right'>14</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Crying Need</span></td> <td align='right'>22</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#V">V.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Off at Last</span></td> <td align='right'>29</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td> <td align='left'>“<span class="smcap">The Nevergetovers</span>”</td> <td align='right'>35</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Movie Stunts</span></td> <td align='right'>43</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Auction Block</span></td> <td align='right'>52</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Dismaying Discovery</span></td> <td align='right'>67</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#X">X.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Wild Afternoon</span></td> <td align='right'>77</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mr. Peterby Paul—and “Whosis”</span></td> <td align='right'>86</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alongshore</span></td> <td align='right'>95</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Hermit</span></td> <td align='right'>104</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Quotation</span></td> <td align='right'>113</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Amazing Situation</span></td> <td align='right'>122</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ruth Solves One Problem</span></td> <td align='right'>129</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">John, the Hermit’s, Contribution</span></td> <td align='right'>136</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Uncertainties</span></td> <td align='right'>144</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Counterclaims</span></td> <td align='right'>152</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Grill</span></td> <td align='right'>159</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Hermit for Revenue Only</span></td> <td align='right'>171</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Arrival</span></td> <td align='right'>180</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Trouble—Plenty</span></td> <td align='right'>186</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">About “Plain Mary”</span></td> <td align='right'>193</td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='right'><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lifting the Curtain</span></td> <td align='right'>199</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 1]</span><a name="I" id="I"></a></p> +<h5>RUTH FIELDING<br /> +DOWN EAST</h5> + +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE WIND STORM</strong></p> + + +<p>Across the now placidly flowing Lumano where it widened into almost the +proportions of a lake just below the picturesque Red Mill, a bank of +tempestuous clouds was shouldering into view above the sky line of the +rugged and wooded hills. These slate-colored clouds, edged with pallid +light, foredoomed the continuance of the peaceful summer afternoon.</p> + +<p>Not a breath of air stirred on the near side of the river. The huge old +elms shading the Red Mill and the farmhouse connected with it belonging to +Mr. Jabez Potter, the miller, were like painted trees, so still were they. +The brooding heat of midday, however, had presaged the coming storm, and +it had been prepared for at mill and farmhouse. The tempest was due soon.</p> + +<p>The backyard of the farmhouse—a beautiful lawn of short grass—sloped +down to the river. On the bank and over the stream itself was set a +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 2]</span> +summer-house of fair proportions, covered with vines—a cool and shady +retreat on the very hottest day of midsummer.</p> + +<p>A big robin redbreast had been calling his raucous weather warning from +the top of one of the trees near the house; but, with her back to the +river and the coming storm, the girl in the pavilion gave little heed to +this good-intentioned weather prophet.</p> + +<p>She did raise her eyes, however, at the querulous whistle of a striped +creeper that was wriggling through the intertwined branches of the +trumpet-vine in search of insects. Ruth Fielding was always interested in +those busy, helpful little songsters.</p> + +<p>“You cute little thing!” she murmured, at last catching sight of the +flashing bird between the stems of the old vine. “I wish I could put <em>you</em> +into my scenario.”</p> + +<p>On the table at which she was sitting was a packet of typewritten sheets +which she had been annotating, and two fat note books. She laid down her +gold-mounted fountain pen as she uttered these words, and then sighed and +pushed her chair back from the table.</p> + +<p>Then she stood up suddenly. A sound had startled her. She looked all about +the summer-house—a sharp, suspicious glance. Then she tiptoed to the door +and peered out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 3]</span> +The creeper fluttered away. The robin continued to shout his warning. Had +it really been a rustling in the vines she had heard? Was there somebody +lurking about the summer-house?</p> + +<p>She stepped out and looked on both sides. It was then she saw how +threatening the aspect of the clouds on the other side of the river were. +The sight drove from her thoughts for the moment the strange sound she had +heard. She did not take pains to look beneath the summer-house on the +water side.</p> + +<p>Instead, another sound assailed her ears. This time one that she could not +mistake for anything but just what it was—the musical horn of Tom +Cameron’s automobile. Ruth turned swiftly to look up the road. A dark +maroon car, long and low-hung like a racer, was coming along the road, +leaving a funnel of dust behind it. There were two people in the car.</p> + +<p>The girl beside the driver—black-haired and petite—fluttered her +handkerchief in greeting when she saw Ruth standing by the summer-house. +At once the latter ran across the yard, over the gentle rise, and down to +the front gate of the Potter farmhouse. She ran splendidly with a free +stride of untrammeled limbs, but she held one shoulder rather stiffly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ruth!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Helen!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 4]</span> +The car was at the gate, and Tom brought it to a prompt stop. Helen, his +twin sister, was out of it instantly and almost leaped into the bigger +girl’s arms.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Oh! Oh!” sobbed Helen. “You <em>are</em> alive after all that horrible +experience coming home from Europe.”</p> + +<p>“And you are alive and safe, dear Helen,” responded Ruth Fielding, quite +as deeply moved.</p> + +<p>It was the first time they had met since separating in Paris a month +before. And in these times of war, with peace still an uncertainty, there +were many perils to fear between the port of Brest and that of New York.</p> + +<p>Tom, in uniform and with a ribbon and medal on his breast, grinned +teasingly at the two girls.</p> + +<p>“Come, come! Break away! Only twenty seconds allowed in a clinch. Don’t +Helen look fine, Ruth? How’s the shoulder?”</p> + +<p>“Just a bit stiff yet,” replied the girl of the Red Mill, kissing her chum +again.</p> + +<p>At this moment the first sudden swoop of the tempest arrived. The tall +elms writhed as though taken with St. Vitus’s dance. The hens began to +screech and run to cover. Thunder muttered in the distance.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear me!” gasped Ruth, paling unwontedly, for she was not by nature +a nervous girl. “Come right into the house, Helen. You could +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 5]</span> not get to +Cheslow or back home before this storm breaks. Put your car under the +shed, Tom.”</p> + +<p>She dragged her friend into the yard and up the warped flag stones to the +side door of the cottage. A little old woman who had been sitting on the +porch in a low rocking chair arose with difficulty, leaning on a cane.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!” murmured Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was not +long out of a sick bed herself and would never again be as “spry” as she +once had been. “Do come in, dearies. It is a wind storm.”</p> + +<p>Ruth stopped to help the little old woman. She continued pale, but her +thought for Aunt Alvirah’s comfort caused her to put aside her own fear. +The trio entered the house and closed the door.</p> + +<p>In a moment there was a sharp patter against the house. The rain had begun +in big drops. The rear door was opened, and Tom, laughing and shaking the +water from his cap, dashed into the living room. He wore the insignia of a +captain under his dust-coat and the distinguishing marks of a very famous +division of the A. E. F.</p> + +<p>“It’s a buster!” he declared. “There’s a paper sailing like a kite over +the roof of the old mill——”</p> + +<p>Ruth sprang up with a shriek. She ran to the back door by which Tom had +just entered and tore it open.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 6]</span> +“Oh, do shut the door, deary!” begged Aunt Alvirah. “That wind is ’nough +to lift the roof.”</p> + +<p>“What <em>is</em> the matter, Ruth?” demanded Helen.</p> + +<p>But Tom ran out after her. He saw the girl leap from the porch and run +madly down the path toward the summer-house. Back on the wind came a +broken word or two of explanation:</p> + +<p>“My papers! My scenario! The best thing I ever did, Tom!”</p> + +<p>He had almost caught up to her when she reached the little pavilion. The +wind from across the river was tearing through the summer-house at a +sixty-mile-an-hour speed.</p> + +<p>“Oh! It’s gone!” Ruth cried, and had Tom not caught her she would have +dropped to the ground.</p> + +<p>There was not a scrap of paper left upon the table, nor anywhere in +the place. Even the two fat notebooks had disappeared, and, too, the +gold-mounted pen the girl of the Red Mill had been using. All, all seemed +to have been swept out of the summer-house.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 7]</span><a name="II" id="II"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE MYSTERY OF IT</strong></p> + +<p>For half a minute Tom Cameron did not know just what to do for Ruth. Then +the water spilled out of the angry clouds overhead and bade fair to drench +them.</p> + +<p>He half carried Ruth into the summer-house and let her rest upon a bench, +sitting beside her with his arm tenderly supporting her shoulders. Ruth +had begun to sob tempestuously.</p> + +<p>Ruth Fielding weeping! She might have cried many times in the past, but +almost always in secret. Tom, who knew her so well, had seen her in +dangerous and fear-compelling situations, and she had not wept.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” he demanded. “What have you lost?”</p> + +<p>“My scenario! All my work gone!”</p> + +<p>“The new story? My goodness, Ruth, it couldn’t have blown away!”</p> + +<p>“But it has!” she wailed. “Not a scrap of it left. My notebooks—my pen! +Why!” and she<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 8]</span> +suddenly controlled her sobs, for she was, after all, an +eminently practical girl. “Could that fountain pen have been carried away +by the windstorm, too?”</p> + +<p>“There goes a barrel through the air,” shouted Tom. “That’s heavier than a +fountain pen. Say, this is some wind!”</p> + +<p>The sound of the dashing rain now almost drowned their voices. It sprayed +them through the porous shelter of the vines and latticework so that they +could not sit on the bench.</p> + +<p>Ruth huddled upon the table with Tom Cameron standing between her and the +drifting mist of the storm. She looked across the rain-drenched yard to +the low-roofed house. She had first seen it with a home-hungry heart when +a little girl and an orphan.</p> + +<p>How many, many strange experiences she had had since that time, which +seemed so long ago! Nor had she then dreamed, as “Ruth Fielding of the Red +Mill,” as the first volume of this series is called, that she would lead +the eventful life she had since that hour.</p> + +<p>Under the niggard care of miserly old Jabez Potter, the miller, her great +uncle, tempered by the loving kindness of Aunt Alvirah Boggs, the miller’s +housekeeper, Ruth’s prospects had been poor indeed. But Providence moves +in mysterious ways. Seemingly unexpected chances had +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 9]</span>broadened Ruth’s +outlook on life and given her advantages that few girls in her sphere +secure.</p> + +<p>First she was enabled to go to a famous boarding school, Briarwood Hall, +with her dearest chum, Helen Cameron. There she began to make friends and +widen her experience by travel. With Helen, Tom, and other young friends, +Ruth had adventures, as the titles of the series of books run, at Snow +Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at Sunrise +Farm, with the Gypsies, in Moving Pictures, and Down in Dixie.</p> + +<p>With the eleventh volume of the series Ruth and her chums, Helen Cameron +and Jennie Stone, begin their life at Ardmore College. As freshmen their +experiences are related in “Ruth Fielding at College; Or, The Missing +Examination Papers.” This volume is followed by “Ruth Fielding in the +Saddle; Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold,” wherein Ruth’s first big +scenario is produced by the Alectrion Film Corporation.</p> + +<p>As was the fact with so many of our college boys and girls, the World War +interfered most abruptly and terribly with Ruth’s peaceful current of +life. America went into the war and Ruth into Red Cross work almost +simultaneously.</p> + +<p>In “Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross; Or, Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam,” the +Girl of the Red Mill gained a very practical experience in the work of the +great peace organization which does so much +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 10]</span> to smooth the ravages of war. +Then, in “Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt for the Lost +Soldier,” the Red Cross worker was thrown into the very heart of the +tremendous struggle, and in northern France achieved a name for courage +that her college mates greatly envied.</p> + +<p>Wounded and nerve-racked because of her experiences, Ruth was sent home, +only to meet, as related in the fifteenth volume of the series, “Ruth +Fielding Homeward Bound; Or, A Red Cross Worker’s Ocean Perils,” an +experience which seemed at first to be disastrous. In the end, however, +the girl reached the Red Mill in a physical and mental state which made +any undue excitement almost a tragedy for her.</p> + +<p>The mysterious disappearance of the moving picture scenario, which had +been on her heart and mind for months and which she had finally brought, +she believed, to a successful termination, actually shocked Ruth Fielding. +She could not control herself for the moment.</p> + +<p>Against Tom Cameron’s uniformed shoulder she sobbed frankly. His arm stole +around her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t take on so, Ruthie,” he urged. “Of course we’ll find it all. Wait +till this rain stops——”</p> + +<p>“It never blew away, Tom,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Why, of course it did!”</p> + +<p>“No. The sheets of typewritten manuscript +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 11]</span> were fastened together with a +big brass clip. Had they been lose and the wind taken them, we should have +seen at least some of them flying about. And the notebooks!”</p> + +<p>“And the pen?” murmured Tom, seeing the catastrophe now as she did. “Why, +Ruthie! Could somebody have taken them all?”</p> + +<p>“Somebody must!”</p> + +<p>“But who?” demanded the young fellow. “You have no enemies.”</p> + +<p>“Not here, I hope,” she sighed. “I left them all behind.”</p> + +<p>He chuckled, although he was by no means unappreciative of the seriousness +of her loss. “Surely that German aviator who dropped the bomb on you +hasn’t followed you here.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk foolishly, Tom!” exclaimed the girl, getting back some of her +usual good sense. “Of course, I have no enemy. But a thief is every honest +person’s enemy.”</p> + +<p>“Granted. But where is the thief around the Red Mill?”</p> + +<p>“I do not know.”</p> + +<p>“Can it be possible that your uncle or Ben saw the things here and rescued +them just before the storm burst?”</p> + +<p>“We will ask,” she said, with a sigh. “But I can imagine no reason for +either Uncle Jabez or<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 12]</span> +Ben to come down here to the shore of the river. +Oh, Tom! it is letting up.”</p> + +<p>“Good! I’ll look around first of all. If there has been a skulker +near——”</p> + +<p>“Now, don’t be rash,” she cried.</p> + +<p>“We’re not behind the German lines now, Fraulein Mina von Brenner,” and he +laughed as he went out of the summer-house.</p> + +<p>He did not smile when he was searching under the house and beating the +brush clumps near by. He realized that this loss was a very serious matter +for Ruth.</p> + +<p>She was now independent of Uncle Jabez, but her income was partly derived +from her moving picture royalties. During her war activities she had been +unable to do much work, and Tom knew that Ruth had spent of her own means +a great deal in the Red Cross work.</p> + +<p>Ruth had refused to tell her friends the first thing about this new story +for the screen. She believed it to be the very best thing she had ever +originated, and she said she wished to surprise them all.</p> + +<p>He even knew that all her notes and “before-the-finish” writing was in the +notebooks that had now gone with the completed manuscript. It looked more +than mysterious. It was suspicious.</p> + +<p>Tom looked all around the summer-house. Of course, after this hard +downpour it was impossible<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 13]</span> +to mark any footsteps. Nor, indeed, did the +raider need to leave such a trail in getting to and departing from the +little vine-covered pavilion. The sward was heavy all about it save on the +river side.</p> + +<p>The young man found not a trace. Nor did he see a piece of paper anywhere. +He was confident that Ruth’s papers and notebooks and pen had been removed +by some human agency. And it could not have been a friend who had done +this thing.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 14]</span><a name="III" id="III"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE DERELICT</strong></p> + +<p>“Didn’t you find anything, Tom?” Ruth Fielding asked, as Helen’s twin +re-entered the summer-house.</p> + +<p>His long automobile coat glistened with wet and his face was wind-blown. +Tom Cameron’s face, too, looked much older than it had—well, say a year +before. He, like Ruth herself, had been through much in the war zone +calculated to make him more sedate and serious than a college +undergraduate is supposed to be.</p> + +<p>“I did not see even a piece of paper blowing about,” he told her.</p> + +<p>“But before we came down from the house you said you saw a paper blow over +the roof like a kite.”</p> + +<p>“That was an outspread newspaper. It was not a sheet of your manuscript.”</p> + +<p>“Then it all must have been stolen!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“At least, human agency must have removed the things you left on this +table,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 15]</span> +“Now, now, Ruth! It’s tough, I know——”</p> + +<p>But she recovered a measure of her composure almost immediately. Unnerved +as she had first been by the disaster, she realized that to give way to +her trouble would not do the least bit of good.</p> + +<p>“An ordinary thief,” Tom suggested after a moment, “would not consider +your notes and the play of much value.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose not,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“If they are stolen it must be by somebody who understands—or thinks he +does—the value of the work. Somebody who thinks he can sell a moving +picture scenario.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom!”</p> + +<p>“A gold mounted fountain pen would attract any petty thief,” he went on to +say. “But surely the itching fingers of such a person would not be tempted +by that scenario.”</p> + +<p>“Then, which breed of thief stole my scenario, Tom?” she demanded. “You +are no detective. Your deductions suggest two thieves.”</p> + +<p>“Humph! So they do. Maybe they run in pairs. But I can’t really imagine +two light-fingered people around the Red Mill at once. Seen any tramps +lately?”</p> + +<p>“We seldom see the usual tramp around here,” said Ruth, shaking her head. +“We are too far off the railroad line. And the Cheslow constables keep +them moving if they land <em>there</em>.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 16]</span> +“Could anybody have done it for a joke?” asked Tom suddenly.</p> + +<p>“If they have,” Ruth said, wiping her eyes, “it is the least like a joke +of anything that ever happened to me. Why, Tom! I couldn’t lay out that +scenario again, and think of all the details, and get it just so, in a +year!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ruth!”</p> + +<p>“I mean it! And even my notes are gone. Oh, dear! I’d never have the heart +to write that scenario again. I don’t know that I shall ever write +another, anyway. I’m discouraged,” sobbed the girl suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ruth! don’t give way like this,” he urged, with rather a boyish fear +of a girl’s tears.</p> + +<p>“I’ve given way already,” she choked. “I just feel that I’ll never be able +to put that scenario into shape again. And I’d written Mr. Hammond so +enthusiastically about it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Then he knows all about it!” said Tom. “That is more than any of us +do. You wouldn’t tell us a thing.”</p> + +<p>“And I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know the subject, or the title, or +anything about it. I tell you, Tom, I had <em>such</em> a good idea——”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve got the idea yet, haven’t you? Cheer up! Of course you can do +it over.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose,” demanded Ruth quickly, “this thief that has got my manuscript +should offer it to some<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 17]</span> +producer? Why! if I tried to rewrite it and bring +it out, I might be accused of plagiarizing my own work.”</p> + +<p>“Jimminy!”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t dare,” said Ruth, shaking her head. “As long as I do not know +what has become of the scenario and my notes, I will not dare use the idea +at all. It is dreadful!”</p> + +<p>The rain was now falling less torrentially. The tempest was passing. Soon +there was even a rift in the clouds in the northwest where a patch of blue +sky shone through “big enough to make a Scotchman a pair of breeches,” as +Aunt Alvirah would say.</p> + +<p>“We’d better go up to the house,” sighed Ruth.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go right around to the neighbors and see if anybody has noticed a +stranger in the vicinity,” Tom suggested.</p> + +<p>“There’s Ben! Do you suppose he has seen anybody?”</p> + +<p>A lanky young man, his clothing gray with flour dust, came from the back +door of the mill and hastened under the dripping trees to reach the porch +of the farmhouse. He stood there, smiling broadly at them, as Ruth and Tom +hurriedly crossed the yard.</p> + +<p>“Good day, Mr. Tom,” said Ben, the miller’s helper. Then he saw Ruth’s +troubled countenance. “Wha—what’s the matter, Ruthie?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 18]</span>“Ben, I’ve lost something.”</p> + +<p>“Bless us an’ save us, no!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have. Something very valuable. It’s been stolen.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it!”</p> + +<p>“But I do! Some manuscript out of the summer-house yonder.”</p> + +<p>“And her gold-mounted fountain pen,” added Tom. “That would tempt +somebody.”</p> + +<p>“My goodness!”</p> + +<p>Ben could express his simple wonderment in a variety of phrases. But he +seemed unable to go beyond these explosive expressions.</p> + +<p>“Ben, wake up!” exclaimed Ruth. “Have you any idea who would have taken +it?”</p> + +<p>“That gold pen, Ruthie? Why—why—— A thief!”</p> + +<p>“Old man,” said Tom with suppressed disgust, “you’re a wonder. How did you +guess it?”</p> + +<p>“Hush, Tom,” Ruth said. Then: “Now, Ben, just think. Who has been around +here to-day? Any stranger, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“Why—I dunno,” said the mill hand, puckering his brows.</p> + +<p>“Think!” she commanded again.</p> + +<p>“Why—why——old Jep Parloe drove up for a grinding.”</p> + +<p>“He’s not a stranger.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes he is, Ruthie. Me nor Mr. Potter ain’t +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 19]</span> seen him before for nigh +three months. Your uncle up and said to him, ‘Why, you’re a stranger, Mr. +Parloe.’”</p> + +<p>“I mean,” said Ruth, with patience, “anybody whom you have never seen +before—or anybody whom you might suspect would steal.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” drawled Ben stubbornly, “your uncle, Ruthie, says old Jep ain’t +any too honest.”</p> + +<p>“I know all about that,” Ruth said. “But Parloe did not leave his team and +go down to the summer-house, did he?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!”</p> + +<p>“Did you see anybody go down that way?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t believe I did—savin’ you yourself, Ruthie.”</p> + +<p>“I left a manuscript and my pen on the table there. I ran out to meet Tom +and Helen when they came.”</p> + +<p>“I seen you,” said Ben.</p> + +<p>“Then it was just about that time that somebody sneaked into that +summer-house and stole those things.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t see anybody snuck in there,” declared Ben, with more confidence +than good English.</p> + +<p>“Say!” ejaculated Tom, impatiently, “haven’t you seen any tramp, or +straggler, or Gypsy—or anybody like that?”</p> + +<p>“Hi gorry!” suddenly said Ben, “I do remember. There was a man along here +this morning<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 20]</span> +—a preacher, or something like that. Had a black frock coat +on and wore his hair long and sort o’ wavy. He was shabby enough to be a +tramp, that’s a fact. But he was a real knowledgeable feller—he was that. +Stood at the mill door and recited po’try for us.”</p> + +<p>“Poetry!” exclaimed Tom.</p> + +<p>“To you and Uncle Jabez?” asked Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Uh-huh. All about ‘to be or not to be a bean—that is the question.’ And +something about his having suffered from the slung shots and bow arrers of +outrageous fortune—whatever that might be. I guess he got it all out of +the Scriptures. Your uncle said he was bugs; but I reckoned he was a +preacher.”</p> + +<p>“Jimminy!” muttered Tom. “A derelict actor, I bet. Sounds like a +Shakespearean ham.”</p> + +<p>“Goodness!” said Ruth. “Between the two of you boys I get a very strange +idea of this person.”</p> + +<p>“Where did he go, Ben?” Tom asked.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t watch him. He only hung around a little while. I think he axed +your uncle for some money, or mebbe something to eat. You see, he didn’t +know Mr. Potter.”</p> + +<p>“Not if he struck him for a hand-out,” muttered the slangy Tom.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ben! don’t you know whether he went toward Cheslow—or where?” cried +Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Does it look probable to you,” Tom asked, +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 21]</span> “that a derelict +actor—— Oh, Jimminy! Of course! <em>He</em> would be just the person to +see the value of that play script at a glance!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom!”</p> + +<p>“Have you no idea where he went, Ben?” Tom again demanded of the puzzled +mill hand.</p> + +<p>“No, Mister Tom. I didn’t watch him.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll get out the car at once and hunt all about for him,” Tom said +quickly. “You go in to Helen and Aunt Alvirah, Ruth. You’ll be sick if +you let this get the best of you. I’ll find that miserable thief of a ham +actor—if he’s to be found.” He added this last under his breath as he ran +for the shed where he had sheltered his automobile.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 22]</span><a name="IV" id="IV"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE CRYING NEED</strong></p> + +<p>Tom Cameron chased about the neighborhood for more than two hours in +his fast car hunting the trail of the man who he had decided must be a +wandering theatrical performer. Of course, this was a “long shot,” Tom +said; but the trampish individual of whom Ben had told was much more +likely to be an actor than a preacher.</p> + +<p>Tom, however, was able to find no trace of the fellow until he got to the +outskirts of Cheslow, the nearest town. Here he found a man who had seen a +long-haired fellow in a shabby frock coat and black hat riding toward the +railroad station beside one of the farmers who lived beyond the Red Mill. +This was following the tempest which had burst over the neighborhood at +mid-afternoon.</p> + +<p>Trailing this information farther, Tom learned that the shabby man had +been seen about the railroad yards. Mr. Curtis, the railroad station +master, had observed him. But suddenly the tramp had disappeared. Whether +he had hopped<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 23]</span> +Number 10, bound north, or Number 43, bound south, both of +which trains had pulled out of Cheslow within the hour, nobody could be +sure.</p> + +<p>Tom returned to the Red Mill at dusk, forced to report utter failure.</p> + +<p>“If that bum actor stole your play, Ruth, he’s got clear way with it,” Tom +said bluntly. “I’m awfully sorry——”</p> + +<p>“Does that help?” demanded his sister snappishly, as though it were +somewhat Tom’s fault. “You go home, Tom. I’m going to stay with Ruthie +to-night,” and she followed her chum into the bedroom to which she had +fled at Tom’s announcement of failure.</p> + +<p>“Jimminy!” murmured Tom to the old miller who was still at the supper +table. “And we aren’t even sure that that fellow did steal the scenario.”</p> + +<p>“Humph!” rejoined Uncle Jabez. “You’ll find, if you live to be old enough, +young feller, that women folks is kittle cattle. No knowing how they’ll +take anything. That pen cost five dollars, I allow; but them papers only +had writing on ’em, and it does seem to me that what you have writ once +you ought to be able to write again. That’s the woman of it. She don’t say +a thing about that pen, Ruthie don’t.”</p> + +<p>However, Tom Cameron saw farther into the mystery than Uncle Jabez +appeared to. And after a day or two, with Ruth still “moping about like +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 24]</span> a +moulting hen,” as the miller expressed it, the young officer felt that he +must do something to change the atmosphere of the Red Mill farmhouse.</p> + +<p>“Our morale has gone stale, girls,” he declared to his sister and Ruth. +“Worrying never did any good yet.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a true word, Sonny,” said Aunt Alvirah, from her chair. “‘Care +killed the cat.’ my old mother always said, and she had ten children to +bring up and a drunken husband who was a trial. He warn’t my father. He +was her second, an’ she took him, I guess, ’cause he was ornamental. He +was a sign painter when he worked. But he mostly advertised King Alcohol +by painting his nose red.</p> + +<p>“We children sartain sure despised that man. But mother was faithful to +her vows, and she made quite a decent member of the community of that man +before she left off. And, le’s see! We was talkin’ about cats, warn’t we?”</p> + +<p>“You were, Aunty dear,” said Ruth, laughing for the first time in several +days.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah!” said Tom, plunging head-first into his idea. “That’s just what I +wanted to hear.”</p> + +<p>“What?” demanded Helen.</p> + +<p>“I have wanted to hear Ruth laugh. And we all need to laugh. Why, we are +becoming a trio of old fogies!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 25]</span> +“Speak for yourself, Master Tom,” pouted his sister.</p> + +<p>“I do. And for you. And certainly Ruth is about as cheerful as a funeral +mute. What we all need is some fun.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom, I don’t feel at all like ‘funning,’” sighed Ruth.</p> + +<p>“You be right, Sonny,” interjected Aunt Alvirah, who sometimes forgot that +Tom, as well as the girls, was grown up. She rose from her chair with her +usual, “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! You young folks should be dancing +and frolicking——”</p> + +<p>“But the war, Auntie!” murmured Ruth.</p> + +<p>“You’ll neither make peace nor mar it by worriting. No, no, my pretty! And +’tis a bad thing when young folks grow old before their time.”</p> + +<p>“You’re always saying that, Aunt Alvirah,” Ruth complained. “But how can +one be jolly if one does not feel jolly?”</p> + +<p>“My goodness!” cried Tom, “you were notoriously the jolliest girl in that +French hospital. Didn’t the <em>poilus</em> call you the jolly American? And +listen to Grandmother Grunt now!”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it is so,” sighed Ruth. “But I must have used up all my fund of +cheerfulness for those poor <em>blessés</em>. It does seem as though the font of +my jollity had quite dried up.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 26]</span> +“I wish Heavy Stone were here,” said Helen suddenly. “<em>She’d</em> make us +laugh.”</p> + +<p>“She and her French colonel are spooning down there at Lighthouse Point,” +scoffed Ruth—and not at all as Ruth Fielding was wont to speak.</p> + +<p>“Say!” Tom interjected, “I bet Heavy is funny even when she is in love.”</p> + +<p>“<em>That’s</em> a reputation!” murmured Ruth.</p> + +<p>“They are not at Lighthouse Point. The Stones did not go there this +summer, I understand,” Helen observed.