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diff --git a/36748-0.txt b/36748-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8e2464 --- /dev/null +++ b/36748-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5880 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound, by Alice B. Emerson + +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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound + A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils + +Author: Alice B. Emerson + +Release Date: July 16, 2011 [EBook #36748] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +[Illustration: THERE WAS A GRAY, SWIFTLY STEAMING SHIP BEARING DOWN +UPON THE ADMIRAL PEKHARD.] + + + + + Ruth Fielding + Homeward Bound + + OR + + A RED CROSS WORKER’S + OCEAN PERILS + + BY + + ALICE B. EMERSON + + Author of “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” “Ruth + Fielding in the Saddle,” Etc. + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + + NEW YORK + CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + Books for Girls + BY ALICE B. EMERSON + + RUTH FIELDING SERIES + + 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. + + RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE + RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE + RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT + RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND + + Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York. + + Copyright, 1919, by + Cupples & Leon Company + + Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound + + Printed in U. S. A. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. Tea and a Toast 1 + II. Such a Dream! 10 + III. It’s All Over! 20 + IV. Two Exciting Things 29 + V. The Secret 38 + VI. A New Experience 45 + VII. The Zeppelin 52 + VIII. Afloat 60 + IX. Queer Folks 68 + X. What Will Happen? 76 + XI. Developments 84 + XII. The Man in the Motor Boat 93 + XIII. It Comes to a Head 101 + XIV. A Battle in the Air 111 + XV. Abandoned 121 + XVI. On the Edge of Tragedy 131 + XVII. Boarded 140 + XVIII. The Conspiracy Laid Bare 149 + XIX. Tom Cameron Takes a Hand 159 + XX. The Storm Breaks 166 + XXI. The Wreck 172 + XXII. Adrift 180 + XXIII. At the Moment of Need 186 + XXIV. Counterplot 196 + XXV. Home as Found 205 + + + + +RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND + + + + +CHAPTER I—TEA AND A TOAST + + +“And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you did not believe a poilu +_could_ love a fat girl!” + +Helen said it in something like awe. While Ruth’s tea-urn bubbled cozily +three pair of very bright eyes were bent above a tiny, iridescent spark +which adorned the “heart finger” of the plumper girl’s left hand. + +There is something about an engagement diamond that makes it sparkle and +twinkle more than any other diamond. You do not believe that? Wait until +you wear one on the third finger of your left hand yourself! + +These three girls, who owned all the rings and other jewelry that was +good for them, continued to adore this newest of Jennie Stone’s +possessions until the tea water boiled over. Ruth Fielding arose with an +exclamation of vexation, and corrected the height of the alcohol blaze +and dropped in the “pinch” of tea. + +It was mid-afternoon, the hour when a cup of tea comforts the fagged +nerves and inspires the waning spirit of womankind almost the world +over. These three girls crowded into Ruth Fielding’s little cell, even +gave up the worship of the ring, to sip the tea which the hostess soon +poured into the cups. + +“The cups are nicked; no wonder,” sighed Ruth. “They have traveled many +hundreds of miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at Briarwood——” + +“Dear old Briarwood Hall,” murmured Jennie Stone. + +“You’re in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie,” declared Helen +Cameron with some scorn. “Is that the way a diamond ring affects all +engaged girls?” + +“Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!” groaned the +girl who had been known at boarding school as “Heavy Stone,” and seldom +by any other name among her mates. + +“And you still continue to eat!” ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the +three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect +complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie’s reach. + +“Those are not real eats,” complained the girl with the diamond ring. “A +million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds.” + +“Listen to her!” gasped Helen. “If Major Henri Marchand could hear her +now!” + +“He is a full colonel, I’d have you know,” declared Jennie Stone. “And +in charge of his section. In _our_ army it is the Intelligence +Department—Secret Service.” + +“That is what Tom calls the ‘Camouflage Bureau.’ _Colonel_ Marchand has +a nice, sitting-down job,” scoffed Helen. + +“Colonel Marchand,” said Ruth Fielding, gravely, “has been through the +enemy’s lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained +more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave +men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his +courage with justice, Jennie.” + +“_You_ ought to know!” pouted the plumper girl. “You and my colonel have +tramped all over the French front together.” + +“Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to,” laughed Ruth. + +“And just think,” cried Helen, “of her leaving us here in this hospital, +Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own +brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back +with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours——” + +“Tut, tut!” said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her. +“Don’t be jealous, Helen.” + +“It’s not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy’s friend with whom you +went over to the Germans,” declared Helen, tossing her head. + +“And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand—_that was_! ‘Colonel,’ I +should say,” said Ruth. “Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all +during these past few months.” + +“During the past few years,” said the plump girl sepulchrally. “Talking +about your cracked and chipped china,” and she held up her empty cup to +look through it. “_I_ remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie. +Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we +treated you, Ruthie?” + +“Oh, _don’t_!” exclaimed Helen. “I treated my Ruthie mean in those days, +too—sometimes.” + +“Goodness!” drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red +Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl. +“Don’t bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is +positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give +you a toast. You must drink your cup to it—and to the very dregs!” + +“‘Dregs’ is right, Ruth,” complained Jennie, peering into her cup. “You +never will strain tea properly.” + +“Pooh! If you do,” scoffed Helen, “you never have any leaves left with +which to tell your fortune.” + +“‘Fortune!’ Superstitious child!” Then Jennie added in a whisper: “Do +you know, Madame Picolet knows how to tell fortunes splendidly with +tea-grounds. She positively told me I was going to marry a tall, dark, +military man, of noble blood, and who had recently been advanced in the +service.” + +“Goodness! And who could not have told you the same after having seen +your Henri following you about the last time he had leave in Paris?” +laughed Helen. Then she added: “The toast, Ruthie! Let us have it, now +the cups are filled again.” + +Ruth stood up, smiling down upon them. She was not a large girl, but in +her uniform and cap she seemed very womanly and not a little impressive. + +“Here’s to the sweetest words the exile ever hears,” said she softly, +her eyes suddenly soft and her color rising: “‘Homeward bound!’ Oh, +girls, when shall we see America and all our friends and the familiar +scenes again? Cheslow, Helen! And the dear, dear old Red Mill!” + +She drank her own toast to the last drop. Then she shrugged her pretty +shoulders and put her serious air aside. Her eyes sparkled once more as +she exclaimed: + +“On my own part, I was only reminiscing upon the travels of this old tea +set. Back and forth from the dear old Red Mill to Briarwood Hall, and +all around the country on our vacations. To your Lighthouse Point place, +Jennie. To your father’s winter camp, Helen. And out West to Jane’s +uncle’s ranch, and down South and all! And then across the ocean and all +about France! No wonder the teacups are nicked and the saucers cracked.” + +“What busy times we’ve had, girls,” agreed Helen. + +“What busy times Ruth has had,” grumbled Jennie. “You and I, Nell, come +up here from Paris to visit her now and then. Otherwise we would never +hear a Boche shell burst, unless there is an air raid over Paris, or the +Germans work their super-gun and smash a church!” + +“Ruth is so brave,” sighed Helen. + +“Cat’s foot!” snapped Ruth. “I’m just as scared as you are every time I +hear a gun. Oh!” + +To prove her statement, that cry burst from her lips involuntarily. +There was an explosion in the distance—whether of gun or bomb, it was +impossible to say. + +“Oh, Ruth!” cried Helen, clasping her hands. “I thought you wrote us +that our boys had pushed the Germans back so far that the guns could +scarcely be heard from here?” + +“Must be some mistake about that,” muttered Jennie, with her mouth full +of tea-wafers. “There goes another!” + +Ruth Fielding had risen and went to the narrow window. After the second +explosion a heavy siren began to blow a raucous alarm. Nearer aerial +defense guns spoke. + +“Oh, girls!” exclaimed Ruth, “it is an air raid. We have not had one +before for weeks—and never before in broad day!” + +“Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn’t come,” Helen said, trembling. “Let us +find a _cave voûtée_. I saw signs along the main street of this village +as we drove through.” + +“There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital,” said Ruth, and then +another heavy explosion drowned what else she might have said. + +Her two visitors dropped their teacups and started for the door. But +Ruth did not turn from the window. She was trying to see—to mark the +direction of the Boche bombing machine that was deliberately seeking to +hit the hospital of Clair. + +“Come, Ruthie!” cried Helen, looking back. + +“I don’t know that I should,” the other girl said slowly. “I am in +charge of the supplies. I may be wanted at any moment. The nurses do not +run away from the wards and leave their poor _blessés_ at such a time——” + +Another thundering explosion fairly shook the walls of the hospital. +Jennie and Helen shrieked aloud. They were not used to anything like +this. Their months of war experience had been gained mostly in Paris, +not so near the front trenches. A bombing raid was a tragedy to them. To +Ruth Fielding it was an incident. + +“Do come, Ruthie!” cried her chum. “I am frightened to death.” + +“I will go downstairs with you——” + +The sentence was never finished. Out of the air, almost over their +heads, fell a great, whining shell. The noise of it before it exploded +was like a knife-thrust to the hearts of the frightened girls. Jennie +and Helen clung to each other in the open doorway of Ruth’s cell. Their +braver companion had not left the window. + +Then came the shuddering crash which rocked the hospital and all the +taller buildings about it! + +Clair had been bombed many times since the Boche hordes had poured down +into France. But never like this, and previous bombardments had been for +the most part at night. The aerial defense guns were popping away at the +enemy; the airplanes kept up a clatter of machine-gun fire; the alarm +siren added to the din. + +But that exploding shell drowned every other sound for the moment. The +whole world seemed to rock. A crash of falling stones and shattered +glass finally rose above the dying roar of the explosion. + +And then the window at which Ruth Fielding stood sprang inward, glass +and frame together, the latter in a grotesque twisted pattern of steel +rods, the former in a million shivered pieces. + +Smoke, or steam, or something, filled the cell for a minute and blinded +Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone. This cloud cleared, and struggling up +from the floor just outside the doorway, where the shock had flung them, +the two terrified girls uttered a simultaneous cry. + +Ruth Fielding lay on her face upon the floor of her cell. A great, +jagged tear in her apron and dress revealed her bared shoulder, all +blood-smeared. And half across her body lay a slab of gray stone that +had been the sill of the window! + + + + +CHAPTER II—SUCH A DREAM! + + +The lights in the day coach had just been lit and she was looking out +into the gathering darkness as the train rolled slowly into Cheslow, the +New England town to which her fare had been paid when her friends back +in the town where she was born had decided that little Ruth Fielding +should be sent to her single living relative, Uncle Jabez Potter. + +He was her mother’s uncle, really, and a “great uncle” was a relative +that Ruth could not quite visualize at that time. It was not until she +had come to the old Red Mill on the bank of the Lumano River that the +child found out that a great uncle was a tall, craggy kind of man, who +wore clothing from which the mill dust rose in little clouds when he +moved hurriedly, and with the same dust seemingly ground into every +wrinkle and line of his harsh countenance. + +Jabez Potter had accepted the duty of the child’s support without one +softening thought of love or kindness. She was a “charity child”; and +she was made to feel this fact continually in a hundred ways. + +Had it not been for Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who had likewise been taken in +by the miller to keep house for him—the little, crippled old woman would +otherwise have completed her years in the poorhouse. Had it not been for +Aunt Alvirah Boggs, Ruth Fielding’s first months at the Red Mill would +have been a most somber experience, although the child was naturally of +a cheerful and sanguine temperament. + +The miserly miller considered Ruth Fielding a liability; she proved +herself in time to be an asset. And as she grew older the warped nature +and acid temper of the miller both changed toward his grand-niece. But +to bring this about took several years—years filled with more adventure +and wider experiences than most girls obtain. + +Beginning with her acquaintance with Helen and Tom Cameron, the twins, +who lived near the Red Mill, and were the children of a wealthy +merchant, Ruth’s life led upward in successive steps into education and +fortune. As “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill”—the title of the first book +of this series—the little girl had never dreamed that she would arrive +at any eminence. She was just a loving, sympathetic, cheerful soul, +whose influence upon those about her was remarkable only because she was +so much in earnest and was of honest purpose in all things. + +Uncle Jabez could appreciate her honesty, for that was one virtue he +himself possessed. He always paid his bills, and paid them when they +came due. He considered that because Ruth discovered a sum of money that +he lost he owed her a reward. That reward took the form of payment for +tuition and board for her first year at Briarwood Hall, where she went +with Helen Cameron. At the same time Helen’s brother went to Seven Oaks, +a military school for boys. + +In this way began the series of adventures which had checkered Ruth +Fielding’s career, and as related in the fourteen successive volumes of +the series, the girl of the Red Mill is to be met at Briarwood Hall, at +Snow Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at +Sunrise Farm, with the Gypsies, in Moving Pictures, down in Dixie, at +College, in the Saddle, in the Red Cross, at the War Front. In this +present volume she is introduced, with her chum Helen Cameron and with +their friend, Jennie Stone, at the French evacuation Hospital at Clair, +not many miles behind a sector of the Western Front held by the brave +fighting men of the United States. + +Ruth had been there in charge of the supply department of the hospital +for some months, and that after some considerable experience at other +points in France. As everywhere else she had been, the girl of the Red +Mill had made friends around her. + +Back of the old-world village of Clair, the one modern touch in which +was this hospital, lay upon a wooded height an old château belonging to +the ancient family of the Marchands. With the Countess Marchand, a very +simple and lovely lady, Ruth had maintained a friendship since soon +after arriving at Clair to take up her Red Cross work. + +When Tom Cameron, who was at work with his regiment on this very sector +of the battle-front, got into trouble while on special duty beyond the +German lines, it was by grace of Henri Marchand’s influence, and in his +company, that Ruth Fielding was able to get into the German lines and by +posing as Tom’s sister, “Fraulein Mina von Brenner,” helped Tom to +escape from the military governor of the district. + +Aided by Count Allaire Marchand, the Countess’ oldest son, and the then +Major Henri Marchand, the girl of the Red Mill and Helen Cameron’s twin +brother had returned in safety through the German lines. The adventure +had knitted a stronger cord of friendship between Ruth and Tom; although +heretofore the young man had quite plainly showed that he considered +Ruth much the nicest girl of any of his sister’s acquaintances. + +Other than a strong sisterly feeling for Tom Cameron, Ruth had not +really revealed. Perhaps that was as deep as her interest in the young +man lay. And, in any case, she was not the girl to wear her heart on her +sleeve. + +The girls who had gone through Briarwood Hall together, and later had +entered Ardmore College and were near to finishing their sophomore year +when America got into the World War, were not the kind who put “the +boys” before every other thought. + +Marriage was something very far ahead in the future, if Ruth or Helen +thought of it at all. And it was quite a surprise to them that Jennie +Stone should have so suddenly become engaged. Indeed, the plump girl was +one of “the old crowd” that the girl of the Red Mill had not supposed +would become early engaged. “Heavy” Stone was not openly of a +sentimental character. + +But when, through Ruth, the plump girl had become acquainted with the +Countess Marchand’s younger son, Jennie Stone had been carried quite off +her feet by the young Frenchman’s precipitous courtship. + +“Talk about the American boys being ‘sudden’! Theirs is nothing to the +whirlwind work of Henri Marchand!” exclaimed Helen. + +Jennie and Helen Cameron had been going back and forth to Clair as +affairs permitted during the past few months; therefore Jennie had +become acquainted with the Countess and was now more often a visitor at +the old château than at the hospital. + +The country about Clair had quieted down during the past two months; and +for a long time previous to this fateful day when our story opens, the +war had touched the town but slightly save as the ambulances rolled in +now and then with wounded from the field hospitals. + +Gradually the roar of the cannon had retreated. The Yankees were forcing +the fighting on this front and had pressed the Germans back, slowly but +surely. The last and greatest German offensive had broken down, and now +Marshal Foch had started his great drive which was to shatter utterly +the foe’s western front. + +By some foul chance the German bombing plane had escaped the watchful +French and American airplanes at the front, had crossed the fighting +lines, and had reached Clair with its single building of mark—the +hospital. The Hun raider deliberately dropped his cargo of explosives on +and around this building of mercy. + +In broad daylight the red crosses painted upon the roofs of the several +departments of the institution were too plainly seen from the air for +the Hun to have made a mistake. It was a deliberate expression of German +“frightfulness.” + +But the bomb, which in exploding had crushed inward the window of Ruth +Fielding’s little sleeping cell, was the final one dropped from the +enemy plane. The machine droned away, pursued by the two or three +airplanes that had spiraled up to attack it. + +Enough damage had been done, however. As Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone +scrambled up from the floor of the corridor outside Ruth’s door their +united screams brought the little _Madame la Directrice_ of the hospital +to their aid. + +“She is killed!” gasped Jennie, gazing in horror at their fallen comrade +and friend. + +“Murdered!” shrieked Helen, and covered her face with her hands. + +The Frenchwoman swept them both aside and entered the chamber. She was +not more practical than the two American girls, but her experience of +four years of war had made her used to such sights as this. She knelt +beside the fallen girl, discovered that the wound upon her shoulder was +not deep, and instantly heaved the heavy stone off the girl’s back. + +“La, la, la!” she murmured. “It is sad! That so-heavy stone! Ah, the +bone must be broken! Poor child!” + +“Isn’t she dead?” gasped Helen. “No, no! She is very bad +wounded-perhaps. See—let us turn her over—” + +She spoke in English. It was Jennie who came to her aid. Between them +they turned Ruth Fielding over. Plainly she was not dead. She breathed +lightly and she was unconscious. + +“Oh, Ruthie! Ruthie!” begged Helen. “Speak to me!” + +“No!” exclaimed the matron. “Do not attempt to rouse her, Mademoiselle. +It is better that the shoulder should be set and properly bandaged +before she comes to consciousness again. Push that button yonder for the +orderly—twice! That is it. We will lay her on her cot—poor child!” + +The woman was strong as well as tender. With Jennie’s aid she lifted the +wounded girl and placed her on her narrow bed. A man came running along +the corridor. The matron instructed him in such rapid French that +neither of Ruth’s friends could understand all that she said. The +orderly departed on the run. + +“To the operating room!” commanded the matron, when the _brancardiers_ +appeared with the stretcher. + +They lifted Ruth, who remained unconscious, from the bed to the +stretcher. They descended with her to the ground floor, Jennie and Helen +following in the wake. On both of the main floors of the hospital nurses +came to the doors of the wards to learn what had happened. Although the +whole hospital had been shaken by the bombs, there had been no casualty +within its precincts save this. + +“Why should it have to be Ruth?” groaned Helen. “To think of our Ruthie +being wounded—the only one!” + +They shut the two American girls out of the operating room, of course. +_The Médecin Chef_ himself came hurriedly to see what was needed for the +injured girl. _Mademoiselle Americaine_, as Ruth was called about the +hospital by the grateful French people, was very popular and much +beloved. + +Her two girl friends waited in great anxiety outside the operating room. +At last _Madame la Directrice_ came out. She smiled at the anxious +girls. That was the most glorious smile—so Jennie Stone said +afterward—that was ever beheld. + +“A fracture of the shoulder bone; her sweet flesh cut and bruised, but +not deeply, Mesdemoiselles. No scar will be left, the surgeon assures +me. And when she recovers from the anesthetic——Oh, la, la! she will have +nothing to do but get well. It means a long furlough, however, for +_Mademoiselle Americaine_.” + +It was two hours later that Helen and Jennie sat, one on either side of +Ruth’s couch, in the private room that had been given to the wounded Red +Cross worker. Ruth’s eyes opened heavily, she blinked at the light, and +then her vision swept first Helen and then Jennie. + +“Oh, such a dream!” she murmured. “I dreamed about coming to Cheslow and +the Red Mill again, when I was a little girl. And I dreamed all about +Briarwood, and our trips about the country, and our adventures in school +and out. I dreamed even of coming here to France, and all that has +happened. Such a dream! + +“Mercy’s sake, girls! What has happened to me? I’m all bandaged up like +a _grand blessé!