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry for Jennie and Colonel Marchand if they are at the Stones’ +city house at this time of the year,” the girl of the Red Mill said.</p> + +<p>“Bully!” cried Tom, with sudden animation. “That’s just what we will do!”</p> + +<p>“What will we do, crazy?” demanded his twin.</p> + +<p>“We’ll get Jennie Stone and Henri Marchand—he’s a good sport, too, as I +very well know—and we’ll all go for a motor trip. Jimminy Christmas! that +will be just the thing, Sis. We’ll go all over New England, if you like. +We’ll go Down East and introduce Colonel Marchand to some of our +hard-headed and tight-fisted Yankees that have done their share towards +injecting America into the war. We will——”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Ruth, breaking in with some small enthusiasm, “let’s go to +Beach Plum Point.”</p> + +<p>“Where is that?” asked Helen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 27]</span> +“It is down in Maine. Beyond Portland. And Mr. Hammond and his company are +there making my ‘Seaside Idyl.’”</p> + +<p>“Oh, bully!” cried Helen, repeating one of her brother’s favorite phrases, +and now quite as excited over the idea as he. “I do so love to act in +movies. Is there a part in that ‘Idyl’ story for me?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot promise that,” Ruth said. “It would be up to the director. I +wasn’t taking much interest in this particular picture. I wrote the +scenario, you know, before I went to France. I have been giving all my +thought to——</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear! If we could only find my lost story!”</p> + +<p>“Come on!” interrupted Tom. “Let’s not talk about that. Will you write to +Jennie Stone?”</p> + +<p>“I will. At once,” his sister declared.</p> + +<p>“Do. I’ll take it to the post office and send it special delivery. Tell +her to wire her answer, and let it be ‘yes.’ We’ll take both cars. Father +won’t mind.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>but</em>!” cried Helen. “How about a chaperon?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shucks! I wish you’d marry some nice fellow, Sis, so that we’d always +have a chaperon on tap and handy.”</p> + +<p>She made a little face at him. “I am going to be old-maid aunt to your +many children, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 28]</span> +Tommy-boy. I am sure you will have a full quiver. We will +have to look for a chaperon.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Kate!” exclaimed Ruth. “Heavy’s Aunt Kate. She is just what Helen +declares she wants to be—an old-maid aunt.”</p> + +<p>“And a lovely lady,” cried Helen.</p> + +<p>“Sure. Ask her. Beg her,” agreed Tom. “Tell her it is the crying need. We +have positively got to have some fun.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose we may as well,” Ruth sighed, in agreement.</p> + +<p>“Yes. We have always pampered the boy,” declared Helen, her eyes +twinkling. “I know just what I’ll wear, Ruthie.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ve clothes enough,” admitted the girl of the Red Mill rather +listlessly.</p> + +<p>“Shucks!” said Tom again. “Never mind the fashions. Get that letter +written, Sis.”</p> + +<p>So it was agreed. Helen wrote, the letter was sent. With Jennie Stone’s +usual impulsiveness she accepted for herself and “<em>mon Henri</em>” and Aunt +Kate, promising to be at Cheslow within three days, and all within the +limits of a ten-word telegram!</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 29]</span><a name="V" id="V"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>OFF AT LAST</strong></p> + +<p>“The ancients,” stated Jennie Stone solemnly, “burned incense upon any and +all occasions—red letter days, labor days, celebrating Columbus Day and +the morning after, I presume. But we moderns burn gasoline. And, phew! I +believe I should prefer the stale smoke of incense in the unventilated +pyramids of Egypt to this odor of gas. O-o-o-o, Tommy, do let us get +started!”</p> + +<p>“You’ve started already—in your usual way,” he laughed.</p> + +<p>This was at Cheslow Station on the arrival of the afternoon up train that +had brought Miss Stone, her Aunt Kate, and the smiling Colonel Henri +Marchand to join the automobile touring party which Jennie soon dubbed +“the later Pilgrims.”</p> + +<p>“And that big machine looks much as the <em>Mayflower</em> must have looked +steering across Cape Cod Bay on that special occasion we read of in sacred +and profane history, hung about with four-poster beds and whatnots. In our +neighborhood,” the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 30]</span> +plump girl added, “there is enough decrepit furniture +declared to have been brought over on the <em>Mayflower</em> to have made a cargo +for the <em>Leviathan</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>ma chere</em>! you do but stretch the point, eh?” demanded the handsome +Henri Marchand, amazed.</p> + +<p>“I assure you——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t, Heavy,” advised Helen. “You will only go farther and do worse. In +my mind there has always been a suspicion that the <em>Mayflower</em> was sent +over here by some shipped knocked-down furniture factory. Miles Standish +and Priscilla Mullins and John Alden must have hung on by their eyebrows.”</p> + +<p>“Their eyebrows—<em>ma foi</em>!” gasped Marchand.</p> + +<p>“Say, old man,” said Tom, laughing, “if you listen to these crazy college +girls you will have a fine idea of our historical monuments, and so forth. +Take everything with a grain of salt—do.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Oui, Monsieur!</em> But I must have a little pepper, too. I am ‘strong,’ as +you Americans say, for plentiful seasoning.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he cute?” demanded Jenny Stone. “He takes to American slang like a +bird to the air.”</p> + +<p>“Poetry barred!” declared Helen.</p> + +<p>“Say,” Tom remarked aside to the colonel, “you’ve got all the pep +necessary, sure enough, in Jennie.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 31]</span> +“She is one dear!” sighed the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>“And she just said you were a bird. You’ll have a regular zoo about you +yet. Come on. Let’s see if we can get this baggage aboard the good ship. +It does look a good deal of an ark, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Although Ruth and Aunt Kate had not joined in this repartee, the girl of +the Red Mill, as well as their lovely chaperon, enjoyed the fun immensely. +Ruth had revived in spirits on meeting her friends. Jennie had flown to +her arms at the first greeting, and hugged the girl of the Red Mill with +due regard to the mending shoulder.</p> + +<p>“My dear! My dear!” she had cried. “I <em>dream</em> of you lying all so pale and +bloody under that window-sill stone. And what I hear of your and Tom’s +experiences coming over——”</p> + +<p>“But worse has happened to me since I arrived home,” Ruth said woefully.</p> + +<p>“No? Impossible!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I have had an irreparable loss,” sighed Ruth. “I’ll tell you about +it later.”</p> + +<p>But for the most part the greetings of the two parties was made up as Tom +said of “Ohs and Ahs.”</p> + +<p>“Take it from me,” the naughty Tom declared to Marchand, “two girls +separated for over-night can find more to tell each other about the next +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 32]</span> +morning than we could think of if we should meet at the Resurrection!”</p> + +<p>The two Cameron cars stood in the station yard, and as the other waiting +cars, taxicabs and “flivvers” departed, “the sacred odor of gasoline,” +which Jennie had remarked upon, was soon dissipated.</p> + +<p>The big touring car was expertly packed with baggage, and had a big hamper +on either running-board as well. There was room remaining, however, for +the ladies if they would sit there. But as Tom was to drive the big car he +insisted that Ruth sit with him in the front seat for company. As for his +racing car, he had turned that over to Marchand. It, too, was well laden; +but at the start Jennie squeezed in beside her colonel, and the maroon +speeder was at once whisperingly dubbed by the others “the honeymoon car.”</p> + +<p>“Poor children!” said Aunt Kate in private to the two other girls. “They +cannot marry until the war is over. <em>That</em> my brother is firm upon, +although he thinks well of Colonel Henri. And who could help liking him? +He is a most lovable boy.”</p> + +<p>“‘Boy!’” repeated Ruth. “And he is one of the most famous spies France has +produced in this war! And a great actor!”</p> + +<p>“But we believe he is not acting when he tells us he loves Jennie,” Aunt +Kate said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 33]</span>“Surely not!” cried Helen.</p> + +<p>“He is the soul of honor,” Ruth declared. “I trust him as I do—well, Tom. +I never had a brother.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve always shared Tom with you,” pouted Helen.</p> + +<p>“So you have, dear,” admitted Ruth. “But a girl who has had no +really-truly brother really has missed something. Perhaps good, perhaps +bad. But, at least, if you have brothers you understand men better.”</p> + +<p>“Listen to the wisdom of the owl!” scoffed Helen. “Why, Tommy is only a +girl turned inside out. A girl keeps all her best and softest attributes +to the fore, while a boy thinks it is more manly to show a prickly +surface—like the burr of a chestnut.”</p> + +<p>“Listen to them!” exclaimed Aunt Kate, with laughter. “All the wise +sayings of the ancient world must be crammed under those pretty caps you +wear, along with your hair.”</p> + +<p>“That is what we get at college,” said Helen seriously. “Dear old Ardmore! +Ruth! won’t you be glad to get back to the grind again?”</p> + +<p>“I—don’t—know,” said her chum slowly. “We have seen so much greater +things than college. It’s going to be rather tame, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>But this conversation was all before they were distributed into their +seats and had started.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 34]</span> +Colonel Marchand was an excellent driver, and he +soon understood clearly the mechanism of the smaller car. Tom gave him the +directions for the first few miles and they pulled out of the yard with +Mr. Curtis, the station master, and his lame daughter, who now acted as +telegraph operator, waving the party good-bye.</p> + +<p>They would not go by the way of the Red Mill, for that would take them out +of the way they had chosen. The inn they had in mind to stop at on this +first night was a long four hours’ ride.</p> + +<p>“Eastward, Ho!” shouted Tom. “This is to be a voyage of discovery, but +don’t discover any punctures or blow-outs this evening.”</p> + +<p>Then he glanced at Ruth’s rather serious face beside him and muttered to +himself:</p> + +<p>“And we want to discover principally the smile that Ruth Fielding seems to +have permanently lost!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 35]</span><a name="VI" id="VI"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>“THE NEVERGETOVERS”</strong></p> + +<p>After crossing the Cheslow Hills and the Lumano by the Long Bridge about +twenty miles below the Red Mill, the touring party debouched upon one of +the very best State roads. They left much of the dust from which they had +first suffered behind them, and Tom could now lead the way with the big +car without smothering the occupants of the honeymoon car in the rear.</p> + +<p>The highway wound along a pretty ridge for some miles, with farms dotting +the landscape and lush meadows or fruit-growing farms dipping to the edge +of the distant river.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” sighed Henri Marchand. “Like <em>la belle</em> France before the war. Such +peace and quietude we knew, too. Fortunate you are, my friends, that <em>le +Boche</em> has not trampled these fields into bloody mire.”</p> + +<p>This comment he made when they halted the cars at a certain overlook to +view the landscape.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 36]</span> +But they could not stop often. Their first objective +inn was still a long way ahead.</p> + +<p>They did not, however, reach the inn, which was a resort well known to +motorists. Five miles away Tom noticed that the car was acting strangely.</p> + +<p>“What is it, Tom?” demanded Ruth quickly.</p> + +<p>“Steering gear, I am afraid. Something is loose.”</p> + +<p>It did not take him long to make an examination, and in the meantime the +second car came alongside.</p> + +<p>“It might hold out until we get to the hotel ahead; but I think we had +better stop before that time if we can,” was Tom’s comment. “I do not want +the thing to break and send us flying over a stone wall or up a tree.”</p> + +<p>“But you can fix it, Tom?” questioned Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Sure! But it will take half an hour or more.”</p> + +<p>After that they ran along slowly and presently came in sight of a place +called the Drovers’ Tavern.</p> + +<p>“Not a very inviting place, but I guess it will do,” was Ruth’s +announcement after they had looked the inn over.</p> + +<p>The girls and Aunt Kate alighted at the steps while the young men wheeled +the cars around to the sheds.</p> + +<p>The housekeeper, who immediately announced +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 37]</span> herself as Susan Timmins, was +fussily determined to see that all was as it should be in the ladies’ +chambers.</p> + +<p>“I can’t trust this gal I got to do the upstairs work,” she declared, +saying it through her nose and with emphasis. “Just as sure as kin be, +if ye go for to help a poor relation you air always sorry for it.”</p> + +<p>She led the way up the main flight of stairs as she talked.</p> + +<p>“This here gal will give me the nevergitovers, I know! She’s my own +sister’s child that married a good-for-nothing and is jest like her +father.”</p> + +<p>“Bella! You Bella! Turn on the light in these rooms. Is the pitchers +filled? And the beds turned down? If I find a speck of dust on this +furniture I’ll nigh ’bout have the nevergitovers! That gal will drive me +to my grave, she will. Bella!”</p> + +<p>Bella appeared—a rather good looking child of fourteen or so, slim as a +lath and with hungry eyes. She was dark—almost Gypsy-like. She stared at +Ruth, Helen and Jennie with all the amazement of the usual yokel. But it +was their dress, not themselves, Ruth saw, engaged Bella’s interest.</p> + +<p>“When you ladies want any help, you call for Bella,” announced Miss Susan +Timmins. “And if<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 38]</span> +she don’t come running, you let me know, and I’ll give +her her nevergitovers, now I tell ye!”</p> + +<p>“No wonder this hotel is called ‘Drovers’ Tavern,’” said Jennie Stone. +“That woman certainly is a driver—a slave driver.”</p> + +<p>Ruth, meanwhile, was trying to make a friend of Bella.</p> + +<p>“What is your name, my dear?” she asked the lathlike girl.</p> + +<p>“You heard it,” was the ungracious reply.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Yes. ‘Bella.’ But your other name?”</p> + +<p>“Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike. My father is Montague Fitzmaurice.”</p> + +<p>She said it proudly, with a lift of her tousled head and a straightening +of her thin shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” fairly gasped Ruth Fielding. “It—it sounds quite impressive, I must +say. I guess you think a good deal of your father?”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Suse don’t,” said the girl ungraciously. “My mother’s dead. And pa +is resting this season. So I hafter stay here with Aunt Suse. I hate it!”</p> + +<p>“Your father is—er—what is his business?” Ruth asked.</p> + +<p>“He’s one of the profession.”</p> + +<p>“A doctor?”</p> + +<p>“Lands, no! He’s a heavy.”</p> + +<p>“A <em>what</em>?”</p> + +<p>“A heavy lead—and a good one. But these +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 39]</span> moving pictures knock out all +the really good people. There are no chances now for him to play +Shakespearean roles——”</p> + +<p>“Your father is an actor!” cried Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Of course. Montague Fitzmaurice. Surely you have heard the name?” said +the lathlike girl, tossing her head.</p> + +<p>“Why—why——of course!” declared Ruth warmly. It was true. She had heard +the name. Bella had just pronounced it!</p> + +<p>“Then you know what kind of an actor my pa is,” said the proud child. “He +did not have a very good season last winter. He rehearsed with four +companies and was only out three weeks altogether. And one of the managers +did not pay at all.”</p> + +<p>“That is too bad.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. It’s tough,” admitted Bella. “But I liked it.”</p> + +<p>“You liked it when he was so unsuccessful?” repeated Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Pa wasn’t unsuccessful. He never is. He can play any part,” declared the +girl proudly. “But the plays were punk. He says there are no good plays +written nowadays. That is why so many companies fail.”</p> + +<p>“But you said you liked it?”</p> + +<p>“In New York,” explained Bella. “While he was rehearsing pa could get +credit at Mother<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 40]</span> +Grubson’s boarding house on West Forty-fourth Street. I +helped her around the house. She said I was worth my keep. But Aunt Suse +says I don’t earn my salt here.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure you do your best, Bella,” Ruth observed.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. Nor you wouldn’t if you worked for Aunt Suse. She says I’ll +give her her nevergitovers—an’ I hope I do!” with which final observation +she ran to unlace Aunt Kate’s shoes.</p> + +<p>“Poor little thing,” said Ruth to Helen. “She is worse off than an orphan. +Her Aunt Susan is worse than Uncle Jabez ever was to me. And she has no +Aunt Alvirah to help her to bear it. We ought to do something for her.”</p> + +<p>“There! You’ve begun. Every waif and stray on our journey must be aided, I +suppose,” pouted Helen, half exasperated.</p> + +<p>But Tom was glad to see that Ruth had found a new interest. Bella waited +on the supper table, was snapped at by Miss Timmins, and driven from +pillar to post by that crotchety individual.</p> + +<p>“Jimminy Christmas!” remarked Tom, “that Timmins woman must be a +reincarnation of one of the ancient Egyptians who was overseer in the +brickyard where Moses learned his trade. If they were all like her, no +wonder the Israelites went on a strike and marched out of Egypt.”</p> + +<p>They were all very careful, however, not to +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 41]</span> let Miss Susan Timmins hear +their comments. She had the true dictatorial spirit of the old-fashioned +New England school teacher. The guests of Drovers’ Tavern were treated by +her much as she might have treated a class in the little red schoolhouse +up the road had she presided there.</p> + +<p>She drove the guests to their chambers by the method of turning off the +electric light in the general sitting room at a quarter past ten. Each +room was furnished with a bayberry candle, and she announced that the +electricity all over the house would be switched off at eleven o’clock.</p> + +<p>“That is late enough for any decent body to be up,” she announced in her +decisive manner. “That’s when I go to bed myself. I couldn’t do so in +peace if I knew folks was burning them electric lights to all hours. +’Tain’t safe in a thunder storm.</p> + +<p>“Why, when we first got ’em, Jed Parraday from Wachuset come to town to do +his buyin’ and stayed all night with us. He’d never seed a ’lectric bulb +before, and he didn’t know how to blow it out. And he couldn’t sleep in a +room with a light.</p> + +<p>“So, what does the tarnal old fool do but unhook the cord so’t the bulb +could be carried as far as the winder. And he hung it outside, shut the +winder down on it, drawed the shade and went to bed in the dark.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 42]</span> +“Elnathan Spear, the constable, seen the light a-shining outside the +winder in the middle of the night and he thought ’twas burglars. He +<em>dreams</em> of burglars, Elnathan does. But he ain’t never caught none yet.</p> + +<p>“On that occasion, howsomever, he was sure he’d got a whole gang of ’em, +and he waked up the whole hotel trying to find out what was going on. I +charged Parraday ha’f a dollar for burning extry ’lectricity, and he got +so mad he ain’t stopped at the hotel since.</p> + +<p>“He’d give one the nevergitovers, that man would!” she concluded.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 43]</span><a name="VII" id="VII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>MOVIE STUNTS</strong></p> + +<p>Jennie Stone slept in Ruth’s bed that night because, having been parted +since they were both in France, they had a great deal to say to each +other—thus proving true one of Tom Cameron’s statements regarding women.</p> + +<p>Jennie was just as sympathetic—and as sleepy—as she could be and she +“oh, dear, me’d” and yawned alternately all through the tale of the lost +scenario and notebooks, appreciating fully how Ruth felt about it, but +unable to smother the expression of her desire for sleep.</p> + +<p>“Maybe we ought not to have come on this automobile trip,” said Jennie. +“If the thief just did it to be mean and is somebody who lives around the +Red Mill, perhaps you might have discovered something by mingling with the +neighbors.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Tom did all that,” sighed Ruth. “And without avail. He searched the +neighborhood<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 44]</span> +thoroughly, although he is confident that a tramp carried it +off. And that seems reasonable. I am almost sure, Heavy, that my scenario +will appear under the trademark of some other producing manager than Mr. +Hammond.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! How mean!”</p> + +<p>“Well, a thief is almost the meanest person there is in the world, don’t +you think so? Except a backbiter. And anybody mean enough to steal my +scenario must be mean enough to try to make use of it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear! Ow-oo-ooo! Scuse me, Ruth. Yes, I guess you are right. But +can’t you stop the production of the picture?”</p> + +<p>“How can I do that?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t——ow-oo!——know. Scuse me, dear.”</p> + +<p>“Most pictures are made in secret, anyway. The public knows nothing about +them until the producer is ready to make their release.”</p> + +<p>“I—ow-oo!—I see,” yawned Jennie.</p> + +<p>“Even the picture play magazines do not announce them until the first +runs. Then, sometimes, there is a synopsis of the story published. But it +will be too late, then. Especially when I have no notes of my work, nor +any witnesses. I told no living soul about the scenario—what it was +about, or——”</p> + +<p>“Sh-sh-sh——”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 45]</span> +“Why, Heavy!” murmured the scandalized Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Sh-sh-sh—whoo!” breathed the plump girl, with complete abandon.</p> + +<p>“My goodness!” exclaimed Ruth, tempted to shake her, “if you snore like +that when you are married, Henri will have to sleep at the other end of +the house.”</p> + +<p>But this was completely lost on the tired Jennie Stone, who continued to +breathe heavily until Ruth herself fell asleep. It seemed as though the +latter had only closed her eyes when the sun shining into her face awoke +the girl of the Red Mill. The shades of the east window had been left up, +and it was sunrise.</p> + +<p>Plenty of farm noises outside the Drovers’ Tavern, as well as a stir in +the kitchen, assured Ruth that there were early risers here. Jennie, +rolled in more than her share of the bedclothes, continued to breathe as +heavily as she had the night before.</p> + +<p>But suddenly Ruth was aware that there was somebody besides herself awake +in the room. She sat up abruptly in bed and reached to seize Jennie’s +plump shoulder. Ruth had to confess she was much excited, if not +frightened.</p> + +<p>Then, before she touched the still sleeping Jennie Stone, Ruth saw the +intruder. The door from the anteroom was ajar. A steaming agateware +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 46]</span> can +of water stood on the floor just inside this door. Before the bureau which +boasted a rather large mirror for a country hotel bedroom, pivoted the +thin figure of Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike!</p> + +<p>From the neatly arranged outer clothing of the two girls supposedly asleep +in the big four-poster, Bella had selected a skirt of Ruth’s and a +shirt-waist of Jennie’s, arraying herself in both of these borrowed +garments. She was now putting the finishing touch to her costume by +setting Ruth’s cap on top of her black, fly-away mop of hair.</p> + +<p>Turning about and about before the glass, Bella was so much engaged in +admiring herself that she forgot the hot water she was supposed to carry +to the various rooms. Nor did she see Ruth sitting up in bed looking at +her in dawning amusement. Nor did she, as she pirouetted there, hear her +Nemesis outside in the hall.</p> + +<p>The door suddenly creaked farther open. The grim face of Miss Susan +Timmins appeared at the aperture.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” gasped Ruth Fielding aloud.</p> + +<p>Bella turned to glance in startled surprise at the girl in bed. And at +that moment Miss Timmins bore down upon the child like a shrike on a +chippy-bird.</p> + +<p>“Ow-ouch!” shrieked Bella.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t!” begged Ruth.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 47]</span> +“What is it? Goodness! <em>Fire!</em>” cried Jennie Stone, who, when awakened +suddenly, always remembered the dormitory fire at Briarwood Hall.</p> + +<p>“You little pest! I’ll larrup ye good! I’ll give ye your nevergitovers!” +sputtered the hotel housekeeper.</p> + +<p>But the affrighted Bella wriggled away from her aunt’s bony grasp. She +dodged Miss Timmins about the marble-topped table, retreated behind the +hair-cloth sofa, and finally made a headlong dash for the door, while +Jennie continued to shriek for the fire department.</p> + +<p>Ruth leaped out of bed. In her silk pajamas and slippers, and without any +wrap, she hurried to reach, and try to separate, the struggling couple +near the door.</p> + +<p>Miss Timmins delivered several hearty slaps upon Bella’s face and ears. +The child shrieked. She got away again and plunged into the can of hot +water.</p> + +<p>Over this went, flooding the rag-carpet for yards around.</p> + +<p>“Fire! Fire!” Jennie continued to shriek.</p> + +<p>Helen dashed in from the next room, dressed quite as lightly as Ruth, and +just in time to see the can spilled.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Water! Water!”</p> + +<p>“Drat that young one!” barked Miss Timmins, +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 48]</span> ignoring the flood and +everything else save her niece—even the conventions.</p> + +<p>She dashed after Bella. The latter had disappeared into the hall through +the anteroom.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the poor child!” cried sympathetic Ruth, and followed in the wake of +the angry housekeeper.</p> + +<p>“Fire! Fire!” moaned Jennie Stone.</p> + +<p>“Cat’s foot!” snapped Helen Cameron. “It’s water—and it is flooding the +whole room.”</p> + +<p>She ran to set the can upright—after the water was all out of it. Without +thinking of her costume, Ruth Fielding ran to avert Bella’s punishment if +she could. She knew the aunt was beside herself with rage, and Ruth feared +that the woman would, indeed, give Bella her “nevergetovers.”</p> + +<p>The corridor of the hotel was long, running from front to rear of the main +building. The window at the rear end of it overlooked the roof of the back +kitchen. This window was open, and when Ruth reached the corridor Bella +was going head-first through the open window, like a circus clown diving +through a hoop.</p> + +<p>She had discarded Jennie’s shirt-waist between the bedroom and the window. +But Ruth’s skirt still flapped about the child’s thin shanks.</p> + +<p>Miss Timmins, breathing threatenings and slaughter, raced down the hall in +pursuit. Ruth<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 49]</span> +followed, begging for quarter for the terrified child.</p> + +<p>But the housekeeper went through the open window after Bella, although in +a more conventional manner, paying no heed to Ruth’s plea. The frightened +girl, however, escaped her aunt’s clutch by slipping off the borrowed +skirt and descending the trumpet-vine trellis by the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>“Do let her go, Miss Timmins!” begged Ruth, as the panting woman, carrying +Ruth’s skirt, returned to the window where the girl of the Red Mill stood. +“She is scared to death. She was doing no harm.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll thank you to mind your own business, Miss,” snapped Miss Timmins +hotly. “I declare! A girl growed like you running ’round in men’s +overalls—or, what be them things you got on?”</p> + +<p>At this criticism Ruth Fielding fled, taking the skirt and Jennie’s +shirt-waist with her. But Aunt Kate was aroused now and the four women of +the automobile party swiftly slipped into their negligees and appeared in +the hall again, to meet Tom and Colonel Marchand who came from their room +only partly dressed.</p> + +<p>The critical Miss Timmins had darted downstairs, evidently in pursuit of +her unfortunate niece. The guests crowded to the back window.</p> + +<p>“Where did she go?” demanded Tom, who had +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 50]</span> heard some explanation of the +early morning excitement. “Is she running away?”</p> + +<p>“What a child!” gasped Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“My waist!” moaned Jennie.</p> + +<p>“Look at Ruth’s skirt!” exclaimed Helen.</p> + +<p>“I do not care for the skirt,” the girl of the Red Mill declared. “It is +Bella.”</p> + +<p>“Her aunt will about give her those ‘nevergetovers’ she spoke of,” +chuckled Tom.</p> + +<p>“<em>Ma foi!</em> look you there,” exclaimed Colonel Marchand, pointing through +the window that overlooked the rear premises of the hotel.</p> + +<p>At top speed Miss Timmins was crossing the yard toward the big hay barn. +Bella had taken refuge in that structure, and the housekeeper’s evident +intention was to harry her out. The woman grasped a clothes-stick with +which she proposed to castigate her niece.</p> + +<p>“The cruel thing!” exclaimed Helen, the waters of her sympathy rising for +Bella Pike now.</p> + +<p>“There’s the poor kid!” said Tom.</p> + +<p>Bella appeared at an open door far up in the peak of the haymow. The hay +was packed solidly under the roof; but there was an air space left at +either end.</p> + +<p>“She has put herself into the so-tight corner—no?” suggested the young +Frenchman.</p> + +<p>“You’ve said it!” agreed Tom. “Why! it’s regular movie stunts. She’s come +up the ladders to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 51]</span> +the top of the mow. If auntie follows her, I don’t see +that the kid can do anything but jump!”</p> + +<p>“Tom! Never!” cried Ruth.</p> + +<p>“He is fooling,” said Jennie.</p> + +<p>“Tell me how she can dodge that woman, then,” demanded Tom.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” murmured Henri Marchand. “She have arrive’.”</p> + +<p>Miss Timmins appeared at the door behind Bella. The spectators heard the +girl’s shriek. The housekeeper struck at her with the clothes stick. And +then——</p> + +<p>“Talk about movie stunts!” shouted Tom Cameron, for the frightened Bella +leaped like a cat upon the haymow door and swung outward with nothing more +stable than air between her and the ground, more than thirty feet below!</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 52]</span><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE AUCTION BLOCK</strong></p> + + +<p>Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone shrieked in unison when Miss Susan Timmins’ +niece cast herself out of the haymow upon the plank door and swung as far +as the door would go upon its creaking hinges. Ruth seized Tom’s wrist in +a nervous grip, but did not utter a word. Aunt Kate turned away and +covered her eyes with her hands that she might not see the reckless child +fall—if she did fall.</p> + +<p>“Name of a name!” murmured Henri Marchand. “<em>Au secours!</em> Come, Tom, <em>mon +ami</em>—to the rescue!”</p> + +<p>He turned and ran lightly along the hall and down the stairs. But Tom went +through the window, almost as precipitately as had Bella Pike herself, and +so over the roof of the kitchen ell and down the trumpet-vine trellis.</p> + +<p>Tom was in the yard and running to the barn before Marchand got out of the +kitchen. Several other people, early as the hour was, appeared running +toward the rear premises of Drovers’ Tavern.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 53]</span> +“See that crazy young one!” some woman shrieked. “I know she’ll kill +herself yet.”</p> + +<p>“Stop that!” commanded Tom, looking up and shaking a threatening hand at +Miss Timmins.</p> + +<p>For in her rage the woman was trying to strike her niece with the stick, +as Bella clung to the door.</p> + +<p>“Mind your own business, young man!” snapped the virago. “And go back and +put the rest of your clothes on. You ain’t decent.”</p> + +<p>Tom was scarcely embarrassed by this verbal attack. The case was too +serious for that. Miss Timmins struck at the girl again, and only missed +the screaming Bella by an inch or so.</p> + +<p>Helen and Jennie screamed in unison, and Ruth herself had difficulty in +keeping her lips closed. The cruel rage of the hotel housekeeper made her +quite unfit to manage such a child as Bella, and Ruth determined to +interfere in Bella’s behalf at the proper time.</p> + +<p>“I wish she would pitch out of that door herself!” cried Helen recklessly.</p> + +<p>Tom had run into the barn and was climbing the ladders as rapidly as +possible to the highest loft. Scolding and striking at her victim, Miss +Susan Timmins continued to act like the mad woman she was. And Bella, made +desperate at last by fear, reached for the curling edges of the shingles +on the eaves above her head.</p> + +<p>“Don’t do that, child!” shrieked Jennie Stone.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 54]</span> +But Bella scrambled up off the swinging door and pulled herself by her +thin arms on to the roof of the barn. There she was completely out of her +aunt’s reach.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the plucky little sprite!” cried Helen, in delight.</p> + +<p>“But—but she can’t get down again,” murmured Aunt Kate. “There is no +scuttle in that roof.”</p> + +<p>“Tom will find a way,” declared Ruth Fielding with confidence.</p> + +<p>“And my Henri,” put in Jennie. “That horrid old creature!”</p> + +<p>“She should be punished for this,” agreed Ruth. “I wonder where the +child’s father is.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you find out last night?” Helen asked.</p> + +<p>“Only that he is ‘resting’.”</p> + +<p>“Some poor, miserable loafer, is he?” demanded Aunt Kate, with acrimony.</p> + +<p>“No. It seems that he is an actor,” Ruth explained. “He is out of work.”</p> + +<p>“But he can’t think anything of his daughter to see her treated like +this,” concluded Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“She is very proud of him. His professional name is Montague Fitzmaurice.”</p> + +<p>“Some name!” murmured Jennie.</p> + +<p>“Their family name is Pike,” said Ruth, still seriously. “I do not think +the man can know how this aunt treats little Bella. There’s Tom!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 55]</span> +The young captain appeared behind the enraged housekeeper at the open door +of the loft. One glance told him what Bella had done. He placed a firm +hand on Miss Timmins’ shoulder.</p> + +<p>“If you had made that girl fall you would go to jail,” Tom said sternly. +“You may go, yet. I will try to put you there. And in any case you shall +not have the management of the child any longer. Go back to the house!”</p> + +<p>For once the housekeeper was awed. Especially when Henri Marchand, too, +appeared in the loft.</p> + +<p>“Madame will return to the house. We shall see what can be done for the +child. <em>Gare!</em>”</p> + +<p>Perhaps the woman was a little frightened at last by what she had done—or +what she might have done. At least, she descended the ladders to the +ground floor without argument.</p> + +<p>The two young men planned swiftly how to rescue the sobbing child. But +when Tom first spoke to Bella, proposing to help her down, she looked over +the edge of the roof at him and shook her head.</p> + +<p>“No! I ain’t coming down,” she announced emphatically. “Aunt Suse will +near about skin me alive.”</p> + +<p>“She shall not touch you,” Tom promised.</p> + +<p>“She’ll give me my nevergitovers, just as she says. You can’t stay here +and watch her.”</p> + +<p>“But we’ll find a way to keep her from beating +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 56]</span> you when we are gone,” Tom +promised. “Don’t you fear her at all.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care where you put me, Aunt Suse will find me out. She’ll send +Elnathan Spear after me.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know who Spear is——”</p> + +<p>“He’s the constable,” sobbed Bella.</p> + +<p>“Well, he sha’n’t spear you,” declared Tom. “Come on, kid. Don’t be +scared, and we’ll get you down all right.”</p> + +<p>He found the clothes-stick Miss Timmins had abandoned and used it for a +brace. With a rope tied to the handle of the plank door and drawn taut, it +was held half open. Tom then climbed out upon and straddled the door and +raised his arms to receive the girl when she lowered herself over the +eaves.</p> + +<p>She was light enough—little more than skin and bone, Tom declared—and +the latter lowered her without much effort into Henri’s arms.</p> + +<p>When the three girls and Aunt Kate at the tavern window saw this safely +accomplished they hurried back to their rooms to dress.</p> + +<p>“Something must be done for that poor child,” Ruth Fielding said with +decision.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to adopt her?” Helen asked.</p> + +<p>“And send her to Briarwood?” put in Jennie.</p> + +<p>“That might be the very best thing that could happen to her,” Ruth +rejoined soberly. “She has<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 57]</span> +lived at times in a theatrical boarding house +and has likewise traveled with her father when he was with a more or less +prosperous company.</p> + +<p>“These experiences have made her, after a fashion, grown-up in her ways +and words. But in most things she is just as ignorant as she can be. Her +future is not the most important thing just now. It is her present.”</p> + +<p>Helen heard the last word from the other room where she was dressing, and +she cried:</p> + +<p>“That’s it, Ruthie. Give her a present and tell her to run away from her +aunt. She’s a spiteful old thing!”</p> + +<p>“You do not mean that!” exclaimed her chum. “You are only lazy and hate +responsibility of any kind. We must do something practical for Bella +Pike.”</p> + +<p>“How easily she says ‘we’,” Helen scoffed.</p> + +<p>“I mean it. I could not sleep to-night if I knew this child was in her +aunt’s control.”</p> + +<p>A knock on the door interrupted the discussion. Ruth, who was quite +dressed now, responded. A lout of a boy, who evidently worked about the +stables, stood grinning at the door.</p> + +<p>“Miz Timmins says you folks kin all get out. She won’t have you served no +breakfast. She don’t want none of you here.”</p> + +<p>“My goodness!” wailed Jennie. “Dispossessed—and without breakfast!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 58]</span> +“Where is the proprietor of this hotel, boy?” Ruth asked.</p> + +<p>“You mean Mr. Drovers? He ain’t here. Gone to Boston. But that wouldn’t +make no dif’rence. Suse Timmins is boss.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, me! Oh, my!” groaned Jennie, to whom the prospect was tragic. +Jennie’s appetite was never-failing.</p> + +<p>The boy slouched away just as Tom and Henri Marchand appeared with Bella +between them.</p> + +<p>“You poor, dear child!” cried Ruth, running along the hall to meet them.</p> + +<p>Bella struggled to escape from the boys. But Tom and Colonel Marchand held +her by either hand.</p> + +<p>“Easy, young one!” advised Captain Cameron.</p> + +<p>“I never meant to do no harm, Miss!” cried Bella. “I—I just wanted to see +how I’d look in them clothes. I never do have anything decent to wear.”</p> + +<p>“Why, my dear, don’t mind about that,” said Ruth, taking the lathlike girl +in her arms. “If you had asked us we would have let you try on the things, +I am sure.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Suse would near ’bout give me my nevergitovers—and she will yet!”</p> + +<p>“No she won’t,” Ruth reassured her. “Don’t be afraid of your aunt any +longer.”</p> + +<p>“That is what I tell her,” Tom said warmly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 59]</span> +“Say! You won’t put me in no home, will you?” asked Bella, with sudden +anxiety.</p> + +<p>“A ‘home’?” repeated Ruth, puzzled.</p> + +<p>“She means a charitable institution, poor dear,” said Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“That’s it, Missus,” Bella said. “I knew a girl that was out of one of +them homes. She worked for Mrs. Grubson. She said all the girls wore brown +denim uniforms and had their hair slicked back and wasn’t allowed even to +whisper at table or after they got to bed at night.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing like that shall happen to you,” Ruth declared.</p> + +<p>“Where is your father, Bella?” Tom asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Last I saw of him he came through here with a medicine +show. I didn’t tell Aunt Suse, but I ran away at night and went to Broxton +to see him. But he said business was poor. He got paid so much a bottle +commission on the sales of Chief Henry Red-dog’s Bitters. He didn’t think +the show would keep going much longer.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!”</p> + +<p>“You know, they didn’t know he was Montague Fitzmaurice, the great +Shakespearean actor. Pa often takes such jobs. He ain’t lazy like Aunt +Suse says. Why, once he took a job as a ballyhoo at a show on the Bowery +in Coney Island. But his voice ain’t never been what it was since.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 60]</span> +“Do you expect him to return here for you?” Ruth asked, while the other +listeners exchanged glances and with difficulty kept their faces straight.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, Miss. Just as soon as he is in funds. Or he’ll send for me. He +always does. He knows I hate it here.”</p> + +<p>“Does he know how your aunt treats you?” Aunt Kate interrupted.</p> + +<p>“N—not exactly,” stammered Bella. “I haven’t told him all. I don’t want +to bother him. It—it ain’t always so bad.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you it’s got to stop!” Tom said, with warmth.</p> + +<p>“Of course she shall not remain in this woman’s care any longer,” Aunt +Kate agreed.</p> + +<p>“But we must not take Bella away from this locality,” Ruth observed. “When +her father comes back for her she must be here—somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, lady!” exclaimed Bella. “Send me to New York to Mrs. Grubson’s. I bet +she’d keep me till pa opens somewhere in a good show.”</p> + +<p>But Ruth shook her head. She had her doubts about the wisdom of the +child’s being in such a place as Mrs. Grubson’s boarding house, no matter +how kindly disposed that woman might be.</p> + +<p>“Bella should stay near here,” Ruth said firmly, “as long as we cannot +communicate with Mr. Pike at once.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s write a notice for one of the theatrical +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 61]</span> papers,” suggested Helen +eagerly. “You know—‘Montague Fitzmaurice please answer.’ All the actors +do it.”</p> + +<p>“But pa don’t always have the money to buy the papers,” said Bella, taking +the suggestion quite seriously.</p> + +<p>“At least, if Bella is in this neighborhood he will know where to find +her,” went on Ruth. “Is there nobody you know here, child, whom you would +like to stay with till your father returns?”</p> + +<p>Bella’s face instantly brightened. Her black eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’d like to stay at the minister’s,” she said.</p> + +<p>“At the minister’s?” repeated Ruth. “Why, if he would take you that would +be fine. Who is he?”</p> + +<p>“The Reverend Driggs,” said Bella.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose the clergyman would take the child?” murmured Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“Why do you want to go to live with the minister?” asked Tom with +curiosity.</p> + +<p>“’Cause he reads the Bible so beautifully,” declared Bella. “Why! it +sounds just like pa reading a play. The Reverend Driggs is an educated man +like pa. But he’s got an awful raft of young ones.”</p> + +<p>“A poor minister,” said Aunt Kate briskly. “I am afraid that would not +suit.”</p> + +<p>“If the Driggs family is already a large one,” began Ruth doubtfully, when +Bella declared:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 62]</span> +“Miz Driggs had two pairs of twins, and one ever so many times. There’s a +raft of ’em.”</p> + +<p>Helen and Jennie burst out laughing at this statement and the others were +amused. But to Ruth Fielding this was a serious matter. The placing of +Bella Pike in a pleasant home until her father could be communicated with, +or until he appeared on the scene ready and able to care for the child, +was even more serious than the matter of going without breakfast, although +Jennie Stone said “No!” to this.</p> + +<p>“We’d better set up an auction block before the door of the hotel and +auction her off to the highest bidder, hadn’t we?” suggested Helen, who +had been rummaging in her bag. “Here, Bella! If you want a shirt-waist to +take the place of that calico blouse you have on, here is one. One of +mine. And I guarantee it will fit you better than Heavy’s did. She wears +an extra size.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t either,” flashed the plump girl, as the boys retreated from the +room. “I may not be a perfect thirty-six——”</p> + +<p>“Is there any doubt of it?” cried Helen, the tease.</p> + +<p>“Well!”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” Ruth said. “Jennie is going to be thinner.”</p> + +<p>“And it seems she will begin to diet this very morning,” Aunt Kate put +in.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 63]</span> +“Ow-wow!” moaned Jennie at this reminder that they had been refused +breakfast.</p> + +<p>Captain Tom, however, had handled too many serious situations in France to +be browbeaten by a termagant like Miss Susan Timmins. He went down to the +kitchen, ordered a good breakfast for all of his party, and threatened to +have recourse to the law if the meal was not well and properly served.</p> + +<p>“For you keep a public tavern,” he told the sputtering Miss Timmins, “and +you cannot refuse to serve travelers who are willing and able to pay. We +are on a pleasure trip, and I assure you, Madam, it will be a pleasure to +get you into court for any cause.”</p> + +<p>On coming back to the front of the house he found two of the neighbors +just entering. One proved to be the local doctor’s wife and the other was +a kindly looking farmer.</p> + +<p>“I knowed that girl warn’t being treated right, right along,” said the +man. “And I told Mirandy that I was going to put a stop to it.”</p> + +<p>“It is a disgrace,” said the doctor’s wife, “that we should have allowed +it to go on so long. I will take the child myself——”</p> + +<p>“And so’ll Mirandy,” declared the farmer.</p> + +<p>“It is an auction,” whispered Helen, overhearing this from the top of the +stairs.</p> + +<p>The party of guests came down with their bags +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 64]</span> now, bringing Bella in +their midst—and in the new shirt-waist.</p> + +<p>“Let her choose which of these kind people she will stay with,” Tom +advised. “And,” he added, in a low voice to Ruth, “we will pay for her +support until we can find her father.”</p> + +<p>“Like fun you will, young feller!” snorted the farmer, overhearing Tom.</p> + +<p>“I could not hear of such a thing,” said the doctor’s wife.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know what you people think you’re doing?” demanded Miss +Timmins, popping out at them suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Now, Suse Timmins, we’re a-goin’ to do what we neighbors ought to have +done long ago. We’re goin’ to take this gal——”</p> + +<p>“You start anything like that—taking that young one away from her lawful +guardeen—an’ I’ll get Elnathan Spear after you in a hurry, now I tell ye. +I’ll give you your nevergitovers!”</p> + +<p>“If Nate Spear comes to my house, I’ll ask him to pay me for that corn he +bought off’n me as long ago as last fall,” chuckled the farmer. “Just +because you’re own cousin to Nate don’t put <em>all</em> the law an’ the gospel +on your side, Suse Timmins. I’ll take good care of this girl.”</p> + +<p>“And so will I, if Bella wants to live with me,” said the doctor’s wife.</p> + +<p>“Mirandy will be glad to have her.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 65]</span> +“And she’d be company for me,” rejoined the other neighbor. “I haven’t any +children.”</p> + +<p>“Bella must choose for herself,” said Ruth kindly.</p> + +<p>“I guess I’ll go with Mr. Perkins,” said the actor’s daughter. “Miz Holmes +is real nice; but Doctor Holmes gives awful tastin’ medicine. I might be +sick there and have to take some of it. So I’ll go to Miz Perkins. She has +a doctor from Maybridge and he gives candy-covered pellets. I ate some +once. Besides, Miz Perkins is lame and can’t get around so spry, and I can +do more for her.”</p> + +<p>“Now listen to that!” exclaimed the farmer. “Ain’t she a noticing child?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. Perkins will be good to her, no doubt,” agreed the doctor’s +wife.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know what you fresh city folks butted into this thing for!” +demanded Miss Timmins. “If there’s any law in the land——”</p> + +<p>“<em>You’ll</em> get it!” promised Tom Cameron.</p> + +<p>“Go get anything you own that you want to take with you, Bella,” Ruth +advised the shrinking child.</p> + +<p>With another fearful glance at her aunt, Bella ran upstairs.</p> + +<p>Miss Timmins might have started after her, but Tom planted himself before +that door. The lout of a boy began bringing in the breakfast for the +automobile party. Ruth talked privately with +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 66]</span> the doctor’s wife and Mr. +Perkins, and forced some money on the woman to be expended for a very +necessary outfit of clothing for Bella.</p> + +<p>Miss Timmins finally flounced back into the kitchen where they heard her +venting her anger and chagrin on the kitchen help. Bella returned bearing +an ancient extension bag crammed full of odds and ends. She kissed Ruth +and shook hands with the rest of the company before departing with Mr. +Perkins.</p> + +<p>The doctor’s wife promised to write to Ruth as soon as anything was heard +of Mr. Pike, and the automobile party turned their attention to ham and +eggs, stewed potatoes, and griddle cakes.</p> + +<p>“Only,” said Jennie, sepulchrally, “I hope the viands are not poisoned. +That Miss Timmins would certainly like to give us all our +‘nevergetovers’.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 67]</span><a name="IX" id="IX"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>A DISMAYING DISCOVERY</strong></p> + +<p>“‘The Later Pilgrims’ are well out of that trouble,” announced Helen, when +the cars were underway, the honeymoon car ahead and the other members of +the party packed into the bigger automobile.</p> + +<p>“And I hope,” she added, “that Ruth will find no more waifs and strays.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be knocking Ruthie all the time,” said Tom, glancing back over his +shoulder. “She’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“And you keep your eyes straight ahead, young man,” advised Aunt Kate, “or +you will have this heavy car in the ditch.”</p> + +<p>“Watch out for Henri and Heavy, too,” advised Helen. “They do not quite +know what they are about and you may run them down. There! See his +horizon-blue sleeve steal about her? He’s got only one hand left to steer +with. Talk about a perfect thirty-six! It’s lucky Henri’s arm is +phenomenally long, or he could never surround <em>that</em> baby!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 68]</span> +“I declare, Helen,” laughed Ruth. “I believe you are covetous.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Henri is an awfully nice fellow—for a Frenchman.”</p> + +<p>“And you are the damsel who declared you proposed to remain an old maid +forever and ever and the year after.”</p> + +<p>“I can be an old maid and still like the boys, can’t I? All the more, in +fact. I sha’n’t have to be true to just one man, which, I believe, would +be tedious.”</p> + +<p>“You should live in that part of New York called Greenwich Village and +wear a Russian blouse and your hair bobbed. Those are the kind of bon mots +those people throw off in conversation. Light and airy persiflage, it is +called,” said Tom from the front seat.</p> + +<p>“What do you know about such people, Tommy?” demanded his sister.</p> + +<p>“There were some co-eds of that breed I met at Cambridge. They were +exponents of the ‘new freedom,’ whatever that is. Bolshevism, I guess. +Freedom from both law and morals.”</p> + +<p>“Those are not the kind of girls who are helping in France,” said Ruth +soberly.</p> + +<p>“You said it!” agreed Tom. “That sort are so busy riding hobbies over here +that they have no interest in what is going on in Europe unless it may be +in Russia. Well, thank heaven, there are +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 69]</span> comparatively few nuts compared +with us sane folks.”</p> + +<p>Such thoughts as these, however, did not occupy their minds for long. Just +as Tom had declared, they were out for fun, and the fun could be found +almost anywhere by these blithe young folk.</p> + +<p>Ruth’s face actually changed as they journeyed on. She was both “pink and +pretty,” Helen declared, before they camped at the wayside for luncheon.</p> + +<p>The hampers on the big car were crammed with all the necessities of food +and service for several meals. There were, too, twin alcohol lamps, a +coffee boiler and a teapot.</p> + +<p>Altogether they were making a very satisfactory meal and were having a +jolly time at the edge of a piece of wood when a big, black wood-ant +dropped down Jennie Stone’s back.</p> + +<p>At first they did not know what the matter was with her. Her mouth was +full, the food in that state of mastication that she could not immediately +swallow it.</p> + +<p>“Ow! Ow! Ow!” choked the plump girl, trying to get both hands at once down +the neck of her shirt-waist.</p> + +<p>“What <em>is</em> the matter, Heavy?” gasped Helen.</p> + +<p>“Jennie, dear!” murmured Ruth. “Don’t!”</p> + +<p>“<em>Ma chere!</em>” gasped Henri Marchand. “Is she ill?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 70]</span> +“Jennie, behave yourself!” cried her aunt.</p> + +<p>“I saw a toad swallow a hornet once,” Tom declared. “She acts just the +same way.”</p> + +<p>“As the hornet?” demanded his sister, beginning to giggle.</p> + +<p>“As the toad,” answered Tom, gravely.</p> + +<p>But Henri had got to his feet and now reached the wriggling girl. “Let me +try to help!” he cried.</p> + +<p>“If you even begin wiggling that way, Colonel Marchand,” declared Helen, +“you will be in danger of arrest. There is a law against <em>that</em> dance.”</p> + +<p>“Ow! Ow! Ow!” burst out Jennie once more, actually in danger of choking.</p> + +<p>“What <em>is</em> it?” Ruth demanded, likewise reaching the writhing girl.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he bit me!” finally exploded Jennie.</p> + +<p>Ruth guessed what must be the trouble then, and she forced Jennie’s hands +out of the neck of her waist and ran her hand down the plump girl’s back. +Between them they killed the ant, for Ruth finally recovered a part of the +unfortunate creature.</p> + +<p>“But just think,” consoled Helen, “how much more awful it would have been +if you had swallowed him, Heavy, instead of his wriggling down your spinal +column.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t! I can feel him wriggling now,” sighed Jennie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 71]</span> +“That can be nothing more than his ghost,” said Tom soberly, “for Ruth +retrieved at least half of the ant’s bodily presence.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll give us all the fidgets if you keep on wriggling, Jennie,” +declared Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t want to sit on the grass in a woodsy place again while we +are on this journey,” sighed Jennie. “Ugh! I always did hate creepy +things.”</p> + +<p>“Including spiders, snakes, beetles and babies, I suppose?” laughed Helen. +“Come on now. Let us clear up the wreck. Where do we camp to-night, +Tommy?”</p> + +<p>“No more camping, I pray!” squealed Jennie. “I am no Gypsy.”</p> + +<p>“The hotel at Hampton is recommended as the real thing. They have a horse +show every year at Hampton, you know. It is in the midst of a summer +colony of wealthy people. It is the real thing,” Tom repeated.</p> + +<p>They made a pleasant and long run that afternoon and arrived at the +Hampton hotel in good season to dress for dinner. Jennie and her aunt met +some people they knew, and naturally Jennie’s fiancé and her friends were +warmly welcomed by the gay little colony.</p> + +<p>Men at the pleasure resorts were very scarce that year, and here were two +perfectly good<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 72]</span> dancers. So it was very late when the automobile party got +away from the dance at the Casino.</p> + +<p>They were late the next morning in starting on the road to Boston. +Besides, there was thunder early, and Helen, having heard it rumbling, +quoted:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“‘Thunder in the morning,<br /></span> +<span class="i1a">Sailors take warning!’”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and rolled over for another nap.</p> + +<p>Ruth, however, at last had to get up. She was no “lie-abed” in any case, +and in her present nervous state she had to be up and doing.</p> + +<p>“But it’s going to ra-a-ain!” whined Jennie Stone when Ruth went into her +room.</p> + +<p>“You’re neither sugar nor salt,” said Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Henri says I’m as sweet as sugar,” yawned Jennie.</p> + +<p>“He is not responsible for what he says about you,” said her aunt briskly. +“When I think of what that really nice young man is taking on his +shoulders when he marries you——”</p> + +<p>“But, Auntie!” cried Jennie, “he’s not going to try to carry me pickaback, +you know.”</p> + +<p>“Just the same, it is wrong for us to encourage him to become responsible +for you, Jennie,” said her aunt. “He really should be warned.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” gasped the plump girl. “Let anybody dare try to get between me and +my Henri——”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 73]</span> +“Nobody can—no fear—when you are sitting with him in the front seat of +that roadster of Tom’s,” said Ruth. “You fill every atom of space, Heavy.”</p> + +<p>She went to the window and looked out again. Heavy rolled out of bed—a +good deal like a barrel, her aunt said tartly.</p> + +<p>“What is it doing outside?” yawned the plump girl.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s not raining. And it is a long run to Boston. We should be on +our way now. The road through the hills is winding. There will be no time +to stop for a Gypsy picnic.”</p> + +<p>“Thank goodness for that!” grumbled Jennie, sitting on the floor, +schoolgirl fashion, to draw on her stockings. “I’ll eat enough at +breakfast hereafter to keep me alive until we reach a hotel, if you folks +insist on inviting wood ants and other savage creatures of the forest to +our luncheon table.”</p> + +<p>When the party finally gathered for breakfast in the hotel dining room on +this morning, it was disgracefully late. Tom had been over both cars and +pronounced them fit. He had ordered the tanks filled with gasoline and had +tipped one of the garage men liberally to see that this was properly done.</p> + +<p>Afterward Captain Tom declared he would never trust a garage workman +again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 74]</span> +“The only way to get a thing done well is to do it yourself—and a tip +never bought any special service yet,” declared the angry Tom. “It is +merely a form of highway robbery.”</p> + +<p>But this was afterward. The party started off from Hampton in high fettle +and with a childlike trust in the honesty of a garage attendant.</p> + +<p>There were banks of clouds shrouding the horizon both to the west and +north—the two directions from which thunder showers usually rise in this +part of New England in which they were traveling. And yet the shower held +off.</p> + +<p>It was some time past noon before the thunder began to mutter again. The +automobile party was then in the hilly country. Heretofore farms had been +plentiful, although hamlets were few and far between.</p> + +<p>“If it rains,” said Ruth cheerfully, “of course we can take refuge in some +farmhouse.”</p> + +<p>“Ho, for adventure among the savage natives!” cried Helen.</p> + +<p>“I hope we shall meet nobody quite as savage as Miss Susan Timmins,” was +Aunt Kate’s comment.</p> + +<p>They ran into a deep cut between two wooded hills and there was not a +house in sight. Indeed, they had not passed a farmstead on the road for +the last five miles. Over the top of the wooded crest to the north curled +a slate colored storm<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 75]</span> +cloud, its upper edge trembling with livid +lightnings. The veriest tyro of a weather prophet could see that a storm +was about to break. But nobody had foretold the sudden stopping of the +honeymoon car in the lead!</p> + +<p>“What is the matter with you?” cried Helen, standing up in the tonneau of +the big car, when Tom pulled up suddenly to keep from running the maroon +roadster down. “Don’t you see it is going to rain? We want to get +somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“I guess we have got somewhere,” responded Jennie Stone. “As far as we are +concerned, this seems to be our stopping place. The old car won’t go.”</p> + +<p>Tom jumped out and hurried forward to join Henri in an examination of the +car’s mechanism.</p> + +<p>“What happened, Colonel?” he asked the Frenchman, worriedly.</p> + +<p>“I have no idea, <em>mon ami</em>,” responded Marchand. “This is a puzzle, eh?”</p> + +<p>“First of all, let’s put up the tops. That rain is already beating the +woods on the summit of the hill.”</p> + +<p>The two young men hurried to do this, first sheltering Jennie and then +together dragging the heavy top over the big car, covering the baggage and +passengers. Helen and Ruth could fasten the curtains, and soon the women +of the party were snug enough. The drivers, however, had to get +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 76]</span> into rain +garments and begin the work of hunting the trouble with the roadster.</p> + +<p>The thunder grew louder and louder. Flashes of lightning streaked across +the sky overhead. The electric explosions were soon so frequent and +furious that the girls cowered together in real terror. Jennie had slipped +out of the small car and crowded in with her chums and Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care!” she wailed, “Henri and Tom are bound to take that car all +to pieces to find what has happened.”</p> + +<p>But they did not have to go as far as that. In fact, before the rain +really began to fall in earnest, Tom made the tragic discovery. There was +scarcely a drop of gasoline in the tank of the small machine. Tom hurried +back to the big car. He glanced at the dial of the gasoline tank. There +was not enough of the fluid to take them a mile! And the emergency tank +was turned on!</p> + +<p>It was at this point that he stated his opinion of the trustworthiness of +garage workmen.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 77]</span><a name="X" id="X"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>A WILD AFTERNOON</strong></p> + +<p>This was a serious situation. Five miles behind the automobile party was +the nearest dwelling on this road, and Tom was sure that the nearest +gasoline sign was all of five miles further back!</p> + +<p>Ahead lay more or less mystery. As the rain began to drum upon the roofs +of the two cars, harder and harder and faster and faster, Tom got out the +road map and tried to figure out their location. Ridgeton was ahead +somewhere—not nearer than six miles, he was sure. And the map showed no +gas sign this side of Ridgeton.</p> + +<p>Of course there might be some wayside dwelling only a short distance ahead +at which enough gasoline could be secured to drive the smaller car to +Ridgeton for a proper supply for both machines. But if all the gasoline +was drained from the tank of the big car into that of the roadster, the +latter would be scarcely able to travel another mile. And without being +sure that such a supply of gas<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 78]</span> +could be found within that distance, why +separate the two cars?</p> + +<p>This was the sensible way Tom put it to Henri; and it was finally decided +that Tom should start out on foot with an empty can and hunt for gasoline, +while Colonel Marchand remained with the girls and Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>When the two young men ran back through the pouring rain to the big car +and announced this decision, they had to shout to make the girls hear. The +turmoil of the rain and thunder was terrific.</p> + +<p>“I really wish you’d wait, Tom, till the tempest is over,” Ruth anxiously +said. “Suppose something happened to you on the road?”</p> + +<p>“Suppose something happened to <em>us</em> here in the auto?” shrieked Helen.</p> + +<p>“But Henri Marchand will be with you,” said her brother, preparing to +depart. “And if I delay we may not reach Boston to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” gasped Jennie. “Do please find some gas, Tom. I’d be scared to death +to stay out here in these woods.”</p> + +<p>“One of the autos may bite her,” scoffed Helen, ready to scorn her own +fears when her friend was even more fearful. “These cars are the wildest +thing in these woods, I warrant.”</p> + +<p>“Of course you must do what you think is best, Tom,” said Ruth, gravely. +“I hope you will not have to go far.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 79]</span> +“No matter how long I am gone, Ruth, don’t be alarmed,” he told her. “You +know, nothing serious ever happens to me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!” cried his sister. “Of course not! Only you get carried away on a +Zeppelin, or are captured by the Germans and Ruth has to go to your +rescue. We know all about how immune you are from trouble, young man.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks be! there are no Boches here in peaceful New England,” exclaimed +Jennie, after Tom had started off with the gasoline can. “Oh!”</p> + +<p>A sharp clap of thunder seemingly just overhead followed the flash that +had made the plump girl shriek. The explosion reverberated between the +hills in slowly passing cadence.</p> + +<p>Jennie finally removed her fingers from her ears with a groan. Aunt Kate +had covered her eyes. With Helen they cowered together in the tonneau. +Ruth had been sitting beside Tom in the front seat when the cars were +stalled, and now Henri Marchand was her companion.</p> + +<p>“I heard something then, Colonel,” Ruth said in a low tone, when the salvo +of thunder was passed.</p> + +<p>“You are fortunate, Mademoiselle,” he returned. “Me, I am deafened +complete’.”</p> + +<p>“I heard a cry.”</p> + +<p>“Not from Captain Cameron?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 80]</span>“It was not his voice. Listen!” said the girl of the Red Mill, in some +excitement.