_” + + + + +CHAPTER III—IT’S ALL OVER! + + +The shoulder had to be put in a cast; but the healing of the cuts and +bruises on Ruth Fielding’s back was a small matter. Only—— + +“It’s all over for me, girls,” she groaned, as her two friends +commiserated with her. “The war might just as well end to-morrow, as far +as I am concerned. I can help no longer.” + +For Major Soutre, the head surgeon, had said: + +“After the plaster comes off it will be then eight weeks, Mademoiselle, +before it will be safe for you to use your arm and shoulder in any way +whatsoever.” + +“So my work is finished,” she repeated, wagging a doleful head upon her +pillow. + +“Poor dear!” sighed Jennie. “Don’t you want me to make you something +nice to eat?” + +“Mercy on us, Heavy!” expostulated Helen, “just because you work in a +diet kitchen, don’t think that the only thing people want when they are +sick is something to eat.” “It’s the principal thing,” declared the +plump girl stubbornly. “And Colonel Marchand says I make _heavenly_ +broth!” + +Helen sniffed disdainfully. + +Ruth laughed weakly; but she only said: + +“Tom says the war will be over by Christmas. I don’t know whether it is +he or General Pershing that has planned out the finish of the Germans. +However, if it is over by the holidays, I shall be unable to do anything +more for the Red Cross. They will send me home. I have done my little, +girls.” + +“‘Little!” exclaimed Helen. “You have done much more than Jennie and I, +I am sure. We have done little or nothing compared with your services, +Ruthie.” + +“Hold on! Hold on!” exclaimed Jennie Stone gruffly, pulling a paper out +of her handbag. “Wait just a minute, young lady. I will not take a back +seat for anybody when it comes to statistics of work. Just listen here. +These are some of the things _I_ have done since I joined up with that +diet kitchen outfit. I have tasted soup and broth thirty-seven thousand +eight hundred and three times. I have tasted ten thousand, one hundred +and eleven separate custards. I have tasted twenty thousand ragouts—many +of them of rabbit, and I am always suspicious that the rabbit may have +had a long tail—ugh! Baked cabbage and cheese, nine thousand, seven +hundred and six——” + +“Jennie! Do stop! How _could_ you eat so much?” demanded Helen in +horror. + +“Bless you! the poilus did the eating; I only did the seasoning and +tasting. It’s _that_ keeps me so fat, I do believe. And then, I have +served one million cups of cocoa.” + +“Why don’t you say a billion? You might as well.” + +“Because I can’t count up to a billion. I never could,” declared the +fleshy girl. “I never was top-hole at mathematics. You know that.” + +They tried to cheer Ruth in her affliction; but the girl of the Red Mill +was really much depressed. She had always been physically, as well as +mentally, active. And at first she must remain in bed and pose as a +regular invalid. + +She was thus posing when Tom Cameron got a four-days’ leave and came +back as far as Clair, as he always did when he was free. It was so much +nearer than Paris; and Helen could always run up here and meet him, +where Ruth had been at work. The chums spent Tom’s vacations from the +front together as much as possible. + +When Mr. Cameron, who had been in Europe with a Government commission, +had returned to the United States, he had laughingly left Helen and Tom +in Ruth’s care. + +“But he never would have entrusted you children to my care,” sighed the +girl of the Red Mill, “if he had supposed I would be so foolish as to +get a broken shoulder.” + +“Quite,” said Tom, nodding a wise head. “One might have supposed that if +an aerial shell hit your shoulder the shell would be damaged, not the +shoulder.” + +“It was the stone window-sill, they say,” murmured Ruth contritely. + +“Sure. Dad never supposed you were such a weak little thing. Heigh-ho! +We never know what’s going to happen in this world. Oh, I say!” he +suddenly added. “I know what’s going to happen to me, girls.” + +“What is it, Captain Tom?” his sister asked, gazing at him proudly. +“They are not going to make you a colonel right away, are they, like +Jennie’s beau?” + +“Not yet,” admitted her brother, laughing. “I’m the youngest captain in +our division right now. Some of ’em call me ‘the infant,’ as it is. But +what is going to happen to me, I’m going up in the air!” + +“Oh!” exclaimed Jennie Stone. “I should say that was a rise in the +world.” + +“You are never going into aviation, Tom?” screamed Helen. + +“Not exactly. But an old Harvard chum of mine, Ralph Stillinger, is +going to take me up. You know Stillinger. Why, he’s an ace!” + +“And you are crazy!” exclaimed his sister, rather tartly. “Why do you +want to risk your life so carelessly?” + +Tom chuckled; and even Ruth laughed weakly. As though Tom had not risked +his life a hundred times already on the battle front! If he were not +exactly reckless, Tom Cameron possessed that brand of courage owned only +by those who do not feel fear. + +“I don’t blame Tommy,” said Jennie Stone. “I’d like to try ‘aviating’ +myself; only I suppose nothing smaller than a Zeppelin could take me +up.” + +“Will you really fly, Tom?” Ruth asked. + +“Ralph has promised me a regular circus—looping the loop, and spiraling, +and all the tricks of flying.” + +“But you won’t fly into battle?” questioned Helen anxiously. “Of course +he won’t take you over the German lines?” + +“Probably not. They don’t much fancy carrying amateurs into a fight. You +see, only two men can ride in even those big fighting planes with the +liberty motors; and both of them should be trained pilots, so that if +anything happens to the man driving the machine, the other can jump in +and take his place.” + +“Ugh!” shuddered his sister. “Don’t talk about it any more. I don’t want +to know when you go up, Tommy. I should be beside myself all the time +you were in the air.” + +So they talked about Ruth’s chances of going home instead. After all, as +she could be of no more use in Red Cross work for so long a time, the +girl of the Red Mill began to look forward with some confidence to the +home going. + +As she had told her girl friends that very day when the hospital had +been bombed and she had been hurt, the sweetest words in the ears of the +exile are “homeward bound!” And she expected to be bound for home—for +Cheslow and the Red Mill—in a very few weeks. + +Her case had been reported to Paris headquarters; and whether she wished +it or not, a furlough had been ordered and she would be obliged to sail +from Brest on or about a certain date. The sea voyage would help her to +recuperate; and by that time her shoulder would be out of the plaster +cast in which Dr. Soutre had fixed it. Whether she desired to be so +treated or not, the Red Cross considered her an invalid—a “_grande +blessée_.” + +So, as the days passed, Ruth Fielding gradually found that she suffered +the idea of return to America with a better mind. The more she thought +of going home, the more the desire grew in her soul to be there. + +It was about this time that the letter came from Uncle Jabez Potter. A +letter from Uncle Jabez seemed almost as infrequent as the blooming of a +century plant. + +It was delayed in the post as usual (sometimes it did seem as though the +post-office department had almost stopped functioning!) and the writing +was just as crabbed-looking as the old miller’s speech usually was. Aunt +Alvirah Boggs managed to communicate with “her pretty,” as she always +called Ruth, quite frequently; for although Aunt Alvirah suffered much +in “her back and her bones”—as she expressed herself dolefully—her hands +were not too crippled to hold a pen. + +But Uncle Jabez Potter! Well, the letter itself will show what kind of +correspondent the old miller was: + + “My Dear Niece Ruth: + + “It does not seem as though you was near enough to the Red Mill to + ever get this letter; and mebbe you won’t want to read it when you + do get it. But I take my pen in hand just the same to tell you such + news as there is and perticly of the fact that we have shut down. + This war is terrible and that is a fact. I wish often that I could + have shouldered a gun—old Betsy is all right now, me having cleaned + the cement out of her muzzle what your Aunt Alvirah put in it—and + marched off to fight them Germans myself. It would have been money + in my pocket if I had done that instead of trying to grind wheat and + corn in this dratted old water-mill. Wheat is so high and flour is + so low that I can’t make no profit and so I have had to shut down + the mill. First time since my great grandfather built it back in + them prosperous times right after we licked the British that first + time. This is an awful mean world we live in anyway. Folks are + always making trouble. If it was not for them Germans you’d be home + right now that your Aunt Alvirah needs you. You see, she has took to + her bed, and Ben, the hired man, and me, don’t know much what to do + for her. Ain’t no use trying to get a woman to come in to help, for + all the women and girls have gone to work in the munitions factory + down the river. Whole families have gone to work there and earn so + much money that they ride back and forth to work in their own + automobiles. It’s a cussed shame. + + “Your Aunt Alvirah talks about you nearly all the time. She’s + breaking up fast I shouldn’t wonder and by the time this war is done + I reckon she’ll be laid away. Me not making any money now, we are + likely to be pretty average poor in the future. When it is all outgo + and no come-in the meal tub pretty soon gets empty. I reckon I would + better sell the mules and I hope Ben will find him a job somewhere + else pretty soon. He won’t be discharged. Says he promised you he + would stick to the old Red Mill till you come back from the war. But + he’s a eating me out of house and home and that’s a fact. + + “If it is so you can get away from that war long enough, I wish + you’d come home and take a look at your Aunt Alvirah. It seems to me + if she was perked up some she might get a new hold on life. As it + is, even Doc Davidson says there ain’t much chance for her. + + “Hoping this finds you the same, and wishing very much to see you + back at the Red Mill, I remain, + + “Yr. Obedient Servant, + “J. Potter.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV—TWO EXCITING THINGS + + +Uncle Jabez’s letter and Tom Cameron arrived at the hospital at Clair on +the very same day. This was the second visit the captain had made to see +Ruth since her injury. At this time Helen and Jennie had returned to +Paris and Ruth was almost ready to follow them. + +“It reads just like the old fellow,” Tom said, smiling, after having +perused the letter. “Of course, as usual he has made a mountain of +trouble out of a molehill of vexation. But I am sorry for Aunt Alvirah.” + +“The dear old soul!” sighed Ruth. “I begin to feel that my being bombed +by the Hun may not have been an unmixed evil. Perhaps Aunt Alvirah—and +Uncle Jabez, too—very much need me at home. And without the excuse of my +broken shoulder I don’t see how I could have got away from here.” + +“I wish I were going with you.” + +“What! To leave your regiment and all?” + +“No, I do not want to leave until this war is finished. But I hate to +think of your crossing the ocean alone.” + +“Pooh! I shall not be alone. Lots of other people will be on the boat +with me, Tommy.” + +“But nobody who would have your safety at heart as I should,” he told +her earnestly. “You cannot help yourself very well if—if anything should +happen.” + +“What will happen, do you suppose?” she demanded. + +“There are still submarines in the sea,” he said, grimly enough. “In +fact, they are more prevalent just now than they were when you came +over.” + +“You bother about my chances of meeting a submarine when you are +planning to go up into the air with that Mr. Stillinger! You will be +more likely to meet the Hun in the air than I shall in the water.” + +“Pooh! I am just going on a joy ride in an airplane. While you——” + +“It is not just a joy ride I shall take, I admit, Tom,” Ruth said, more +seriously. “I do hate to give up my work here and go home. Yet this +letter,” and she tapped the missive from Uncle Jabez, “makes me feel +that perhaps I have duties near the Red Mill.” + +“Uh-huh!” he grunted understandingly. + +“You know I have been running around and having good times for a good +many years. Aunt Alvirah is getting old. And perhaps Uncle Jabez should +be considered, too.” + +“He’s an awful old grouch, Ruth,” said Tom Cameron, shaking his head. + +“I know. But he really has been kind to me—in his way. And if he has had +to close down the mill, and is making no money, he will surely feel +pretty bad. Somebody must be there to cheer him up.” + +“He don’t need to run that mill,” said Tom shortly. “He has plenty of +money invested in one way or another.” + +“But he doesn’t think he is earning anything unless the mill runs and he +sees the dollars increasing in his strong box. You know, he counts his +ready cash every night before he goes to bed. It is almost all the +enjoyment he has.” + +“He’s a blessed old miser!” exclaimed her friend, “I don’t see how you +have stood him all these years, Ruthie.” + +“I really believe he loves me—in his way,” returned the girl +thoughtfully. “Poor Uncle Jabez! Well, I am beginning to feel that it +was meant that I should go home to him and to Aunt Alvirah.” + +“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “You’ll make me wish to go home, too. And the way +this war is now,” said Tom, smiling grimly, “they really need all us +fellows. The British and the French have fought Fritz so long and at +such odds that I almost believe they are half scared of him. But you +can’t make our Buddies feel scared of a German. They have seen too many +of them running delicatessen stores and saloons. + +“Why, they have already sent some of their great shock troops against us +in this sector. All the ‘shock’ they have given us you could put in your +eye and still see from here to the Goddess of Liberty in New York +Harbor!” + +“That’s a bit of ‘swank,’ you know, Tom,” said Ruth slyly. + +“Wait! You’ll see! Why, it’s got to be a habit for the French and the +British to retreat a little when the Germans pour in on top of them. +They think they lose fewer troops and get more of the Huns that way. But +that isn’t the way we Yankees have been taught to fight. If we once get +the Huns in the open we’ll start them on the run for the Rhine, and they +won’t stop much short of there.” + +“Oh, my dear boy, I hope so!” Ruth said. “But what will you be doing +meanwhile? Getting into more and more danger?” + +“Not a bit!” + +“But you mean right now to take an air trip,” Ruth said hastily. “Oh, my +dear! I don’t want to urge you not to; but do take care, if you go up +with Ralph Stillinger. They say he is a most reckless flier.” + +“That is why he’s never had a mishap. It’s the airmen who are unafraid +who seem to pull through all the tight places. It is when they lose +their dash that something is sure to happen to them.” + +“We will hope,” said Ruth, smiling with trembling lips, “that Mr. +Stillinger will lose none of his courage while you are up in the air +with him.” + +“Pshaw! I shall be all right,” Tom declared. “The only thing is, I am +sorry that he has made the date for me so that I can’t go down to Paris +with you, and later see you aboard the ship at Brest. But this has been +arranged a long time; and I must be with my boys when they go back from +the rest camp to the front again.” + +Ruth recovered herself quickly. She gave him her good hand and squeezed +his in a hearty fashion. + +“Don’t mind, Tom,” she said. “If this war is pretty near over, as you +believe, you will not be long behind me in taking ship for home.” + +“Right you are, Ruthie Fielding,” he agreed cheerfully. + +But neither of them—and both were imaginative enough, in all good +conscience!—dreamed how soon nor in what manner Tom Cameron would follow +Ruth to sea when she was homeward bound. Nor did the girl consider how +much of a thrilling nature might happen to them both before they would +see each other again. + +Tom Cameron left the hospital at Clair that afternoon to make all haste +to the aviation camp where he was to meet his friend and college-mate, +Ralph Stillinger, the American ace. Ruth was helped by the hospital +matron herself to prepare for an automobile trip to Lyse, from which +town she could entrain for Paris. + +It was at Lyse that Ruth had first been stationed in her Red Cross work; +so she had friends there. And it was a very dear little friend of hers +who came to drive the automobile for Ruth when she left Clair. Henriette +Dupay, the daughter of a French farmer on the outskirts of the village, +had begged the privilege of taking “Mademoiselle Americaine” to Lyse. + +“_Ma foi!_” gasped plump little Henriette, or “Hetty” as almost +everybody called her, “how pale you are, Mademoiselle Ruth. The bad, bad +Boches, that they should have caused you this annoyance.” + +“I am only glad that the Germans did no more harm around the hospital +than to injure me,” Ruth said. “It was providential, I think.” + +“But no, Mademoiselle!” cried the French girl, letting in her clutch +carefully when the engine of the motor began to purr smoothly, “it +cannot be called ‘providential.’ This is a serious loss for us all. Oh, +we feel it! Your going away from Clair is a sorrow for all.” + +And, indeed, it seemed true. As the car rolled slowly through the +village, children ran beside the wheels, women waved their hands from +the doorways of the little cottages, and wounded poilus saluted the +passage of the Red Cross worker who was known and beloved by everybody. + +The tears stung Ruth’s eyelids. She remembered how, the night before, +the patients in the convalescent wards—the boys and men she had written +letters for before her injury, and whom she had tried to comfort in +other ways during the hours she was off duty—had insisted upon coming to +her cell, one by one, to bid her good-bye. They had kissed her hands, +those brave, grateful fellows! Their gratitude had spilled over in +tears, for the Frenchman is never ashamed of emotion. + +As she had come down from her chamber every nurse and orderly in the +hospital, as well as the surgical staff and even the porters and +_brancardiers_, had gathered to bid her God-speed. + +“The dear, dear people!” Ruth murmured, as the car reached the end of +the village street. She turned to throw kisses with her one useful hand +to the crowd gathered in the street. + +“The dear, dear people!” she repeated, smiling through her happy tears +at Hetty. + +“Ah, they know you, Mademoiselle,” said the girl with a practical nod. +“And they know they will seldom see your like again.” + +“Oh, la, la!” responded Ruth, using an expression of Henriette’s, and +laughed. Then suddenly: “You are not taking the shortest road, Henriette +Dupay!” + +“What! do you expect to get away from Clair without seeing Madame the +Countess?” laughed the younger girl. “I would not so dare—no, no! I have +promised to take you past the château. And at the corner of the road +beyond my whole family will await you. Papa Dupay has declared a holiday +on the farm till we go past.” + +Ruth was really very happy, despite the fact that she was leaving these +friends. It made for happiness, the thought that everybody about Clair +wished her well. + +The car mounted the gentle slope of the highway that passed the château +gates. It was a beautiful road with great trees over-arching it—trees +that had sprung from the soil at least two hundred years before. With +all the air raids there had been about Clair, the Hun had not worked his +wrath upon this old forest, nor upon the château almost hidden behind +the high wall. + +The graceful, slim figure of the lady of the château, holding a big +greyhound in leash, appeared at the small postern when the car came +purring up the hill. Henriette brought the machine to a stop where the +Countess Marchand could give Ruth her hand. + +“Good-bye, dear child!” she said, smiling cheerfully at Ruth. “We shall +miss you; but we know that wherever you go you will find some way of +helping others. Mademoiselle Jeannie,” (it was thus she spoke of her +son, Henri’s, sweetheart) “has told us much of you, Ruth Fielding. And +we know you well, _n’est-ce pas_, Hetty? We shall never forget her, +shall we?” + +“_Ma foi_, no!” rejoined the practical French girl. “She leaves her mark +upon our neighborhood, does she not, Madame la Countesse?” + +On they rolled, past the end of the farm lane where stood the whole +Dupay household, even to Aunt Abelard who had never quite forgiven the +Americans for driving her back from her old home north of Clair when the +Germans made their spring advance. But Aunt Abelard found she could +forgive the military authorities now, because of Ruth Fielding. + +They all waved aprons and caps until the motorcar was out of sight. It +dipped into a swale, and the last picture of the people she had learned +to love faded from Ruth Fielding’s sight—but not to be forgotten! + + + + +CHAPTER V—THE SECRET + + +Ruth spent one night in Lyse, where she went to the pension patronized +by a girl friend from Kansas City, Clare Biggars. She was obliged to +have somebody assist her in dressing and disrobing, but she was in no +pain. Merely she was warned to keep her shoulder in one position and she +wore her arm in a black silk sling. + +“It is quite the fashion to ‘sling’ an arm,” said Clare, laughing. “They +should pin the _Croix de Guerre_ on you, anyway, Ruth Fielding. After +what you have been through!” + +“Deliver us from our friends!” groaned Ruth. “Why should you wish to +embarrass me? How could I explain a war cross?” + +“I don’t know. One of the Kansas City boys was here on leave a few weeks +ago and he wore a French war cross. I tried to find out why, but all he +would tell me was that it was given him for a reward for killing his +first ten thousand cooties!” + +“That is all right,” laughed Ruth. “They make fun of them, but the boys +are proud of being cited and allowed to wear such a mark of distinction, +just the same. Only, you know how it is with American boys; they hate to +be made conspicuous.” + +“How about American girls?” returned Clare slyly. + +That evening Ruth held a reception in the parlor of the pension. And +among those who came to see her was a little, stiff-backed, white-haired +and moustached old gentleman, with a row of orders across his chest. He +was the prefect of police of the town, and he thought he had good reason +for considering the “_Mademoiselle Americaine_” quite a wonderful young +woman. It was by her aid that the police had captured three +international crooks of notorious character. + +Off again in the morning, this time by rail. In the best of times the +ordinary train in France is not the most comfortable traveling equipage +in the world. In war time Ruth found the journey most abominable. Troop +trains going forward, many of them filled with khaki-uniformed fighters +from the States, and supply trains as well, forced the ordinary +passenger trains on to side tracks. But at length they rolled into the +Gare du Nord, and there Helen and Jennie were waiting for the girl of +the Red Mill. + +“Oh! She looks completely done up!” gasped Helen, as greeting. + +“Come over to the canteen and get some nice soup,” begged Jennie. “I +have just tasted it. It is fine.” + +“‘Tasted it!’” repeated Helen scornfully. “Ruthie, she ate two plates of +it. She is beginning to put on flesh again. What do you suppose Colonel +Henri will say?” + +“As though _he_ would care!” smiled Jennie Stone. “If I weighed a ton he +would continue to call me _petite poulet_.” + +“‘Chicken Little!’ No less!” exclaimed Helen. “Honest, Ruthie, I don’t +know how I bear this fat and sentimental girl. I—I wish I was engaged +myself so I could be just as silly as she is!” + +“How about you, Ruthie?” asked Jennie, suspiciously. “Let me see your +left hand. What! Has he not put anything on that third finger yet?” + +“Have a care! A broken shoulderbone is enough,” gasped Ruth. “I am +looking for no other ornament at present, thank you.” + +“We are going to take you to Madame Picolet’s,” Helen declared the next +minute, as they left the great train shed and found a taxicab. “You +would not disappoint her, would you? She so wants you with her while you +remain in Paris.” + +“Of course,” said Ruth, who had a warm feeling for the French teacher +with whom she had been so friendly at Briarwood Hall. “And she has such +a cosy and quiet little place.” + +But after Ruth had rested from her train journey, Madame Picolet’s +apartment did not prove to be so quiet a place. Besides Helen Cameron +and Jennie Stone, there were a lot of other young women whom Ruth knew +in Paris, working for the Red Cross or for other war institutions. + +Of all their clique, Ruth had been the only girl who had worked right up +on the battleline and had really seen much of the war. The visitors +wanted to know all about it. And that Ruth had been injured by a Hun +bomb made her all the more interesting to these young American women +who, if they were not all of the calibre of the girl of the Red Mill, +were certainly in earnest and interested in their own part of the work. + +The surgeons had been wise, perhaps, in advising Ruth to take boat as +soon as possible for the American side of the Atlantic. The Red Cross +authorities gave her but a few days in Paris before she had to go on to +Brest—that great port which the United States had built over for its war +needs. + +Helen and Jennie insisted on going with her to Brest. Indeed, Ruth found +herself so weak that she was glad to have friends with her. She knew, +however, that there would be those aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, the +British transport ship to which she was assigned, who would give her any +needed attention during the voyage. + +Up to the hour of sailing, Ruth received messages and +presents—especially flowers—from friends she was leaving behind in +France. Down to the ship came a boy from a famous florist in +Paris—having traveled all the way by mail train carrying a huge bunch of +roses. + +“It’s from Tom,” cried Helen excitedly, “I bet a penny!” + +“What a spendthrift you are, Helen,” drawled Jennie. But she watched +Ruth narrowly as the latter opened the sealed letter accompanying the +flowers. + +“You lose,” said Ruth cheerfully, the moment she saw the card. “But +somebody at the front has remembered me just the same, even if Tom did +not.” + +“Well!” exclaimed Tom’s sister, “what do you know about _that_?” + +“Who is the gallant, Ruthie?” demanded Jennie. + +“Charlie Bragg. The dear boy! And a steamer letter, too!” + +Helen Cameron was evidently amazed that Tom was not heard from at this +time. Ruth had kept to herself the knowledge that Tom was going to the +aviation camp and expected to make his first trip into the air in the +company of his friend, the American ace. This was a secret she thought +Helen would better not share with her. + +After she had opened Charlie Bragg’s letter on the ship she was very +glad indeed she had said nothing to Helen about this. For along with +other news the young ambulance driver wrote the following: + + * * * * * + +“Hard luck for one of our best flying men. Ralph Stillinger. You’ve +heard of him? The French call him an ace, for he has brought down more +than five Hun machines. + +“I hear that he took up a passenger the other day. An army captain, I +understand, but I did not catch the name. There was a sudden raid from +the German side, and Stillinger’s machine was seen to fly off toward the +sea in an endeavor to get around the flank of the Hun squadron. + +“Forced so far away from the French and American planes, it was thought +Stillinger must have got into serious trouble. At least, it is reported +here that an American airplane was seen fighting one of those +sea-going-Zeppelins—the kind the Hun uses to bomb London and the English +coast, you know. + +“Hard luck for Stillinger and his passenger, sure enough. The American +airplane was seen to fall, and, although a searching party discovered +the wrecked machine, neither its pilot nor the passenger was found.” + + * * * * * + +Charlie Bragg had no idea when he wrote this that he was causing Ruth +Fielding, homeward bound, heartache and anxiety. She dared tell Helen +nothing about this, although she read the letter before the _Admiral +Pekhard_ drew away from the pier and Helen and Jennie went ashore. + +Of course, Stillinger’s passenger might not have been Tom Cameron. Yet +Tom had been going to the aviation field expecting to fly with the +American ace. And the fact that Tom had allowed her, Ruth, to sail +without a word of remembrance almost convinced the girl of the Red Mill +that something untoward had happened to him. + +It was a secret which she felt she could share with nobody. She set sail +upon the venturesome voyage to America with this added weight of sorrow +on her heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI—A NEW EXPERIENCE + + +Tom landed from a slowly crawling military train at a place some miles +behind the actual battleline and far west of the sector in which his +division had been fighting for a month. This division was in a great +rest camp; but Tom did not want rest. He craved excitement—something +new. + +In a few hours an automobile which he shared with a free-lance newspaper +man brought him to a town which had been already bombarded half a dozen +times since Von Kluck’s forced retreat after the first advance on Paris. + +As Tom walked out to the aviation field, where Ralph Stillinger’s letter +had advised his friend he was to be found, all along the streets the +American captain saw posters announcing _Cave Voûteé_ with the number of +persons to be accommodated in these places of refuge, such number +ranging from fifteen to sixty. + +The bomb-proof cellars were protected by sandbags and were conveniently +located so that people might easily find shelter whenever the German +Fokkers or _Tauben_ appeared. Naturally, as the town was so near the +aviation field, it was bound to be a mark for the Hun bombing planes. + +Sentinels were posted at every street corner. There were three of the +anti-aircraft .75‘s set up in the town. Just outside the place were the +camps of three flying escadrilles, side by side. One of these was the +American squadron to which Ralph Stillinger, Tom’s friend, was attached. + +Each camp of the airmen looked to Tom, when he drew near, like the +“pitch” of a road show. With each camp were ten or twelve covered +motor-trucks with their tentlike trailers, and three automobiles for the +use of the officers and pilots. + +Tom had not realized before what the personnel of each _équipé_ was +like. There were a dozen artillery observers; seven pilots; two +mechanicians to take care of each airplane, besides others for general +repair work; and chauffeurs, orderlies, servants, wireless operators, +photographers and other attachés—one hundred and twenty-five men in all. + +Tom Cameron’s appearance was hailed with delight by several men who had +known him at college. Not all of his class had gone to the Plattsburg +officer’s training camp. Several were here with Ralph Stillinger, the +one ace in this squadron. + +“You may see some real stuff if you can stay a day or two,” they told +the young captain of infantry. + +“I suppose if there is a fight I’ll see it from the ground,” returned +Tom. “Thanks! I’ve seen plenty of air-fights from the trenches. I want +something better than that. Ralph said he’d take me up.” + +“Don’t grouch too soon, young fellow,” said Stillinger, laughing. “We’re +thirty miles or so from the present front. But in this new, swift +machine of mine (it’s one of the first from home, with a liberty motor) +we can jump into any ruction Fritzie starts over the lines in something +like fifteen minutes. I’ll joyride you, Tommy, if nothing happens, +to-morrow.” + +It was not altogether as easily arranged as that. Permission had to be +obtained for Ralph to take his friend up. The commander of the squadron +had no special orders for the next day. He agreed that Ralph might go up +with his passenger early in the morning, unless something interfered. + +The young men were rather late turning in, for “the crowd” got together +to swap experiences; it seemed to Tom as though he had scarcely closed +his eyes when an orderly shook him and told him that Lieutenant +Stillinger was waiting for him out by Number Four hangar—wherever that +might be. + +Tom crept out, yawning. He dressed, and as he passed the kitchen a +bare-armed cook thrust a huge mug of coffee and a sandwich into his +hands. + +“If you’re going up in the air, Captain, you’ll be peckish,” the man +said. “Get around that, sir.” + +Tom did so, gratefully. Then he stumbled out into the dark field, for +there were no lights allowed because of the possibility of lurking Huns +in the sky. He ran into the orderly, the man who had awakened him, who +was coming back to see where he was. The orderly led Tom to the spot +where Stillinger and the mechanician were tuning up the machine. + +“Didn’t know but you’d backed out,” chuckled the flying man. + +“Your grandmother!” retorted Tom cheerfully. “I stopped for a bite and a +mug of coffee.” + +“You haven’t been eating enough to overload the machine, have you?” +asked Stillinger. “I don’t want to zoom the old girl. The motor shakes +her bad enough, as it is.” + +“Come again!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s the meaning of ‘zoom’?” + +“Overstrain. Putting too much on her. Oh, there is a new language to +learn if you are going to be a flying man.” + +“I’m not sure I want to be a flying man,” said Tom. “This is merely a +try-out. Just tell me what to look out for and when to jump.” + +“Don’t jump,” warned Stillinger. “Nothing doing that way. Loss of +speed—_perte de vitesse_ the French call it—is the most common accident +that can happen when one is up in the air in one of these planes. But +even if that occurs, old man, take my advice and _stick_. You’ll be +altogether too high up for a safe jump, believe me!” + +They got under way with scarcely any jar, and with tail properly +elevated the airplane was aimed by Ralph Stillinger for the upper +reaches of the air. They went up rather steeply; but the ace was not +“zooming”; he knew his machine. + +There is too much noise in an airship to favor conversation. Gestures +between the pilot and the observation man, or the photographer, usually +have to do duty for speech. Nor is there much happening to breed +discussion. The pilot’s mind must be strictly on the business of guiding +his machine. + +With a wave of his hand Stillinger called Tom’s attention to the +far-flung horizon. Trees at their feet were like weeds and the roads and +waterways like streamers of crinkled tape. The earth was just a blur of +colors—browns and grays, with misty blues in the distance. The human eye +unaided could not distinguish many objects as far as the prospect spread +before their vision. But of a sudden Tom Cameron realized that that mass +of blurred blue so far to the westward, and toward which they were +darting, must be the sea. + +The airplane mounted, and mounted higher. The recording barometer which +Tom could easily read from where he sat, reached the two-thousand mark. +His eyes were shining now through the mask which he wore. His first +perturbation had passed and he began actually to enjoy himself. + +This time of dawn was as safe as any hour for a flight. It is near +mid-day when the heat of the sun causes those disturbances in the upper +atmosphere strata that the French pilots call _remous_, meaning actually +“whirlpools.” Yet these phenomena can be met at almost any hour. + +The machine had gathered speed now. She shook terrifically under the +throbbing of the heavy motor—a motor which was later found to be too +powerful for the two-seated airplanes. + +At fifty miles an hour they rushed westward. Tom was cool now. He was +enjoying the new experience. This would be something to tell the girls +about. He would wire Ruth that he had made the trip in safety, and she +would get the message before she went aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, at +Brest. + +Why, Brest was right over there—somewhere! Vaguely he could mark the +curve of miles upon miles of the French coast. What a height this was! + +And then suddenly the airplane struck a whirlpool and dropped about +fifty feet with all the unexpectedness of a similar fall in an express +elevator. She halted abruptly and with an awful shock that set her to +shivering and rolling like a ship in a heavy sea. + +Tom was all but jolted out of his seat; but the belt held him. He +turned, open-mouthed, upon his friend the pilot. But before he could +yell a question the airplane shot up again till it struck the solid air. + +“My heavens!” shouted Tom at last. “What do you call _that_?” + +“Real flying!” shouted Stillinger in return. “How do you like it?” + +Tom had no ready reply. He was not sure that he liked it at all! But it +certainly was a new experience. + + + + +CHAPTER VII—THE ZEPPELIN + + +Stillinger was giving his full attention to managing his aircraft now. +They were circling in a great curve toward the north. This route would +bring them nearer to the lines of battle. The pilot turned to his +passenger and tried to warn him of what he was about to do. But Tom had +recovered his self-possession and was staring straight ahead with steady +intensity. + +So Stillinger shut off the motor and the airplane pitched downward. A +fifty-mile drive is a swift pace anywhere—on the ground or in the air; +but as the airplane fell the air fairly roared past their ears and the +pace must have been nearer eighty miles an hour. + +The machine was pointing down so straight that the full weight of the +two young men was upon their feet. They were literally standing erect. +Stillinger shot another glance at his passenger. Tom’s lips were parted +again and, although he could not hear it, the pilot knew Tom had emitted +another shout of excitement. + +The earth, so far below, seemed rushing up to meet them. To volplane +from such a height and at such speed is almost the keenest test of +courage that can be put upon a man who for the first time seeks to +emulate the bird. + +Nor is real danger lacking. If the pilot does not redress his plane at +exactly the right moment he will surely dash it and himself into the +earth. + +While still some hundreds of feet from the earth, Stillinger leveled his +airplane and started the motor once more. They skimmed the earth’s +surface for some distance and then began to spiral upward. + +It was just then that a black speck appeared against the clouded sky +over the not-far-distant battleline. They had not been near enough to +see the trenches even from the upper strata of air to which the airplane +had first risen. There was a haze hanging over the fighting battalions +of friend and foe alike. This black speck was something that shot out of +the cloud and upward, being small, but clearly defined at this distance. + +The morning light was growing. The sun’s red upper rim was just showing +over the rugged line of the Vosges. Had they been nearer to the earth it +would have been possible to hear the reveille from the various camps. + +The whole sector had been quiet. Suddenly there were several puffs of +smoke, and then, high in the air, and notably near to that black speck +against the cloud, other bursts of smoke betrayed aerial shells. +Stillinger’s lips mouthed the word, “Hun!” and Tom Cameron knew that he +referred to the flying machine that hung poised over No Man’s Land, +between the lines. + +The aerial gunners were trying to pot the enemy flying machine. But of a +sudden a group of similar machines, flying like wild geese, appeared out +of the fog-bank. There must have been a score of them. + +Taking advantage of the morning fog, which was thicker to the north and +east than it was behind the Allied lines, the Germans had sent their +machines into the air in squadrons. A great raid was on! + +Out of the fog-bank at a dozen points winged the Fokkers and the smaller +fighting airplanes. It was a surprise attack, and had been excellently +planned. The Allies were ready for no such move. + +Yet the gunners became instantly active for miles and miles along the +lines. In the back areas, too, a barrage of aerial shells was thrown up. +While from the various aviation camps the French and British flying men +began to mount, singly and in small groups, to meet the enemy attack. + +The raid was not aimed against the American sectors to the east. They +were a long way from this point. Stillinger had flown far and was now +nowhere near his own unit, if that should come into the fight. + +Nor was he prepared to fight. He would not be allowed to—unless +attacked. He had been permitted to take up a passenger, and after +winging his way along the battle front to the sea, was expected to +return to the aviation field from which he had risen. + +Nevertheless, the machine gun in the nose of the airplane needed but to +have the canvas cover stripped off to be ready for action. Tom Cameron’s +flashing glance caught the pilot’s attention. + +“Are we going to get into it?” questioned Tom. + +“Don’t unhook that belt!” commanded Stillinger. “We can do nothing yet.” + +“It’s a surprise,” said Tom. “We must help.” + +“You sit still!” returned his friend. “I presume you can handle that +make of gat?” + +Tom nodded with confidence. Stillinger shot the airplane to an upper +level and headed to the north of west, endeavoring to turn the flank of +the farthest Hun squadron. Over the lines the yellow smoke now rolled +and billowed. An intense air barrage was being sent up. They saw a +German machine stagger, swoop downward, and burst into flames before it +disappeared into the smoke cloud over No Man’s Land. + +Stillinger knew he was disobeying orders; but his high courage and the +plain determination of his passenger to help in the fight if need arose, +caused him to take a chance. It was taking just such chances that had +made him an ace. + +Yet, as the airplane swung higher and higher, yet nearer and nearer to +the group of enemy machines nearest the sea, and as the bursts of +artillery fire grew louder, it was plain that this was going to be a +“hot corner.” + +The rolling smoke and the fog hid a good deal of the battle. Suddenly +there burst out of the murk a squadron of flying machines with the +German cross painted on the under side of their wings. With them rose +three French attacking airplanes, and the chatter of the machine guns +became incessant. + +There were eight of the enemy planes; eight to three was greater odds +than Americans could observe without wishing to take a hand in the +fight. + +Stillinger shot his airplane up at a sharp angle, striving to get above +the German machines. Once above them, by pitching the nose of his +machine, the enemy would be brought under the muzzle of the machine gun +which already Tom Cameron had stripped of its canvas covering. + +They were between six and seven thousand feet in the air now. Without +the mask, the passenger would never have been able to endure the +rarified atmosphere at this altitude. Unused as he was to aviation, +however, he showed the ace that he was an asset, not a liability. + +The free-lance airplane was observed by the Germans, however, and three +of the eight machines sprang upward to over-reach the American. It was a +race in speed and endurance for the upper reaches of the air. + +The fog-bank hung thickest over the sea, and the racing American +airplane was close to the coastline. But so high were they, and so +shrouded was the coast in fog, that Tom, looking down, could see little +or nothing of the shore. + +Suddenly swerving his airplane, Stillinger darted into the clammy +fog-cloud. It offered refuge from the Germans and gave him a chance to +manoeuvre in a way to take the enemy unaware. + +The moment they were wrapped about by the cloud the American pilot shot +the airplane downward. He no longer strove to meet the three German +machines on the high levels. If he could get under them, and slant the +nose of his machine sharply upward, the machine gun would do quite as +much damage to the underside of the German airplane as could be done +from above. Indeed, the underside of the tail of a flying machine is +quite as vulnerable a part as any. + +But flying in the fog was an uncertain and trying experience. Where the +German airplanes were, Stillinger could only guess. He shut off his +engine for a moment that they might listen for the sputtering reports of +the Hun motors. + +It was then, to his, as well as to Tom Cameron’s, amazement, that they +heard the stuttering reports of an engine—a much heavier engine than +that of even a Fokker or Gotha—an engine that shook the air all about +them. And the noise rose from beneath! + +Stillinger could keep his engine shut off but a few seconds. As the +popping of its exhaust began once more a bulky object was thrust up +through the fog below. That is, it seemed thrust up to meet them, +because the American plane was falling. + +In half a minute, however, their machine was steadied. Tom uttered a +great shout. He was looking down through the wire stays at the enormous +bulk of an airship, the like of which he had never before seen close to. + +Once he had examined the wreck of a Zeppelin after it had been brought +down behind the French lines. These mammoth ships were being used by the +Hun only to cross the North Sea and the Channel to bomb English cities. +This present one must have strayed from its direct course, for it was +headed seaward and in a southwest direction. + +Taking advantage of the fog, it was putting to sea, having flown +directly over the British or Belgian lines. While the fighting planes +attacked the Allied squadrons of the air, thus making a diversion, this +big Zeppelin endeavored to get by and carry on out to sea, its objective +point perhaps being a distant part of the Channel coast of England. + +Where it was going, or the reason therefore, did not much interest Ralph +Stillinger and Tom Cameron. The fact that the great airship was beneath +their airplane was sufficiently startling to fill the excited minds of +the two young Americans. + +Were they observed by the Huns? Could they wreak some serious damage +upon the Zeppelin before their own presence—and their own peril—was +apprehended by the crew of the great airship? + + + + +CHAPTER VIII—AFLOAT + + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ nosed her way out of the port just as dusk fell. +She dropped her pilot off the masked light at the end of the last great +American dock—a dock big enough to hold the _Leviathan_—and thereafter +followed the stern lights of a destroyer. Thus she got into the +roadstead, and thence into the open sea. + +The work of the Allied and American navies at this time was such that +not all ships returning to America could be convoyed through the +submarine zone. This ship on which Ruth Fielding had taken passage for +home was accompanied by the destroyer only for a few miles off Brest +Harbor. + +The passengers, however, did not know this. They were kept off the open +decks during the night, and before morning the _Admiral Pekhard_ was +entirely out of sight of land, and out of sight of every other vessel as +well. Therefore neither Ruth nor any other of the passengers was +additionally worried by the fact that the craft was quite unguarded. + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ mounted a gun fore and aft, and the crews of these +guns were under strict naval discipline. They were on watch, turn and +turn about, all through the day and night for the submarines which, of +course, were somewhere in these waters. + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ was not a fast ship; but she was very comfortably +furnished, well manned, and was said to be an even sailing vessel in +stormy weather. She had been bearing wounded men back to England for +months, but was now being sent to America to bring troops over to take +the place of the wounded English fighters. + +Ruth learned these few facts and some others at dinner that night. There +were some wounded American and Canadian officers going home; but for the +most part the passengers in the first cabin were Red Cross workers, +returning commissioners both military and civil, a group of Congressmen +who had been getting first-hand information of war conditions. + +Then there were a few people whom the girl could not exactly place. For +instance, there was the woman who sat next to her at the dinner table. + +She was not an old woman, but her short hair, brushed straight back over +her ears like an Americanized Chinaman’s, was streaked with gray. She +was sallow, pale-lipped, and with a pair of very bright black +eyes—snapping eyes, indeed. She wore her clothes as carelessly as she +might have worn a suit of gunnysacking on a desert island. Her +eyeglasses were