</p> + +<p>Despite the driving rain she put her head out beyond the curtain and +listened. Her face was sheltered from the beating rain. It would have +taken her breath had she faced it. Again the lightning flashed and the +thunder crashed on its trail.</p> + +<p>Ruth did not draw in her head. She wore her raincoat and a rubber cap, and +on her feet heavy shoes. The storm did not frighten her. She might be +anxious for Tom’s safety, but the ordinary chances of such a disturbance +of the elements as this never bothered Ruth Fielding at all.</p> + +<p>As the rolling of thunder died away in the distance again, the splashing +sound of the rain seemed to grow lighter, too; or Ruth’s hearing became +attuned to the sounds about her.</p> + +<p>There it was again! A human cry! Or was it? It came from up the hillside +to the north of the road on which the automobiles were stalled.</p> + +<p>Was there somebody up there in the wet woods—some human creature lost in +the storm?</p> + +<p>For a third time Ruth heard the wailing, long-drawn cry. Henri had his +hands full soothing Jennie. Helen and Aunt Kate were clinging together in +the depths of the tonneau. Possibly their eyes were covered against the +glare of the lightning.</p> + +<p>Ruth slipped out under the curtain on the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 81]</span>leeward side. The rain swept +down the hillside in solid platoons that marched one after another from +northwest to southeast. Dashing against the southern hillside, these +marching columns dissolved in torrents that Ruth could hear roaring down +from the tree-tops and rushing in miniature floods through the forest.</p> + +<p>The road was all awash. The cars stood almost hub-deep in a yellow, +foaming flood. The roadside ditches were not deep here, and the sudden +freshet was badly guttering the highway.</p> + +<p>Sheltered at first by the top of the big car, Ruth strained her ears again +to catch that cry which had come down the wind from the thickly wooded +hillside.</p> + +<p>There it was! A high, piercing scream, as though the one who uttered it +was in great fear or agony. Nor did the cry seem to be far away.</p> + +<p>Ruth went around to the other side of the automobile. The rain was letting +up—or seemed to be. She crossed to the higher ground and pushed through +the fringe of bushes that bordered the road.</p> + +<p>Already her feet and ankles were saturated, for she had waded through +water more than a foot in depth. Here on the steep hillside the flowing +water followed the beds of small rivulets which carried it away on either +side of her.</p> + +<p>The thick branches of the trees made an almost +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 82]</span> impervious umbrella above +her head. She could see up the hill through the drifting mist for a long +distance. The aisles between the rows of trees seemed filled with a sort +of pallid light.</p> + +<p>Across the line of her vision and through one of these aisles passed a +figure—whether that of an animal or the stooping body of a human being +Ruth Fielding could not at first be sure.</p> + +<p>She had no fear of there being any savage creature in this wood. At least +there could be nothing here that would attack her in broad daylight. In a +lull in the echoing thunder she cried aloud:</p> + +<p>“Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! Where are you?”</p> + +<p>She was sure her voice drove some distance up the hillside against the +wind. She saw the flitting figure again, and with a desire to make sure of +its identity, Ruth started in pursuit.</p> + +<p>Had Tom been present the girl of the Red Mill would have called his +attention to the mystery and left it to him to decide whether to +investigate or not. But Ruth was quite an independent person when she was +alone; and under the circumstances, with Henri Marchand so busy comforting +Jennie, Ruth did not consider for a moment calling the Frenchman to advise +with her.</p> + +<p>As for Helen and Aunt Kate, they were quite overcome by their fears. Ruth +was not really afraid of thunder and lightning, as many people are. She +had long since learned that “thunder<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 83]</span> +does not bite, and the bolt of +lightning that hits you, you will never see!”</p> + +<p>Heavy as the going was, and interfering with her progress through her wet +garments did, Ruth ran up the hill underneath the dripping trees. She saw +the flitting, shadowy figure once more. Again she called as loudly as she +could shout:</p> + +<p>“Wait! Wait! I won’t hurt you.”</p> + +<p>Whoever or whatever it was, the figure did not stay. It flitted on about +two hundred yards ahead of the pursuing girl.</p> + +<p>At times it disappeared altogether; but Ruth kept on up the hill and her +quarry always reappeared. She was quite positive this was the creature +that had shrieked, for the mournful cry was not repeated after she caught +sight of the figure.</p> + +<p>“It is somebody who has been frightened by the storm,” she thought. “Or it +is a lost child. This is a wild hillside, and one might easily be lost up +here.”</p> + +<p>Then she called again. She thought the strange figure turned and +hesitated. Then, of a sudden, it darted into a clump of brush. When Ruth +came panting to the spot she could see no trace of the creature, or the +path which it had followed.</p> + +<p>But directly before Ruth was an opening in the hillside—the mouth of a +deep ravine which had not been visible from the road below.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 84]</span> +Down this ravine ran a noisy torrent which had cut itself a wider and +deeper bed since the cloudburst on the heights. Small trees, brush, and +rocks had been uprooted by the force of the stream, but its current was +now receding. One might walk along the edge of the brook into this +hillside fastness.</p> + +<p>Determined to solve the mystery of the strange creature’s disappearance, +and quite convinced that it was a lost child or woman, Ruth Fielding +ventured through the brush clump and passed along the ragged bank of the +tumbling brook.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, in the muddy ground at her feet, the girl spied a shoe. It was a +black oxford of good quality, and it had been, of course, wrenched from +the foot of the person she pursued. This girl, or woman, must be running +from Ruth in fear.</p> + +<p>Ruth picked up the shoe. It was for a small foot, but might belong to +either a girl of fourteen or so or to a small woman. She could see the +print of the other shoe—yes! and there was the impress of the stockinged +foot in the mud.</p> + +<p>“Whoever she may be,” thought Ruth Fielding, “she is so frightened that +she abandoned this shoe. Poor thing! What can be the matter with her?”</p> + +<p>Ruth shouted again, and yet again. She went on up the side of the +turbulent brook, staring all about for the hiding place of her quarry.</p> + +<p>The rain ceased entirely and abruptly. But the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 85]</span> +whole forest was a-drip. +Far up through the trees she saw a sudden lightening of the sky. The +clouds were breaking.</p> + +<p>But the smoke of the torrential downpour still rose from the saturated +earth. When Ruth jarred a bush in passing a perfect deluge fell from the +trembling leaves. The girl began to feel that she had come far enough in +what appeared to be a wild-goose chase.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly, quite amazingly, she was halted. She plunged around a sharp +turn in the ravine, trying to step on the dryer places, and found herself +confronted by a man standing under the shelter of a wide-armed spruce.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” gasped Ruth, starting back.</p> + +<p>He was a heavy-set, bewhiskered man with gleaming eyes and rather a grim +look. Worst of all, he carried a gun with the lock sheltered under his +arm-pit from the rain.</p> + +<p>At Ruth’s appearance he seemed startled, too, and he advanced the muzzle +of the gun and took a stride forward at the same moment.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” he growled. “Be you crazy, too? What in all git out be you +traipsing through these woods for in the rain?”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 86]</span><a name="XI" id="XI"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>MR. PETERBY PAUL AND “WHOSIS”</strong></p> + +<p>Ruth Fielding was more than a little startled, for the appearance of this +bearded and gruff-spoken man was much against him.</p> + +<p>She had become familiar, however, during the past months with all sorts +and conditions of men—many of them much more dangerous looking than this +stranger.</p> + +<p>Her experiences at the battlefront in France had taught her many things. +Among them, that very often the roughest men are the most tender with and +considerate of women. Ruth knew that the girls and women working in the +Red Cross and the “Y” and the Salvation Army might venture among the +roughest <em>poilus</em>, Tommies and our own Yanks without fearing insult or +injury.</p> + +<p>After that first startled “Oh!” Ruth Fielding gave no sign of fearing the +bearded man with the gun under his arm. She stood her ground as he +approached her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 87]</span> +“How many air there of ye, Sissy?” he wanted to know. “And air ye all +loose from some bat factory? That other one’s crazy as all git out.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, did you see her?”</p> + +<p>“If ye mean that Whosis that’s wanderin’ around yellin’ like a +cat-o’-mountain——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear! It was she that was screaming so!”</p> + +<p>“I should say it was. I tried to cotch her——”</p> + +<p>“And that scared her more, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Huh! Be I so scareful to look at?” the stranger demanded. “Or, mebbe +<em>you</em> ain’t loony, lady?”</p> + +<p>“I should hope not,” rejoined Ruth, beginning to laugh.</p> + +<p>“Then how in tarnation,” demanded the bearded man, “do you explain your +wanderin’ about these woods in this storm?”</p> + +<p>“Why,” said Ruth, “I was trying to catch that poor creature, too.”</p> + +<p>“That Whosis?” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Whatever and whoever she is. See! Here’s one of her shoes.”</p> + +<p>“Do tell! She’s lost it, ain’t she? Don’t you reckon she’s loony?”</p> + +<p>“It may be that she is out of her mind. But she couldn’t hurt you—a big, +strong man like you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s as may be. I misdoubted me she was some kind of a Whosis,” said +the woodsman. “I<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 88]</span> +seen her a couple of times and heard her holler ev’ry +time the lightning was real sharp.”</p> + +<p>“The poor creature has been frightened half to death by the tempest,” said +Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe. But where did she come from? And where did you come from, if I may +ask? This yere ain’t a neighborhood that many city folks finds their way +into, let me tell ye.”</p> + +<p>Ruth told him her name and related the mishap that had happened to the two +cars at the bottom of the hill.</p> + +<p>“Wal, I want to know!” he responded. “Out o’ gasoline, heh? Wal, that can +be mended.”</p> + +<p>“Tom Cameron has gone on foot for some.”</p> + +<p>“Which way did he go, Ma’am?”</p> + +<p>“East,” she said, pointing.</p> + +<p>“Towards Ridgeton? Wal, he’ll have a fine walk.”</p> + +<p>“But we have not seen any gasoline sign for ever so far back on the road.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Ain’t no reg’lar place. But I guess I might be able to +scare up enough gas to help you folks out. Ye see, we got a saw mill right +up this gully and we got a gasoline engine to run her. I’m a-watchin’ the +place till the gang come in to work next month. That there Whosis got me +out in the rain——”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Where do you suppose the poor thing +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 89]</span> has gone?” interrupted Ruth. “We +should do something for her.”</p> + +<p>“Wal, if she don’t belong to you folks——”</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t. But she should not be allowed to wander about in this awful +way. Is she a woman grown, or a child?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t tell ye. I ain’t been close enough to her. By the way, my name +is Peterby Paul, and I’m well and fav’rably knowed about this mounting. I +did have my thoughts about you, same as that Whosis, I must say. But you +’pear to be all right. Wait, and I’ll bring ye down a couple of cans of +gasoline, and you can go on and pick up the feller that’s started to walk +to Ridgeton.”</p> + +<p>“But that poor creature I followed up here, Mr. Paul? We <em>must</em> find her.”</p> + +<p>“You say she ain’t nothin’ to you folks?”</p> + +<p>“But she is alone, and frightened.”</p> + +<p>“Wal, I expect so. She did give me a start for fair. I don’t know where +she could have come from ’nless she belongs over toward Ridgeton at old +Miz Abby Drake’s. She’s got some city folks stopping with her—”</p> + +<p>“There she is!” cried Ruth, under her breath.</p> + +<p>A hobbling figure appeared for a moment on the side of the ravine. The +rain had ceased now, but it still dripped plentifully from the trees.</p> + +<p>“I’m going after her!” exclaimed Ruth.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 90]</span> +“All right, Ma’am,” said Mr. Peterby Paul. “I guess she ain’t no Whosis, +after all.”</p> + +<p>Ruth could run much faster than the strange person who had so startled +both the woodsman and herself. And running lightly, the girl of the Red +Mill was almost at her quarry’s elbow before her presence was suspected by +the latter.</p> + +<p>The woman turned her face toward Ruth and screeched in evident alarm. She +looked wild enough to be called a “Whosis,” whatever kind of supernatural +apparition that might be. Her silk dress was in rags; her hair floated +down her back in a tangled mane; altogether she was a sorry sight, indeed.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of middle age, dark, slight of build, and of a most +pitiful appearance.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened! Don’t be afraid of me,” begged Ruth. “Where are your +friends? I will take you to them.”</p> + +<p>“It is the voice of God,” said the woman solemnly. “I am wicked. He will +punish me. Do you know how wicked I am?” she added in a tense whisper.</p> + +<p>“I have no idea,” Ruth replied calmly. “But I think that when we are +nervous and distraught as you are, we magnify our sins as well as our +troubles.”</p> + +<p>Really, Ruth Fielding felt that she might take +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 91]</span> this philosophy to +herself. She had been of late magnifying her troubles, without doubt.</p> + +<p>“I have been a great sinner,” said the woman. “Do you know, I used to +steal my little sister’s bread and jam. And now she is dead. I can never +make it up to her.”</p> + +<p>Plainly this was a serious matter to the excited mind of the poor woman.</p> + +<p>“Come on down the hill with me. I have got an automobile there and we can +ride to Mrs. Drake’s in it. Isn’t that where you are stopping?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes. Abby Drake,” said the lost woman weakly. “We—we all started +out for huckleberries. And I never thought before how wicked I was to my +little sister. But the storm burst—such a terrible storm!” and the poor +creature cowered close to Ruth as the thunder muttered again in the +distance.</p> + +<p>“It is the voice of God——”</p> + +<p>“Come along!” urged Ruth. “Lots of people have made the same mistake. So +Aunt Alvirah says. They mistake some other noise for the voice of God!”</p> + +<p>The woman was now so weak that the strong girl could easily lead her. Mr. +Peterby Paul looked at the forlorn figure askance, however.</p> + +<p>“You can’t blame me for thinkin’ she was a Whosis,” he said to Ruth. “Poor +critter! It’s<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 92]</span> lucky you came after her. She give me such a start I might +o’ run sort o’ wild myself.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps if you had tried to catch her it would only have made her worse,” +Ruth replied, gently patting the excited woman’s hand.</p> + +<p>“The voice of God!” muttered the victim of her own nervousness.</p> + +<p>“And she traipsing through these woods in a silk dress!” exclaimed Mr. +Paul. “I tell ’em all, city folks ain’t got right good sense.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you are right, Mr. Paul,” sighed Ruth. “We are all a little queer, +I guess. I will take her down to the car.”</p> + +<p>“And I’ll be right along with a couple of cans of gasoline, Ma’am,” +rejoined Peterby Paul. “Ain’t no use you and your friends bein’ stranded +no longer.”</p> + +<p>“If you will be so kind,” Ruth said.</p> + +<p>He turned back up the ravine and Ruth urged the lost woman down the hill. +The poor creature was scarcely able to walk, even after she had put on her +lost shoe. Her fears which had driven her into this quite irresponsible +state, were the result of ungoverned nervousness. Ruth thought seriously +of this fact as she aided her charge down the hillside.</p> + +<p>She must steady her own nerves, or the result might be quite as serious. +She had allowed the loss of her scenario to shake her usual calm. She +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 93]</span> +knew she had not been acting like herself during this automobile journey +and that she had given her friends cause for alarm.</p> + +<p>Then and there Ruth determined to talk no more about her loss or her fears +regarding the missing scenario. If it was gone, it was gone. That was all +there was to it. She would no longer worry her friends and disturb her own +mental poise by ruminating upon her misfortune.</p> + +<p>When she and the lost woman got out of the ravine, Ruth could hear the +girls calling her. And there was Colonel Marchand’s horizon-blue uniform +in sight as he toiled up the ascent, looking for her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, dear,” Ruth said to the startled woman. “These are +my friends.”</p> + +<p>Then she called to Helen that she was coming. Colonel Marchand hurried +forward with an amazed question.</p> + +<p>“Never mind! Don’t bother her,” Ruth said. “The poor creature has been +through enough—out in all this storm, alone. We must get her to where she +is stopping as soon as possible. See the condition her clothes are in!”</p> + +<p>“But, Mademoiselle Ruth!” gasped the Frenchman. “We are stalled until +Captain Tom comes back with the gasoline—is it not?”</p> + +<p>“We are going to have gas in a very few <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 94]</span> +minutes,” returned Ruth gaily. “I did more than find this poor woman +up on the hill. Wait!”</p> + +<p>Helen and Jennie sprang at Ruth like a pair of terriers after a cat, +demanding information and explanation all in a breath. But when they +realized the state of mind of the strange woman, they calmed down.</p> + +<p>They wrapped her in a dry raincoat and put her in the back of the big car. +She remained quietly there with Jennie’s Aunt Kate while Ruth related her +adventure with Mr. Peterby Paul and the “Whosis.”</p> + +<p>“Goodness!” gasped Helen, “I guess he named her rightly. There must be +something altogether wrong with the poor creature to make her wander about +these wet woods, screeching like a loon.”</p> + +<p>“I’d screech, too,” said Jennie Stone, “if I’d torn a perfectly good silk +dress to tatters as she has.”</p> + +<p>“Think of going huckleberrying in a frock like that,” murmured Ruth. “I +guess you are both right. And Mr. Peterby Paul did have good reason for +calling her a ‘Whosis’.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 95]</span><a name="XII" id="XII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>ALONGSHORE</strong></p> + +<p>Mr. Peterby Paul appeared after a short time striding down the wooded +hillside balancing a five-gallon gasoline can in either hand.</p> + +<p>“I reckon you can get to Ridgeton on this here,” he said jovially. “Guess +I’d better set up a sign down here so’s other of you autermobile folks kin +take heart if ye git stuck.”</p> + +<p>“You are just as welcome as the flowers in spring, tra-la!” cried Helen, +fairly dancing with delight.</p> + +<p>“You are an angel visitor, Mr. Paul,” said the plump girl.</p> + +<p>“I been called a lot o’ things besides an angel,” the bearded woodsman +said, his eyes twinkling. “My wife, ’fore she died, had an almighty tart +tongue.”</p> + +<p>“And <em>now</em>?” queried Helen wickedly.</p> + +<p>“Wal, wherever the poor critter’s gone, I reckon she’s l’arned to bridle +her tongue,” said Mr. Peterby Paul cheerfully. “Howsomever, as the feller +said, that’s another day’s job. Mr.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 96]</span> +Frenchy, let’s pour this gasoline +into them tanks.”</p> + +<p>Ruth insisted upon paying for the gasoline, and paying well. Then Peterby +Paul gave them careful directions as to the situation of Abby Drake’s +house, at which it seemed the lost woman must belong.</p> + +<p>“Abby always has her house full of city folks in the summer,” the woodsman +said. “She is pretty near a Whosis herself, Abby Drake is.”</p> + +<p>With which rather unfavorable intimation regarding the despised “city +folks,” Mr. Peterby Paul saw them start on over the now badly rutted road.</p> + +<p>Helen drove the smaller car with Ruth sitting beside her. Henri Marchand +took the wheel of the touring car, and the run to Boston was resumed.</p> + +<p>“But we must not over-run Tom,” said Ruth to her chum. “No knowing what +by-path he might have tried in search of the elusive gasoline.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll keep the horn blowing,” Helen said, suiting action to her speech and +sounding a musical blast through the wooded country that lay all about. +“He ought to know his own auto-horn.”</p> + +<p>The tone of the horn was peculiar. Ruth could always distinguish it from +any other as Tom speeded along the Cheslow road toward the Red Mill. But +then, she was perhaps subconsciously listening for its mellow note.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 97]</span> +She tacitly agreed with Helen, however, that it might be a good thing to +toot the horn frequently. And the signal brought to the roadside an +anxious group of women at a sprawling farmhouse not a mile beyond the spot +where the two cars had been stalled.</p> + +<p>“That is the Drake place. It must be!” Ruth exclaimed, putting out a hand +to warn Colonel Marchand that they were about to halt.</p> + +<p>A fleshy woman with a very ruddy face under her sunbonnet came eagerly out +into the road, leading the group of evidently much worried women.</p> + +<p>“Have you folks seen anything of——”</p> + +<p>“<em>Abby!</em>” shrieked the woman Ruth had found, and she struggled to get out +of the car.</p> + +<p>“Well, I declare, Mary Marsden!” gasped the sunbonneted woman, who was +plainly Abby Drake. “If you ain’t a sight!”</p> + +<p>“I—I’m so scared!” quavered the unforunate victim of her own nerves, as +Ruth ran back to help her out of the touring car. “God is going to punish +me, Abby.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly hope He will,” declared her friend, in rather a hard-hearted +way. “I told you, you ought to be punished for wearing that dress up there +into the berry pasture, and—— Land’s sakes alive! Look at her +dress!”</p> + +<p>Afterward, when Ruth had been thanked by<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 98]</span> +Mrs. Drake and the other women, +and the cars were rolling along the highway again, the girl of the Red +Mill said to Helen Cameron:</p> + +<p>“I guess Tom is more than half right. Altogether, the most serious topic +of conversation for all kinds and conditions of female humans is the +matter of dress—in one way or another.”</p> + +<p>“How dare you slur your own sex so?” demanded Helen.</p> + +<p>“Well, look at this case,” her chum observed. “This Mary Marsden had been +lost in the storm and killed for all they knew, yet Abby Drake’s first +thought was for the woman’s dress.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was a pity about the dress,” Helen remarked, proving that she +agreed with Abby Drake and the bulk of womankind—as her twin brother oft +and again acclaimed.</p> + +<p>Ruth laughed. “And now if we could see poor dear Tommy——”</p> + +<p>The car rounded a sharp turn in the highway. The Drake house was perhaps a +mile behind. Ahead was a long stretch of rain-drenched road, and Helen +instantly cried:</p> + +<p>“There he is!”</p> + +<p>The figure of Tom Cameron with the empty gasoline can in his hand could +scarcely be mistaken, although he was at least a mile in advance. Helen +began to punch the horn madly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 99]</span> +“He’ll know that,” Ruth cried. “Yes, he looks back! Won’t he be +astonished?”</p> + +<p>Tom certainly was amazed. He proceeded to sit down on the can and wait for +the cars to overtake him.</p> + +<p>“What are you traveling on?” he shouted, when Helen stopped with the +engine running just in front of him. “Fairy gasoline?”</p> + +<p>“Why, Tommy, you’re not so smart!” laughed his sister. “It takes Ruth to +find gas stations. We were stalled right in front of one, and you did not +know it. Hop in here and take my place and I’ll run back to the other car. +Ruth will tell you all about it.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps we had better let Colonel Marchand and Jennie have this honeymoon +car,” Ruth said doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Humph!” her chum observed, “I begin to believe it will be just as much a +honeymoon car with you and Tom in it as with that other couple. ‘Bless +you, my children!’”</p> + +<p>She ran back to the big car with this saucy statement. Tom grinned, +slipped behind the wheel, and started the roadster slowly.</p> + +<p>“It must be,” he observed in his inimitable drawl, “that Sis has noticed +that I’m fond of you, Ruthie.”</p> + +<p>“Quite remarkable,” she rejoined cheerfully. “But the war isn’t over yet, +Tommy-boy. And if<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 100]</span> +our lives are spared we’ve got to finish our educations +and all that. Why, Tommy, you are scarcely out of short pants, and I’ve +only begun to put my hair up.”</p> + +<p>“Jimminy!” he grumbled, “you do take all the starch out of a fellow. Now +tell me how you got gas. What happened?”</p> + +<p>Everybody has been to Boston, or expects to go there some time, so it is +quite immaterial what happened to the party while at the Hub. They only +remained two days, anyway, then they started off alongshore through the +pleasant old towns that dot the coast as far as Cape Ann.</p> + +<p>They saw the ancient fishing ports of Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester and +Rockport, and then came back into the interior and did not see salt water +again until they reached Newburyport at the mouth of the Merrimac.</p> + +<p>The weather remained delightfully cool and sunshiny after that heavy +tempest they had suffered in the hills, and they reached Portsmouth and +remained at a hotel for three days when it rained again. The young folks +chafed at this delay, but Aunt Kate declared that a hotel room was restful +after jouncing over all sorts of roads for so long.</p> + +<p>“They never will build a car easy enough for auntie,” Jennie Stone +declared. “I tell pa he must buy some sort of airship for us——”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 101]</span> +“Never!” cried Aunt Kate in quick denial. “Whenever I go up in the air it +will be because wings have sprouted on my shoulder blades. And I should +not call an aeroplane easy riding, in any case.”</p> + +<p>“At least,” grumbled Tom, “you can spin along without any trouble with +country constables, and <em>that’s</em> a blessing.”</p> + +<p>For on several occasions they had had arguments with members of the police +force, in one case helping to support a justice and a constable by paying +a fine.</p> + +<p>They did not travel on Sunday, however, when the constables reap most of +their harvest, so they really had little to complain of in that direction. +Nor did they travel fast in any case.</p> + +<p>After the rainy days at Portsmouth, the automobile party ran on with only +minor incidents and no adventures until they reached Portland. There Ruth +telegraphed to Mr. Hammond that they were coming, as in her letter, +written before they left Cheslow, she had promised him she would.</p> + +<p>Herringport, the nearest town to the moving picture camp at Beach Plum +Point, was at the head of a beautiful harbor, dotted with islands, and +with water as blue as that of the Bay of Naples. When the two cars rolled +into this old seaport the party was welcomed in person by Mr. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 102]</span> Hammond, +the president and producing manager of the Alectrion Film Corporation.</p> + +<p>“I have engaged rooms for you at the hotel here, if you want them,” he +told Ruth, after being introduced to Aunt Kate and Colonel Marchand, the +only members of the party whom he had not previously met.</p> + +<p>“But I can give you all comfortable bunks with some degree of luxury at +the camp. At least, we think it luxurious after our gold mining experience +in the West. You will get better cooking at the Point, too.”</p> + +<p>“But a camp!” sighed Aunt Kate. “We have roughed it so much coming down +here, Mr. Hammond.”</p> + +<p>“There won’t be any black ants at this camp,” said her niece cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“Only sand fleas,” suggested the wicked Tom.</p> + +<p>“You can’t scare me with fleas,” said Jennie. “They only hop; they don’t +wriggle and creep.”</p> + +<p>“My star in the ‘Seaside Idyl,’ Miss Loder, demanded hotel accommodations +at first. But she soon changed her mind,” Mr. Hammond said. “She is now +glad to be on the lot with the rest of the company.”</p> + +<p>“It sounds like a circus,” Aunt Kate murmured doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“It is more than that, my dear Madam,” <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 103]</span> +replied the manager, laughing. +“But these young people——”</p> + +<p>“If Aunt Kate won’t mind,” said Ruth, “let us try it, while she remains at +the Herringport Inn.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll run her back and forth every day for the ‘eats’,” Tom promptly +proposed.</p> + +<p>“My duty as a chaperon——” began the good woman, when her niece broke in +with:</p> + +<p>“In numbers there is perfect safety, Auntie. There are a whole lot of +girls down there at the Point.”</p> + +<p>“And we have chaperons of our own, I assure you,” interposed Mr. Hammond, +treating Aunt Kate’s objection seriously. “Miss Loder has a cousin who +always travels with her. Our own Mother Paisley, who plays character +parts, has daughters of her own and is a lovely lady. You need not fear, +Madam, that the conventions will be broken.”</p> + +<p>“We won’t even crack ’em, Aunt Kate,” declared Helen rouguishly. “I will +watch Jen like a cat would a mouse.”</p> + +<p>“Humph!” observed the plump girl, scornfully. “<em>This</em> mouse, in that case, +is likely to swallow the cat!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 104]</span><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE HERMIT</strong></p> + +<p>“Now, tell me, Miss Ruth,” said Mr. Hammond, having taken the girl of the +Red Mill into his own car for the short run to Beach Plum Point, “what is +this trouble about your new scenario? You have excited my curiosity during +all these months about the wonderful script, and now you say it is not +ready for me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Hammond!” exclaimed Ruth, “I fear it will never be ready for +you.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! Don’t lose heart. You have merely come to one of those +thank-you-ma’ams in story writing that all authors suffer. Wait. It will +come to you.”</p> + +<p>“No, no!” sighed Ruth. “It is nothing like that. I had finished the +scenario. I had it all just about as I wanted it, and then——”</p> + +<p>“Then what?” he asked in wonder at her emotion.</p> + +<p>“It—it was stolen!”</p> + +<p>“Stolen?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 105]</span> +“Yes. And all my notes—everything! I—I can’t talk about it. And I never +could write it again,” sobbed Ruth. “It is the best thing I ever did, Mr. +Hammond.”</p> + +<p>“If it is better than ‘The Heart of a Schoolgirl’, or ‘The Forty-Niners’, +or ‘The Boys of the Draft’, then it must be some scenario, Miss Ruth. The +last two are still going strong, you know. And I have hopes of the +‘Seaside Idyl’ catching the public fancy just when we are all getting +rather weary of war dramas.</p> + +<p>“If you can only rewrite this new story——”</p> + +<p>“But Mr. Hammond! I am sure it has been stolen by somebody who will make +use of it. Some other producer may put it on the screen, and then my +version would fall flat—if no worse.”</p> + +<p>“Humph! And you have been so secret about it!”</p> + +<p>“I took your advice, Mr. Hammond. I have told nobody about it—not a +thing!”</p> + +<p>“And somebody unknown stole it?”</p> + +<p>“We think it was a vagrant actor. A tramp. Just the sort of person, +though, who would know how to make use of the script.”</p> + +<p>“Humph! All actors were considered ‘vagrants’ under the old English +law—in Shakespeare’s younger days, for instance,” remarked Mr. Hammond.</p> + +<p>“You see how unwise it would be for me to try<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 106]</span> +to rewrite the story—even +if I could—and try to screen it.”</p> + +<p>“I presume you are right. Yes. But I hoped you would bring a story with +you that we could be working on at odd times. I have a good all-around +company here on the lot.”</p> + +<p>“I had most of your principals in mind when I wrote my scenario,” sighed +Ruth. “But I could not put my mind to that same subject now. I am +discouraged, Mr. Hammond.”</p> + +<p>“I would not feel that way if I were you, Miss Ruth,” he advised, trying, +as everybody else did, to cheer her. “You will get another good idea, and +like all other born writers, you will just <em>have</em> to give expression to +it. Meantime, of course, if I get hold of a promising scenario, I shall +try to produce it.