prominent, astride a more prominent nose. She was not +uninteresting looking. + +“As aggressive as a gargoyle,” Ruth thought. “And almost as homely! Yet +she surely possesses brains.” + +On her other hand at table Ruth found a kindly faced Red Cross officer +of more than middle age, who offered her aid at a moment when a friend +was appreciated. Ruth did very well with the oysters and soup; and she +made out with the fish course. But when meat and vegetables and a salad +came on, the girl had to be helped in preparing the food on her plate. + +The black-eyed woman watched the girl of the Red Mill curiously, seeing +her left arm bandaged. + +“Hurt yourself?” she asked shortly, in rather a gruff tone. + +“No,” said Ruth simply. “I was hurt. I did not do it myself.” + +“Ah-ha!” ejaculated the strange woman. “Are you literal, or merely +smart?” + +“I am only exact,” Ruth told her. + +“So! You did _not_ hurt yourself? How, then?” and she glanced +significantly at the girl’s bandaged arm. + +“Why, do you know,” the girl of the Red Mill said, flushing a little, +“there is a country called Germany, in Central Europe, and the German +Kaiser and his people are attacking France and other countries. And one +of the cheerful little tricks those Germans play is to send over bombing +machines to bomb our hospitals. I happened to be working in a hospital +they bombed.” + +“Ah-ha!” said the woman coolly. “Then you are merely smart, after all.” + +“No!” said Ruth, suddenly losing her vexation, for this person she +decided was not quite responsible. “No. For, if I were really smart, I +should have been so far behind the lines that the Hun would never have +found me.” + +The black-eyed woman seemed to feel Ruth’s implied scorn after all. + +“Oh!” she said, resetting her eyeglasses with both hands, “I have been +in Paris all through the war.” + +“Oh, then you’d heard about it?” Ruth intimated. “Well!” + +“I certainly know all about the war,” said the woman shortly. + +The girl of the Red Mill seldom felt antagonism toward people—even +unpleasant people. But there was something about this woman that she +found very annoying. She turned her bandaged shoulder to her, and gave +her attention to the Red Cross officer. + +Strangely enough, the queer-looking woman continued to put herself in +Ruth’s way. After dinner she sought her out in a corner of the saloon +where Ruth was listening to the music. The windows of the saloon were +shaded so that no light could get out; but it was quite cozy and +cheerful therein. + +“You are Miss Fielding, I see by the purser’s list,” said the curious +person, staring at Ruth through her glasses. + +“I have not the pleasure of knowing you,” returned the girl of the Red +Mill. “Can I do anything for you?” + +“I am Irma Lentz. I have been studying in Paris. This war is a hateful +thing. It has almost ruined my career. It has got so now that one cannot +work in peace even in the Latin Quarter of the town. War, war, war! That +is all one hears. I am going back to New York to see if I can find peace +and quietness—where one may work without being bothered.” + +“You are——?” + +“An artist. I have studied with some of the best painters in France. But +I declare! even those teachers have closed their _ateliers_ and gone to +war. I must, perforce, close my own studio and go back to America. And +America is crude.” + +“Seems to me I have heard that said before,” sniffed Ruth. “Although my +acquaintance among artists has been small. Do you expect to find perfect +peace and quietness in the United States?” + +“I do not expect to find the disturbance that is rife in Paris,” said +Irma Lentz shortly. “This war is too unpopular in the United States for +more than a certain class of the people to be greatly disturbed over +what is going on so far away from home.” + +Ruth looked at her amazedly. The artist seemed quite to believe what she +said. Aside from some few pro-Germans whom she had heard talk before +Ruth Fielding had left the United States, she had heard nothing like +this. It was what the Germans themselves had believed—and wished to +believe. + +“I wonder where you got that, Miss Lentz,” Ruth allowed herself to say +in amazement. + +“Got what?” + +“The idea that the war—at least now we are in it—is unpopular at home. +You will discover your mistake. I understand that even in Washington +Square they know we are fighting a war for democracy. You will find your +friends of Greenwich Village—is that not the locality of New York you +mean?—are very well aware that we are at war.” + +“Perfect nonsense!” snapped Irma Lentz, and she got up and flounced +away. + +“Now,” thought the girl of the Red Mill, very much puzzled, “I wonder +just what and who she is? And has she been in Paris all through the war +and has not yet awakened to the seriousness of the situation? Then there +is something fundamentally wrong with Irma Lentz.” + +She might not have given the strange woman much of her attention during +the voyage, however, for Ruth did not like unpleasant people and there +were so many others who were interesting, to say the least, on board the +ship, if a little incident had not occurred early the next morning which +both surprised Ruth and made her deeply suspicious of Irma Lentz. + +The girl could not sleep very well because of pain in her shoulder and +arm. Perhaps she had tried to use the arm more than she should. However, +being unable to sleep, she rose at dawn and rang for the night +stewardess. She had already won this woman’s interest, and she helped +Ruth dress. The girl left her stateroom and went on deck, which was free +to the passengers now. + +As she passed through a narrow way behind the forward deck-house on the +main deck, she heard a sudden explosion of voices—a sharp, high voice +and one deeper and more guttural. But the point that held Ruth +Fielding’s attention so quickly was that the language used was German! +There was no doubting that fact. + +There certainly should be nobody using that language on this British +ship carrying Americans to the United States! That was Ruth’s first +thought. + +She walked quietly to the corner of the house and peered around it. The +morning was still misty and there were few persons on deck save the +gangs of cleaners. Backed against a backstay, and facing the point where +the girl of the Red Mill stood, was Irma Lentz, in mackintosh and veil. + +The strange woman was talking angrily with a barefooted sailor in +working clothes. He was bareheaded as well as barefooted, and his coarse +shirt was open at the throat displaying a hairy chest. He possessed a +mop of flaxen hair, and his countenance was too Teutonic of cast to be +mistaken. + +Besides, like the woman, he was speaking German in a most excited and +angry fashion. + + + + +CHAPTER IX—QUEER FOLKS + + +In school Ruth Fielding and her classmates had taken German just as they +had French. Jennie Stone often said she had forgotten the former +language just as fast as she could and had felt much better after it was +out of her system. + +But the girl of the Red Mill seldom forgot anything she learned well. +She had not used the German language as much as she had French. +Nevertheless she remembered quite clearly what she had learned of it. + +The seaman who was talking so excitedly to Irma Lentz, and whom Ruth +overheard on the deck of the _Admiral Pekhard_, used Low German instead +of the High German taught in the educational institutions. Ruth, +however, understood quite a little of what was said. + +“Stop talking to me!” Miss Lentz commanded, breaking in upon what the +man was saying. + +“I must tell you, Fraulein——” + +“Go tell Boldig. Not me. How dare you speak to a passenger? You know it +is against all ship rules.” + +“Undt am _I_ de goat yedt?” growled the man, in anger and in atrocious +English, as the young woman swept past him. Then in his own tongue—and +this time Ruth understood him clearly—he added: “Am I to work in that +fireroom while you and Boldig live softly? What would become of me if +anything should happen?” + +Fortunately the woman did not come Ruth’s way. She whisked out of sight +just as the tramp of a smart footstep was heard along the deck. An +officer came into sight. + +“Here, my man, this is no part of the deck for you,” he said sharply. +“Stoker, aren’t you? Get back to your quarters.” + +The flaxen-haired man stumbled away. He almost ran, it seemed, to get +out of sight. The officer passed Ruth Fielding, bowing to her politely, +but did not halt. + +The girl of the Red Mill was greatly disturbed by what she had seen and +overheard. Yet she was not sure that she should speak to anybody about +the incident. She let the officer go on without a word. She found a +chair on a part of the deck that had already been swabbed down, and she +sat there to think and to watch the first sunbeams play upon the wire +rigging of the ship and upon the dancing waves. + +The ocean was no novelty to Ruth; but it is ever changeable. No two +sunrises can ever be alike at sea. She watched with glowing cheeks and +wide eyes the blossoming of the new day. + +She was not a person to fly off at a tangent. No little thing disturbed +her usual calm. Had Helen been there, Ruth realized that her black-eyed +girl chum would have insisted upon running right away to somebody in +authority and repeating what had been overheard. + +There was just one circumstance which kept Ruth from putting the matter +quite aside and considering it nothing remarkable that two people should +be speaking German on this British ship. That was her conversation the +evening before with Irma Lentz, the artist. + +The woman had made a very unfavorable impression on Ruth Fielding. Any +person who could speak so callously of the war and wartime conditions in +Paris, Ruth did not consider trustworthy. Such a woman might easily be +connected with people who favored Germany and her cause. Then—her name! + +Ruth realized that one of the greatest difficulties that Americans, +especially, have to meet in this war is the German name. Many, many +people with such names are truly patriots—are American to the very +marrow of their bones. On the other hand, there are those of German name +who are as dangerous and deadly as the moccasin. They strike without +warning. + +In this case, however, Irma Lentz, it seemed to Ruth, had given warning. +She had frankly displayed the fact that her heart was not with her +country in the war. After what Ruth had been through it annoyed her very +much to meet anybody who was not whole-heartedly for the cause of +America and the Allies. + +She thought the matter over most seriously until first breakfast call. +By that time there had appeared quite a number of the passengers. The +more seriously wounded had all the second cabin, so those passengers who +could get on deck were like one big family in the first cabin. + +As the sea remained smooth, the party gathered at breakfast was almost +as numerous as that at dinner the night before. Irma Lentz did not +appear, however; but Ruth’s Red Cross friend was there to give her such +aid at table as she needed. + +“What would you do,” she asked him in the course of the meal, “if you +heard two people speaking German together on this ship?” + +He eyed her for a moment curiously, then replied: “You cannot keep these +stewards from talking their own language. Some of them are German-Swiss, +I presume.” + +“Not stewards,” Ruth said softly. + +“Do you mean passengers? Well, I speak German myself.” + +“And so do I. At least, I can speak it,” laughed the girl of the Red +Mill. “But I don’t.” + +“No. Ordinarily I never speak it myself—now,” admitted the man. “But +just what do you mean, Miss Fielding?” + +“I heard two people early this morning speaking German in secret on +deck.” + +“Some of the deckhands?” + +“One was a stoker. The other was one of our first cabin passengers.” + +The Red Cross man’s amazement was plain. He stared at the girl in some +perturbation, at the same time neglecting his breakfast. + +“You tell me this for a fact, Miss Fielding?” + +“Quite.” + +“Have you spoken to the captain—to any of the officers?” + +“To nobody but you,” said Ruth gravely. “I—I shrink from making anybody +unnecessary trouble. Of course, there may be nothing wrong in what I +overheard.” + +“But a passenger talking German with a stoker! What were they saying?” + +“They appeared to be quarreling.” + +“Quarreling! Who was the passenger? Is he here at table?” the Red Cross +man asked quickly. + +“Do you think I ought to point him out?” Ruth asked slowly. “If it is +really serious—and I asked for your opinion, you know—wouldn’t it be +better if I spoke to the captain or the first officer about it?” + +“Perhaps you are right. If it was a merely harmless incident you +observed it would not be right to discuss it promiscuously,” said the +man, smiling. “Don’t tell me who he is, but I do advise your speaking to +Mr. Dowd.” + +Mr. Dowd was the first officer, and he presided at the table on this +morning as it was now the captain’s watch below. Ruth had been careful +to say nothing which would lead her friend to suspect that the passenger +she mentioned was a woman. + +“Yes,” went on the Red Cross officer firmly, “you speak to Mr. Dowd.” + +But Ruth did not wish to do that in a way that might attract the +attention of any suspicious person. The woman, Irma Lentz, had mentioned +another person who seemed to be one of the queer folks. “Boldig.” Who +Boldig was the girl of the Red Mill had no idea. He might be passenger, +officer, or one of the crew. She had glanced through the purser’s list +and knew that there was no passenger using that name on the _Admiral +Pekhard_. + +Even if Miss Lentz was out of sight, this other person, or another, +might be watching the movements of the passengers. Ruth did not, +therefore, speak to the ship’s first officer in the saloon. She waited +until she could meet him quite casually on deck, and later in the +forenoon watch. + +Dowd was a man not too old to be influenced and flattered by the +attentions of a bright young woman like Ruth Fielding. He was interested +in her story, too, for the Red Cross officer had not been chary of +spreading the tale of Ruth’s courage and her work in the first cabin. + +“May I hope the shoulder and arm are mending nicely, Miss Fielding?” Mr. +Dowd said, smiling at her as she met him face to face near the starboard +bridge ladder. + +“Hope just as hard as you can, Mr. Dowd,” she replied merrily. “Yes, I +want all my friends to _will_ that the shoulder will get well in quick +time. I haven’t the natural patience of the born invalid.” + +He laughed in return, and turned to get into step with her as she walked +the deck. + +“You lack the air of the invalid, that is true. Remember, I have had +much to do with invalids in the time past. Although now we do not see +many of the people who used to think there was something the matter with +them, and whose physicians sent them on a sea voyage to get rid of them +for a while.” + +“Yet you do have some queer folks aboard, even in war time, don’t you?” +she asked. + +“Why, bless you!” said the Englishman, “everybody is more or less +queer—‘save thee and me.’ You know the story of the Quaker?” + +“Surely,” rejoined Ruth. “But now I suppose most of your queer +passengers may be spies, or something like that.” + +She said it in so low a tone that nobody but the first officer could +possibly hear. He gave her a quick glance. + +“Meaning?” he asked. + +“That I am afraid I am going to make you place me right in the catalogue +of ‘queer folks.’” + +“Yes?” + +His gravity and evident interest encouraged her to go on. Briefly she +told him of what she had overheard that morning at daybreak. And this +time she did not refuse to identify clearly the woman passenger who had +talked so familiarly with the flaxen-haired stoker on the afterdeck. + + + + +CHAPTER X—WHAT WILL HAPPEN? + + +Ruth Fielding was not a busybody, but the peculiar attitude of the +woman, Irma Lentz, toward America’s cause in the World War and what she +had overheard on deck that morning, as well as the advice the Red Cross +officer had given her, urged the girl to take Mr. Dowd, first officer of +the _Admiral Pekhard_, fully into her confidence. + +He listened with keen interest to what the girl had to say. He was sure +Ruth was not a person to be easily frightened or one to spread +ill-advised and unfounded tales. Useless suspicions were not likely to +be born in her mind. She was too sane and sensible. + +The chance that there were actually spies aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ +was by no means an idle one. In those days of desperate warfare between +the democratic governments of the world and the autocratic Central +Powers, no effort was neglected by the latter to thwart the war aims of +the former. + +To deliberately plan the destruction of this ship, although it was not, +strictly speaking, a war ship, was quite in line with the frightfulness +of Germany and her allies. Similar plotting, however, had usually to do +with submarine activities and mines. + +That German agents were aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ with the intention +of bringing about the wrecking of the ship was, however, scarcely within +the bounds of probability. Notably because by carrying through such a +conspiracy the plotters must of necessity put their own lives in +jeopardy. + +No group of German plotters had thus far shown themselves to be so +utterly unregardful of their own safety. + +Ruth believed Irma Lentz to be quite bitter against the United States +and its war aims; but she could not imagine the self-styled “artist” to +be on the point of risking her personal safety on behalf of America’s +enemies. + +These same beliefs influenced Mr. Dowd’s mind; and he said frankly: + +“It may be well for us to take up the matter with Captain Hastings. +However, I cannot really believe that German spies would try to sink the +ship, and so endanger their own safety.” + +“It does not seem reasonable,” Ruth admitted. “Nor do I mean to say I +believe anything like that is on foot. I do think, however, that the +woman and that seaman, or stoker, or whatever and whoever he is, should +be watched. They may purpose to do some damage to the _Admiral Pekhard_ +after she docks at New York.” + +“True. And you say there is a third person—a man named Boldig? His name +is not on the passenger list.” + +“That is so,” admitted Ruth, who had read the purser’s list. + +“I’ll scrutinize the crew list as well,” said Mr. Dowd, thoughtfully. +“Of course, he may not use that name. I remember nothing like it. Well, +we shall see. Thank you, Miss Fielding. I know Captain Hastings will +wish to thank you in person, as well.” + +Ruth did not expect to be immediately called to the captain’s chartroom +or office. Nor was her mind entirely filled with thoughts regarding +German spies. + +She had, indeed, one topic of thought that harrowed her mind +continually. It was that which kept her awake on this first night at +sea, as much as did the dull ache in her injured shoulder. + +Had she expressed the desire for her companionship, Ruth knew that Helen +Cameron would have broken all her engagements in France and sailed on +the _Admiral Pekhard_. Her chum was torn, Ruth knew, between a desire to +go home with the girl of the Red Mill and to stay near Tom. As long as +Tom Cameron was in active service Helen would be anxious. + +And did Helen know now what Ruth feared was the truth—that Tom had got +into serious trouble with the flying ace, Ralph Stillinger—she would be +utterly despairing on her brother’s account. + +Ruth read over and over again her letter from the ambulance driver, +Charlie Bragg, in which the latter had spoken of the tragic happening on +the battle front—the accident to Ralph Stillinger and his passenger. Of +course Ruth had no means of proving to herself that the passenger was +Tom Cameron, but she knew Tom had been intending to take a flight with +the American ace and that the active flying men were not in the habit of +taking up passengers daily. + +The American captain who had been lost with Ralph Stillinger was more +than likely Tom Cameron. Ruth’s anxiety might have thrown her into a +fever had it not been for this new line of trouble connected with the +artist, Irma Lentz. Or, was she an artist? + +The news that had reached Ruth just as she boarded the _Admiral Pekhard_ +had been most disquieting. Had her passage not been already arranged for +and her physical health not been what it was, the girl surely would have +gone ashore again and postponed her voyage home. + +This would have necessitated Tom’s sister learning the news in Charlie +Bragg’s letter. But better that, Ruth thought now, than that her own +mind should be so troubled about Tom Cameron’s fate. + +All manner of possibilities trooped through her brain regarding what had +happened, or might have happened, to Tom. He might not, of course, have +been the passenger-captain of whom Charlie Bragg wrote. But this faint +doubt did not serve to cheer Ruth at all. + +It was more than likely that Tom had shared Ralph Stillinger’s +fate—whatever that fate was. The American ace’s airplane had been seen +in battle with a Zeppelin. It had been seen to fall. Afterward the wreck +of the airplane was found, but neither of the men—either dead or +alive—was discovered. + +That was the mystery—the unknown fate of the flying man and his +passenger. The amazing fact of their disappearance caused Ruth Fielding +anxiety and depression of mind. + +She even thought of trying to get news by wireless of the tragic +happening to the flying man and his companion. But when she made inquiry +she learned that because of war measures no private message could be +sent or received by radio. Such wireless news as the naval authorities +considered well to distribute to the passengers of the _Admiral Pekhard_ +was bulletined by the radio room door. + +Later Ruth was sent for to attend the captain in his office. She found +the commander of the ship to be a tight, little, side-whiskered +Englishman with a large opinion of his own importance and an insular +suspicion of Americans in general. This type of British subject was +growing happily less—especially since the United States entered the war; +but Captain Hastings was not so favorably impressed by Ruth Fielding and +her story as his first officer had been. + +“You know, Miss Fielding, I don’t wish to have any hard feelings among +my passengers,” he said. He verged toward a slight cockney accent now +and then, and he squinted rather unpleasantly. + +“This is a serious accusation you bring against Miss Irma Lentz. I have +seen her passport and other papers. She is quite beyond suspicion, don’t +you know. I should not wish to insult her by accusing her of being an +enemy agent. Really, Miss Fielding,” he concluded bluntly, “she seems to +be much better known by people aboard than yourself.” + +Ruth stiffened at the implied doubt cast upon her character. Here was a +man who lacked all the tact a ship’s captain is supposed to possess. He +was nothing at all like Mr. Dowd. + +“I have not asked to have my status aboard your ship tested, nor my +reputation established, Captain Hastings,” she said quietly but firmly. +“Had I not thought it my duty to say what I did to Mr. Dowd, I assure +you I should not have put myself out to do so. But as you have—either +justly or unjustly—judged the character of my information, you cannot by +any possibility wish to know my opinion in this. There was scarcely need +of calling me here, was there?” + +She arose and turned toward the door of the chartroom, and her manner as +well as her words showed him plainly that she was offended. + +“Hoighty-toighty!” exclaimed the little man, growing very red in the +face. “You take much for granted, Miss Fielding.” + +“I make no mistake, I believe, in understanding that you do not consider +my information to Mr. Dowd of importance.” + +“Oh, Dowd is a young fool!” snapped the commander of the _Admiral +Pekhard_. “He is trying to stir up a mare’s nest.” + +“Your opinion of me must be even worse than that you have expressed of +your first officer,” tartly rejoined the girl. “If you will excuse me, +Captain Hastings, I will withdraw. Really our opinions I feel sure would +never coincide.” + +“Wait!” exclaimed the captain. “I am willing to put one thing to the +test.” + +“You need do nothing to placate me, Captain Hastings,” declared Ruth. “I +am quite, quite satisfied to drop the whole affair, I assure you.” + +“It has gone too far, as it is, Miss Fielding,” declared Captain +Hastings. “Dowd will not be satisfied if you do not have the opportunity +of identifying the stoker you say you saw talking with Miss Lentz. And +that, in itself, is no crime.” + +“Then why trouble yourself—and me—about the matter any further?” asked +Ruth, with a shrug, and her hand still on the knob of the door. + +“Confound it, you know!” burst forth the captain, “it has to go on my +report—on the log, you know. That fool, Dowd, insists. I want you to see +the stokers together, Miss Fielding, as the watches are being changed at +eight bells. If you can pick out the man you say you saw on the after +deck, I will examine him. Though it’s all bally foolishness, you know,” +added the captain in a tone that did not fail to reach Ruth Fielding’s +ear and increased her feeling of disgust for the pompous little man, as +well as her vexation with the whole situation. + +She wished very much just then that she had not spoken at all to the +_Admiral Pekhard’s_ first officer. + + + + +CHAPTER XI—DEVELOPMENTS + + +At ten minutes or so before noon a smart little sub-officer came to +Ruth’s stateroom and asked her to accompany him to the engine-room, +amidships. As a last thought the girl took a chiffon veil with her, and +before she stepped into the quarters where all the shiny machinery was, +she threw the veil over her head and face. It had suddenly been +impressed on her mind that she did not care to have the man she had +taken for a German identify her, even if she did him. + +She found both Mr. Dowd and the commander of the steamship on this deck. +The first officer came to Ruth in rather an apologetic way. + +“I did not know,” he said gently, “that I was getting you into any +trouble when I repeated what you told me to Captain Hastings. This is my +very first voyage with him—and, believe me, it shall be my last!” + +His eyes sparkled, and it was evident that he had found the pompous +little commander much to his distaste. The captain did not seek to speak +to Ruth at all. He stood at one side as the stokers filed in from +forward, ready to relieve those working in the fireroom below. + +“Do you see him in that line, Miss Fielding?” whispered the first +officer. + +She scrutinized the men carefully. Early that morning she had had plenty +of opportunity to get the appearance of the German who spoke to Irma +Lentz photographed on her mind, and she knew at first glance that he was +not in this group. + +However, she took her time and scrutinized them all carefully. There was +not a single flaxen-haired man among them, and nobody that in the least +seemed like the man she had in mind. + +“No,” she said to Mr. Dowd. “He is not here.” + +“Wait till the others come up. There! The boatswain pipes.” + +The shrill whistle started the waiting stokers down the ladder into the +stoke-hole. In a minute or two a red, sweating, ashes-streaked face +appeared as the first of the watch relieved came up into the engine +room. This was not the man Ruth looked for. + +One after another the men appeared—Irish, Swede, Dane, negro, and +nondescript; but never a German. And not one of the fellows looked at +all like the man Ruth expected to see. Dowd gazed upon her +questioningly. Ruth slowly shook her head. + +“Any more firemen or coal passers down there, boy?” Dowd asked the negro +stoker. + +“No, suh! Ain’t none of de watch lef’ behind,” declared the man, as he +followed his mates forward. + +“Well, are you satisfied?” snapped the thin voice of Captain Hastings. + +“Not altogether,” Ruth bravely retorted. “It might be that the man was +not a stoker. I only thought so because the officer who interrupted the +conversation I overheard seemed to consider him a stoker. He sent the +man off that part of the deck.” + +“What officer?” demanded the captain, doubtfully. “An officer of the +ship? One of my officers?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Ha, you want to examine my officers, then, I presume?” + +“Not at all,” Ruth said coldly. “I am not taking any pleasure in this +investigation, I assure you.” + +“It will be easy enough to find the officer whom Miss Fielding refers +to,” said Mr. Dowd, interposing before Captain Hastings could speak +again. “I know who was on duty at that hour this morning. It will be +easily discovered who the officer is. And if he remembers the man on +deck——” + +“Ah—yes—if he _does_,” said Captain Hastings in his very nastiest way. + +Ruth’s cheeks flamed again. Mr. Dowd placed a gentle hand upon her +sleeve. + +“Never mind that oaf,” he whispered. “He doesn’t know how to behave +himself. How he ever got command of a ship like this—well, it shows to +what straits we have come in this wartime. Do you mind meeting me later +abaft the stacks on deck? I will bring the men, one of whom I think may +be the chap we are looking for. Of course he will remember if he drove a +seaman or a stoker off the after deck this morning.” + +Ruth did not see how she could refuse the respectful and sensible first +officer, but she certainly was angry with Captain Hastings and she swept +by him to the stairway without giving him another glance. + +“It’s all bosh!” she heard him say to Mr. Dowd, as she started for the +open deck. + +Her dignity was hurt, as well as her indignation aroused. She was not in +the habit of having her word doubted; and it seemed that Captain +Hastings certainly did consider that there was reason for thinking her +untruthful. She was more than sorry that she had taken the Red Cross +man’s advice and brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Dowd in the +first place. + +Yet the first officer was her friend. She could see that. He did not +intend to let the matter rest at a point where Captain Hastings would +have any reason for intimating that Ruth had not been exact in her +statements of fact. + +Of course, the girl of the Red Mill had not taken so close a look at the +ship’s officer who had driven the stoker off the deck, as she had at the +stoker himself. But she was quite confident she would know him. She had +not seen him since, that was sure. + +After half an hour or so Mr. Dowd came to the place where she sat +sheltered from the stiff breeze that was blowing, with a uniformed man +in toll. It was not the officer whom she had seen early in the morning. + +“I quite remember seeing Miss Fielding on deck at dawn,” said the young +fellow politely. “But I do not remember seeing any of the crew except +those at work scrubbing down.” + +“This was on the starboard run, Miss Fielding?” suggested Mr. Dowd. + +“Yes, sir. It was right yonder,” and she pointed to the spot in +question. + +“It must be Dykman, then, you wish to see, Mr. Dowd,” said the under +officer, saluting. “Shall I send him here, sir?” + +“If you will,” Dowd said, and remained himself to talk pleasantly to the +American girl. + +After a time another man in uniform approached the spot. He was not a +young man; yet he was smooth-faced, ruddy, and had a smart way about +him. But his countenance was lined and there was a small scar just below +his eye on one cheek. + +“Mr. Dykman, Miss Fielding,” Dowd said. “Is Mr. Dykman the officer whom +you saw, Miss Fielding?” + +Dykman bowed with a military manner. Ruth eyed him quietly. He did not +look like an Englishman, that was sure. + +“This is the officer I saw this morning,” she said, confidently. She +felt that she could not be mistaken, although she had not noted his +manner and countenance so directly at the time indicated. He looked +surprised but said nothing in rejoinder, glancing at Mr. Dowd, instead, +for an explanation. + +“We are trying,” said the first officer, “to identify a man—one of the +crew—who was out of place on the deck here this morning during your +watch, Mr. Dykman. About what time was it, Miss Fielding?” + +“The sun was just coming up,” she said, watching Dykman’s face. + +“There were various members of the deck watch here then, sir,” Dykman +said respectfully. “We were washing decks.” + +“You came past here,” Ruth said quietly, “and admonished the man for +standing here. You told him he had no business aft.” + +The man wagged his head slowly and showed no remembrance of the incident +by his expression of countenance. His eyes, she saw, were hard, and +round, and blue. + +“You intimated that he was a stoker,” Ruth continued, with quite as much +confidence as before. + +Indeed, the more doubt seemed cast upon her statement the more confident +she became. She could not understand why this man denied knowledge of +the incident, unless—— + +She glanced at Dowd. He was frowning and had reddened. But he was not +looking at her. He was looking at Dykman. + +“Well, sir?” he snapped suddenly. + +“No, sir. I do not remember the occurrence,” the sub-officer said +respectfully but with a finality there could be no mistaking. + +“That will do, then,” said Mr. Dowd, and waved his hand in dismissal. + +Dykman bowed again and marched away. Ruth watched the face of the first +officer closely. Had he shown the least suspicion of her she would have +said no more. But, instead, he looked at her frankly now that the +sub-officer had gone, and demanded angrily: + +“Now, what do you suppose that means? Are you positive you have +identified Dykman?” + +“He was the man who spoke to the stoker—yes.” + +“Then why the—ahem! Well! Why should he deny it?” + +“It seems to clinch my argument,” Ruth said. “There is something +underhanded going on—some plot—some mystery. This Dykman must be in it.” + +“By Jove!” + +“Have you known the man long?” + +“He is a new member of the ship’s company—as I am,” admitted Dowd. + +“He may be ‘Boldig,’” said Ruth, smiling faintly. + +“I will find out what is known of him,” the first officer promised. +“Meanwhile do you think you would like to look over the seamen and other +members of the crew?” + +“I do not think there would be any use in my doing so—not at present. +They probably know what we are after and the flaxen-haired man will +remain hidden. The boat is large.” + +“True,” Dowd agreed thoughtfully. “And as we do not know his name it +would be difficult to find him on the ship’s roster. Besides, I do not +believe that Captain Hastings would allow further search. You see what +kind of a man he is, Miss Fielding.” + +“Make no excuse, Mr. Dowd,” she said hastily. “You have done all you +can. I am sorry I started this in the first place. I merely considered +it my duty to do so.” + +“I quite appreciate your attitude,” he said, bowing over her hand. “And +I think you did right. There is something on foot that must be +investigated, Captain Hastings, or no Captain Hastings!” + +He went away abruptly, and Ruth had time to think it over. She did not +fancy the situation at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XII—THE MAN IN THE MOTOR BOAT + + +She felt that she had taken hold of something bigger than she could +handle just at this time. Ruth really wanted to remain quiet—on deck or +in her stateroom—and nurse her injured shoulder and fix her mind on the +troubles that seemed of late to have assailed her. + +There was trouble awaiting her at home at the Red Mill. Aunt Alvirah +must be very ill, or Uncle Jabez Potter would never have written as he +had. The miserly old miller was in a greatly perturbed state of mind. He +and Aunt Alvirah would need Ruth’s help and comfort. She looked forward +to a very inactive and dull life at the Red Mill for a while. + +After her activities in France, and in other places before she sailed as +a Red Cross worker, home would indeed be dull. She loved Aunt +Alvirah—even the old miller himself; but Ruth Fielding was not a +stay-at-home body by nature and training. + +She might have mental exercise in writing scenarios for the Alectrion +Film Corporation. She had had good success in that work—and there was +money in it. But it did not attract her now. Her work at the Clair +hospital seemed to have unfitted her for her old interests and duties. +In fact, she was not satisfied to be out of touch with active affairs +while a state of war continued abroad. + +The trouble at home, and the anxiety she felt for Tom’s safety, served +to put her in a most unhappy frame of mind. She surely would have given +her mind to unpleasant reveries had not this matter which began with +Irma Lentz come up. + +This racked her mind instead of more serious troubles. Perhaps it was as +well. Ruth disliked having been considered unwarrantably interfering, as +Captain Hastings undoubtedly considered she had been. + +She answered the second luncheon call and passed Irma Lentz coming out +of the saloon-cabin. The woman with the eyeglasses looked her up and +down, haughtily tossed her head, and passed on. Ruth was aware that +several other first cabin passengers looked at her oddly. It was plain +that some tale of Ruth’s “mare’s nest” had been circulated. + +And this must be through Captain Hastings. Nobody else, she was sure, +could have been tactless enough to tell Miss Lentz what Ruth had said. +Had the short-haired “artist” taken others of the passengers into her +confidence, or was that, too, the work of the steamship’s commander? + +At about this time there probably was not a steamship crossing the +Atlantic of the character of the _Admiral Pekhard_, and with the number +and variety of passengers she carried, on which there was not some kind +of spy scare. So many dreadful things were happening at sea, and the +Germans seemed so far-reaching and ruthless in their plots, that there +was little wonder that this should be so. + +It would have been the part of wisdom had Captain Hastings kept the +matter quiet. Instead, the pompous little skipper had evidently revealed +Ruth’s suspicions to the very person most concerned—Miss Lentz. Through +her, word must have been passed to the flaxen-haired man Ruth had seen +talking with her, and likewise to the officer, Dykman, who must likewise +be in the plot. + +What would be the outcome? If there really was a conspiracy to harm the +ship, either on the sea or after she docked at New York, had it been +nipped in the bud? Or would it be carried through, whether or no? + +There was so little but suspicion to bolster up Ruth Fielding’s belief +that she had no foundation upon which to build an actual accusation +against Miss Lentz and her associates, whoever they might be. + +She felt the weakness of her case. There was, perhaps, some reason for +Captain Hastings to doubt her word. But he should not have revealed her +private information to the passengers. That not only was unfair to Ruth +but made it almost impossible for her to prove her case. + +She ate her lunch with the help of the steward, for her Red Cross friend +had eaten and gone. When she returned to the open deck she saw Miss +Lentz the center of a group of eagerly talking passengers. There were +two wounded army officers in the group. They all stared curiously at +Ruth Fielding as she passed. Nobody spoke to her. There was evidently +being formed a cabal against her among the first cabin passengers. + +Not that she particularly cared. There was really nobody she wished to +be friendly with, and in ten days or so the ship would reach New York +and the incident would be closed. That is, if nothing happened to retard +the voyage. + +She sought her own chair, which had been placed in a favored spot by the +deck steward, and wrapped herself as well as she could in her rug, +having only one hand to use. Nobody came to offer aid. She was being +quite ostracized. + +From where she sat she had a good view of the main deck and of all the +ship forward of the smoke stacks. The sea remained calm and the _Admiral +Pekhard_ plowed through it with some speed. Not a sail nor a banner of +smoke was visible. They were a good way from land by now, and it was +evident, too, that they were in no very popular steamship lane. With the +submarines as active as they were, unconvoyed ships steered clear of +well-known routes, where the German sea-monsters were most likely to lie +in wait. + +With nobody to distract her attention, Ruth took considerable present +interest in the conning of the ship and the work of the seamen about the +deck. She looked, too, for some figure that would suggest the +flaxen-haired man she had seen talking with Miss Lentz at dawn. + +Dykman was on duty as watch officer now. Ruth felt that he must be one +of the conspirators. Otherwise he could not have so blandly denied +knowledge of the flaxen-haired man who talked German. + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ was a well-furnished boat, as has been said. +Besides the lifeboats swung at her davits, there were nests of smaller +boats forward. And just in front of where Ruth Fielding sat there was a +canvas-covered motor craft of small size. There was a larger motor +launch lashed on the main deck astern of where Ruth’s chair was +established. + +She noted, after a time, that some of the points lashing the canvas +cover of the small launch forward of her station were unfastened. +Everything else about the covered craft was taut and shipshape. Ruth +wondered at the displacement of the loosened cords. + +And then, vastly to her surprise, she saw the canvas stir. Something, or +somebody, was beneath it. Whatever it was under the canvas cover, its +movements were made with extreme caution. + +Ruth was more puzzled than alarmed. She had heard of people stowing +themselves away upon steamships, and she wondered at first if such were +the explanation of the unknown, lying in the motor launch. + +Should she speak to Mr. Dowd about this? Then, considering what had +followed her interference in circumstances that happened at dawn here on +the deck of the steamship, she hesitated to do so. She did not wish to +get into further trouble. + +But she watched the opening in the canvas cover. More than once within +the next hour she observed the boat cover wrinkle and move, as whatever +was beneath it squirmed and crept about. + +Then, quite expectedly, she saw a face at the opening. The canvas was +lifted slightly and a forehead and pair of eyes were visible for a +moment. + +The fact that somebody was hiding in the launch could not be denied. Yet +it really was none of Ruth Fielding’s business. This might have nothing +at all to do with Miss Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, and Dykman. + +She watched the place warily. If the man under the canvas saw her +watching he would be warned, of course, that his presence was +discovered. She must speak to Mr. Dowd most casually if she desired to +inform the first officer of this mysterious circumstance. + +Nor could she get up and look for the first officer. While she was gone +the man in the motor boat might slip out and escape. Ruth did not +propose to put herself a second time in a position where her word might +be doubted. + +While she remained in her chair the person hiding in the boat would +surely not come out. She did not wish to send a message to Mr. Dowd in +such a way that her motive for bringing him here would be suspected. + +The first officer was not on the bridge; so it was not his watch on +duty. Ruth beckoned a deck steward, tipped him, and requested him to +bring her a pencil, a sheet of paper, and envelope from the ship’s +writing room. She was taking no chances with a verbal message. + +The man fulfilled her request. Meanwhile nobody else seemed to notice +the man peering out from the canvas cover of the motor boat. Indeed, the +fellow had disappeared now and was lying quiet. + +Ruth penciled the following sentences on the paper: “There is a stowaway +in the small motor boat forward of where I am sitting. I will not move +until you can come and investigate. R. F.” + +She sealed this in the envelope, doing it all in her lap so that she +could not be observed from the boat. Then she wrote Mr. Dowd’s name upon +the envelope. + +The steward came back and she whispered to him to take the note to Mr. +Dowd and deliver it into the first officer’s own hand—to nobody else. As +the man started away Ruth for some reason turned her head. + +Across the deck stood Irma Lentz. Her black eyes flashed into Ruth’s, +and the woman seemed about to start toward her. Then she wheeled and +swiftly went forward. + +Had she seen the letter Ruth had sent to the chief officer? Did she +suspect to whom Ruth had written—and the object of the note? And, above +all, did she suspect that Ruth had discovered the man hiding in the +motor boat? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII—IT COMES TO A HEAD + + +As the minutes passed, lengthening into first the quarter and then the +half hour, Ruth Fielding’s impatience grew. The steward did not come +back to the deck. Nor did Chief Officer Dowd return any reply to her +note. + +The situation became more and more irksome for the girl of the Red Mill. +She believed that Irma Lentz considered her a personal enemy. Perhaps +the woman had influence over the steward with whom the note to Mr. Dowd +had been entrusted. Ruth began to feel that she was surrounded by spies, +and that serious trouble would break out upon the _Admiral Pekhard_ +within a short time. + +If she left her seat to search for Mr. Dowd, or to confer with anybody +else, the man she believed was hiding in the motor boat not ten yards +from her chair might escape. Who he was she could only suspect. Why he +was hiding there was quite beyond her imagination. + +It was Captain Hastings who appeared first upon the open deck. He did +not go immediately to the bridge, nor did he bow right and left to the +ladies as was usually his custom. He came directly past Ruth and stared +at her through his little squinting eyes in no friendly fashion. Ruth +did not speak to him. + +Captain Hastings took up a position by the rail not twenty yards from +the girl’s chair. Several passengers gathered about him; but she saw +that the commander of the _Admiral Pekhard_ did not lose sight of her. +He was there for a purpose—that was sure. + +She wondered if the steward, playing her false, had given her note +addressed to Mr. Dowd to Captain Hastings? She felt that apprehension +nearly all feel when “something is about to happen.” In fact, she had +never felt more uncomfortable mentally in her life than at that moment. + +The sun was going down now, for she had spent most of the afternoon +since luncheon in her chair. The watches had been changed long since and +she knew that on a sailing vessel this would be the second dog watch. +Some of the crew were at supper. The bugle for the first-cabin call to +dinner would soon sound. + +She desired to go to her stateroom to freshen her toilet for dinner; +yet, should she desert her post? Was Mr. Dowd merely delayed in coming +to answer her note? Should she take the bull by the horns and tell +Captain Hastings himself of the presence of the stowaway in the motor +boat? + +In this hesitating frame of mind she lingered for some time. Although +the sea was calm, there was a haze being drawn over the sky as the sun +disappeared below the western rim of the ocean, and it bade fair to be a +dark evening. The wind whistled shrilly through the wire stays. There +was a foreboding atmosphere, it seemed to Ruth Fielding, about the great +steamship. + +A dull explosion sounded from somewhere deep in the hold of the _Admiral +Pekhard_. The ship trembled from truck to keelson. Screams of frightened +passengers instantly broke out. Captain Hastings, at the rail, whirled +to look toward the engine-room companionway. + +Out of this door, just ahead of a volume of smoke or steam, dashed one +of his officers. Ruth, who had got out of the reclining chair as quickly +as her injured shoulder would allow, saw that this excited man was +Dykman. + +“An explosion in the boiler room, sir!” he cried, loud enough for +everybody in the vicinity to hear him. “The engines are out of +commission and I think the ship is sinking.” + +It seemed as though any ship’s officer with good sense would have told +the commander privately of the catastrophe. But immediately the full +nature of the disaster was made known to the excited and terrified +passengers. + +“My heavens, Dykman!” squealed Captain Hastings, “you don’t mean to say +it is a torpedo? We’ve seen no periscope.” + +“I don’t know what it is; but the whole place is full of steam and +boiling water. We could not see the entire extent of the damage; but the +water——” + +He intimated that the water was coming in from the outside. Then, +suddenly, the bugles and bells began, all over the ship, to signal the +command for “stations.” The