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you will find a good one, Mr. Hammond.”</p> + +<p>He smiled rather ruefully. “Of course, there is scarcely anybody on the +lot who hasn’t a picture play in his or her pocket. I was possibly unwise +last week to offer five hundred dollars spot cash for a play I could make +use of, for now I suppose there will be fifty to read. Everybody, from +Jacks, the property man, to the old hermit, believes he can write a +scenario.”</p> + +<p>“Who is the hermit?” asked Ruth, with some curiosity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 107]</span> +“I don’t know. Nobody seems to know who he is about Herringport. He was +living in an old fish-house down on the Point when we came here last week +with the full strength of the company. And I have made use of the old +fellow in your ‘Seaside Idyl’.</p> + +<p>“He seems to be a queer duck. But he has some idea of the art of acting, +it seems. Director Jim Hooley is delighted with him. But they tell me the +old fellow is scribbling all night in his hut. The scenario bug has +certainly bit that old codger. He’s out for my five hundred dollars,” and +the producing manager laughed again.</p> + +<p>“I hope you get a good script,” said Ruth earnestly. “But don’t ask me to +read any of them, Mr. Hammond. It does seem as though I never wanted to +look at a scenario again!”</p> + +<p>“Then you are going to miss some amusement in this case,” he chuckled.</p> + +<p>“Why so?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you frankly I do not expect much from even those professional +actors. It was my experience even before I went into the motion picture +business that plays submitted by actors were always full of all the old +stuff—all the old theatrical tricks and the like. Actors are the most +insular people in existence, I believe. They know how plays should be +written to fulfill the tenets of the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 108]</span> +profession; but invention is ‘something else again’.”</p> + +<p>The young people who had motored so far were welcomed by many of Mr. +Hammond’s company who had acted in “The Forty-Niners” and had met Ruth and +her friends in the West, as related in “Ruth Fielding in the Saddle.”</p> + +<p>The shacks that had been built especially for the company’s use were +comfortable, even if they did smell of new pine boards. The men of the +company lived in khaki tents. There were several old fish-houses that were +likewise being utilized by the members of the company.</p> + +<p>Beach Plum Point was the easterly barrier of sand and rock that defended +the beautiful harbor from the Atlantic breakers. It was a wind-blown +place, and the moan of the surf on the outer reef was continually in the +ears of the campers on the Point.</p> + +<p>The tang of salt in the air could always be tasted on the lips when one +was out of doors. And the younger folks were out on the sands most of the +time when they were not working, sleeping, or eating.</p> + +<p>“We are going to have some fun here,” promised Tom Cameron to Ruth, after +their party had got established with its baggage. “See that hard strip of +beach? That’s no clamflat. I am going to race my car on that sand. Palm +Beach<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 109]</span> has nothing on this. Jackman, +the property man (you remember Jacks, +don’t you, Ruth?), says the blackfish and bass are biting off the Point. +You girls can act in movies if you like, but <em>I</em> am going fishing.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk movies to me,” sighed the girl. “I almost wish we had not +come, Tom.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! You shall go fishing with me. Put on your oldest duds +and—well, maybe you will have to strip off your shoes and stockings. It +is both wet and slippery on the rocks.”</p> + +<p>“Pooh! I’ll put on my bathing suit and a sweater. I never was afraid of +water yet,” Ruth declared.</p> + +<p>This was the morning after their arrival. Tom had been up to the port and +brought down Aunt Kate for the day. Aunt Kate sat under an umbrella near +where the company was working on location, and she scribbled all day in a +notebook. Jennie whispered that she, too, was bitten by the scenario bug!</p> + +<p>“I feel it coming over me,” announced Helen. “I’ve got what I think is a +dandy idea.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s too much to do,” Jennie Stone said. “I couldn’t find time to +dabble in literature.”</p> + +<p>“My, oh, my!” gasped Helen, with scorn. “How busy we are! You and Henri +spend all your time making eyes at each other.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 110]</span> +“But just think, Nell!” cried the plump girl. “He’s got to go back to +France and fight——”</p> + +<p>“And so has my Tom.”</p> + +<p>“But Tom is only your brother.”</p> + +<p>“And Henri is nothing at all to you,” rejoined Helen cruelly. “A fiancé is +only an expectation. You may change your mind about Henri.”</p> + +<p>“Never!” cried Jennie, with horror.</p> + +<p>“Well, he keeps you busy, I grant. And there go Tom and Ruth mooning off +together with fish lines. Lots of fishing <em>they</em> will do! They are almost +as bad as you and Henri. Why!” ejaculated Helen in some heat, “I am just +driven to writing scenarios to keep from dying of loneliness.”</p> + +<p>“I notice that ‘juvenile lead,’ Mr. Simmons, is keeping you quite busy,” +remarked Jennie slyly, as she turned away.</p> + +<p>It was a fact that Ruth and Tom enjoyed each others’ company. But Helen +need not have been even a wee bit jealous. To tell the truth, she did not +like to “get all mussed up,” as she expressed it, by going fishing. To +Ruth the adventure was a glad relief from worriment. Much as she tried, +she could not throw off all thought of her lost scenario.</p> + +<p>She welcomed every incident that promised amusement and mental relaxation. +Some of the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 111]</span> +troupe of actors—the men, mostly—were bathing off the +Point.</p> + +<p>“And see that man in the old skiff!” cried Ruth. “‘The Lone Fisherman’.”</p> + +<p>The individual in question sat upon a common kitchen chair in the skiff +with a big, patched umbrella to keep the sun off, and was fishing with a +pole that he had evidently cut in the woods along the shore.</p> + +<p>“That is that hermit fellow,” said Tom. “He’s a queer duck. And the boys +bother him a good deal.”</p> + +<p>He was angrily driving some of the swimmers away from his fishing location +at that moment. It was plain the members of the moving picture company +used the hermit as a butt for their jokes.</p> + +<p>While one fellow was taking up the hermit’s attention in front, another +bather rose silently behind him and reached into the bottom of the skiff. +What this second fellow did Tom and Ruth could not see.</p> + +<p>“The old chap can’t swim a stroke,” explained one of the laughing bathers +to the visitors. “He’s as afraid of water as a cat. Now you watch.”</p> + +<p>But Tom and Ruth saw nothing to watch. They went on to the tip of the +Point and Tom prepared the fishing tackle and baited the hooks. Just as +Ruth made her first cast there sounded a scream from the direction of the +lone fisherman.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 112]</span> +“What is it?” she gasped, dropping her pole.</p> + +<p>The bathers had deserted the old man in the skiff, and were now at some +distance. He was anchored in probably twenty feet of water.</p> + +<p>To the amazement of Ruth and her companion, the skiff had sunk until its +gunwales were scarcely visible. The hermit had wrenched away his umbrella +and was now balanced upon the chair on his feet, in danger of sinking. His +fear of this catastrophe was being expressed in unstinted terms.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +<a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>A QUOTATION</strong></p> + +<p>“Do help him, Tom!” cried Ruth Fielding, and she started for the spot +where the man and the skiff were sinking.</p> + +<p>Tom cast aside his sweater, kicked his sneakers off, and plunged into the +tide. Ruth was quite as lightly dressed as Tom; but she saw that he could +do all that was necessary.</p> + +<p>That was, to bring the frightened man ashore. This “hermit” as they called +him, was certainly very much afraid of the water.</p> + +<p>He splashed a good deal, and Tom had to speak sharply to keep him from +getting a strangle-hold about his own neck.</p> + +<p>“Jimminy! but that was a mean trick,” panted Tom, when he got ashore with +the fisherman. “Somebody pulled the plug out of the bottom of the skiff +and first he knew, he was going down.”</p> + +<p>“It is a shame,” agreed Ruth, looking at the victim of the joke curiously.</p> + +<p>He was a thin-featured, austere looking man, scrupulously shaven, but with +rather long hair<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 114]</span> +that had quite evidently been dyed. Now that it was +plastered to his crown by the salt water (for he had been completely +immersed more than once in his struggle with Tom Cameron) his hair was +shown to be quite thin and of a greenish tinge at the roots.</p> + +<p>The shock of being dipped in the sea so unexpectedly was plainly no small +one for the hermit. He stood quite unsteadily on the strand, panting and +sputtering.</p> + +<p>“Young dogs! No respect for age and ability in this generation. I might +have been drowned.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s all over now,” said Tom comfortingly. “Where do you live?”</p> + +<p>“Over yonder, young man,” replied the hermit, pointing to the ocean side +of the point.</p> + +<p>“We will take you home. You lie down for a while and you will feel +better,” Ruth said soothingly. “We will come back here afterward and get +your skiff ashore.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Miss,” said the man courteously.</p> + +<p>“I’ll make those fellows who played the trick on you get the boat ashore,” +promised Tom, running for his shoes and sweater.</p> + +<p>The hermit proved to be a very uncommunicative person. Ruth tried to get +him to talk about himself as they crossed the rocky spit, but all that he +said of a personal nature was that his name was “John.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 115]</span> +His shack was certainly a lonely looking hovel. It faced the tumbling +Atlantic and it seemed rather an odd thing to Ruth that a man who was so +afraid of the sea should have selected such a spot for his home.</p> + +<p>The hermit did not invite them to enter his abode. He promised Ruth that +he would make a hot drink for himself and remove his wet garments and lie +down. But he only seemed moderately grateful for their assistance, and +shut the door of the shack promptly in their faces when he got inside.</p> + +<p>“Just as friendly as a sore-headed dog,” remarked Tom, as they went back +to the bay side of the Point.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps the others have played so many tricks on him that he is +suspicious of even our assistance,” Ruth said.</p> + +<p>Thus speaking, she stooped to pick up a bit of paper in the path. It had +been half covered by the sand and might have lain there a long time, or +only a day.</p> + +<p>Just why this bit of brown wrapping paper had caught her attention, it +would be hard to say. Ruth might have passed it a dozen times without +noticing it.</p> + +<p>But now she must needs turn the paper over and over in her hands as she +watched Tom, with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 116]</span> +the help of the rather abashed practical jokers, haul +the water-logged skiff ashore.</p> + +<p>She had forgotten the fishing poles they had abandoned on the rocks, and +sat down upon a boulder. Suddenly she discovered that there was writing on +the bit of paper she had picked up. It was then that her attention really +became fixed upon her find.</p> + +<p>The characters had been written with an indelible pencil. The dampness had +only blurred the writing instead of erasing it. Her attention thus +engaged, she idly scrutinized more than the blurred lines. Her attitude as +she sat there on the boulder slowly stiffened; her gaze focused upon the +paper.</p> + +<p>“Why! what is it?” she murmured at last.</p> + +<p>The blurred lines became clearer to her vision. It was the wording of the +phrase rather than the handwriting that enthralled her. This that follows +was all that was written on the paper:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Flash:—</p> + +<p>“As in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be——”</p></div> + +<p>To the ordinary observer, with no knowledge of what went before or +followed this quotation, the phrase must seem idle. But the word “flash” +is used by scenario writers and motion picture<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 117]</span> +makers, indicating an explanatory phrase thrown on the screen.</p> + +<p>And this quoted phrase struck poignantly to Ruth Fielding’s mind. For it +was one she had used in that last scenario—the one that had so strangely +disappeared from the summer-house back at the Red Mill!</p> + +<p>Amazed—almost stunned—by this discovery, she sat on the boulder scarcely +seeing what Tom and the others were doing toward salvaging the old +hermit’s skiff and other property.</p> + +<p>Thoughts regarding the quotation shuttled back and forth in the girl’s +mind in a most bewildering way. The practical side of her character +pointed out that there really could be no significance in this discovery. +It could not possibly have anything to do with her stolen script.</p> + +<p>Yet the odd phrase, used in just this way, had been one of the few +“flashes” indicated in her scenario. Was it likely that anybody else, +writing a picture, would use just that phrase?</p> + +<p>She balanced the improbability of this find meaning anything at all to her +against the coincidence of another author using the quotation in writing a +scenario. She did not know what to think. Which supposition was the more +improbable?</p> + +<p>The thought was preposterous that the paper should mean anything to her. +Ruth was about to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 118]</span> +throw it away; and then, failing to convince herself +that the quotation was but idly written, she tucked the piece of paper +into the belt of her bathing suit.</p> + +<p>When Tom was ready to go back to their fishing station, Ruth went with him +and said nothing about the find she had made.</p> + +<p>They had fair luck, all told, and the chef at the camp produced their +catch in a dish of boiled tautog with egg sauce at dinner that evening. +The company ate together at a long table, like a logging camp crew, only +with many more of the refinements of life than the usual logging crew +enjoys. It was, however, on a picnic plane of existence, and there was +much hilarity.</p> + +<p>These actor folk were very pleasant people. Even the star, Miss Loder, was +quite unspoiled by her success.</p> + +<p>“You know,” she confessed to Ruth (everybody confided in Ruth), “I never +would have been anything more than a stock actress in some jerkwater town, +as we say in the West, if the movies hadn’t become so popular. I have what +they call the ‘appealing face’ and I can squeeze out real tears at the +proper juncture. Those are two very necessary attributes for a girl who +wishes to gain film success.”</p> + +<p>“But you can really act,” Ruth said honestly. “I watched you to-day.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 119]</span> +“I should be able to act. I come of a family who have been actors for +generations. Acting is like breathing to me. But, of course, it is another +art to ‘register’ emotion in the face, and very different from displaying +one’s feelings by action and audible expression. You know, one of our most +popular present-day stage actresses got her start by an ability to scream +off-stage. Nothing like that in the movies.”</p> + +<p>“You should hear Jennie Stone with a black ant down her back,” put in +Helen, with serious face. “I am sure Heavy could go the actress you speak +of one better, and become even more popular.”</p> + +<p>“I am not to be blamed if I squeal at crawly things,” sniffed the plump +girl, hearing this. “See how brave I am in most other respects.”</p> + +<p>But that night Jennie exhibited what Tom called her “scarefulness” in most +unmistakable fashion, and never again could she claim to be brave. She +gave her chums in addition such a fright that they were not soon over +talking about it.</p> + +<p>The three college girls had cots in a small shack that Mr. Hammond had +given up to their use. It was one of the shacks nearest the shore of the +harbor. Several boat-docks near by ran out into the deep water.</p> + +<p>It was past midnight when Jennie was for some reason aroused. Usually she +slept straight<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 120]</span> +through the night, and had to be awakened by violent means +in time for breakfast.</p> + +<p>She was not startled, but awoke naturally, and found herself broad awake. +She sat up in her cot, almost convinced that it must be daylight. But it +was the moon shining through a haze of clouds that lighted the interior of +the shack. The other two girls were breathing deeply. The noises she heard +did not at first alarm Jennie.</p> + +<p>There was the whisper of the tide as it rolled the tiny pebbles and shells +up the strand and, receding, swept them down again. It chuckled, too, +among the small piers of the near-by docks.</p> + +<p>Then the listening girl heard footsteps—or what she took to be that +sound. They approached the shack, then receded. She began to be curious, +then felt a tremor of alarm. Who could be wandering about the camp at this +grim hour of the night?</p> + +<p>She was unwise enough to allow her imagination to wake up, too. She stole +from her bed and peered out of the screened window that faced the water. +Almost at once a moving object met her frightened gaze.</p> + +<p>It was a figure all in white which seemed to float down the lane between +the tents and out upon the nearest boat-dock.</p> + +<p>Afterward Jennie declared she could have suffered one of these +spirit-looking manifestations in<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 121]</span> +silence. She crammed the strings of her +frilled nightcap between her teeth as a stopper!</p> + +<p>This spectral figure was going away from the shack, anyway. It appeared to +be bearing something in its arms. But then came a second ghost, likewise +burdened. Gasping, Jennie waited, clinging to the window-sill for support.</p> + +<p>A third spectre appeared, rising like Banquo’s spirit at Macbeth’s feast. +This was too much for the plump girl’s self-control. She opened her mouth, +and her half-strangled shriek, the partially masticated cap-strings all +but choking her, aroused Ruth and Helen to palpitating fright.</p> + +<p>“Oh! What is it?” demanded Helen, bounding out of bed.</p> + +<p>“Ghosts! Oh! Waw!” gurgled Jennie, and sank back into her friend’s arms.</p> + +<p>Helen was literally as well as mentally overcome. Jennie’s weight carried +her to the straw matting with a bump that shook the shack and brought +Ruth, too, out of bed.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 122]</span><a name="XV" id="XV"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>AN AMAZING SITUATION</strong></p> + +<p>“‘Ghost’?” cried Ruth Fielding. “Let me see it! Remember the campus ghost +back at old Briarwood, Helen? I haven’t seen a ghost since that time.”</p> + +<p>“Ugh! Get this big elephant off of me!” grunted her chum, impolitely as +well as angrily. “<em>She’s</em> no ghost, I do assure you. She’s of the earth, +earthy, and no mistake! Ouch! Get off, Heavy!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Oh! Oh!” groaned the plump girl. “I—I saw them. Three of them!”</p> + +<p>“Sounds like a three-ring circus,” snapped Helen.</p> + +<p>But Ruth was peering through the window. She saw nothing, and complained +thereof:</p> + +<p>“Jen has had a nightmare. I don’t see a thing.”</p> + +<p>“Nightmare, your granny!” sputtered the plump girl, finally rolling off +her half crushed friend. “I saw it—them—<em>those</em>!”</p> + +<p>“Your grammar is so mixed I wouldn’t believe you on oath,” declared Helen, +getting to her own<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 123]</span> +bare feet and paddling back to her cot for slippers +and a negligee.</p> + +<p>“O-o-oh, it is chilly,” agreed Ruth, grabbing a wrap, too.</p> + +<p>“Do tell us about it, Jennie,” she begged. “Did you see your ghost through +the window here?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t my ghost!” denied the plump girl. “I’m alive, ain’t I?”</p> + +<p>“But you’re not conscious,” grumbled Helen.</p> + +<p>“I can see!” wailed Jennie. “I haven’t lost my eyesight.”</p> + +<p>“Stop!” Ruth urged. “Let us get at the foundation of this trouble. You say +you saw——”</p> + +<p>“I saw what I saw!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, see-saw!” cried Helen. “We’re all loony, now.”</p> + +<p>Ruth was about to ask another question, but she was again looking through +the window. She suddenly bit off a cry of her own. She had to confess that +the sight she saw was startling.</p> + +<p>“Is—is that the ghost, Jennie?” she breathed, seizing the plump girl by +her arm and dragging her forward.</p> + +<p>Jennie gave one frightened look through the window and immediately clapped +her palms over her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Ow!” she wailed in muffled tones. “They’re coming back.”</p> + +<p>They were, indeed! Three white figures in <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 124]</span> +Indian file came stalking up +the long dock. They approached the camp in a spectral procession and had +she been awakened to see them first of all, Ruth might have been startled +herself.</p> + +<p>Helen peered over her chum’s shoulder and in teeth-chattering monotone +breathed in Ruth’s ear the query:</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“It—it’s Heavy’s ghost.”</p> + +<p>“Not mine! Not mine!” denied the plump girl.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” gasped Helen, spying the stalking white figures.</p> + +<p>It was the moonlight made them appear so ghostly. Ruth knew that, of +course, at once. And then——</p> + +<p>“Who ever saw ghosts carrying garbage cans before?” ejaculated the girl of +the Red Mill. “Mercy me, Heavy! do stop your wailing. It is the chef and +his two assistants who have got up to dump the garbage on the out-going +tide. What a perfect scare-cat you are!”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it, Ruth?” whimpered the plump girl. “Is that <em>all</em> they +were?”</p> + +<p>Helen began to giggle. And it covered her own fright. Ruth was rather +annoyed.</p> + +<p>“If you had remained in bed and minded your own business,” she said to +Jennie, “you would not have seen ghosts, or got us up to see them. Now go +back to sleep and behave yourself.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 125]</span> +“Yes, ma’am,” murmured the abashed Jennie Stone. “How silly of me! I was +never afraid of a cook before—no, indeed.”</p> + +<p>Helen continued to giggle spasmodically; but she fell asleep soon. As for +Jennie, she began to breathe heavily almost as soon as her head touched +the pillow. But Ruth must needs lie awake for hours, and naturally the +teeth of her mind began to knaw at the problem of that bit of paper she +had found in the sand.</p> + +<p>The more she thought of it the less easy it was to discard the idea that +the writing on the paper was a quotation from her own scenario script. It +seemed utterly improbable that two people should use that same expression +as a “flash” in a scenario.</p> + +<p>Yet, if this paper was a connecting link between her stolen manuscript and +the thief, <em>who was the thief</em>?</p> + +<p>It would seem, of course, if this supposition were granted, that some +member of the company of film actors Mr. Hammond had there at Beach Plum +Point had stolen the scenario. At least, the stolen scenario must be in +the possession of some member of the company.</p> + +<p>Who could it be? Naturally Ruth considered this unknown must be one of the +company who wished Mr. Hammond to accept and produce a scenario.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 126]</span> +Ruth finally fell into a troubled sleep with the determination in her mind +to take more interest in the proposed scenario-writing contest than she +had at first intended.</p> + +<p>She could not imagine how anybody could take her work and change it so +that she would not recognize it! The plot of the story was too well +wrought and the working out of it too direct.</p> + +<p>She did not think that she had it perfect. Only that she had perfected the +idea as well as she was able. But changing it would not hide from her the +recognition of her own brain-child.</p> + +<p>So after breakfast she went to Mr. Hammond to make inquiry about the +scenario contest.</p> + +<p>“Ha, ha! So you are coming to yourself, Miss Ruth!” he chuckled. “I told +you you would feel different. I only wish <em>you</em> would get a real smart +idea for a picture.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing like that!” she told him, shaking her head. “I could not think of +writing a new scenario. You don’t know what it means to me—the loss of +that picture I had struggled so long with and thought so much about. I——</p> + +<p>“But let us not talk of it,” she hastened to add. “I am curious regarding +the stories that have been offered to you.”</p> + +<p>“You need not fear competition,” he replied. “Just as I told you, all +these perfectly good acting people base their scenarios on dramas they +have<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 127]</span> +played or seen played. They haven’t got the idea of writing for the +screen at all, although they work before the camera.”</p> + +<p>“And that is no wonder!” exclaimed Ruth. “The way the directors take +scenes, the actors never get much of an idea of the continuity of the +story they are making. But these stories?”</p> + +<p>“So far, I haven’t found a possible scenario. And I have looked at more +than a score.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it!”</p> + +<p>“I most certainly do,” he assured her. “Want to look at them?”</p> + +<p>“Why—yes,” confessed Ruth. “I am curious, as I tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Go to it!” exclaimed Mr. Hammond, opening a drawer of his desk and +pointing to the pile of manuscripts within. “Consider yourself at home +here. I am going over to the port with Director Hooley and most of the +members of the company. We have found just the location for the shooting +of that scene in your ‘Seaside Idyl’ where the ladies’ aid society holds +its ‘gossip session’ in the grove—remember?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” Ruth replied, not much interested, as she took the first +scenario out of the drawer.</p> + +<p>“And Hooley’s found some splendid types, too, around the village. They +really have a sewing circle connected with the Herringport Union Church, +and I have agreed to help the ladies pay<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 128]</span> +for having the church edifice +painted if they will let us film a session of the society with our +principal character actors mixed in with the local group. The sun is good +to-day.”</p> + +<p>He went away, and a little later Ruth heard the automobiles start for +Herringport. She had the forenoon to herself, for the rest of her party +had gone out in a motor boat fishing—a party from which she had excused +herself.</p> + +<p>Eagerly she began to examine the scenarios submitted to Mr. Hammond. The +possibility that she might find one of them near enough like her own lost +story to suggest that it had been plagiarized, made Ruth’s heart beat +faster.</p> + +<p>She could not forget the quotation on the scrap of brown paper. Somebody +on this Point—and it seemed that the “somebody” must be one of the moving +picture company—had written that quotation from her scenario. She felt +that this could not be denied.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 129]</span><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>RUTH SOLVES ONE PROBLEM</strong></p> + +<p>Had Ruth Fielding been confronted with the question: “Did she expect to +find a clue to the identity of the person who had stolen her scenario +before she left the Red Mill?” she could have made no confident answer. +She did not know what she would find when she sat down at Mr. Hammond’s +desk for the purpose of looking over the submitted stories.</p> + +<p>Doubt and suspicion, however, enthralled her mind. She was both curious +and anxious.</p> + +<p>Ruth had no particular desire to read the manuscripts. In any case she did +not presume Mr. Hammond desired her advice about selecting a script for +filming.</p> + +<p>She skimmed through the first story. It had not a thing in it that would +suggest in the faintest way any familiarity of the author with her own +lost scenario.</p> + +<p>For two hours she fastened her attention upon one after another of the +scenarios, often by main<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 130]</span> +will-power, because of the utter lack of +interest in the stories the writers had tried to put over.</p> + +<p>Without being at all egotistical, Ruth Fielding felt confident that had +any one of these scenario writers come into possession of her lost script, +and been dishonest enough to use it, he would have turned out a much +better story.</p> + +<p>But not a trace of her original idea and its development was to be found +in these manuscripts. Her suspicion had been needlessly roused.</p> + +<p>Ruth could not deny that the scrap of paper found in the sand was quite as +mysterious as ever. The quotation on it seemed to be taken directly from +her own scenario. But there was absolutely nothing in this pile of +manuscripts to justify her suspicions.</p> + +<p>She was just as dissatisfied after scanning all the submitted scenarios as +Mr. Hammond seemed to be with the day’s work when the company came back +from Herringport in the late afternoon.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it is a sanguine disposition that keeps me at this game, Miss +Ruth,” he sighed. “I always expect much more than I can possibly get out +of a situation; and when I fail I go on hoping just the same.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure that is a commendable disposition to possess,” she laughed. +“What has gone so wrong?”</p> + +<p>“It is the old story of leading the horse to +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 131]</span> water, and the inability of +making him drink. This is a balky horse, and no mistake!”</p> + +<p>“Do tell me what you mean, Mr. Hammond?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I told you we had got what the ladies call ‘perfectly lovely’ types +for that scene to-day. You ought to see them, Miss Ruth! You would be +charmed. Just what the dear public expects a back-country sewing circle +should look like.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!”</p> + +<p>“And they all promised to be on hand at the location—and they were. I +have had my experiences with amateurs before. I had begged the ladies to +dress just as they would were they going to an actual meeting of their +sewing society——”</p> + +<p>“And they all dressed up?” laughed Ruth, clasping her hands.</p> + +<p>“Well, that I expected to contend with. And most of them even in their +best bib and tucker were not out of the picture. Not at all! That was not +the main difficulty and the one that has spoiled our day’s work.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed?”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid Jim Hooley will have to fake the whole scene after all,” +continued the manager. “Those women came all dressed up ‘to have their +pictures took,’ it is true. But the worst of it is, they could not be +natural. It was impossible. They showed in every move and every glance +that they were sitting with a bunch of actors and were +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 132]</span> not at all sure +that what they were doing was altogether the right thing.</p> + +<p>“We worked over them as though it were a ‘mob scene’ and there were five +hundred in it instead of twenty. But twenty wooden dummies would have +filmed no more unnaturally. You know, in your story, they are supposed to +be discussing the bit of gossip about your heroine’s elopement with the +schoolteacher. I could not work up a mite of enthusiasm in their minds +about such a topic.”</p> + +<p>Ruth laughed. But she saw that the matter was really serious for Mr. +Hammond and the director. She became sympathetic.</p> + +<p>“I fancy that if they had had a real scandal to discuss,” she observed, +“their faces would have registered more poignant interest.”</p> + +<p>“‘Poignant interest’!” scoffed the manager in disgust. “If these +Herringport tabbies had the toothache they would register only polite +anguish—in public. They are the most insular and self-contained and +self-suppressed women I ever saw. These Down-Easters! They could walk over +fiery ploughshares and only wanly smile——”</p> + +<p>Ruth went off into a gale of laughter at this. Mr. Hammond was a Westerner +by birth, and he found the Yankee character as hard to understand as did +Henri Marchand.</p> + +<p>“Have you quite given up hope, Mr. Hammond?” Ruth asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 133]</span> +“Well, we’ll try again to-morrow. Oh, they promised to come again! They +are cutting out rompers, or flannel undervests, I suppose, for the South +Sea Island children; or something like that. They are interested in that +job, no doubt.</p> + +<p>“I wanted them to ‘let go all holts,’ as these fishermen say, and be eager +and excited. They are about as eager as they would be doing their washing, +or cleaning house—if as much!” and Mr. Hammond’s disappointment became +too deep for further audible expression.</p> + +<p>Ruth suddenly awoke to the fact that one of her best scenes in the +“Seaside Idyl” was likely to be spoiled. She talked with Mr. Hooley about +it, and when the day’s run was developed and run off in one of the shacks +which was used for a try-out room, Ruth saw that the manager had not put +the matter too strongly. The sewing circle scene lacked all that snap and +go needed to make it a realistic piece of action.