engines had stopped and the steamship began +to rock a little, for there was quite a swell on. Some of the passengers +began screaming again. They thought the _Admiral Pekhard_ was already +going down. + +The tramp of men running along the decks, the shouts of the officers, +and the continued screaming of some of the passengers created such a +pandemonium that Ruth was confused. She knew that Captain Hastings had +leaped to the bridge ladder and was now giving orders through a trumpet +regarding the preparation of the boats for lowering. + +One gang of men was unlashing the large motor boat and carrying davit +ropes to it. That was the captain’s boat, and it would hold at least +forty of the ship’s company. + +Ruth began to wonder what boat she would go in. She realized that she +was quite alone—that there was nobody to aid her. Tom had foreseen this. +He had wished to accompany her across the ocean to be able to aid her if +necessity arose. + +And here was necessity! + +Ruth saw some of the passengers running below, and was reminded that she +was not at all prepared to get into an open boat and drift about the sea +until rescued. There were several important papers and valuables in her +stateroom, too. She moved toward the first cabin entrance. + +Stewards were bringing the helpless wounded up to the deck on +stretchers. No matter how small Ruth’s opinion might be of Captain +Hastings as a man, he seemed neglecting no essential matter now that his +ship was in danger. + +From the bridge he directed the filling and lowering of the first boats. +He ordered the crew and stokers who came pouring from below, to stand by +their respective boats, but not to lower them until word was given. Each +officer was in his place. The stewards were evacuating the wounded as +fast as possible and were to see that every passenger came on deck. + +But Ruth did not see Mr. Dowd. The Chief Officer, who should have had a +prominent part in this work, had not appeared. The girl went below, +wondering about this. + +As she approached her stateroom, Irma Lentz, well-coated and bearing two +handbags, appeared from her stateroom. The black-eyed woman did not seem +very much disturbed by the situation. She even stopped to speak to Ruth. + +“Ah-h!” she exclaimed in a low tone. “Your friend, Mr. Dowd, fell down +the after companionway and is hurt. They took him to his room. Perhaps +you would like to know,” and she laughed as she passed swiftly on toward +the open deck. + +The information terrified Ruth. For the first time since the explosion +in the boiler room, the girl of the Red Mill considered the possibility +of this all being a plot to wreck the _Admiral Pekhard_—a plot among +some of the ship’s company, both passengers and crew! + +The mystery of which she had caught a single thread that morning at dawn +when she had observed this black-eyed woman talking with the +German-looking seaman, or stoker, was now divulged. + +These people—Irma Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, Dykman (if he was one of +the plotters) and perhaps others, had brought them all to this perilous +situation. The German conspirators had, after all, been willing to risk +their own lives in an attempt to sink the British ship. + +She was but one day from port; it was not improbable that the ship’s +company would reach land in comparative safety. The two motor boats +could tow the lifeboats, and if a storm did not arise they might all +reach either the English or the French coast in safety. + +Ruth was so disturbed by Irma Lentz’s statement that she did not +immediately turn toward her own room. She knew where Mr. Dowd’s cabin +was, and she hurried toward it. + +It seemed sinister that the chief officer should have been injured just +as she had sent word to him about the stowaway in the small motor boat. +Ruth was convinced, without further evidence, that her discovery and +attempt to reach Mr. Dowd with the information had caused his injury and +had hastened the explosion. + +She did not believe the latter was caused by a torpedo from a lurking +submarine. The conspirators aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ had +deliberately brought about the catastrophe. + +And it smote her, too, that Mr. Dowd might now be neglected in his +cabin. When the passengers and crew left in the small boats, the first +officer would, perhaps, be lying helpless in his berth. + +She reached the door of the officer’s cabin, and knocked upon the panel. +There was nobody in sight in this passage and she heard no movement +inside the first officer’s room. Again she knocked. + +At last there was a stirring inside. A voice mumbled: + +“Yes? Yes? Eight bells? I will be right up.” + +“Mr. Dowd! Mr. Dowd!” Ruth called. “Wake up! The ship is sinking!” + +“I’ll be right with you, boy,” said the officer, more briskly, but +evidently not altogether himself. + +“This is Ruth Fielding, Mr. Dowd!” cried the girl, hammering again on +the door. “Do you need help? Come on deck quickly. The ship is sinking!” + +“What’s _that_?” + +He was evidently aroused now. The door was snapped open and he appeared +at the aperture just as he had risen from his berth—in shirt and +trousers. His head was bandaged as though he wore a turban. + +“What is that you say, Miss Fielding?” he repeated. + +“Come quickly, Mr. Dowd!” she begged. “The ship is sinking. Those people +have blown it up.” + +“Then there was something wrong!” cried the officer. “Did—did Captain +Hastings come to you? I—I gave him your note after I fell——” + +“He did nothing but wait until those people did their worst,” declared +Ruth angrily. “It is too late to talk about it now. Hurry!” and she +turned away to seek her own stateroom. + +It was fast growing dark outside. There were no lights turned on along +the saloon deck. She saw not a soul as she hurried to her room. +Everybody—even the stewards and officers—seemed to have got out upon the +upper deck. She heard much noise there and believed some of the boats +were being lowered. + +She unlocked her stateroom door and entered. When she tried to turn on +the electric light, she found that the wires were dead. Of course, if +the boilers were blown up, the electric generating motors would stop as +well as the steam engines. The ship would be in darkness. + +She hastily scrambled such valuables as she could find into her toilet +bag. Her money and papers she stowed away inside her dress. They were +wrapped in oilskin, if she should be wet. Ruth was cool enough. She +considered all possibilities at this time of emergency. + +At least she considered all possibilities but one. That never for a +moment entered her mind. + +It was true that while she dressed more warmly and secured a blanket +from her berth to wrap around herself over her coat, she was aware that +the noise on the upper deck had ceased. But she did not realize the +significance of this. + +Being all alone, she had much difficulty in arraying herself as she +wished. Her shoulder was stiff and she could not use her left arm very +much without causing the shoulder to hurt excruciatingly. So she was +long in getting out of the room again. + +Just as she did so she heard a man shouting up the passage: + +“Anybody here? Get out on deck! Last call! The boats are leaving!” + +The shout really startled Ruth. She had no idea there was any chance of +her being left behind. She left her stateroom door open and started to +run through the narrow corridor. + +Not six feet from the door she tripped over something. It was a cord +stretched taut across the passage, fastened at a height of about a foot +from the deck! + +Helplessly, with her hands full and the blanket over her right arm, Ruth +pitched forward on her face. She struck her head on the deck with +sufficient force to cause unconsciousness. With a single groan she +rolled over on her back and lay still. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV—A BATTLE IN THE AIR + + +The first few seconds which passed after Ralph Stillinger and Tom +Cameron descried the huge envelope of the Zeppelin beneath their +airplane in the fog were sufficient to allow the American ace to regain +his self-possession. If his passenger was frightened by the nearness of +the German airship he did not betray that fact. + +The thundering of the motors of the great airship, as well as the +clatter of their own engine, made speech between the two Americans quite +impossible. But the meaning of Stillinger’s gestures was not lost on +Tom. + +Immediately the latter sprang to the machine gun. The three pursuit +planes with which they had been skirmishing were now out of mind, as +well as out of sight. If they could cripple the Zeppelin the victory +would be far greater than bringing disaster to one of the _Tauben_. + +The Zeppelin was aimed seaward. She doubtless had started upon a coast +raid along the English shore. If the Americans could bring her down they +would achieve something that would count gloriously in this great work +of fighting the Hun in the air. + +To pitch down upon the envelope of the great machine and empty a clip of +cartridges into it might do the Zeppelin a deal of harm, but it would +not wreck it. A complete wreck was what Stillinger and Tom wished to +make of the German airship. + +The American pilot’s intention was immediately plain to Tom. He shut +down on the speed and allowed the airplane to fall behind the German +ship. The object was to trail the Zeppelin and pour the machine-gun +bullets into the steering gear of the great airship—even, perhaps, to +sweep her deck of the crew. + +The fog was thinning—No! they were shooting out of the cloud. The +sunlight suddenly illuminated both Zeppelin and airplane. Both must have +been revealed to observers on the ground and in the air. + +The presence of the American airplane, if unsuspected before by the crew +of the Zeppelin, was now revealed to them. Tom, bending sideways to look +down past the machine gun, saw the entire afterdeck of the Zeppelin. +There were at least a dozen men standing there, staring up at the +darting airplane. + +Tom shot a glance back at Stillinger. The machine tipped at that +instant. The pilot waved an admonishing hand. Tom seized the crank of +the gun and turned to look down upon the German airship. + +In that instant the crew of the latter had sprung to action. Their +surprise at the nearness of the airplane was past. Their commander +stood, hanging to a stay with one hand and shouting orders through a +trumpet held in the other hand. At least, Tom Cameron presumed he was +shouting. + +All he could hear was the thuttering roar of the Zeppelin’s motors and +the clash of their own engine. These noises, with the shrieking of the +rushing wind made every other sound inaudible. + +The American machine was tipping. She was not far behind the Zeppelin, +nor far above it. The muzzle of the machine gun would soon come into +line with the after deck of the Zeppelin. Then—— + +Suddenly a flash of flame and a balloon of smoke was spouted from a +small mortar amidships of that deck. Instantly a shell burst almost in +Tom’s face and eyes. + +If the young fellow cringed as he crouched behind the machine gun, it +was no wonder. That was a very narrow escape. + +He glanced back at Stillinger. The pilot had dropped one of the levers +and was holding his left wrist tightly. Tom could see something red +running through Stillinger’s fingers—blood! + +Shrapnel was flying all about the airplane. There was a second puff of +smoke and flame from the mortar on the Zeppelin. Tom heard the twang of +a cut stay. The airplane rolled sideways with a sickening dip—but then +righted itself. + +This was a kind of fighting Tom Cameron knew nothing about. He did not +know what to do. Pivoted as the machine gun was, he could not depress +the muzzle sufficiently to bring the Zeppelin’s deck into range. Was the +machine out of control? If the nose of it dipped a bit more he could do +something. + +Another burst of shrapnel, and he felt something like a red-hot iron +searing his right cheek. He put up his gloved hand and brought it away +spotted with crimson. The Hun certainly was getting them! + +He looked back at Stillinger. To his horror he saw that the man was +slumped down in his seat, held there by his belt. Tom Cameron did not +know the first thing about driving an airplane! + +Again a shell burst near the rocking machine. It did no harm; but it +showed that the Germans were getting an almost perfect range. + +Tom Cameron was not a coward. He gripped his even upper teeth on his +full lower lip, and by that sign only showed that he knew disaster was +coming. Indeed, it had come the next second! + +The tail of the airplane shot up and the nose pitched to a sharp angle. +He heard the explosion of the shell even as he started the chatter of +the machine gun. In that short breath of time the muzzle of his weapon +was pitched to the right angle, and a swarm of bullets swept the +afterdeck of the Zeppelin. + +He knew the tail of the airplane had been splintered and that the +machine was bound to fall. But as it poised on its wings for a few +moments, he poured in the shot—indeed, he finished the clip of +cartridges. + +The man at the Zeppelin shell-thrower fell back and rolled into the +scuppers. Another—plainly an officer from his dress—crashed to the deck. +He saw the other members of the crew running to try to escape the hail +of bullets. Ah, if he could only have accomplished this before the +airplane was wrecked! + +And that it was wrecked, he could see. He glanced over his shoulder. +Stillinger was no longer in his seat. Indeed, the seat itself was not +there! The entire rear part of the airplane was torn away, and his +friend and college-mate had fallen. + +Those next few seconds were to be the most thrilling of all Tom +Cameron’s life. + +The airplane was plunging downward, seemingly right on top of the +Zeppelin. Then intuitively he realized that it would just about clear +the German airship. + +He held no more guarantee for his life if he clung to the airplane than +poor Stillinger had in falling free. It was a swift spin and a crash to +the earth—death beyond peradventure! + +The spread wings of the airplane still held the wrecked machine poised. +But in a moment it would slip forward, nose down, and “take the spin.” +Tom scrambled over the gun and over the armored nose of the airplane. He +swung himself through the stays. The airplane plunged—and so did he! + +But he flung himself free of the stays. Like a frog diving from the bank +of a pool, the American cast himself from the airplane, full thirty +feet, to the deck of the German airship! + +A taut stay of the Zeppelin broke his fall. He landed on all fours. +Before he could rise two of the Germans leaped upon him and he was +crushed, face-downward, on the deck. + +The fellows who had seized him seemed of a mind to cast him over the +rail. They dragged him to his feet, forcing him that way. He expected +the next minute to be spinning in the track of the airplane toward the +earth, five thousand feet or more below. + +But suddenly there appeared out of the cabin, or “dog-house” slung +amidships of the great envelope, the officer that Tom had first seen +with the trumpet. Through that instrument he now roared an order in +German that the American did not understand. + +The latter was released. He staggered to the middle of the deck, panting +and with scarcely strength remaining to hold him on his feet. He saw the +officer beckoning him forward. + +He could not see what any of these fellows looked like, for they were +all masked, as he was himself. They were dressed in garments of skin, +with the hair left on the hide—a queer-looking company indeed. Tom +staggered toward the officer. + +He was motioned to go into the cabin. The officer came after him and +closed the door. At once the American realized that the place was—to a +degree—soundproof. + +The German removed his helmet and Tom was glad to unbuckle the straps of +his own. The first words he heard were in good English: + +“This is the first time I have taken a prisoner. It is a notable event. +Will you drink this cordial, _Mein Herr_? It is an occasion worthy of a +libation.” + +His captor had opened a small cabinet fastened to the wall and produced +a screw-topped decanter. He poured a colorless liquid into two tiny +glasses, and presented one to Tom. The latter would have taken almost +anything just then. The stuff was warming and smelled strongly of anise. + +“Yes, you are the first prisoner I have heard of taken in this way. And, +oddly enough, I may be bearing you homeward, only I shall be unable to +allow you to land upon the ‘tight little isle’—you so call it, no?” + +“You are making one mistake,” Tom said, finally finding his voice. “I am +not an Englishman. I am American.” + +“Indeed? But it matters not,” and the German shrugged his shoulders. +“You will go back with us to Germany as a prisoner. But first you will +accompany us on our bomb-dropping expedition. London is doomed to suffer +again.” + +Tom said no more. This _ober-leutnant_ was a fresh-faced, rather +dandy-like appearing person—typical of the Prussian officer-caste. His +cheerful statement that he purposed dropping his cargo of bombs over the +city of London brought a sharp retort to Tom’s tongue—which he was wise +enough not to utter. + +A subordinate officer looked in at the forward entrance to the cabin, +and asked a question. The _leutnant_ arose. + +“I go to con the ship. We shall soon be over the sea. You, _Mein Herr_, +must be placed in durance, I fear. Come this way.” + +He did not even take the automatic pistol from Tom’s holster. Really, he +knew, as did Tom, that to make any attempt against the lives of his +captors would have been too ridiculous to contemplate. Tom Cameron arose +quietly to follow the _leutnant_. + +At the forward end of this cabin, or car, there was a door beside the +one which gave exit to the forward deck. The German opened this narrow +door, and Tom saw a small closet with a barred window. There was a +cushioned seat, which might even serve as a berth, but very little else +in the compartment. + +He was ordered into this place, and entered. The door was closed behind +him and bolted. He was left to his own devices and to thoughts which +were, to say the least, disheartening. + +He pitched the padded helmet and goggles he had taken off into a corner +and pressed his face close to the glass of the barred window. Again they +were smothered in fog. He could not see to the prow of the great ship. +He wondered how the officer could steer the Zeppelin save by compass. +This fog was a thick curtain. + +Yet the Germans would cross the sea, of course, and find their way over +London. He had heard Englishmen talk of the damage done and the lives +sacrificed—mostly those of women and children—in these dreadful raids. +And he was to be a passenger while the Zeppelin performed its horrid +task! + +Tom Cameron had recovered quickly from his fright and the shock of his +landing on the airship. He was convinced that nobody had ever before +done just what he had done. And as he had been successful in performing +this hazardous venture, he began to believe that he might do +more—perform other wonders. + +It was not his vanity that suggested this thought. Tom Cameron was quite +as free of the foible of conceit as could be imagined. He was earnestly +desirous of doing something to balk these Germans in their determination +to get to the English shore and bomb London and its vicinity. + +Gradually his eyes grew blind to what was going on upon the forward deck +of the Zeppelin. He was thinking—he was scheming. His whole thought was +given to the desire of his heart: How might he thwart the wicked plans +of the Hun? + + + + +CHAPTER XV—ABANDONED + + +Ruth Fielding came to consciousness with an instantly keen physical, as +well as mental, perception of where she was, what had happened, and all +that the accident she had suffered meant. Indeed, it had been no +accident that cast her to the deck outside her stateroom door. + +It was the result of premeditated evil. The man shouting the warning +that all boats were leaving the supposedly sinking _Admiral Pekhard_, +had intended to bring her running from her room. The cord stretched +across the passage was there to trip her. + +As she struggled to her knees, picked up her bag, and gained her feet, +Ruth realized, as in a flash of light, that the man who had shouted was +Dykman, the under officer whom she had previously suspected. He was in +the conspiracy with Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man—the latter, she +was sure, having hidden in the small motor boat. + +And what was now ahead? She had no idea how long she had lain +unconscious. Nor did she hear a sound from the deck above. + +Had she been abandoned on the sinking ship, even by Mr. Dowd, the first +officer? That Captain Hastings had neglected to see that all the +passengers were taken off the _Admiral Pekhard_ did not greatly surprise +Ruth. She had a very poor opinion of the pompous little skipper. + +But Mr. Dowd! + +She stumbled out of the dark passage and found the saloon stairway. The +door at the top was closed. She had to put down her bag to open it. Her +shoulder pained like a toothache, and she could not use her left hand at +all. + +She finally stumbled out upon the open deck. Darkness had shut down on +the ship. There was not a light anywhere aboard that she could see. The +ship was rocking gently to the swell. It did not seem to her as though +it was any deeper in the sea than it had been when last she was above +deck. + +But one certain fact could not be denied. The davits were stripped of +boats. Every lifeboat was gone! She looked aft and saw that the big +motor launch had likewise been put off. Forward the deck was clear, too. +The boat in which she had observed the stowaway had disappeared. + +She was trapped. She believed herself alone on a deserted ship in a +trackless ocean. She had no means of leaving the _Admiral Pekhard_; +surely had the steamship not been about to go down, it would not have +been abandoned by all—passengers, crew, and officers. + +Captain Hastings, the Red Cross officer, even Mr. Dowd, had all quite +forgotten her. Her enemies (she must consider Irma Lentz and Dykman +personal foes) had made it impossible for her to escape in any of the +boats. Perhaps they feared that she knew much more of the plot than she +really did know. Therefore their determination to make her escape +impossible. + +Suddenly she saw a flash of light far out over the sea. It bobbed up and +down for several minutes. Then it disappeared. She believed it must be +one of the small boats that had got safely away from the _Admiral +Pekhard_. The disappearance of the light seemed to close all +communication between the abandoned girl and humankind. + +She had dropped her bag. As the steamship rolled gently the bag slid +toward the rail. This brought her to sudden activity again. She went to +recover the bag. And then she peered over the high rail, down at the +phosphorescent surface of the sea. + +It did not seem to Ruth as though the _Admiral Pekhard_ had sunk a foot +lower than before she left the deck to obtain her possessions. There was +something wrong somewhere! Rather, there was something right. The ship +was not about to sink. Why, hours had passed since she had fallen and +struck her head below near her stateroom! If the ship had been in such +danger of sinking when the alarm to take to the boats was given, why was +it not already awash by the waves that lapped the sides? + +There was some great error. Captain Hastings must have been terribly +misled by his officers regarding the condition of the ship. Much as she +disliked the pompous little man, she was sure that he would not have +knowingly deserted the steamship unless he had been convinced she was +going down—and that quickly. + +“But Mr. Dowd knew better,” murmured Ruth. “Or he must have suspected +there was something wrong. And Mr. Dowd—I do not believe he would have +left the ship without making sure that I was safe.” + +The thought was so convincing that it bred in her mind another and, she +realized, perhaps a ridiculous one. Yet she was so impressed by it that +she turned back to the open companionway. She started down into the +saloon-cabin. But it was so dark there that she hesitated. + +Then, of a sudden, she remembered the pocketlamp that must be in this +very toilet-bag she carried. She always tried to have such a thing by +her, especially when she traveled. She opened the bag and searched among +its contents. + +Her hand touched and then brought forth the electric torch. She pressed +the switch and the spotlight of the bulb shot right into the face of the +great chronometer in its glass case, hanging above the companionway +steps. + +It was half after nine, and she heard the faint chime of the clock on +the instant—three bells. Why! she must have been more than two hours +unconscious below. Of course the boats, if they had been rowed at once +away from the supposedly sinking ship, would be now quite out of sight. +Their lamps were hidden from her sight; and as there were no outside +lights on the ship, she would, of course, be invisible to the crews of +the small boats. + +If the order had been given to make for the nearest point of land, the +people who had abandoned the _Admiral Pekhard_ might easily believe the +steamship under the sea long since. + +This thought was but a flash through her troubled mind. The keener +supposition that had urged her below still inspired her. By aid of the +hand lamp she could make her path through the cabins. She crossed the +dining room and the writing room and library. This way was the opening +of the passage on which were the doors of the officers’ cabins. + +She reached Dowd’s door. She had been here before; it was she, indeed, +who had roused him to the knowledge that the ship was being abandoned. +Could it be possible—— + +She pushed open the door without opposition, for it was unlatched. She +shot the spotlight of the hand lamp into the small room. The bed was +empty. + +Of course, it could not be possible that Mr. Dowd, chief officer of the +ship, had been left behind as she had been. + +Yet, she could open the door only half way. There was something behind +it that acted as a stopper. Ruth peered around the door and at the +floor. Her lamp shone upon the unbooted feet of a man. She shot the ray +of light along his limbs and body. At the far end, almost against the +outside wall of the stateroom, was the turbanned head of First Officer +Dowd! + +Ruth could scarcely gasp the officer’s name, and in her amazement she +removed her thumb from the switch. Her lamp went out. In the darkness +she heard Mr. Dowd breathing stertorously. He was, then, not dead! + +Ruth Fielding was far too sensible and acute in understanding to be long +overwhelmed by any such discovery. Indeed, she felt a certain +satisfaction in finding the man here. Even Mr. Dowd, ill and helpless, +was better than no companion at all upon the steamship. One fear, at +least, immediately rolled off her mind. + +Used as she had become to hospital work, she went at once to work upon +the victim of this outrage. For at first she thought he must have been +injured a second time. Perhaps the man who had stretched that cord to +trip her and had shouted to her down the passage, had first overpowered +Mr. Dowd. + +It proved to be that the man was merely asleep. But he was sleeping very +heavily, very unnaturally. Ruth had seen people under the effect of +opiates before, and she knew what this meant. The chief officer of the +_Admiral Pekhard_ had been drugged. + +When she had previously spoken to him and roused him after he was hurt, +she remembered now that he had not seemed himself. It was something +besides the blow on his head that troubled him. Ruth wondered who had +given him the opiate, and in what form. + +But of a surety, both the chief officer and she had been deliberately +placed in such condition that they could not answer the call to abandon +ship! Evil people had been at work here. The conspirators feared that +Ruth and Mr. Dowd knew more than they really did know, and they had +planned that the two should sink with the _Admiral Pekhard_. + +Only, by the mercy of Providence, or by a vital mistake on the part of +the plotters, the steamship did not seem to be on the point of sinking. +Ruth believed that that danger was not immediate. + +She gave her attention to Mr. Dowd while she was thinking of these +facts. She bathed his head and face, slapped his hands, and finally put +to his nose strong smelling-salts which she found in her bag. The man +stirred, and groaned, and finally opened his eyes. + +He seemed to recognize Ruth at once. But the power of the opiate was +still upon his brain. He could not quickly shake it off. He struggled to +his feet by her aid and by clinging to his berth. He stared at her, +groping in his mind for the reason for his situation. + +“Miss Fielding!” he muttered. “Yes, yes. I am coming at once. The ship +is sinking, you say?” + +“Oh, Mr. Dowd! everybody has gone now and left us. We are too late to go +in any of the boats. But I do not believe the ship is sinking, after +all.” + +“They—did they blow it up?” questioned the man, striving to pull himself +together. “I—I——Why, Miss Fielding, what is the matter with me? I must +have neglected my duty shamefully. Captain Hastings——” + +“He has gone without us. Certainly he did not strive to be sure that +everybody was off the ship before he left. He evidently must have left +it to his subordinates to do that. And I am sure they were not all +trustworthy.” + +She swiftly repeated her own experience. The bruise gained by her fall +over the taut cord was quite visible on her forehead. But the smart of +it Ruth did not mind now. There were many other things of more +importance. + +“It looks like treachery all the way through,” groaned Mr. Dowd. “I +remember now. I fell down the companionway—and I could not understand +why, for the ship was not rolling. You say you suspect Dykman? So do I. +He was right there when I fell, and it seemed to me afterward that I was +tripped by something at the top of the steps. + +“But I was so confused—why, yes, you came and aroused me once, did you +not, Miss Fielding?” + +“Yes. Somebody must have given you an opiate. Who bandaged your head, +Mr. Dowd?” she asked. + +“The surgeon. He was here and fixed me up. He—he gave me a drink that he +said would fix me all right.” + +“It did,” the girl returned grimly. “It may have been he meant you no +harm. Possibly he thought a long sleep was what you needed. But, then, +why did he not remember you when the ship was abandoned? He must have +known you would be helpless.” + +“It seems strange,” admitted Mr. Dowd. “Kreuger is the surgeon’s name. +Of course, the name smacks of Germany. But—but if we are going to +distrust everybody with a German name, where shall we be?” + +“Safer, perhaps,” Ruth said, with rather grim lips. “In this case, at +least, the doctor seems to have done quite as the conspirators would +have had him. They plainly feared that both you and I suspected too +much, and they did not intend that we should escape from this ship.” + +“Come!” he said, having struggled into his vest and coat and seized his +uniform cap. “Let us go up on deck and see what the promise is. Here! I +will light this lantern; that will give us a steadier light than your +torch. + +“I am glad you are such a plucky young woman, Miss Fielding,” he added, +as he lit his lantern. “One need not be afraid of being wrecked in +mid-ocean with you. We’ll find some way of escape from this old barge, +never fear.” + +Thus speaking cheerfully, he led the way out of the room and into the +open cabins of the saloon deck. Ruth followed, glad enough to give up +the leadership to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI—ON THE EDGE OF TRAGEDY + + +They went up to the open deck to meet the blackest night Ruth Fielding +ever remembered to have seen. The impenetrable clouds seemed to hover +just above the masts of the abandoned steamship. + +The night air aided Mr. Dowd to recover his poise. It was plain that the +narcotic influence of the drink the doctor had given him still affected +his brain more than did the blow he had suffered in falling. Soon his +mind was quite clear and his manner the same as usual. + +“I am afraid, as you say, Miss Fielding, that we are alone on the ship. +I do not hear a sound,” he said. + +“But you do not think the ship is sinking, do you, Mr. Dowd?” Ruth +asked. + +“She does not roll as though she was waterlogged in any degree. Nor can +I see that she has any pitch, either to bow or stern. If the explosion +was amidships—and you say it was in the fireroom—I doubt if a hole torn +in the outside of the ship would sink her. + +“You see, the engine room and boilers are shut off from the rest of the +ship, both fore and aft, by water-tight bulkheads. If these were closed +when the accident occurred, or soon after, that middle compartment might +fill—up to a certain point—and that would be all. She could not take in +enough water to sink her by such means.” + +“But one would think Captain Hastings—or the engineer—or somebody—would +have discovered the truth,” Ruth said, in doubt. + +“You’d think so,” admitted Mr. Dowd. “But there was a great deal of +excitement, without doubt. If the water rushed in and put out the fires, +and the place filled with steam, until that steam cleared the situation +must have looked much worse than it really was. + +“You see the ship was abandoned so quickly, that I doubt if the +engineers could have learned just how serious the danger was. They must +all have been panic-stricken.” + +“Your Captain Hastings as well,” said Ruth scornfully. + +“I am afraid so,” admitted the chief officer. “But the captain must have +been misled by the under officers. I do not believe he showed the white +feather. He had the responsibility of the passengers—especially of those +wounded—on his mind. We must give him credit for making a clean +get-away,” and in the lantern-light Ruth saw that he smiled. + +“I hope they are all safe,” she responded reflectively. “The poor +things! To have to drift about in open boats all night!” + +“We are not far from land, of course,” said Mr. Dowd. “And it is a +wonder that one of the patrol boats has not crossed our track. Hold on!” + +“Yes?” said the startled young woman. + +“What about the radio? Didn’t they send a wireless? Couldn’t they have +called for help?” + +“Oh, I never thought of the wireless at all,” Ruth confessed. “And I am +sure it was not used at first—not while I was on deck.” + +“Strange! With two operators—Rollife and an assistant—how could they +neglect such a chance?” + +“I heard nothing about it,” repeated Ruth. + +“Come on. Let’s look and see,” said the chief officer of the steamship. +“Something is dead wrong here. Sparks surely would not have left his +post unless the radio had completely broken down. Why, if we could +manipulate the radio we’d call for help now—you and I, Miss Fielding.” + +He led the way swiftly along the deck. The radio station had been built +into the forward house, for the _Admiral Pekhard_ was an old steamship, +her keel having been laid long before Marconi made his dream come true. + +The staff from which the antennae were strung shot up into the darkness +farther than they could well see. There was a single small window far up +on either side of the house for circulation of air only. There seemed to +be no life about the radio room. + +Mr. Dowd tried the door. It did not yield. He shook it—or tried +to—crying: + +“Sparks! Sparks! Hey! Where are you?” + +He was answered by a voice from inside the radio room. It was not a +pleasant voice, and the words it first uttered were not polite, to say +the least. The man inside ended by demanding: + +“What in the name of Mike was meant by locking me into this room?” + +“Great Land!” gasped Dowd. “It’s Rollife himself.” + +“And you know darned well it’s Rollife,” pursued the radio man. “Let me +come out!” and he went on to roll out threats that certainly were not +meant for Ruth’s ears. + +But to let the man out of his prison was not easy. Dowd found that two +long spikes had been driven through the door and frame above and below +the doorknob. He was some time in getting Rollife to listen to this +explanation. + +“Who is it? Dowd?” demanded the angry radio man at last. + +“Yes,” replied the first officer. “Who did this?” + +Whoever it was who pinned the man into the room was threatened with a +good many unpleasant happenings during the next few moments. Finally +Dowd’s voice penetrated to the operator’s ears again. + +“Hold your horses! There’s a lady here. How shall I get you out, +Sparks?” + +“I don’t give a hang _how_ you do it,” snarled the other. “But I want +you to do it mighty quick—and then lead me to the man who nailed me up.” + +“Wait,” said Dowd. “I’ll get a screwdriver and take off the hinges of +the door. Then you can push outwards.” + +“What the deuce has happened, anyway?” demanded Rollife, as the first +officer of the _Admiral Pekhard_ started away. + +Ruth thought she would better answer before the imprisoned radio man +broke out afresh. She told him simply what had happened, and why it had +happened, as she presumed. + +“It was Dykman nailed me up—the cur!” growled the radio man. “Then he +monkeyed with the wires outside there. He put the radio out of +commission, all right. That was before the explosion. My door was nailed +almost on the very minute the old ship was hit. But why doesn’t she +sink?” + +“I do not believe she is going to sink, Mr. Rollife,” said Ruth. “Oh, if +you could only repair your aerial wires, you might call for help!” + +“Let me out of here,” growled the radio operator, “and I’ll find some +way of sending an S O S—don’t fear!” + +Mr. Dowd came back from the engine room where he had secured a +screwdriver. He set to work removing the screws from the hinges of the +radio room door. + +“I do not believe that the explosion caused any serious damage to the +ship itself,” said he. “The fireroom is full of water; but it looks to +me as though a seacock had been opened. I think the explosion was on the +inside—a bomb thrown into one of the fires, perhaps.” + +“What’s that you say?” demanded Rollife, from inside the room. “No +likelihood of the old tub sinking?” + +“Not at all! Not at all!” + +“Well, I certainly am relieved,” said the radio man. “I’ve been +conjuring up all kinds of horrors in here.” + +“Huh!” exploded Dowd. “You were asleep till I pounded on the door.” + +“Oh, well, maybe I lost myself for a moment,” confessed Rollife. +“Anyhow, I made up my mind I was done for when I could make nobody +listen to me after my door was nailed. They certainly had it in for me.” + +“Where was your assistant?” Dowd asked. + +“That fellow is a squarehead,” growled the radio man. “I suspected him +from the start. Why, he couldn’t talk American without saying ‘already +yet.’ A Hun, sure as shooting.” + +That Rollife himself came from the United States there could be no +doubt. His speech fully betrayed his nationality. + +“He never came near me,” he went on, speaking of his assistant. “He was +some ‘ham,’ anyway! Graduate of one of these correspondence schools of +telegraphy, I guess. His Morse was enough to drive one mad. Let me out, +Dowd. I’ll fix up those aerials and call somebody to our help in short +order.” + +The first officer had accomplished his purpose. The screws were out of +the hinges. Rollife was a big, strong fellow, and he drove his shoulder +against the door with sufficient force the first time to push it outward +at the back. + +Then Mr. Dowd took hold of the edge of the door, and together they +worked out the long nails and threw the useless door on the deck. +Rollife came out into the light of the lantern which Ruth held at one +side. He was a big, fresh-faced man with a square jaw and a direct +glance. + +Ruth was glad to see him. He was such another man as the first officer +of the steamship. If she had to be aboard an abandoned craft in such an +emergency as this, she was glad that her companions were just such men +as these two. She felt that they were resourceful and trustworthy. + +Her mind, however, was by no means at ease. Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife +were much more cheerful than Ruth. And it was not because they were any +more courageous than the girl of the Red Mill. But Ruth thought of +something that did not seem to have made any impression on the men’s +minds. + +What had been the intention of the conspirators in abandoning the ship +with the innocent members of her company? What would naturally be their +expectation regarding the _Admiral Pekhard_, if she had not been put in +condition to sink? If it was a German plot, surely the plotters did not +intend to leave the steamship to drift, unharmed, until some patrol boat +picked her up. + +And the plotters knew the three castaways were on the vessel. What of +the chief officer, the radio man, and Ruth herself? They had all been +left for some purpose, that was sure. What was it? + +Mr. Dowd and she had been allowed their freedom. Only Rollife had been +locked up. And the plotters must have known that in time Ruth or Dowd +would have found means of releasing the radio man. Once released, it was +more than probable Rollife would be able to discover what had been done +to the aerials and repair them. It was quite sure that, before morning, +those abandoned on the _Admiral Pekhard_ would be able to send into the +air an S O S for help. + +There was something that she could not understand—something back of, and +deeper, than the surface-work of the plotters. Perhaps that explosion in +the fireroom had not been meant to injure the ship seriously. It was +merely meant (as it did) to create panic. + +It caused a situation serious enough to alarm the captain and all +aboard. It seemed that all they could do was to flee from a ship that +threatened to sink. + +This situation might have been just what the plotters intended to +create; because they would not wish to remain on the steamship when +actual destruction was coming upon her! + +They had escaped with the other members of the ship’s company. Yet the +steamship drifted in apparent safety. Was there something much more +tragic threatening the _Admiral Pekhard_? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII—BOARDED + + +Rollife was busy with his repairs on the aerials. Dowd was down in the +engine room, or so Ruth supposed, and neither seemed suspicious of any +further happening that would injure them. Rather, they considered +themselves in full charge of a steamship that was in no actual or +present danger. + +Ruth Fielding’s mental vision saw more clearly. There was something else +coming—something far more tragic than anything that had thus far +occurred. + +There might be, hidden somewhere in the cargo-holds, time-bombs set to +explode at a given moment. Her imagination was by no means running away +with her when she visioned such a possibility. + +Surely there was something still to happen to the _Admiral Pekhard._ If +not, why then all the scurry to get away from the ship, the conspirators +themselves included in the stampede? + +Or had the ship’s position been made known to a German submarine and +would the U-boat soon appear to torpedo the British craft? This was not +so far-fetched an idea. Only, the young woman was pretty sure that the +explosion aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ had been advanced in time because +of her own suspicions and the attempt she had made to get Mr. Dowd to +investigate matters which the conspirators did not wish revealed. + +Rollife had taken the lantern and Dowd had gone in search of another, +Ruth presumed. By and by she began to wonder what was engaging the first +officer’s attention for so long, and she went to the engine-room hatch. +Her small electric torch showed her the way. + +To her amazement—and not a little to her fear at first—Ruth found the +first officer lying upon the engine-room ladder. He was wet from head to +foot, his turban of bandages had come off, displaying a bleeding scalp +wound, and he was panting for breath. + +“What has happened to you, Mr. Dowd?” she cried. “Did you fall into the +water?” + +“I dived into it,” explained Dowd, grinning faintly. “That water in the +fireroom didn’t look right to me. I found the seacocks below, there. Two +were open, as I suspected.” + +“Oh!” + +“It was a deliberate attempt to scare us—and it succeeded. I shut off +the cocks. This compartment could be pumped out if we had the men. Of +course, the steam pumps can’t be used. We have no donkey engine on deck. +All the machinery is down there, half under water. + +“There must have been more than Dykman and that man you saw talking to +Miss Lentz, in the plot. Another man in the stoker-crew, perhaps. He +flung a bomb into one of the furnaces after opening the seacocks. It was +a well laid plot, Miss Fielding.” + +“Yes, I know,” she said hastily. “But to what end?” + +“How’s that?” + +“What was the final consideration? Why was this done? They must have +known the ship would not sink. Then, what did they do all this for?” + +“Why—by Jove!” gasped Dowd, “I had not thought of that, Miss Fielding.” + +He crept up the ladder and stood upon the deck, the water running from +the garments that clung closely to his limbs and body. + +“Doesn’t it seem reasonable,” she asked, “that the conspirators, whoever +they were, should have some object rather than the simple desertion of a +vessel that was not likely to sink?” + +“It would seem so,” he admitted, and his tone betrayed as much anxiety +as she felt herself. + +At the moment a shout from Rollife, the radio man, aroused them. + +“I’ve found it!” he cried. + +They went toward the radio room. He was busy in the light of the lantern +on the roof of the house. He had tools and a small plumber’s stove that +he had found. He turned on the blast of the stove and began to weld +certain wires. + +“Can you fix it?” Dowd asked quietly. + +“You bet I can, Mr. Dowd!” declared Rollife. “In half an hour I’ll have +the sparks shooting from those points up there. You watch.” + +Ruth looked at Mr. Dowd. Her unspoken question was: “Shall we take him +into our confidence? Shall we tell him our fears?” + +Before the first officer could answer her unspoken inquiry Ruth’s sharp +eyes glimpsed a light over his shoulder. It was an intermittent sparkle, +and it was low down on the water. She remembered then the light she had +seen for a moment when she had first come on deck after learning that +the ship was abandoned. + +“What is that?” she whispered, pointing. + +Dowd wheeled to look. Instantly she saw by the light of her torch that +he stiffened and his head came up. He gazed off across the water for +quite two minutes. Then he said: + +“It is a light in a small boat I believe. At first I thought it might be +a submarine. But I do not believe a submarine would show anything less +than a searchlight in traveling on the surface at night.” + +“Oh! Who can it be?” murmured Ruth. + +“You put a hard question, Miss Fielding. Surely it cannot be our friends +coming back.