</p> + +<p>Of course, there were enough character actors in the company to use in the +scene; but naturally an actor caricatures such parts as were called for in +this scene. The professional would be likely to make the characters seem +grotesque. That was not the aim of the story.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were not going to take any interest in this ‘Seaside Idyl,’ +at all,” suggested<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 134]</span> +Helen, when Ruth was talking about the failure of the +scene after supper that night.</p> + +<p>“I can’t help it. My reputation as a scenario writer is at stake, just as +much as is Mr. Hooley’s reputation as director,” Ruth said, smiling. “I +really didn’t mean to have a thing to do with the old picture. But I can +see that somebody has got to put a breath of naturalness into those +ladies’ aid society women, or this part of the picture will be a fizzle.”</p> + +<p>“And our Ruth,” drawled Jennie, “is going to prescribe one of her famous +cure-alls, is she?”</p> + +<p>“I believe I can make them look less like a lot of dummies while they are +cutting out rompers for cannibal island pickaninnies,” laughed Ruth. “Tom, +I am going to the port with you the first thing in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“By all means,” said Captain Cameron. “I am yours to command.”</p> + +<p>Her newly aroused interest in the scenario at present being filmed, was a +good thing for Ruth Fielding. Having found nothing at all in the submitted +stories that suggested her own lost story, the girl of the Red Mill tried +to put aside again the thing that so troubled her mind. And this new +interest helped.</p> + +<p>In the morning before breakfast she and Tom ran over to the port in the +maroon roadster. While they were having breakfast at the inn, Ruth +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 135]</span> asked +the waitress, who was a native of this part of the country, about the +Union Church and some of the more intimate life-details of the members of +its congregation.</p> + +<p>It is not hard to uncover neighborhood gossip of a kind not altogether +unkindly in any similar community. The Union Church had a new minister, +and he was young. He was now away on his vacation, and more than one local +beauty and her match-making mamma would have palpitation of the heart +before he returned for fear that the young clergyman would have his heart +interests entangled by some designing “foreigner.”</p> + +<p>Tom had no idea as to what Ruth Fielding was getting at through this +questioning of the beaming Hebe who waited on them at breakfast. And he +was quite as much in the dark as to his friend’s motive when Ruth +announced their first visit to be to the office of the Herringport +<em>Harpoon</em>, the local news sheet.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 136]</span><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>JOHN, THE HERMIT’S, CONTRIBUTION</strong></p> + +<p>A man with bushy hair, a pencil stuck over his ear, and wearing an +ink-stained apron, met them in the office of the <em>Harpoon</em>. This was Ezra +Payne, editor and publisher of the weekly news-sheet, and this was his +busiest day. The <em>Harpoon</em>, Ruth had learned, usually went into the mails +on this day.</p> + +<p>“Tut, tut! I see. Is this a joke?” Mr. Payne pursed his lips and wrinkled +his brow in uncertainty.</p> + +<p>“A whole edition, Miss? Wall, I dunno. I do have hard work selling all the +edition some weeks. But I have reg’lar subscribers——”</p> + +<p>“This will not interfere with your usual edition of the <em>Harpoon</em>,” she +hastened to assure him.</p> + +<p>“How’s that, Miss?”</p> + +<p>“I want to buy an edition of one copy.”</p> + +<p>“One copy!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. I want something special printed in one paper. Then you can +take it out and print your regular edition.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 137]</span> +“Tut, tut! I see. Is this a joke?” Mr. Payne asked, his eyes beginning to +twinkle.</p> + +<p>“It is the biggest joke you ever heard of,” declared Ruth.</p> + +<p>“And who’s the joke on?”</p> + +<p>“Wait and see what I write,” Ruth said, sitting down at the battered old +desk where he labored over his editorials and proofsheets.</p> + +<p>Opening a copy of the last week’s <em>Harpoon</em> that lay there, she was able +to see the whole face of the paper.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got the inside run off,” said Mr. Payne, still doubtfully. “So you +can’t run anything on the second and third pages.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I want the most prominent place for my item,” laughed Ruth. “Front +page, top column—— Here it is!”</p> + +<p>He bent over her. Tom stared in wonder, too, as Ruth pointed to an item +under a certain heading at the top of the middle column of the front page +of the sheet.</p> + +<p>“That is just where I want my item to appear,” she said briskly to the +editor. “You run that—that department there every week?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, Miss. The people expect it. You know how folks are. They look +for those items first of all in a country paper.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. It is so. One of the New York dailies is still printed with that +human foible in mind. It<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 138]</span> +caters to this very curiosity that your +<em>Harpoon</em> caters to.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss. You’re right. Most folks have the same curiosity, city or +country. Shakespeare spoke of the ‘seven ages of man’; but there are only +three of particular interest—to womankind, anyway; and they are all +<em>here</em>.”</p> + +<p>“There you go! Slurring the women,” she laughed. “Or do you speak +compliments?”</p> + +<p>“I guess the women have it right,” chuckled Mr. Payne. “Now, what is it +you want me to print in one paper for you?”</p> + +<p>Ruth drew a scratch pad to her and scribbled rapidly for a couple of +minutes. Then she passed the page to the newspaper proprietor.</p> + +<p>Mr. Payne read it, stared at her, pursed his lips, and then read it again. +Suddenly he burst into a cackle of laughter, slapping his thigh in high +delight.</p> + +<p>“By gravy!” he chortled, “that’s a good one on the dominie. By gravy! wait +till I tell——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you tell anybody, Mr. Payne,” interrupted Ruth, smiling, but +firmly. “I am buying your secrecy as well as your edition of <em>one copy</em>.”</p> + +<p>“I get you! I get you!” declared the old fellow. “This is to be on the +q.t.?”</p> + +<p>“Positively.”</p> + +<p>“You sit right here. The front page is all made up on the stone, +Marriages, Births, Death Notices, +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 139]</span> and all. I’ll set the paragraph and +slip it in at the top o’ the column. My boy is out, but this young man can +help me lift the page into the press. She’s all warmed up, and I was going +to start printing when Edgar comes back from breakfast.”</p> + +<p>He grabbed the piece of copy and went off into the printing room, +chuckling. Half an hour later the first paper came from the press, and +Ruth and Tom bent over it. The item the girl had written was plainly +printed in the position she had chosen on the front page of the <em>Harpoon</em>.</p> + +<p>“Now, you are to keep still about this,” Ruth said, threatening Mr. Payne +with a raised finger.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know a thing about it,” he promised, pocketing the bill she took +from her purse, and in high good humor over the joke.</p> + +<p>Tom helped him take the front page from the press again. The printer +unlocked the chase, and removed and distributed the three lines he had set +up at Ruth’s direction.</p> + +<p>The crowd from Beach Plum Point came over in the cars about noontime. Aunt +Kate had remained at the inn on this morning, and she and Ruth walked to +the “location,” which was a beautiful old shaded front yard at the far end +of the village.</p> + +<p>Helen and Jennie had come with the real actors, and were to appear in the +picture. The story <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 140]</span> +related incidents at a Sunday-school picnic, and most +of the comedy had already been filmed on the lot.</p> + +<p>The scene around the long sewing table under the trees, when the ladies’ +aid was at work with needle and tongue, should be the principal incident +of this reel devoted to the picnic.</p> + +<p>The heroine, to the amazement of the village gossips, has run away with +the schoolmaster and married him in the next county. A certain character +in the picture runs in with this bombshell of news and explodes it in the +midst of the group about the sewing table.</p> + +<p>The day before this point had failed to make much impression upon the +amateur members of the company engaged in this typical scene. The +Herringport ladies were not at all interested in such a thing happening to +the town’s schoolmaster, for to tell the truth the local schoolmaster was +an old married man with a house full of children and nothing at all +romantic about him.</p> + +<p>Ruth took Mr. Hooley aside and showed him the copy of the <em>Harpoon</em> she +had had printed, and whispered to him her idea of the change in the action +of the scenario. He seized upon the scheme—and the paper—with gusto.</p> + +<p>“You are a jewel, Miss Fielding!” he declared. “If this doesn’t make those +old tabbies come to life and act naturally, nothing ever will!”</p> + +<p>Ruth left the matter in the director’s hands and +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 141]</span> retired from the +location. She had no intention herself of appearing in the picture. She +found Mr. Hammond sitting in his automobile in a state of good-humor.</p> + +<p>“You seem quite sure that the work will go better to-day, Mr. Hammond,” +Ruth observed, with curiosity as to the reason for his apparent enjoyment.</p> + +<p>“Whether it does or not, Miss Ruth,” he responded. “There is something +that I fancy is going to be more than a little amusing.”</p> + +<p>He tapped a package wrapped in a soiled newspaper which lay on the seat +beside him. “Thank goodness, I can still enjoy a joke.”</p> + +<p>“What is the joke? Let me enjoy it, too,” she said.</p> + +<p>“With the greatest of pleasure. I’ll let you read it, if you like—as you +did those other scenarios.”</p> + +<p>“What! Is it a movie story?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“So I am assured. It is the contribution of John, the hermit. He brought +it to me just before we started over here this morning. Poor old codger! +Just look here, Miss Ruth.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond turned back the loose covering of the package on the +automobile seat. Ruth saw a packet of papers, seemingly of roughly trimmed +sheets of wrapping paper and of several sizes. At the top of the upper +sheet was the title of the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 142]</span> +hermit’s scenario. It was called “Plain Mary.” +She glanced down the page, noting that it was written in a large, upright, +hand and with an indelible pencil.</p> + +<p>Ruth Fielding had not the least idea that she was to take any particular +interest in this picture-story. She smiled more because Mr. Hammond seemed +so amused than for any other reason. Secretly she thought that most of +these moving picture people were rather unkind to the strange old man who +lived alone on the seaward side of the Beach Plum Point.</p> + +<p>“Want to read it over?” Mr. Hammond asked her. “I would consider it a +favor, for I’ve got to go back and try to catch up with my correspondence. +I expect this is worse than those you skimmed through yesterday.”</p> + +<p>Ruth did not hear him. Suddenly she had seen something that had not at +first interested her. She read the first few lines of the opening, and saw +nothing in them of importance. It was the writing itself that struck her.</p> + +<p>“Why!” she suddenly gasped.</p> + +<p>She was reminded of something that she had seen before. This writing——</p> + +<p>“Let me go back to the camp with you, Mr. Hammond,” she said, slipping +into the seat and taking the packet of written sheets into her lap. “I—I +will look through this scenario, if you like. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 143]</span> There is something down +there on the Point that I want.”</p> + +<p>“Sure. Be glad to have your company,” he said, letting in his clutch after +pushing the starter. “We’re off.”</p> + +<p>Ruth did not speak again just then. With widening eyes she began to devour +the first pages of the hermit’s manuscript.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 144]</span><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>UNCERTAINTIES</strong></p> + +<p>The automobile purred along the shell road, past the white-sided, +green-blinded houses of the retired ship captains and the other well-to-do +people of Herringport. The car ran so smoothly that Ruth might have read +all the way.</p> + +<p>But after the first page or two—those containing the opening scenes of +“Plain Mary”—she dared not read farther.</p> + +<p>Not yet. It was not that there was a familiar phrase in the upright +chirography of the old hermit. The story merely suggested a familiar +situation to Ruth’s mind. Thus far it was only a suggestion.</p> + +<p>There was something else she felt she must prove or disprove first of all. +She sat beside Mr. Hammond quite speechless until they came to the camp on +the harbor shore of Beach Plum Point.</p> + +<p>He went off cheerfully to his letter writing, and Ruth entered the shack +she occupied with Helen<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 145]</span> and Jennie. +She opened her locked writing-case. +Under the first flap she inserted her fingers and drew forth the wrinkled +scrap of paper she had picked up on the sands.</p> + +<p>A glance at the blurred writing assured her that it was the same as that +of the hermit’s scenario.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Flash:—</p> + +<p>“As in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be——”</p></div> + +<p>Shakingly Ruth sat down before the cheap little maple table. She spread +open the newspaper wrapper and stared again at the title page of “Plain +Mary.”</p> + +<p>That title was nothing at all like the one she had given her lost +scenario. But a title, after all, meant very little.</p> + +<p>The several scenes suggested in the beginning of the hermit’s story did +not conflict with the plot she had evolved, although they were not her +own. She had read nothing so far that would make this story different from +her own. The names of the characters were changed and the locations for +the first scene were different from those in her script. Nevertheless the +action and development of the story might prove to be exactly like hers.</p> + +<p>She shrank from going deeper into the hermit’s +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 146]</span> script. She feared to find +her suspicions true; yet she <em>must</em> know.</p> + +<p>Finally she began to read. Page after page of the large and sprawling +writing she turned over, face down upon the table. Ruth grew so absorbed +in the story that she did not note the passing of time. She was truly +aware of but one thing. And that seized upon her mind to wring from it +both bitterness and anger.</p> + +<p>“Want to go back to the port, Miss Ruth?” asked Mr. Hammond. “I want to +mail my letters.”</p> + +<p>His question startled her. She sprang up, a spot of crimson in either +cheek. Had he looked at her, the manager would certainly have noted her +strange look.</p> + +<p>“I’ll come in a minute,” she called to him in a half-stifled voice.</p> + +<p>She laved her eyes and cheeks in cool water, removing such marks of her +emotion as she could. Then she bundled up the hermit’s scenario and joined +Mr. Hammond in the car.</p> + +<p>“Did you look at this?” she asked the producer as he started the motor.</p> + +<p>“Bless you, no! What is it? As crazy as the old codger himself?”</p> + +<p>“Do you really think that man is crazy?” she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Why, I don’t really know. Just queer +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 147]</span>perhaps. It doesn’t seem as though +a sane man would live all stark alone over on that sea-beaten point.”</p> + +<p>“He is an actor,” declared Ruth. “Your director says so.”</p> + +<p>“At least, he does not claim to be, and they usually do, you know,” +chuckled Mr. Hammond. “But about this thing——”</p> + +<p>“You read it! Then I will tell you something,” said the girl soberly, and +she refused to explain further.</p> + +<p>“You amaze me,” said the puzzled manager. “If that old codger has +succeeded in turning out anything worth while, I certainly shall believe +that ‘wonders never cease.’”</p> + +<p>“He has got you all fooled. He <em>is</em> a good actor,” declared Ruth bitterly. +Then, as Mr. Hammond turned a puzzled frown upon her, she added, “Tell me +what you think of the script, Mr. Hammond, before you speak to—er—John, +or whatever his name may be.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly am curious now,” he declared.</p> + +<p>They got back to the place where the director had arranged to “shoot” the +sewing circle scene just as everything was all set for it. Mother Paisley +dominated the half circle of women about the long table under the trees. +Ruth marveled at the types Mr. Hooley had found in the village. +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 148]</span> And she +marveled further that any group of human beings could appear so wooden.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ruth!” murmured Helen, who was not in this scene, but was an +interested spectator, “they will surely spoil the picture again. Poor Mr. +Hooley! He takes <em>such</em> pains.”</p> + +<p>It was like playing a child’s game for most of the members of the +Herringport Union congregation. They were selfconscious, and felt that +they were in a silly situation. Those who were not too serious of demeanor +were giggling like schoolgirls.</p> + +<p>Yet everything was ready for the cameras. Mr. Hooley’s keen eye ran over +all the group. He waved a hand to the camera men.</p> + +<p>“Ready camera—action—go!”</p> + +<p>The women remained speechless. They merely looked at each other in a +helpless way. It was evident they had forgotten all the instructions the +director had given them.</p> + +<p>But suddenly into the focus of the cameras ran a barefooted urchin waving +a newspaper. This was the Alectrion Company’s smartest “kid” actor and a +favorite wherever his tousled head, freckled face, and wide grin appeared +on the screen. He plunged right at Mother Paisley and thrust the paper +into her hand, while he pointed at a certain place on the front page.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 149]</span> +“Read <em>that</em>, Ma Bassett!” cried the news vender.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Paisley gave expression first to wonder, then utter amazement, as she +read the item Ruth had had inserted in this particular “edition” of the +<em>Harpoon</em>. She was a fine old actress and her facial registering of +emotion was a marvel. Mr. Hooley had seldom to advise her.</p> + +<p>Now his voice was heard above the clack of the cameras:</p> + +<p>“Pass it to the lady at your left. That’s it! Cling to the paper. Get your +heads together—three of you now!”</p> + +<p>The amateur players looked at each other and began to grin. The scene +promised to be as big a “fizzle” as the one shot the previous day.</p> + +<p>But the woman next to Mrs. Paisley, after looking carelessly at the paper, +of a sudden came to life. She seized the <em>Harpoon</em> with both hands, fairly +snatching it out of the actress’ hands. She was too startled to be polite.</p> + +<p>“What under the canopy is this here?” she sputtered.</p> + +<p>She was a small, wiry, vigorous woman, and she had an expressive, if a +vinegary, face. She rose from her seat and forgot all about her +“play-acting.”</p> + +<p>“What d’you think it says here?” she demanded of her sister-members of the +ladies’ aid.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 150]</span>“Sh!”</p> + +<p>“Ella Painter, you’re a-bustin’ up the show!” admonished a motherly old +person at the end of the table.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Painter did not notice these hushed remarks. She read the item in +the paper aloud—and so extravagantly did she mouth the astonishing words +that Ruth feared they might be read on her lips when shown on the screen.</p> + +<p>“Listen!” Mrs. Painter cried. “Right at the top of the marriage notices! +‘Garside—Smythe. At Perleyvale, Maine, on August twenty-second, the +Reverend Elton Garside, of Herringport, and Miss Amy Smythe, of +Perleyvale.’ What do you know about that?”</p> + +<p>The gasp of amazement that went up from the women of the Herringport Union +Church was almost a chorus of anguish. The paper was snatched from hand to +hand. Nobody could accuse the amateurs now of being “wooden.”</p> + +<p>Not until Mrs. Paisley in the character of <em>Ma Bassett</em>, at the signal +from Mr. Hooley, fell back in her chair, exclaiming: “My mercy me! Luella +Sprague and the teacher! Who’d have thought it?” did the company in +general suspect that something had been “put over on them.”</p> + +<p>“All right! All right!” shouted Jim Hooley in high delight, stopping his +camera men. “That’s<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 151]</span> fine! +It’s great! Miss Fielding, your scheme worked +like a charm.”</p> + +<p>The members of the sewing circle began to ask questions.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say this is in the play?” demanded Mrs. Ella Painter, +waving the newspaper and inclined to be indignant.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mrs. Painter. That marriage notice is just a joke,” the director +told her. “It certainly gave you ladies a start and—— Well, wait +till you see this scene on the screen!”</p> + +<p>“But ain’t it <em>so</em>?” cried another. “Why, Mr. Garside—— Why! it’s +in the <em>Harpoon</em>.”</p> + +<p>“But you won’t find it in another <em>Harpoon</em>,” laughed the director, +recovering possession of the newspaper. “It’s only a joke. But I +positively had to give you ladies a real shock or we’d never have got this +scene right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, of all the impudence!” began Mrs. Painter.</p> + +<p>However, she joined in the laughter a minute later. At best, the women had +won from Mr. Hammond enough money to pay for the painting of their church +edifice, and they were willing to sacrifice their dignity for that.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 152]</span><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>COUNTERCLAIMS</strong></p> + +<p>“I declare, Ruth! that was a ridiculous thing to do,” exclaimed Helen, +when they were on their way back to the Point. “But it certainly brought +the sewing circle women all up standing.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been wondering all day what Ruth was up to,” said Tom, who was +steering the big car. “I was in on it without understanding her game.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was just what the directer needed,” chuckled Jennie. “Oh, it +takes our Ruth to do things.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder?” sighed the girl of the Red Mill, in no responsive mood.</p> + +<p>She had something very unpleasant before her that she felt she must do, +and nothing could raise her spirits. She did not speak to anybody about +the hermit’s scenario. She waited for Mr. Hammond to express his opinion +of it.</p> + +<p>At the camp she found a letter for her from the doctor’s wife who had +promised to keep her informed regarding Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 153]</span> +Pike. That young person was doing well and getting fat at the Perkins’ +farm. But Mrs. Holmes was quite sure that she had not heard from her +father.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got another half-orphan on your hands, Ruth,” said Helen. She made +it a point always to object to Ruth’s charities. “I don’t believe that man +will ever show up again. If he went away with a medicine show——”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” said Ruth firmly. “No child would ever respect and love her +father as Bella does if he was not good to her. He will turn up.”</p> + +<p>Just then Tom called from outside the door of the girls’ shack.</p> + +<p>“What say to a moonlight dip off the Point?” he asked. “The tide is not +very low. And I missed my splash this morning.”</p> + +<p>“We’re with you, Tommy,” responded his sister. “Wait till we get into +bathing suits.”</p> + +<p>Even Ruth was enthusiastic—to a degree—over this. In twenty minutes they +were running up the beach with Tom and Henri toward the end of the Point.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go over and get the surf,” suggested Jennie. “I do love surf +bathing. All you have to do is to bob up and down in one place.”</p> + +<p>“Heavy is lazy even in her sport,” scoffed Helen. “But I’m game for the +rough stuff.”</p> + +<p>They crossed the neck of land near the hermit’s +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 154]</span> hut. There was a hard +beach almost in front of the hut, and up this the breakers rolled and +foamed delightfully. The so-called hermit, hearing their voices, came out +and sat on a rock to watch them. But he did not offer to speak until Ruth +went over to him.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hammond let me read your script, John,” she said coldly.</p> + +<p>“Indeed?” he rejoined without emotion.</p> + +<p>“Where did you get the idea for that scenario?”</p> + +<p>He tapped his head with a long forefinger. “Right inside of that skull. I +do my own thinking,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You did not have any help about it? You originated the idea of ‘Plain +Mary?’”</p> + +<p>He nodded. “You ain’t the only person who can write a picture,” he +observed. “And I think that this one they are filming for you is silly.”</p> + +<p>Ruth stared down at him, but said nothing more. She was ready to go back +to camp as soon as the others would, and she remained very silent. Mr. +Hammond had been asking for her, Miss Loder said. When Ruth had got into +something more presentable than a wet bathing suit, she went to his +office.</p> + +<p>“What do you know about this?” he demanded in plain amazement. “This story +the old man gave me to read is a wonder! It is one of the best ideas I +ever saw for the screen. Of course, it +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 155]</span> needs fixing up a bit, but it’s +great! What did you think of it, Miss Ruth?”</p> + +<p>“I am glad you like it, Mr. Hammond,” she said, steadying her voice with +difficulty.</p> + +<p>“I do like it, I assure you.”</p> + +<p>“It is <em>my</em> story, Mr. Hammond!” she exclaimed. “It is the very scenario +that was stolen from me at home. He’s just changed the names of the +characters and given it a different title, and spoiled some of the scenes. +But a large part of it is copied word for word from my manuscript!”</p> + +<p>“Miss Fielding!” gasped the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation.</p> + +<p>“I am telling you the truth,” Ruth cried, rather wildly, it must be +confessed, and then she broke down and wept.</p> + +<p>“My goodness! It can’t be possible! You—you’ve let your mind dwell upon +your loss so much——”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I am crazy?” she demanded, flaring up at him, her anger +drying her tears.</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” he returned gently; yet he looked at her oddly. “But +mistakes have been made——”</p> + +<p>“Mistakes, indeed! It is no mistake when I recognize my own work.”</p> + +<p>“But—but how could this old man have stolen your work—and away back +there at the Red Mill?<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 156]</span> I believe he has lived here on the Point for +years. At least, every summer.”</p> + +<p>“Then somebody else stole it and he got the script from them. I tell you +it is mine!” cried Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Miss Fielding! Let us be calm——”</p> + +<p>“You would not be calm if you discovered somebody trying to make use of +something you had originated, and calling it theirs—no you wouldn’t, Mr. +Hammond!”</p> + +<p>“But it seems impossible,” he said weakly.</p> + +<p>“That old man is an actor—an old-school actor. You can see that easily +enough,” she declared. “There was such a person about the Red Mill the day +my script was lost. Oh, it’s plain enough.”</p> + +<p>“Not so plain, Miss Ruth,” said Mr. Hammond firmly. “And you must not make +wild accusations. That will do no good—and may do harm in the end. It +does not seem probable to me that this old hermit could have actually +stolen your story. A longshore character like him——”</p> + +<p>“He’s not!” cried Ruth. “Don’t you see that he is playing a part? He is no +fisherman. No longshore character, as you call him, would be as afraid of +the sea as he is. He is playing a part—and he plays it just as well as +the parts Mr. Hooley gives him to play.”</p> + +<p>“Jove! There may be something in that,” murmured the manager.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 157]</span> +“He got my script some way, I tell you!” declared Ruth. “I am not going to +let anybody maul my story and put it over as his own. No, sir!”</p> + +<p>“But—but, Miss Ruth!” exclaimed Mr. Hammond. “How are you going to prove +what you say is true?”</p> + +<p>“Prove it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. You see, the burden of proof must be on you.”</p> + +<p>“But—but don’t you believe me?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Does it matter what I believe?” he asked her gently. “Remember, this man +has entrusted me with a manuscript that he says is original. At least it +is written in his own hand. I cannot go back of that unless you have some +means of proof that his story is your story. Who did you tell about your +plot, and how you worked it out? Did you read the finished manuscript—or +any part of it—to any person who can corroborate your statements?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Hammond!” she cried, with sudden anguish in her voice. “Not a +soul! Never to a single, solitary person. The girls, nor Aunt Alvirah, nor +Tom——”</p> + +<p>She broke down again and he could not soothe her. She wept with abandon, +and Mr. Hammond was really anxious for her. He went to the door, +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 158]</span> whistled +for one of the boys, and sent for Mrs. Paisley.</p> + +<p>But Ruth recovered her composure—to a degree, at least—before the +motherly old actress came.</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell anybody! Don’t tell anybody!” she sobbed to Mr. Hammond. “They +will think I am crazy! I haven’t a word of proof. Only my word——”</p> + +<p>“Against his,” said the manager gravely. “I would accept your word, Miss +Ruth, against the world! But we must have some proof before we +deliberately accuse this old man of robbing you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes. I see. I will be patient—if I can.”</p> + +<p>“The thing to do is to find out who this hermit really is,” said Mr. +Hammond. “Through discovering his private history we may put our finger on +the thing that will aid you with proof. Good-night, my dear. Try to get +calm again.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 159]</span><a name="XX" id="XX"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE GRILL</strong></p> + +<p>Ruth did not go back to her chums until, under Mother Paisley’s comforting +influence, she had recovered a measure of her self-possession. The old +actress asked no questions as to the cause of Ruth’s state of mind. She +had seen too many hysterical girls to feel that the cause of her patient’s +breakdown was at all important.</p> + +<p>“You just cry all you want to, deary. Right here on Mother Paisley’s +shoulder. Crying will do you good. It is the Good Lord’s way of giving us +women an outlet for all our troubles. When the last tear is squeezed out +much of the pain goes with it.”</p> + +<p>Ruth was not ordinarily a crying girl. She had wept more of late, +beginning with that day at the Red Mill when her scenario manuscript had +been stolen, than in all her life before.</p> + +<p>Her tears were now in part an expression of anger and indignation. She was +as mad as she could be at this man who called himself “John, the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 160]</span> hermit.” +For, whether he was the person who had actually stolen her manuscript, he +very well knew that his scenario offered to Mr. Hammond was not original +with him.</p> + +<p>The worst of it was, he had mangled her scenario. Ruth could look upon it +in no other way. His changes had merely muddied the plot and cheapened her +main idea. She could not forgive that!</p> + +<p>The other girls were drowsy when Ruth kissed Mother Paisley good-night and +entered the small shack. She was glad to escape any interrogation. By +morning she had gained control of herself, but her eyes betrayed the fact +that she had not slept.</p> + +<p>“You certainly do not look as though you were enjoying yourself down +here,” Tom Cameron said to her at breakfast time, and with suspicion. +“Maybe we did come to the wrong place for our vacation after all. How +about it, Ruth? Shall we start off in the cars again and seek pastures +new?”</p> + +<p>“Not now, Tom,” she told him, hastily. “I must stay right here.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because——”</p> + +<p>“That is no sensible reason.”</p> + +<p>“Let me finish,” she said rather crossly. “Because I must see what sort of +scenario Mr. Hammond finds—if he finds any—in this contest.”</p> + +<p>“Humph! And you said you and scenarios +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 161]</span> were done forever! I fancy Mr. +Hammond is taking advantage of your good nature.”</p> + +<p>“He is not.”</p> + +<p>“You are positively snappish, Ruth,” complained Tom. “You’ve changed your +mind——”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that a girl’s privilege?”</p> + +<p>“Very well, Miladi!” he said, with a deep bow as they rose from the table. +“However, you need not give all your attention to these prize stories, +need you? Let’s do something besides follow these sun-worshippers around +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“All right, Tommy-boy,” acclaimed his sister. “What do you suggest?”</p> + +<p>“A run along the coast to Reef Harbor where there are a lot of folks we +know,” Tom promptly replied.</p> + +<p>“Not in that old <em>Tocsin</em>,” cried Jennie. “She’s so small I can’t take off +my sweater without tipping her over.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what a whopper!” gasped Helen.</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” grinned her twin. “Let Jennie run to the superlatives if she +likes. Anyway, I would not dream of going so far as the Harbor in that +dinky little <em>Tocsin</em>. I’ve got my eye on just the craft, and I can get +her over here in an hour by telephoning to the port. It’s the <em>Stazy</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Goody!” exclaimed Jennie Stone. “That big blue yacht! And she’s got a +regular crew—and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 162]</span> everything. Aunty won’t be afraid to go with us in +her.”</p> + +<p>“That’s fine, Tom,” said his sister with appreciation.</p> + +<p>Even Ruth seemed to take some interest. But she suggested:</p> + +<p>“Be sure there is gasoline enough, Tom. That <em>Stazy</em> doesn’t spread a foot +of canvas, and we are not likely to find a gas station out there in the +ocean, the way we did in the hills of Massachusetts.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t fear, Miss Fidget,” he rejoined. “Are you all game?”</p> + +<p>They were. The girls went to “doll up,” to quote the slangy Tom, for Reef +Harbor was one of the most fashionable of Maine coast resorts and the +knockabout clothing they had been wearing at Beach Plum Point would never +do at the Harbor hotels.</p> + +<p>The <em>Stazy</em> was a comfortable and fast motor-yacht. As to her +sea-worthiness even Tom could not say, but she looked all right. And to +the eyes of the members of Ruth Fielding’s party there was no threat of +bad weather. So why worry about the pleasure-craft’s balance and her +ability to sail the high seas?</p> + +<p>“It is only a short run, anyway,” Tom said.</p> + +<p>As for Colonel Marchand, he had not the first idea about ships or sailing. +He admitted that only<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 163]</span> continued fair weather and a smooth sea had kept +him on deck coming over from France with Jennie and Helen.</p> + +<p>At the present time he and Jennie Stone were much too deeply engrossed in +each other to think of anything but their own two selves. In a fortnight +now, both the Frenchman and Tom would have to return to the battle lines. +And they were, deep in their hearts, eager to go back; for they did not +dream at this time that the German navy would revolt, that the High +Command and the army had lost their morale, and that the end of the Great +War was near.</p> + +<p>Within Tom’s specified hour the party got under way, boarding the <em>Stazy</em> +from a small boat that came to the camp dock for them. It was not until +the yacht was gone with Ruth Fielding and her party that Mr. Hammond set +on foot the investigation he had determined upon the night before.</p> + +<p>The president of the Alectrion Film Corporation thought a great deal of +the girl of the Red Mill. Their friendship was based on something more +than a business association. But he knew, too, that after her recent +experiences in France and elsewhere, her health was in rather a precarious +state.</p> + +<p>At least, he was quite sure that Ruth’s nerves were “all out of tune,” as +he expressed it, and he<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 164]</span> believed she was not entirely responsible for +what she had said.</p> + +<p>The girl had allowed her mind to dwell so much upon that scenario she had +lost that it might be she was not altogether clear upon the subject. Mr. +Hammond had talked with Tom about the robbery at the Red Mill, and it +looked to the moving picture producer as though there might be some +considerable doubt of Ruth’s having been robbed at all.</p> + +<p>In that terrific wind and rain storm almost anything might have blown +away. Tom admitted he had seen a barrel sailing through the air at the +height of the storm.</p> + +<p>“Why couldn’t the papers and note books have been caught up by a gust of +wind and carried into the river?” Mr. Hammond asked himself. “The river +was right there, and it possesses a strong current.”</p> + +<p>The president of the Alectrion Film Corporation knew the Lumano, and the +vicinity of the Red Mill as well. It seemed to him very probable that the +scenario had been lost. And the gold-mounted fountain pen? Why, that might +have easily rolled down a crack in the summer-house floor.</p> + +<p>The whole thing was a matter so fortuitous that Mr. Hammond could not +accept Ruth’s version of the loss without some doubt, in any case. And +then, her suddenly finding in the only good scenario +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 165]</span> submitted to him by +any of his company, one that she believed was plagiarized from her lost +story, seemed to put a cap on the whole matter. Ruth might be just a +little “off soundings,” as the fishermen about Herringport would say. Mr. +Hammond was afraid that she had been carried into a situation of mind +where suspicion took the place of certainty.</p> + +<p>She had absolutely nothing with which to corroborate her statement. Nobody +had seen Ruth’s scenario nor had she discussed the plot with any person. +Secrecy necessary to the successful production of anything new in the line +of picture plays was all right. Mr. Hammond advised it. But in this case +it seemed that the scenario writer had been altogether too secret.</p> + +<p>Had Ruth not chanced to read the hermit’s script before making her +accusation, Mr. Hammond would have felt differently. Better, had she been +willing to relate to him in the first place the story of the plot of her +scenario and how she had treated it, her present accusation might have +seemed more reasonable.</p> + +<p>But, having read the really good story scrawled on the scraps of brown +paper that John, the hermit, had put in the manager’s hands, the girl had +suddenly claimed the authorship of the story. There was nothing to prove +her claim. It looked dubious at the best.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 166]</span> +John, the hermit, was a grim old man. No matter whether he was some old +actor hiding away here on Beach Plum Point or not, he was not a man to +give up easily anything that he had once said was his.</p> + +<p>The manager was far too wise to accuse the hermit openly, as Ruth had +accused him. They would not get far with the old fellow that way, he was +sure.</p> + +<p>First of all he called the company together and asked if there were any +more scenarios to be submitted. “No,” being the answer, he told them +briefly that out of the twenty-odd stories he had accepted one that might +be whipped into shape for filming—and one only.</p> + +<p>Each story submitted had been numbered and the number given to its author. +The scripts could now be obtained by the presentation of the numbers. He +did not tell them which number had proved successful. Nor did he let it be +known that he proposed to try to film the hermit’s production.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hooley was using old John on this day in a character part. For these +“types” the director usually paid ten or fifteen dollars a day; but John +was so successful in every part he was given that Mr. Hooley always paid +him an extra five dollars for his work. Money seemed to make no difference +in the hermit’s appearance, however. He +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 167]</span> wore just as shabby clothing and +lived just as plainly as he had when the picture company had come on to +the lot.</p> + +<p>When work was over for the day, Hooley sent the old man to Mr. Hammond’s +office. The president of the company invited the hermit into his shack and +gave him a seat. He scrutinized the man sharply as he thus greeted him. It +was quite true that the hermit did not wholly fit the character he assumed +as a longshore waif.</p> + +<p>In the first place, his skin was not tanned to the proper leathery look. +His eyes were not those of a man used to looking off over the sea. His +hands were too soft and unscarred for a sailor’s. He had never pulled on +ropes and handled an oar!</p> + +<p>Now that Ruth Fielding had suggested that his character was a disguise, +Mr. Hammond saw plainly that she must be right. As he was a good actor of +other parts before the camera, so he was a good actor in his part of +“hermit.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you lived over there on the point, John?” asked Mr. Hammond +carelessly.</p> + +<p>“A good many years, sir, in summer.”</p> + +<p>“How did you come to live there first?”</p> + +<p>“I wandered down this way, found the hut empty, turned to and fixed it up, +and stayed on.”</p> + +<p>He said it quite simply and without the first show of confusion. But this +tale of his occupancy<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 168]</span> +of the seaside hut he had repeated frequently, as +Mr. Hammond very well knew.</p> + +<p>“Where do you go in the winter, John?” the latter asked.</p> + +<p>“To where it’s a sight warmer. I don’t have to ask anybody where I shall +go,” and now the man’s tone was a trifle defiant.</p> + +<p>“I would like to know something more about you,” Mr. Hammond said, quite +frankly. “I may be able to do something with your story. We like to know +about the person who submits a scenario——”</p> + +<p>“That don’t go!” snapped the hermit grimly. “You offered five hundred for +a story you could use. If you can use mine, I want the five hundred. And I +don’t aim to give you the history of my past along with the story. It’s +nobody’s business what or who I am, or where I came from, or where I am +going.”</p> + +<p>“Hoity-toity!” exclaimed Mr. Hammond. “You are quite sudden, aren’t you? +Now, just calm yourself. I haven’t got to take your scenario and pay you +five hundred dollars for it——”</p> + +<p>“Then somebody else will,” said the hermit, getting up.</p> + +<p>“Ah! You are quite sure you have a good story here, are you?”</p> + +<p>“I know I have.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 169]</span> +“And how do you know so much?” sharply demanded the moving picture +magnate.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen enough of this thing you are doing, now—this ‘Seaside Idyl’ +stuff—to know that mine is a hundred per cent. better,” sneered the +hermit.</p> + +<p>“Whew! You’ve a good opinion of your story, haven’t you?” asked Mr. +Hammond. “Did you ever write a scenario before?”</p> + +<p>“What is that to you?” returned the other. “I don’t get you at all, Mr. +Hammond. All this cross-examination——”</p> + +<p>“That will do now!” snapped the manager. “I am not obliged to take your +story. You can try it elsewhere if you like,” and he shoved the +newspaper-wrapped package toward the end of his desk and nearer the +hermit’s hand. “I tell you frankly that I won’t take any story without +knowing all about the author. There are too many comebacks in this game.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” demanded the other stiffly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t <em>know</em> that your story is original. Frankly, I have some doubt +about that very point.”</p> + +<p>The old man did not change color at all. His gray eyes blazed and he was +not at all pleasant looking. But the accusation did not seem to surprise +him.</p> + +<p>“Are you trying to get it away from me for less than you offered?” he +demanded.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 170]</span> +“You are an old man,” said Mr. Hammond hotly, “and that lets you get away +with such a suggestion as that without punishment. I begin to believe that +there is something dead wrong with you, John—or whatever your name is.”</p> + +<p>He drew back the packet of manuscript, opened a drawer, put it within, and +locked the drawer.</p> + +<p>“I’ll think this over a little longer,” he said grimly. “At least, until +you are willing to be a little more communicative about yourself. I would +be glad to use your story with some fixing up, if I was convinced you +really wrote it all. But you have got to show me—or give me proper +references.”</p> + +<p>“Give me back the scenario, then!” exclaimed the old man, his eyes blazing +hotly.</p> + +<p>“No. Not yet. I can take my time in deciding upon the manuscripts +submitted in this contest. You will have to wait until I decide,” said Mr. +Hammond, waving the man out of his office.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 171]</span><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>A HERMIT FOR REVENUE ONLY</strong></p> + +<p>The bays and inlets of the coast of Maine have the bluest water dotted by +the greenest islands that one can imagine. And such wild and romantic +looking spots as some of these islands are!</p> + +<p>Just at this time, too, a particular tang of romance was in the air. The +Germans had threatened to devastate our Atlantic coast from Eastport to +Key West with a flock of submersibles. There actually were a few +submarines lurking about the pathways of our coastwise shipping; but, as +usual, the Hun’s boast came to naught.</p> + +<p>The young people on the <em>Stazy</em> scarcely expected to see a German +periscope during the run to Reef Harbor. Yet they did not neglect watching +out for something of the kind. Skipper Phil Gordon, a young man with one +arm but a full and complete knowledge of this coast and how to coax speed +out of a gasoline engine, ordered his “crew” of one boy to remain sharply +on the lookout, as well.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 172]</span> +The <em>Stazy</em> did not, however, run far outside. The high and rocky headland +that marked the entrance to Reef Harbor came into view before they had +more than dropped the hazy outline of Beach Plum Point astern.</p> + +<p>But until they rounded the promontory and entered the narrow inlet to Reef +Harbor the town and the summer colony was entirely invisible.</p> + +<p>“If a German sub should stick its nose in here,” sighed Helen, “it would +make everybody ashore get up and dust. Don’t you think so?”</p> + +<p>“Is it the custom to do so when the enemy, he arrive?” asked Colonel +Marchand, to whom the idiomatic speech of the Yankee was still a puzzle.</p> + +<p>“Sure!” replied Tom, grinning. “Sure, Henri! These New England women would +clean house, no matter what catastrophe arrived.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t suggest such horrid possibilities,” cried Jennie. “And they are +only fooling you, Henri.”</p> + +<p>“Look yonder!” exclaimed Captain Tom, waving an instructive hand. “Behold! +Let the Kaiser’s underseas boat come. That little tin lizzie of the sea is +ready for it. Depth bombs and all!”</p> + +<p>The grim looking drab submarine chaser lay at the nearest dock, the faint +spiral of smoke rising from her stack proclaiming that she was ready for +immediate work. There was a tower, too, on +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 173]</span> the highest point on the +headland from which a continual watch was kept above the town.</p> + +<p>“O-o-oh!” gurgled Jennie, snuggling up to Henri. “Suppose one of those +German subs shelled the movie camp back there on Beach Plum Point!”</p> + +<p>“They would likely spoil a perfectly good picture, then,” said Helen +practically. “Think of Ruthie’s ‘Seaside Idyl!’.</p> + +<p>“Oh, say!” Helen went on. “They tell me that old hermit has submitted a +story in the contest. What do you suppose it is like, Ruth?”</p> + +<p>The girl of the Red Mill was sitting beside Aunt Kate. She flushed when +she said:</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t he submit one?”</p> + +<p>“But that hermit isn’t quite right in his head, is he?” demanded Ruth’s +chum.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that it is his head that is wrong,” murmured Ruth, shaking +her own head doubtfully.</p> + +<p>Here Jennie broke in. “Is auntie letting you read her story, Ruth?” she +asked slyly.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jennie Stone!” exclaimed their chaperon, blushing.</p> + +<p>“Well, you are writing one. You know you are,” laughed her niece.</p> + +<p>“I—I am just trying to see if I can write such a story,” stammered Aunt +Kate.</p> + +<p>“Well, I am sure you could make up a better +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 174]</span> scenario than that old grouch +of a hermit,” Helen declared, warmly.</p> + +<p>Ruth did not add anything to this discussion. What she had discovered +regarding the hermit’s scenario was of too serious a nature to be publicly +discussed.</p> + +<p>Her interview the evening before with Mr. Hammond regarding the matter had +left Ruth in a most uncertain frame of mind. She did not know what to do +about the stolen scenario. She shrank from telling even Helen or Tom of +her discovery.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, Mr. Hammond’s seeming doubt—not of her truthfulness +but of her wisdom—had shaken the girl’s belief in herself. It was a +strange situation, indeed. She thought of the woman she had found +wandering about the mountain in the storm who had lost control of both her +nerves and her mind, and Ruth wondered if it could be possible that she, +too, was on the verge of becoming a nervous wreck.</p> + +<p>Had she deceived herself about this hermit’s story? Had she allowed her +mind to dwell on her loss until she was quite unaccountable for her mental +decisions? To tell the truth, this thought frightened the girl of the Red +Mill a little.</p> + +<p>Practical as Ruth Fielding ordinarily was, she must confess that the shock +she had received when the hospital in France was partly wrecked, an +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 175]</span> +account of which is given in “Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound,” had shaken +the very foundations of her being. She shuddered even now when she thought +of what she had been through in France and on the voyage coming back to +America.</p> + +<p>She realized that even Tom and Helen looked at her sometimes when she +spoke of her lost scenario in a most peculiar way. Was it a fact that she +had allowed her loss to unbalance—well, her judgment? Suppose she was +quite wrong about that scenario the hermit had submitted to Mr. Hammond? +The thought frightened her!</p> + +<p>At least, she had nothing to say upon the puzzling subject, not even to +her best and closest friends. She was sorry indeed two hours later when +they were at lunch on the porch of the Reef Harbor House with some of the +Camerons’ friends that Helen brought the conversation around again to the +Beach Plum Point “hermit.”</p> + +<p>“A <em>real</em> hermit?” cried Cora Grimsby, a gay, blonde, irresponsible little +thing, but with a heart of gold. “And is he a hermit for revenue only, +too?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?” Helen demanded.</p> + +<p>“Why, we have a hermit here, you see. Over on Reef Island itself. If you +give us a sail in your motor yacht after lunch I’ll introduce our hermit +to you. But you must buy something of +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 176]</span> him, or otherwise ‘cross his palm +with silver.’ He told me one day that he was not playing a nut for summer +folks to laugh at just for the good of his health.”</p> + +<p>“Frank, I must say,” laughed Tom Cameron.</p> + +<p>“I guess he’s been in the hermit business before,” said Cora, sparkling at +Tom in his uniform. “But this is his first season at the Harbor.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if he belongs to the hermit’s union and carries a union card,” +suggested Jennie Stone soberly. “I don’t think we should patronize +non-union hermits.”</p> + +<p>“Goody!” cried Cora, clapping her hands. “Let’s ask him.”</p> + +<p>Ruth said nothing. She rather wished she might get out of the trip to Reef +Island without offending anybody. But that seemed impossible. She really +had seen all the hermits she cared to see!</p> + +<p>She could not, however, be morose and absent-minded in a party of which +Cora Grimsby and Jennie Stone were the moving spirits. It was a gay crowd +that crossed the harbor in the <em>Stazy</em> to land at a roughly built dock +under the high bluff of the wooded island.</p> + +<p>“There’s the hermit!” Cora cried, as they landed. “See him sitting on the +rock before the door of his cabin?”</p> + +<p>“Right on the job,” suggested Tom.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 177]</span> +“No unlucky city fly shall escape that spider’s web,” cried Jennie.</p> + +<p>He was a patriarchal looking man. His beard swept his breast. He wore +shabby garments, was barefooted, and carried a staff as though he were +lame or rheumatic.</p> + +<p>“Dresses the part much better than our hermit does,” Helen said, in +comment.</p> + +<p>The man met the party from the <em>Stazy</em> with a broad smile that displayed a +toothless cavity of a mouth. His red-rimmed eyes were moist looking, not +to say bleary. Ruth smelled a distinct alcoholic odor on his breath. A +complete drouth had evidently not struck this part of the State of Maine.</p> + +<p>“Good day to ye!” said the hermit. “Some o’ you young folks I ain’t never +seed before.”</p> + +<p>“They are my friends,” Cora hastened to explain, “and they come from Beach +Plum Point.”</p> + +<p>“Do tell! If you air goin’ back to-night, better make a good v’y’ge of it. +We’re due for a blow, I allow. You folks ain’t stoppin’ right on the +p’int, be ye?”</p> + +<p>Ruth, to whom he addressed this last question, answered that they were, +and explained that there was a large camp there this season, and why.</p> + +<p>“Wal, wal! I want to know! Somebody did say something to me about a gang +of movin’ <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 178]</span> +picture folks comin’ there; but I reckoned they was a-foolin’ +me.”</p> + +<p>“There is a good sized party of us,” acknowledged Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Wal, wal! Mebbe that fella I let my shack to will make out well, then, +after all. Warn’t no sign of ye on the beach when I left three weeks ago”.</p> + +<p>“Did you live there on the point?” asked Ruth.</p> + +<p>“Allus do winters. But the pickin’s is better over here at the Harbor at +this time of year.”</p> + +<p>“And the man you left in your place? Where is your house on the point?”</p> + +<p>The hermit “for revenue only” described the hut on the eastern shore in +which the other “hermit” lived. Ruth became much interested.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she said, while the others examined the curios the hermit had +for sale, “what kind of man is this you left in your house? And who is +he?”</p> + +<p>“Law bless ye!” said the old man. “I don’t know him from Adam’s off ox. +Never seed him afore. But he was trampin’ of it; and he didn’t have much +money. An’ to tell you the truth, Miss, that hutch of mine ain’t wuth much +money.”</p> + +<p>She described the man who had been playing the hermit since the Alectrion +Film Corporation crowd had come to Beach Plum Point.</p> + +<p>“That’s the fella,” said the old man, nodding.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 179]</span> +Ruth stood aside while he waited on his customers and digested these +statements regarding the man who claimed the authorship of the scenario of +“Plain Mary.”</p> + +<p>Not that Ruth would have desired to acknowledge the scenario in its +present form. She felt angry every time she thought of how her plot had +been mangled.</p> + +<p>But she was glad to learn all that was known about the Beach Plum Point +hermit. And she had learned one most important fact.</p> + +<p>He was not a regular hermit. As Jennie Stone suggested, he was not a +“union hermit” at all. And he was a stranger to the neighborhood of +Herringport. If he had been at the Point only three weeks, as this old man +said, “John, the hermit,” might easily have come since Ruth’s scenario was +stolen back there at the Red Mill!</p> + +<p>Her thoughts began to mill again about this possibility. She wished she +was back at the camp so as to put the strange old man through a +cross-examination regarding himself and where he had come from. She had no +suspicion as to how Mr. Hammond had so signally failed in this very +matter.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 180]</span><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>AN ARRIVAL</strong></p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond was in no placid state of mind himself after the peculiarly +acting individual who called himself “John, the hermit,” left his office. +The very fact that the man refused to tell anything about his personal +affairs—who he really was, or where he came from—induced the moving +picture producer to believe there must be something wrong about him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond went to the door of the shack and watched the man tramping up +the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! +Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the +old-time tragedian, made famous by the Henry Irving school of actors.</p> + +<p>“An ancient ‘ham’ sure enough, just as the boys say,” muttered the +manager.</p> + +<p>The so-called hermit disappeared. The moving picture people were gathering +for dinner. The sun, although still above the horizon, was dimmed +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 181]</span> by +cloud-banks which were rising steadily to meet clouds over the sea.</p> + +<p>A wan light played upon the heaving “graybacks” outside the mouth of the +harbor. The wind whined among the pines which grew along the ridge of +Beach Plum Point.</p> + +<p>A storm was imminent. Just as Mr. Hammond took note of this and wished +that Ruth Fielding and her party had returned, a snorting automobile +rattled along the shell road and halted near the camp.</p> + +<p>“Is this the Alectrion Film Company?” asked a shrill voice.</p> + +<p>“This is the place, Miss,” said the driver of the small car.</p> + +<p>The chauffeur ran his jitney from the railroad station and was known to +Mr. Hammond. The latter went nearer.</p> + +<p>Out of the car stepped a girl—a very young girl to be traveling alone. +She was dressed in extreme fashion, but very cheaply. Her hair was bobbed +and she wore a Russian blouse of cheap silk. Her skirt was very narrow, +her cloth boots very high, and the heels of them were like those of +Jananese clogs.</p> + +<p>What with the skimpy skirt and the high heels she could scarcely walk. She +was laden with two bags—one an ancient carpet-bag that must have been +seventy-five years old, and the other a bright +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 182]</span> tan one of imitation +leather with brass clasps. She wore a coal-scuttle hat pulled down over +her eyes so that her face was quite extinguished.</p> + +<p>Altogether her get-up was rather startling. Mr. Hammond saw Jim Hooley +come out of his tent to stare at the new arrival. She certainly was a +“type.”</p> + +<p>There was a certain kind of prettiness about the girl, and aside from her +incongruous garments she was not unattractive—when her face was revealed. +Mr. Hammond’s interest increased. He approached the spot where the girl +had been left by the jitney driver.</p> + +<p>“You came to see somebody?” he asked kindly. “Who is it you wish to see?”</p> + +<p>“Is this the moving picture camp, Mister?” she returned.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the manager, smiling. “Are you acquainted with somebody who +works here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I am Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice,” said the girl, with an air that +seemed to show that she expected to be recognized when she had recited her +name.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond refrained from open laughter. He only said:</p> + +<p>“Why—that is nice. I am glad to meet you, my dear. Who are you looking +for?”</p> + +<p>“I want to see my pa, of course. I guess you know who <em>he</em> is?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 183]</span> +“I am not sure that I do, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t—Say! who are you?” demanded Bella, with some sharpness.</p> + +<p>“I am only the manager of the company. Who is your father, child?”</p> + +<p>“Well, of all the—— Wouldn’t that give you your nevergitovers!” +exclaimed Bella, in broad amazement. “Say! I guess my pa is your leading +man.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hasbrouck? Impossible!”</p> + +<p>“Never heard of him,” said Bella, promptly. “Montague Fitzmaurice, I +mean.”</p> + +<p>“And I never heard of him,” declared Mr. Hammond, both puzzled and amused.</p> + +<p>“What?” gasped the girl, almost stunned by this statement. “Maybe you know +him as Mr. Pike. That is our honest-to-goodness name—Pike.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry that you are disappointed, my dear,” said the manager kindly. +“But don’t be worried. If you expected to meet your father here, perhaps +he will come later. But really, I have no such person as that on my staff +at the present time.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—— Why!” cried Bella, “he sent me money and said he +was working here. I—I didn’t tell him I was coming. I just got sick of +those Perkinses, and I took the money and went to Boston and got dressed +up, and then came on<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 184]</span> +here. I—I just about spent all the money he sent me +to get here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that was perhaps unwise,” said Mr. Hammond. “But don’t worry. Come +along now to Mother Paisley. She will look out for you—and you can stay +with us until your father appears. There is some mistake somewhere.”</p> + +<p>By this speech he warded off tears. Bella hastily winked them back and +squared her thin shoulders.</p> + +<p>“All right, sir,” she said, picking up the bags again. “Pa will make it +all right with you. He wrote in his letter as if he had a good +engagement.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond might have learned something further about this surprising +girl at the time, but just as he introduced her to Mother Paisley one of +the men came running from the point and hailed him:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hammond! There’s a boat in trouble off the point. I think she was +making for this harbor. Have you got a pair of glasses?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond had a fine pair of opera glasses, and he produced them from +his desk while he asked:</p> + +<p>“What kind of boat is it, Maxwell?”</p> + +<p>“Looks like that blue motor that Miss Fielding and her friends went off in +this morning. We saw<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 185]</span> +it coming along at top speed. And suddenly it +stopped. They can’t seem to manage it——”</p> + +<p>The manager hurried with Maxwell along the sands. The sky was completely +overcast now, and the wind whipped the spray from the wave tops into their +faces. The weather looked dubious indeed, and the manager of the film +corporation was worried before even he focused his glasses upon the +distant motor-boat.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 186]</span><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TROUBLE—PLENTY</strong></p> + +<p>Even Ruth Fielding had paid no attention to the warning of the Reef Island +hermit regarding a change in the weather, in spite of the fact that she +was anxious to return to the camp near Herringport. It was not until the +<em>Stazy</em> was outside the inlet late in the afternoon that Skipper Phil +Gordon noted the threatening signs in sea and sky.</p> + +<p>“That’s how it goes,” the one-armed mariner said. “When we aren’t +dependent on the wind to fill our canvas, we neglect watching every little +weather change. She’s going to blow by and by.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it will be a real storm?” asked Ruth, who sat beside him at +the steering wheel and engine, watching how he managed the mechanism.</p> + +<p>“Maybe. But with good luck we will make Beach Plum Point long before it +amounts to anything.”</p> + +<p>The long graybacks were rather pleasant to ride over at first. Even Aunt +Kate was not troubled<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 187]</span> +by the prospect. It was so short a run to the +anchorage behind the Point that nobody expressed fear.</p> + +<p>When the spray began to fly over the bows the girls merely squealed a bit, +although they hastily found extra wraps. If the <em>Stazy</em> plunged and +shipped half a sea now and then, nobody was made anxious. And soon the +Point was in plain view.</p> + +<p>To make the run easier, however, Skipper Gordon had sailed the motor-yacht +well out to sea. When he shifted the helm to run for the entrance to the +bay, the waves began to slap against the <em>Stazy’s</em> side. She rolled +terrifically and the aspect of affairs was instantly changed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear me!” moaned Jennie Stone. “How do you feel, Henri? I did not +bargain for this rough stuff, did you? Oh!”</p> + +<p>“‘Mister Captain, stop the ship, I want to get off and walk!’” sang Helen +gaily. “Don’t lose all hope, Heavy. You’ll never sink if you do go +overboard.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t she mean?” sniffed the plump girl. “And I am only afraid for +Henri’s sake.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like this for my own sake,” murmured Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>“Are you cold, dear?” her niece asked, with quick sympathy. “Here! I don’t +really need this cape with my heavy sweater.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 188]</span> +She removed the heavy cloth garment from her own shoulders and with a +flirt sought to place it around Aunt Kate. The wind swooped down just then +with sudden force. The <em>Stazy</em> rolled to leeward.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Stop it!”</p> + +<p>Bulging under pressure of the wind, the cape flew over the rail. Jennie +tried to clutch it again; Henri plunged after it, too. Colliding, the two +managed between them to miss the garment altogether. It dropped into the +water just under the rail.</p> + +<p>“Of all the clumsy fingers!” ejaculated Helen. But she could not seize the +wrap, although she darted for it. Nor could Ruth help, she being still +farther forward.</p> + +<p>“Now, you’ve done it!” complained Aunt Kate.</p> + +<p>The boat began to rise on another roller. The cape was sucked out of sight +under the rail. The next moment the whirling propeller was stopped—so +abruptly that the <em>Stazy</em> shook all over.</p> + +<p>“Oh! what has happened?” shrieked Helen.</p> + +<p>Ruth started up, and Tom seized her arm to steady her. But the girl of the +Red Mill did not express any fear. The shock did not seem to affect her so +much as it did the other girls. Here was a real danger, and Ruth did not +lose her self-possession.</p> + +<p>Phil Gordon had shut off the power, and the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 189]</span> motor-boat began to swing +broadside to the rising seas.</p> + +<p>“The propeller is broken!” cried Tom.</p> + +<p>“She’s jammed. That cape!” gasped the one-armed skipper. “Here! Tend to +this till I see what can be done. Jack!” he shouted to his crew. “This +way—lively, now!”</p> + +<p>But Ruth slipped into his place before Tom could do so.</p> + +<p>“I know how to steer, Tommy,” she declared. “And I understand the engine. +Give him a hand if he needs you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ll turn turtle!” shrieked Jennie, as the boat rolled again.</p> + +<p>“You’ll never become a turtle, Jen,” declared Tom, plunging aft. “Turtles +are dumb!”</p> + +<p>The <em>Stazy</em> was slapped by a big wave, “just abaft the starboard bow,” to +be real nautical, and half a ton of sea-water washed over the forward deck +and spilled into the standing-room of the craft.</p> + +<p>Henri had wisely closed the door of the cabin. The water foamed about +their feet. Ruth found herself knee deep for a moment in this flood. She +whirled the wheel over, trying to bring up the head of the craft to meet +the next wave.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear!” groaned Jennie Stone. “We are going to be drowned.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 190]</span> +“Drowned, your granny!” snapped Helen angrily. “Don’t be such a silly, +Jennie.”</p> + +<p>Ruth stood at the wheel with more apparent calmness than any of them. Her +hair had whipped out of its fastenings and streamed over her shoulders. +Her eyes were bright and her cheeks aglow.</p> + +<p>Helen, staring at her, suddenly realized that this was the old Ruth +Fielding. Her chum had not looked so much alive, so thoroughly competent +and ready for anything, before for weeks.</p> + +<p>“Why—why, Ruthie!” Helen murmured, “I believe you like this.”</p> + +<p>Her chum did not hear the words, but she suddenly flashed Helen a +brilliant smile. “Keep up your pluck, child!” she shouted. “We’ll come out +all right.”</p> + +<p>Again the <em>Stazy</em> staggered under the side swipe of a big wave.</p> + +<p>“Ye-ow!” yelped Tom in the stern, almost diving overboard.</p> + +<p>“Steady!” shouted Skipper Gordon, excitedly.</p> + +<p>“Steady she is, Captain!” rejoined Ruth Fielding, and actually laughed.</p> + +<p>“How can you, Ruth?” complained Jennie, clinging to Henri Marchand. “And +when we are about to drown.”</p> + +<p>“Weeping will not save us,” flung back Ruth.</p> + +<p>Her strong hands held the wheel-spokes with +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 191]</span> a grip unbreakable. She could +force the <em>Stazy’s</em> head to the seas.</p> + +<p>“Can you start the engine on the reverse, Miss?” bawled Gordon.</p> + +<p>“I can try!” flashed Ruth. “Say when.”</p> + +<p>In a moment the cry came: “Ready!”</p> + +<p>“Aye, aye!” responded Ruth, spinning the flywheel.</p> + +<p>The spark caught almost instantly. The exhaust sputtered.</p> + +<p>“Now!” yelled the skipper.</p> + +<p>Ruth threw the lever. The boat trembled like an automobile under the +propulsion of the engine. The propeller shaft groaned.</p> + +<p>“Ye-ow!” shouted the excited Tom again.</p> + +<p>This time he sprawled back into the bottom of the boat, tearing away a +good half of Jennie’s cape in his grip. The rest of the garment floated to +the surface. It was loose from the propeller.</p> + +<p>“Full speed ahead!” shouted the one-armed captain of the motor-boat.</p> + +<p>Ruth obeyed the command. The <em>Stazy</em> staggered into the next wave. The +water that came in over her bow almost drowned them, but Ruth, hanging to +the steering wheel, brought the craft through the roller without swamping +her.</p> + +<p>“Good for our Ruth!” shouted Helen, as soon as she could get her breath.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 192]</span> +“Oh, Ruth! you always come to our rescue,” declared Jennie gratefully.</p> + +<p>“Hi! I thought you were a nervous wreck, young lady,” Tom sputtered, +scrambling forward to relieve her. “Get you into a tight corner, and you +show what you are made of, all right.”</p> + +<p>The girl of the Red Mill smiled at them. She had done something! Nor did +she feel at all overcome by the effort. The danger through which they had +passed had inspired rather than frightened her.</p> + +<p>“Why, I’m all right,” she told Tom when he reached her. “This is great! +We’ll be behind the shelter of the Point in a few minutes. There’s nothing +to worry about.”</p> + +<p>“You’re all right, Ruth,” Tom repeated, admiringly. “I thought you’d lost +your grip, but I see you haven’t. You are the same old Ruthie Fielding, +after all.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 193]</span><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>ABOUT “PLAIN MARY”</strong></p> + +<p>Mr. Hammond and the actors with him had no idea of the nature of the +accident that had happened to the <em>Stazy</em>. From the extreme end of Beach +Plum Point they could merely watch proceedings aboard the craft, and +wonder what it was all about.</p> + +<p>The manager could, however, see through his glasses that Ruth Fielding was +at the wheel. Her face came out clear as a cameo when he focused the opera +glasses upon her. And at the change in the girl’s expression he marveled.</p> + +<p>Those ashore could do nothing to aid the party on the motor-yacht; and +until it got under way again Mr. Hammond was acutely anxious. It rolled so +that he expected it to turn keel up at almost any moment.</p> + +<p>Before the blasts of rain began to sweep across the sea, however, the +<em>Stazy</em> was once more under control. At that most of the spectators made +for the camp and shelter. But the manager of the +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 194]</span> film corporation waited +to see the motor-yacht inside the shelter of Beach Plum Point.</p> + +<p>The rain was falling heavily, and not merely in gusts, when Ruth and her +friends came ashore in the small boat. The lamps were lit and dinner was +over at the main camp. Therefore the automobile touring party failed to +see Bella Pike or hear about her arrival. By this time the girl had gone +off to the main dormitory with Mother Paisley, and even Mr. Hammond did +not think of her.</p> + +<p>Nor did the manager speak that evening to Ruth about the hermit’s scenario +or his interview with the old man regarding it.</p> + +<p>The three girls and Aunt Kate changed their clothing in the little shack +and then joined the young men in the dining room for a late supper. Aunt +Kate was to stay this night at the camp. There was a feeling of much +thankfulness in all their hearts over their escape from what might have +been a serious accident.</p> + +<p>“Providence was good to us,” said Aunt Kate. “I hope we are all properly +grateful.”</p> + +<p>“And properly proud of Ruthie!” exclaimed Helen, squeezing her chum’s +hand.</p> + +<p>“Don’t throw too many bouquets,” laughed Ruth. “It was not I that tore +Jennie’s cape out of the propeller. I merely obeyed the skipper’s +orders.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 195]</span> +“She is a regular Cheerful Grig again, isn’t she?” demanded Jennie, +beaming on Ruth.</p> + +<p>“I have been a wet blanket on this party long enough. I just begin to +realize how very unpleasant I have been——”</p> + +<p>“Not that, Mademoiselle!” objected Henri.</p> + +<p>“But yes! Hereafter I will be cheerful. Life is worth living after all!”</p> + +<p>Tom, who sat next to her at table (he usually managed to do that) smiled +at Ruth approvingly.</p> + +<p>“Bravo!” he whispered. “There are other scenarios to write.”</p> + +<p>“Tom!” she whispered sharply, “I want to tell you something about that.”</p> + +<p>“About what?”</p> + +<p>“My scenario.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean——”</p> + +<p>“I mean I know what has become of it.”</p> + +<p>“Never!” gasped Tom. “Are you—are—you——”</p> + +<p>“I am not ‘<em>non compos</em>,’ and-so-forth,” laughed Ruth. “Oh, there is +nothing foolish about this, Tom. Let me tell you.”</p> + +<p>She spoke in so low a tone that the others could not have heard had they +desired to. She and Tom put their heads together and within the next few +minutes Ruth had told him all about the hermit’s scenario and her +conviction that he had stolen his +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 196]</span> idea and a large part of his story from +Ruth’s lost manuscript.</p> + +<p>“It seems almost impossible, Ruth,” gasped her friend.</p> + +<p>“No. Not impossible or improbable. Listen to what that man on Reef Island +told me about this hermit, so-called.” And she repeated it all to the +excited Tom. “I am convinced,” pursued Ruth, “that this hermit could +easily have been in the vicinity of the Red Mill on the day my manuscript +disappeared.”</p> + +<p>“But to prove it!” cried Tom.</p> + +<p>“We’ll see about that,” said Ruth confidently. “You know, Ben told us he +had seen and spoken to a tramp-actor that day. Uncle Jabez saw him, too. +And you, Tom, followed his trail to the Cheslow railroad yards.”</p> + +<p>“So I did,” admitted her friend.</p> + +<p>“I believe,” went on Ruth earnestly, “that this man who came here to live +on Beach Plum Point only three weeks ago, is that very vagrant. It is +plain that this fellow is playing the part of a hermit, just as he plays +the parts Mr. Hooley casts him for.”</p> + +<p>“Whew!” whistled Tom. “Almost do you convince me, Ruth Fielding. But to +prove it is another thing.”</p> + +<p>“We <em>will</em> prove it. If this man was at the Red +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 197]</span> Mill on that particular +day, we can make sure of the fact.”</p> + +<p>“How will you do it, Ruth?”</p> + +<p>“By getting one of the camera men to take a ‘still’ of the hermit, develop +it for us, and send the negative to Ben. He and Uncle Jabez must remember +how that traveling actor looked——”</p> + +<p>“Hurrah!” exclaimed Tom, jumping up to the amazement of the rest of the +party. “That’s a bully idea.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?” demanded Helen. “Let us in on it, too.”</p> + +<p>But Ruth shook her head and Tom calmed down.</p> + +<p>“Can’t tell the secret yet,” Helen’s twin declared. “That would spoil it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! A surprise! I love surprises,” said Jennie Stone.</p> + +<p>“I don’t. Not when my chum and my brother have a secret from me and won’t +let me in on it,” and Helen turned her back upon them in apparent +indignation.</p> + +<p>After that Ruth and Tom discussed the matter with more secrecy. Ruth said +in conclusion:</p> + +<p>“If he was there at the mill the day my story was stolen, and now submits +this scenario to Mr. Hammond—and it is merely a re-hash of mine, Tom, I +assure you——”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 198]</span> +“Of course I believe you, Ruth,” rejoined the young fellow.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hammond should be convinced, too,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>But there was a point that Tom saw very clearly and which Ruth Fielding +did not seem to appreciate. She still had no evidence to corroborate her +claim that the hermit’s story of “Plain Mary” was plagiarized from her +manuscript.</p> + +<p>For, after all, nobody but Ruth herself knew what her scenario had been +like!</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 199]</span><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>LIFTING THE CURTAIN</strong></p> + +<p>Ruth slept peacefully and awoke the next morning in a perfectly serene +frame of mind. She was quite as convinced as ever that she had been robbed +of her scenario; and she was, as well, sure that “John, the hermit,” had +produced his picture play from her manuscript. But Ruth no longer felt +anxious and excited about it.</p> + +<p>She clearly saw her way to a conclusion of the matter. If the old actor +was identified by Ben and Uncle Jabez as the tramp they had seen and +conversed with, the girl of the Red Mill was pretty sure she would get the +best of the thief.</p> + +<p>In the first place she considered her idea and her scenario worth much +more than five hundred dollars. If by no other means, she would buy the +hermit’s story at the price Mr. Hammond was willing to pay for it—and a +little more if necessary. And if possible she would force the old actor to +hand over to her the script that she had lost.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 200]</span> +Thus was her mind made up, and she approached the matter in all +cheerfulness. She had said nothing to anybody but Tom, and she did not see +him early in the morning. One of the stewards brought the girls’ breakfast +to the shack; so they knew little of what went on about the camp at that +time.</p> + +<p>The rain had ceased. The storm had passed on completely. Soon after +breakfast Ruth saw the man who called himself “John, the hermit,” making +straight for Mr. Hammond’s office.</p> + +<p>That was where Ruth wished to be. She wanted to confront the man before +the president of the film corporation. She started over that way and ran +into the most surprising incident!</p> + +<p>Coming out of the cook tent with a huge apron enveloping her queer, tight +dress and tilting forward upon her high heels, appeared Bella Pike! Ruth +Fielding might have met somebody whose presence here would have surprised +her more, but at the moment she could not imagine who it could be.</p> + +<p>“Ara-bella!” gasped Ruth.</p> + +<p>The child turned to stare her own amazement. She changed color, too, for +she knew she had done wrong to run away; but she smiled with both eyes and +lips, for she was glad to see Ruth.</p> + +<p>“My mercy!” she ejaculated. “If it ain’t Miss Fielding! How-do, Miss +Fielding? Ain’t it<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 201]</span> +enough to give one their nevergitovers to see you here?”</p> + +<p>“And how do you suppose I feel to find you here at Beach Plum Point,” +demanded Ruth, “when we all thought you were so nicely fixed with Mr. and +Mrs. Perkins? And Mrs. Holmes wrote to me only the other day that you +seemed contented.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Miss Fielding,” sighed the actor’s child. “I was. And Miz +Perkins was always nice to me. Nothing at all like Aunt Suse Timmins. But, +you see, they ain’t like pa.”</p> + +<p>“Did your father bring you here?”</p> + +<p>“No’m.”</p> + +<p>“Nor send for you?”</p> + +<p>“Not exactly,” confessed Bella.</p> + +<p>“Well!”</p> + +<p>“You see, he sent me money. Only on Tuesday. Forty dollars.”</p> + +<p>“Forty dollars! And to a child like you?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Fielding, if he had sent it to Aunt Suse I’d never have seen a +penny of it. And pa didn’t know what you’d done for me and how you’d put +me with Miz Perkins.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose that is so,” admitted the surprised Ruth. “But why did you come +here?”</p> + +<p>“’Cause pa wrote he had an engagement here. I came through Boston, an’ got +me a dress,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 202]</span> and some shoes, +and a hat—all up to date—and I thought I’d +surprise pa——”</p> + +<p>“But, Bella! I haven’t seen your father here, have I?”</p> + +<p>“No. There’s a mistake somehow. But this nice Miz Paisley says for me not +to worry. That like enough pa will come here yet.”</p> + +<p>“I never!” ejaculated Ruth. “Come right along with me, Bella, and see Mr. +Hammond. Something must be done. Of course, Mrs. Perkins and the doctor’s +wife have no idea where you have gone?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes’m. I left a note telling ’em I’d gone to meet pa.”</p> + +<p>“But we must send them a message that you are all right. Come on, Bella!” +and with her arm about the child’s thin shoulders, Ruth urged her to Mr. +Hammond’s office—and directly into her father’s arms!</p> + +<p>This was how Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike came to meet her +father—in a most amazing fashion!</p> + +<p>“Pa! I never did!” half shrieked the queer child.</p> + +<p>“Arabella! Here? How strange!” observed the man who had been acting the +part of the Beach Plum Point hermit. “My child!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Pike could do nothing save in a dramatic way. He seized Bella and +hugged her to his<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 203]</span> +bosom in a most stagy manner. But Ruth saw that the +man’s gray eyes were moist, that his hands when he seized the girl really +trembled, and he kissed Bella with warmth.</p> + +<p>“I declare!” exclaimed Mr. Hammond. “So your name is +something-or-other-Fitzmaurice Pike?”</p> + +<p>“John Pike, if it please you. The other is for professional purposes +only,” said Bella’s father. “If you do not mind, sir,” he added, “we will +postpone our discussion until a later time. I—I would take my daughter to +my poor abode and learn of her experience in getting here to Beach Plum +Point.”</p> + +<p>“Go as far as you like, Mr. Pike. But remember there has got to be a +settlement later of this matter we were discussing,” said the manager +sternly.</p> + +<p>The actor and his daughter departed, the former giving Ruth a very curious +look indeed. Mr. Hammond turned a broad smile upon the girl of the Red +Mill.</p> + +<p>“What do you know about <em>that</em>?” Mr. Hammond demanded. “Why, Miss Ruth, +yours seems to have been a very good guess. That fellow is an old-timer +and no mistake.”</p> + +<p>“My guess was good in more ways than one,” said Ruth. “I believe I can +prove that this Pike<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 204]</span> +was at the Red Mill on the day my scenario was stolen.”</p> + +<p>She told the manager briefly of the discovery she had made through the +patriarchal old fellow on Reef Island the day before, and of her intention +of sending a photograph of Pike back home for identification.</p> + +<p>“Good idea!” declared Mr. Hammond. “I will speak to Mr. Hooley. There are +‘stills’ on file of all the people he is using here on the lot at the +present time. If you are really sure this man’s story is a plagiarism on +your own——”</p> + +<p>She smiled at him. “I can prove that, too, I think, to your satisfaction. +I feel now that I can sit down and roughly sketch my whole scenario again. +I must confess that in two places in this ‘Plain Mary’ this man Pike has +really improved on my idea. But as a whole his manuscript does not flatter +my story. You’ll see!”</p> + +<p>“Truly, you are a different young woman this morning, Miss Ruth!” +exclaimed her friend. “I hope this matter will be settled in a way +satisfactory to you. I really think there is the germ of a splendid +picture in this ‘Plain Mary.’”</p> + +<p>“And believe me!” laughed Ruth, “the germ is mine. You’ll see,” she +repeated.</p> + +<p>She proved her point, and Mr. Hammond did see; but the outcome was through +quite unexpected channels. Ruth did not have to threaten the man +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 205]</span> who had +made her all the trouble. John M. F. Pike made his confession of his own +volition when they discussed the matter that very day.</p> + +<p>“I feel, Miss Fielding, after all that you did for my child, that I cannot +go on with this subterfuge that, for Bella’s sake, I was tempted to engage +in. I did seize upon your manuscript in that summer-house near the mill +where they say you live, and I was prepared to make the best use of it +possible for Bella’s sake.</p> + +<p>“We have had such bad luck! Poverty for one’s self is bad enough. I have +withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for years. But my +child is growing up——”</p> + +<p>“Would you want her to grow up to know that her father is a thief?” Ruth +demanded hotly.</p> + +<p>“Hunger under the belt gnaws more potently than conscience,” said Pike, +with a grandiloquent gesture. “I had sought alms and been refused at that +mill. Lurking about I saw you leave the summer-house and spied the gold +pen. I can give you a pawn ticket for that,” said Mr. Pike sadly. “But I +saw, too, the value of your scenario and notes. Desperately I had +determined to try to enter this field of moving pictures. It is a terrible +come down, Miss Fielding, for an artist—this mugging before the camera.”</p> + +<p>He went on in his roundabout way to tell her that he had no idea of the +ownership of the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 206]</span> scenario. +Her name was not on it, and he had not +observed her face that day at the Red Mill. And in his mind all the time +had been his own and his child’s misery.</p> + +<p>“It was a bold attempt to forge success through dishonesty,” he concluded +with humility.</p> + +<p>Whether Ruth was altogether sure that Pike was quite honest in his +confession or not, for Bella’s sake she could not be harsh with the old +actor. Nor could he, Ruth believed, be wholly bad when he loved his child +so much.</p> + +<p>As he turned over to Ruth every scrap of manuscript, as well as the +notebooks she had lost, she need not worry about establishing her +ownership of the script.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Hammond had examined her material he agreed with Ruth that in two +quite important places Bella’s father had considerably improved the +original idea of the story.</p> + +<p>This gave Ruth the lead she had been looking for. Mr. Hammond admitted +that the story was much too fine and too important to be filmed here at +this summer camp. He decided to make a great spectacular production of it +at the company’s main studio later in the fall.</p> + +<p>So Ruth proceeded to force Bella’s father to accept two hundred dollars in +payment for what he had done on the story. As her contract with Mr. +Hammond called for a generous royalty, she +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 207]</span> would make much more out of +the scenario than the sum John Pike had hoped to get by selling the stolen +idea to Mr. Hammond.</p> + +<p>The prospects of Bella and her father were vastly improved, too. His work +as a “type” for picture makers would gain him a much better livelihood +than he had been able to earn in the legitimate field. And when Ruth and +her party left Beach Plum Point camp for home in their automobiles, Bella +herself was working in a two-reel comedy that Mr. Hooley was directing.</p> + +<p>“Well, thank goodness!” sighed Helen, “Ruth has settled affairs for two +more of her ‘waifs and strays.’ Now don’t, I beg, find anybody else to +become interested in during our trip back to the Red Mill, Ruthie.”</p> + +<p>Ruth was sitting beside Tom on the front seat of the big touring car. He +looked at her sideways with a whimsical little smile.</p> + +<p>“I wish you would turn over a new leaf, Ruthie,” he whispered.</p> + +<p>“And what is to be on that new leaf?” she asked brightly.</p> + +<p>“Just me. Pay a little attention to yours truly. Remember that in a week I +shall go aboard the transport again, and then——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom!” she murmured, clasping her hands, “I don’t want to think of it. +If this awful war would only end!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 208]</span> +“It’s the only war so far that hasn’t ended,” he said. “And I have a +feeling, anyway, that it may not last long. Henri and I have got to hurry +back to finish it up. Leave it to us, Ruth,” and he smiled.</p> + +<p>But Ruth sighed. “I suppose I shall have to, Tommy-boy,” she said. “And do +finish it quickly! I do not feel as though I could return to college, or +write another scenario, or do a single, solitary thing until peace is +declared.”</p> + +<p>“And <em>then</em>?” asked Tom, significantly.</p> + +<p>Ruth gave him an understanding smile.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><strong>THE END</strong></p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 209]</span></p> +<h2><strong>THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES</strong></h2> + +<p class="center"> +———————————<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> ALICE B. EMERSON<br /> +———————————</p> + +<p class="indent"><em><strong>12mo. Illustrated. +<span class="ralign">Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid</span></strong></em></p> + +<p class="center"><em>Ruth Fielding will live in juvenile Fiction</em>.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 111px;"> +<img src="images/img214.png" width="111" height="150" alt="cover" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Jasper Parloe’s Secret</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Solving the Campus Mystery</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Lost in the Backwoods</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Nita, the Girl Castaway</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Old Hunter’s Treasure Box</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or What Became of the Raby Orphans</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Missing Pearl Necklace</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Helping the Dormitory Fund</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Great Days in the Land of Cotton</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Missing Examination Papers</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or College Girls in the Land of Gold</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or A Red Cross Worker’s Ocean Perils</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands</em></span></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or A Moving Picture that Became Real</em></span></p> + +<hr class="line" /> +<p class="indent"><strong>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers <span class="ralign">New York</span></strong></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 210]</span></p> + +<h2><strong>THE BETTY GORDON SERIES</strong></h2> + +<p class="center"> +———————————<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> ALICE B. EMERSON<br /> +———————————</p> + + +<p class="center"><em><strong>Author of the Famous “Ruth Fielding” Series</strong></em></p> + +<p class="center"><em>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors</em></p> + +<p class="center"><em><strong>Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid</strong></em></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 112px;"> +<img src="images/img215.png" width="112" height="150" alt="cover" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="indent"><em>A series of stories by Alice B. Emerson which +are bound to make this writer more popular +than ever with her host of girl readers.</em></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Mystery of a Nobody</em></span><br /> +At the age of twelve Betty is left an orphan. +Her uncle sends her to live on a farm.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Strange Adventures in a Great City</em></span><br /> +In this volume Betty goes to the National Capitol to find her +uncle and has several unusual adventures.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune</em></span><br /> +From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of +our country. A splendid picture of the oil field operations of to-day.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Treasure of Indian Chasm</em></span><br /> +Seeking the treasure of Indian Chasm makes an exceedingly interesting +incident.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne</em></span><br /> +At Mountain Camp Betty found herself in the midst of a mystery +involving a girl whom she had previously met in Washington.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Gay Days on the Boardwalk</em></span><br /> +Adventure in high society let loose on the seashore.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue</em></p> + +<hr class="line" /> +<p class="indent"><strong>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers <span class="ralign">New York</span></strong></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 211]</span></p> + +<h2><strong>THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES</strong></h2> + +<p class="center"> +—————————<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> LILIAN GARIS<br /> +—————————</p> + + +<p class="center"><em>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors</em></p> + +<p class="center"><em><strong>Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid</strong></em></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 105px;"> +<img src="images/img216.png" width="105" height="150" alt="cover" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="indent"><em>The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated +by the foremost organizations of America +form the background for these stories and while +unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.</em></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Winning the First B. C.</em></span><br /> +A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania +town. Two runaway girls, who +want to see the city, are reclaimed through +troop influence. The story is correct in scout +detail.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Maid Mary’s Awakening</em></span><br /> +The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in +other girls’ activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. +How she was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her +own as “Maid Mary” makes a fascinating story.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Wig Wag Rescue</em></span><br /> +Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious +seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping +all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Peg of Tamarack Hills</em></span><br /> +The girls of Bobolink Troop spend their summer on the shores of +Lake Hocomo. Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and +the clearing up of her remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Nora’s Real Vacation</em></span><br /> +Nora Blair is the pampered daughter of a frivolous mother. Her +dislike for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to +appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, +becomes a problem for the girls to solve.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue</em></p> + +<hr class="line" /> +<p class="indent"><strong>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers <span class="ralign">New York</span></strong></p> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 212]</span></p> + +<h2><strong>THE RADIO GIRLS SERIES</strong></h2> + +<p class="center"> +————————————<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> MARGARET PENROSE<br /> +————————————</p> + + +<p class="center"><em>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors</em></p> + +<p class="center"><em><strong>Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid</strong></em></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 103px;"> +<img src="images/img217.png" width="103" height="150" alt="cover" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="indent"><em>A new and up-to-date series, taking in the +activities of several bright girls who become +interested in radio. The stories tell of thrilling +exploits, out-door life and the great part the +Radio plays in the adventures of the girls and +in solving their mysteries. Fascinating books +that girls of all ages will want to read.</em></p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>1. THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or A Strange Message from the Air</em></span><br /> +Showing how Jessie Norwood and her chums became interested +in radiophoning, how they gave a concert for a worthy local charity, +and how they received a sudden and unexpected call for help out +of the air. A girl who was wanted as a witness in a celebrated law +case had disappeared, and how the radio girls went to the rescue is +told in an absorbing manner.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>2. THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or Singing and Reciting at the Sending Station</em></span><br /> +When listening in on a thrilling recitation or a superb concert +number who of us has not longed to “look behind the scenes” to see +how it was done? The girls had made the acquaintance of a sending +station manager and in this volume are permitted to get on the program, +much to their delight. A tale full of action and not a little +fun.</p> + +<p class="indent"><strong>3. THE RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND</strong><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><em>or The Wireless from the Steam Yacht</em></span><br /> +In this volume the girls travel to the seashore and put in a vacation +on an island where is located a big radio sending station. The big +brother of one of the girls owns a steam yacht and while out with a +pleasure party those on the island receive word by radio that the +yacht is on fire. A tale thrilling to the last page.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue</em></p> + +<hr class="line" /> +<p class="indent"><strong>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers <span class="ralign">New York</span></strong></p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 23116-h.txt or 23116-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/1/1/23116">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/1/1/23116</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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