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“I mean a boat sent by Captain Hastings to make sure that nobody was +left on the steamship.” + +“Do you consider that likely?” she asked. + +“Well—no, I do not,” he admitted. + +“Then you think it may be people who have not our interest at heart?” +was her quick demand. + +“I am afraid I can give you no encouragement. I cannot imagine Captain +Hastings abandoning the ship without believing she would sink. In the +darkness he must have got so far away that he would think she had gone +down. He would be anxious, you understand, to get his crew and +passengers to land.” + +“Of course. I give him credit for being fairly sane,” she said. + +“On the other hand, who would have any suspicion that the ship would not +sink save those who had brought about the panic?” + +“The Germans!” exclaimed the girl. + +“Exactly. I believe,” said Dowd quietly, “that here come the men who +caused the explosion in the fire room and opened the seacocks. They +purpose to take charge of the _Admiral Pekhard_, of course. If they get +aboard we shall be at their mercy.” + +“Oh, can we stop them? Can we hold them off?” murmured Ruth. + +“I do not know. I am not sure that it would be wise to offer fight. You +see, we shall finally be at their mercy.” + +“If we can’t beat them off!” Ruth exclaimed. “Haven’t you arms aboard?” + +“My dear young lady——” + +“Oh, don’t think of me!” Ruth cried. “Do just what you would do if I +were not here. Wouldn’t you and the radio man fight them?” + +“I think we could put up a pretty good fight,” admitted Dowd +thoughtfully. “There are automatic pistols.” + +“Bring one for me,” commanded Ruth. “I can shoot a pistol. Three of us +might hold off a small boarding party, I should think.” + +“If they mean us harm,” added Dowd. + +“Make them lie off there and wait till morning so that we can see what +they look like,” begged Ruth. + +“That might be attempted.” + +His lack of certainty rankled in the girl’s quick mind. She ejaculated: + +“Surely we can try, Mr. Dowd! There is another thing: the deck guns! Had +you thought of them?” + +“My goodness, no!” admitted the first officer. + +“If we could slue around one of those guns, a single shot might sink the +boat off there. If they are enemies, I mean.” + +“Now you have suggested something, Miss Fielding! Wait! Let me have your +torch. I will take a look at the guns.” + +He ran along the deck to the forward gun. After a minute there he ran +back to the stern, but kept to the runway on the opposite side of the +deck as he passed the girl of the Red Mill. She waited in great +impatience for his return. + +And when he came she saw that something was decidedly wrong. He wagged +his head despairingly. + +“No use,” he said. “Those fellows were sharper than one would think. The +breech-block of each gun is missing.” + +“That light is drawing close, Mr. Dowd!” Ruth exclaimed. “Get the +pistols you spoke of—do!” + +But first Dowd called to the radio man up above them: “Hi, Sparks, see +that boat coming?” + +“What boat?” demanded the other, stopping his work for the moment. Then +he saw the light. “Holy heavens! what’s that?” + +“One of the boats coming back—and not with friends,” said Dowd. + +“Let me get these wires welded and I’ll show ’em!” rejoined Rollife. +“I’ll send a call——” + +At the moment the sudden explosion of a motor engine exhaust startled +them. It was no rowboat advancing toward the _Admiral Pekhard_. Probably +its crew had been rowing quietly so as not to startle those left aboard +the ship. + +“The pistols, Mr. Dowd!” begged Ruth again. + +The first officer departed on a run. Rollife kept at his work with a +running commentary of his opinion of the scoundrels who were +approaching. Suddenly a rifle rang out from the coming launch. + +“Ahoy! Ahoy the steamer!” shouted a voice. “We see your light, and we’ll +shoot at it if you don’t douse it. Quick, now!” + +Another rifle bullet whistled over the head of the radio man. Ruth +removed her thumb from the electric torch switch instantly. But Rollife +refused at first to be driven. + +The next moment, however, a bullet crashed into the lantern on the roof +of the radio house. The flame was snuffed out and the radio man was +feign to slide down from his exposed position. + +Dowd came running from the cabin with the pistols. He gave one to Ruth +and another to Rollife. The latter stepped out from the shelter of the +house and drew bead on the lamp in the approaching launch. Ruth heard +the chatter of the weapon’s hammer—but not a shot was fired! + +“Great guns, Dowd!” shouted the radio man, exasperated. “This gat isn’t +loaded.” + +“Neither is mine!” exclaimed Ruth, who had made a quick examination in +the darkness. + +“Oh, my soul!” groaned the first officer. “I got the wrong weapons!” + +“And no more clips of cartridges? Well, you——” + +There was no use finishing his opinion of Dowd’s uselessness. The motor +boat shot alongside under increased speed. There was a slanting bump, a +grappling iron flew over the rail and caught, and the next moment a man +swarmed up the rope, threw his leg over the rail, and then his head and +face appeared. + +Ruth in her excitement pressed the switch of her electric torch. The ray +of light shot almost directly into the eyes of the first boarder. He was +the flaxen-haired man—the man she believed she had seen hiding in the +small motor boat before the explosion in the steamer’s fire room. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII—THE CONSPIRACY LAID BARE + + +It was too late then for Mr. Dowd to correct his mistake. In the dark he +had gone to the wrong closet in the captain’s chart room. There were +loaded small arms of several kinds in one closet, while in the other +were stored spare arms that were not oiled and loaded and ready for use. + +The flaxen-haired man swarmed over the rail. He had a pistol in his +hand. A moment later another man came up the ladder that had been put +over the rail when the captain’s launch was manned for departure. This +second man bore a powerful electric lamp. + +“Drop that torch and your guns!” he commanded sharply. “Put up your +hands!” + +“It’s Dykman!” muttered Mr. Dowd. “The cut-throat villain!” + +But he obeyed the command. So did Rollife. And could Ruth Fielding do +otherwise? They stood in line with their hands in the air, palms +outward. Dykman crossed the deck with his lamp warily, while the +flaxen-haired man held the three under the muzzle of his pistol. + +“What do you mean by such actions, Dykman?” demanded Dowd angrily. + +“I’ll let you guess that, old man,” said the other. “But I advise you to +do your guessing to yourself. We are in no mood to listen to you.” + +Then he shot a question at the radio man: “Did you get those wires +fixed?” + +“Hanged if I don’t wish I hadn’t touched ’em,” growled the radio man. + +“You’ve sent no message, then?” + +Rollife shook his head. + +“All right. Krueger!” shouted Dykman, who seemed to be in command of the +traitors. + +“I thought so!” muttered Rollife. “That squarehead never did look right +to me.” + +Several other men as well as Krueger came up the ladder. Their dress +proclaimed them seamen or stokers. Ruth wondered if Miss Lentz was with +them. + +She began to feel fearful for herself. What would these rough men do, +now they had possession of the ship? And what would they do to her? That +was the principal query in her mind. Dykman merely patted the pockets of +Dowd and Rollife to make sure they had no other arms. He gave Ruth +slight attention at the moment. + +“I’ll have to lock you fellows in a stateroom,” Dykman said coolly. +“Can’t have you fooling around the ship. You’ll both be taken home in +time and held as war prisoners.” + +“By ‘home’ I suppose you mean Germany!” snorted Rollife. + +“That is exactly what I mean.” + +“But man!” exclaimed Dowd, “you don’t expect to get this ship through +the blockade? And you’ve got to repair the damage your explosion did, +too.” + +“Don’t worry,” grinned Dykman. “She’s not damaged much. We opened +seacocks——” + +“Oh, yes, I found that out,” admitted Dowd. “And I closed them.” + +“Thanks,” said the other coolly. “So much trouble saved us. We’ll get to +work at the pumps. We ought to be clear of the water by morning. Only +one boiler is injured. We can hobble along with the use of the other +boilers, I think.” + +“Man, but you have the brass!” exclaimed Dowd. “Some of these destroyers +will catch you, sure.” + +“We’ll see about that,” grumbled Dykman. “We’ll put you two men where +you will be able to do no harm, at least.” + +“And Miss Fielding?” questioned Dowd quickly. “You will see that she +comes to no harm, Mr. Dykman?” + +“She is rather an awkward prisoner, considering the use we intend to +make of the _Admiral Pekhard_. Women will be much in the way, I assure +you.” + +“But there is Miss Lentz,” murmured Ruth. + +“Miss Lentz? She is not here. She went in the captain’s boat,” the +sub-officer said shortly. “I wish you had gone with her.” + +“It was your fault I did not,” said Ruth boldly. + +“Perhaps,” admitted the German. “But necessity knows no law, Miss +Fielding. It was said you knew too much—or suspected too much. I dislike +making a military prisoner of a woman. But, as I said before, necessity +knows no law. You and Dowd and Rollife had to be separated from Captain +Hastings and the rest of them. There are only a few of us—at present,” +he added. + +“And how the deuce do you expect to augment your crew?” demanded the +chief officer. “You can’t work this ship with so few hands. And you’ve +got none of the engineer’s crew.” + +“I am something of an engineer myself, Mr. Dowd,” returned the other, +smiling with a satisfied air. “We shall have proper assistance before +long.” He hailed Krueger, who had climbed to the roof of the radio +house. “Is everything all right?” + +“Will be shortly, Mr. Boldig,” said the assistant radio man. + +Ruth started. Then “Dykman” was “Boldig,” whose name she had formerly +heard mentioned between Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man. The man +with two names turned upon Ruth. + +“You had better go immediately to your own room, Miss Fielding,” he said +respectfully. “I shall be obliged to lock you in, as I shall Mr. Dowd +and Rollife here. I assure you all,” he added significantly, “that it is +much against my will that you remain prisoners. I would much rather you +had all three gone with the captain. + +“By the way, Dowd, Captain Hastings was told you were in command of this +small motor launch. I am afraid you will have much to explain, later. +And you, too, Rollife.” + +Rollife only growled in reply and Dowd said nothing. When they started +aft with Boldig, Ruth followed. She knew it was useless to object to any +plan the German might have in mind. + +Before they left the deck she heard the spark sputtering at the top of +the radio mast. Krueger was at the instrument, and without doubt he was +sending a call to friends somewhere on the ocean. It would be no S O S +for help in the Continental code, but in a German code, she was sure. + +The jar and thump of the pumps already resounded through the ship. By +the light of Boldig’s electric lamp they went below to the cabin. Ruth +again produced her own torch and found her way to her stateroom, while +Dowd and Rollife went the other way. + +Alone once again, the girl of the Red Mill gave her mind up to a +thorough and searching examination of the situation, and especially her +own position. + +She was the single woman with and in the power of a gang of men who were +not only desperate, but who were of a race whose treatment of women +prisoners had filled the whole civilized world with scorn and loathing. +Ruth wished heartily that Irma Lentz had come back with the motor boat. +She would have felt safer if Miss Lentz had been of the party. + +Ruth realized that neither Dowd or Rollife could come to her help if she +had need of them. They would be locked in their rooms at so great a +distance from hers that they could not even hear her if she screamed! + +One thing she might do. She hastily secured the key that was in the +outside of the stateroom lock and locked the door from the inside. +Scarcely had she done this when Boldig came along the corridor. He +rapped on her door; then coolly tried the knob. + +“Unlock the door and give me the key, Miss Fielding,” he commanded. “I +will lock you in from outside and carry the key myself. Nobody will +disturb you.” + +“No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep the key,” said Ruth +firmly. + +“Come, now! No foolishness!” he said angrily. “Do as you are told.” + +“No. I shall keep the key,” she repeated. + +“Why, you—well,” and he laughed shortly, “I will make sure that you stay +in there, my lady.” + +He went hastily away. Ruth waited in some trepidation. She did not know +what would next happen. She wished heartily that she had a loaded +weapon. She certainly would have used it had need arisen. + +Soon Boldig was back, and he proceeded without another word to her to +nail fast the stateroom door as he had nailed the radio room door. When +this was completed to his satisfaction, he said bitterly: + +“If we feed you at all, Miss Fielding, it will have to be through the +port. _Au revoir_!” + +It was with vast relief that Ruth heard him depart. The thought of +food—or the lack of it—did not at present trouble her mind. + +The steady thump and rattle of the pumps by which the fireroom was being +cleared of water continued to sound in her ears. She laid aside her coat +and hat, for the night was warm. She flashed the pocket lamp upon the +face of her traveling clock. It was already nearly midnight. + +The thought of sleep was repugnant to her. How could she close her eyes +when she did not know what the morning might bring forth? It was not +wholly that she feared personal harm. Not that so much. But there was, +she felt, a conspiracy on foot that might do much harm to the Allied +cause. + +These Germans had played a shrewd game to get possession of the _Admiral +Pekhard_. It was not for the purpose of sinking the transport ship that +they had brought about her abandonment. No, indeed! + +As Boldig—the erstwhile “Dykman”—had intimated, nothing like destroying +the steamship was the intention of the plotters. The rascals had been +very careful not to injure seriously the engines or any other part of +the ship’s mechanism. + +With the fireroom suddenly filling with water after the explosion, the +dampened fires caused such a volume of steam that it was no wonder the +engineer and his force were driven from their stations. As long as the +panic-stricken passengers and terrified crew remained aboard the +_Admiral Pekhard_, undoubtedly it appeared that a hole had been blown +through the outer skin of the ship and that she was on the verge of +sinking. + +Had Mr. Dowd been on deck and in possession of his senses, Ruth was +quite sure that the panic would have been stayed. Captain Hastings was +not a big enough man to handle such a situation as the German plotters +had brought about. He lost his head completely, although he doubtless +had remained on the ship’s deck until every other soul (as he supposed) +was in the small boats. + +The very character of the pompous little skipper had made the success of +the Hun plot possible. All that was passed now, however. Nothing could +be done to avert the successful termination of the conspiracy. Or so it +seemed to the girl of the Red Mill, sitting alone and in the darkness of +her small stateroom. + +After a time she rose and pushed back the blind at her port. She opened +the thick, oval glass window, which was pivoted. She saw the +phosphorescent waves slowly marching past the rolling steamship. + +Suddenly she heard voices. They were of two men talking near the rail +and near her window as well. One was Boldig. He said in German: + +“You have shown yourself to be a good deal of a coward, Guelph. Always +fearful of disaster! Look you: If you _will_ that nothing shall balk us, +no disaster will arrive. It is the _will_ of the German people that will +make them in the end the victors in this war. Remember that, Guelph.” + +The other muttered something about taking unnecessary chances. Boldig at +once declared: + +“No chances. Krueger will pick up the U-714. Have no fear. She is one of +the newest type of cruiser-submarines. She carries the crew arranged to +man this _Admiral Pekhard_. Ha, we will make the Englanders gnash their +teeth in rage!” + +“We shall hope so,” said the other man. Ruth thought it must be the +flaxen-haired fellow; but of this she could not be sure. + +“This will be one of our greatest coups,” went on Boldig. “The cargo +awaits us in a friendly port—you know where. We will sail from thence to +carry supplies to the submarines that will be sent from time to time +from the Belgian bases. She shall be a ‘mother ship’ indeed, and, +lurking out of the lanes of travel, will make long submarine voyages +possible. + +“Ah, we will do much with this old tub of a steamer to increase the +despair of the enemy. Rejoice, Guelph! We shall receive honor and much +gold for this.” + +“Huh!” growled the other, “gold is good, I grant you.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX—TOM CAMERON TAKES A HAND + + +Aside from the two men he had seen shot down upon the after deck of the +Zeppelin, Tom Cameron soon made out that the airplane attack upon the +larger airship must have done other damage. He was glad if this was so. +The regrettable fact that he had killed two men would be offset, in his +mind, if the bullets of the machine gun had made difficult the sailing +of the Zeppelin to London. + +He had seen the chipped and dented rail and deck across which the hail +of machine-gun bullets had swept. He hoped that there had been done some +injury of greater moment than these marks betrayed. And he believed that +there was such injury. + +If not, why was the Zeppelin limping along the airways so slowly through +the fog? The commander of the great machine had been called to the +forward deck, and that not merely for the conning of the ship on its +course, Tom was sure. Suppose he had been the means, after all, of +crippling the Zeppelin? + +The thought filled the young American’s heart with delight. Much as he +was depressed by the death of Ralph Stillinger, the American ace, Tom +could not fail to be overjoyed at the thought of setting the Zeppelin +back in this attempt to reach England. + +The Germans might have to return to their base for repairs. Of course, +Tom was a prisoner, and there was not a chance of his getting away; +still, he could feel delight because of this possibility that roweled +his mind. + +He tried to peer through the thick glass of the window in the forward +closet of the Zeppelin cabin. Mistily he saw the hairy-coated Germans +moving about on the forward deck. He could not recognize the +_ober-leutnant_ who seemed to be in command of the ship; but he saw that +several of the men were at work repairing some of the wire stays that +had been broken. + +As the fog partially cleared for a moment, he was enabled to make out a +box of a house far forward on this first deck. It was probably where the +steering gear was located. Just where the motors and engines were boxed +he did not know. A fellow in that pilot-house—if such it was—might do +something of moment, he told himself. If he could once get there, Tom +Cameron thought, he would make it impossible for the Zeppelin ever to +reach England, unless it drifted there by accident. + +It was a rather dispiriting situation, however, to be locked in this +narrow closet. He had already tried the door and found that it was +secure. Besides, anybody on the deck, by coming close to the window, +could look in and see if he was still imprisoned. + +An hour passed, then another. The Zeppelin’s speed was not increased, +nor did he see the commander in all the time. + +He believed the airship must have drifted out over the sea. + +Although the cabin arrangements on the Zeppelin made the place where Tom +Cameron was confined almost soundproof, the jar and rumble of the ship’s +powerful motors were audible. Now there grew upon his hearing another +sound. It was a note deeper than that of the motors, and of an +organ-like timber. A continuous current of noise, rather pleasant than +otherwise, was this new sound. He could not at first understand what it +meant. + +The fog was still thick about the airship. He believed they had +descended several thousand feet. It was now close to mid-forenoon, and +as a usual thing the fog would have disappeared by this hour over the +land. + +It must be that the Zeppelin had reached the sea. Whatever material +injury she had suffered, the commander had by no means given up his +intention of following out his orders to reach the English coast. + +It was at this point in his ruminations that Tom suddenly became +possessed of a new idea—an explanation of the organ-like sound he heard. +It was the surf on the coast! The ship must be drifting over the French +coastline, and the sound of the surf breaking on the rocks was the sound +he heard. + +Tom possessed a good memory, and he had not been studying maps of the +Western Front daily for nothing. He knew, very well indeed, the country +over which he had flown with poor Ralph Stillinger. + +He had located to a nicety the spot where they mounted into the +fog-cloud to escape the German pursuit-planes. Then had come the +discovery of the Zeppelin beneath, and the catastrophe that had +followed. + +The Zeppelin had been sailing seaward, and was near the coast at the +time Tom had so thrillingly boarded it; and he was sure that if it had +changed its course, this change had been to the southwestward. It was +following the French coast, rather than drifting over Belgium. + +These ruminations were scarcely to the point, however; Tom desired to do +something, not to remain inactive. + +But the time did not seem propitious. He dared not attempt breaking out +of his prison. And although he still had his automatic pistol, he would +be foolish to try to fight this whole German crew. + +He was startled from his reverie by the unlocking of the door and the +odor of warm food. Nor was it “bully beef” or beans, the two staples +that gladden the hearts of the American soldier. + +A meek-looking German private entered with a steaming tureen of ragout, +or stew, a plate of dark bread, and a mug of hot drink. He bowed to Tom +very ceremoniously and placed the tray on the couch. + +“Der gomblements of der commander,” he said, gutturally, and backed out +of the narrow doorway. + +“He’s all right, your commander!” exclaimed Tom impulsively, making for +the fare with all the zest of good appetite. + +The German grinned, and faded out. He closed the door softly. Tom had +already dipped into the stew and found it excellent (and of rabbit) +before it crossed his mind that he had not heard the key click in the +lock of the door. + +He stopped eating to listen. He heard nothing from the outer cabin. + +“But that grinning, simple-looking Heinie may not be as foolish as he +appears. The fellow may have left the door unlocked to trap me,” Tom +muttered. + +He continued to eat the plentiful meal furnished him, while he tried to +think the situation out to a reasonable conclusion. Had the German +forgotten to lock the door? Or was it a scheme to trap him? It already +mystified Tom why he had not been deprived of his pistol. He could not +understand such carelessness. Was the commander of the Zeppelin so +confident that he was both harmless and helpless? + +He remembered that when he was first seized, upon leaping aboard the +aircraft, his captors had shown a strong desire to throw him off the +ship. The commander’s opportune arrival had undoubtedly saved him. + +And here they were feeding him, and treating him very nicely indeed! It +puzzled Tom, if it did not actually breed suspicion in his mind. + +“But then you can’t trust these Huns,” he told himself. “Maybe that chap +is out there now waiting to shoot me if I try to slip out of this little +office.” + +He was not contented to let this question remain in the air. Tom was of +that type of young American who dares. He was ready to take a chance. + +Besides, he had in his heart that desire, already set forth, to do +something to halt the Zeppelin raid over London. And he was serious in +this belief that it was possible for him to do something for the Allied +cause in memory of the brave American ace who had been killed almost at +his side. + +When he had finished the meal he glanced forward through the narrow +window. At the moment there was nobody in sight on the forward deck. Tom +slid along the couch to the door. He put a tentative hand on the knob. + + + + +CHAPTER XX—THE STORM BREAKS + + +He turned the knob very slowly with his left hand. As Tom sat upon the +end of the couch he would be behind the door when he opened it. The +weapon the commander of the Zeppelin had neglected to take from him was +in his right hand, and ready for use. + +He gently drew the door toward him. As he had supposed, it was not +locked. When it was ajar he waited for what might follow. + +Then, through the aperture at the back of the door, he had a view of the +narrow cabin to its very end. Sufficient light entered through the +several windows of clouded glass to show him that there was nobody in +sight. Not even the private who had brought his lunch had lingered here. + +Rising swiftly and with the pistol ready in his hand, the young American +stepped out of the closet in which he had been confined. There was a +small German clock screwed to the wall. It was now almost noon. + +Crouching, ready to leap or run as the case might need, Tom approached +the other end of the cabin. There he could see through the dim pane of +the door, gaining a view of the afterdeck. + +The mystery of the absence of all life forward was instantly explained. +More than a dozen of the crew and officers were gathered on the +afterdeck. They stood in a row along the deck, their heads bared, while +the _ober-leutnant_ read from a book. + +Tom realized almost at once what the scene meant, and he shrank back +from the door. The crew could not hear, of course, the words the officer +pronounced; but they were all probably familiar with the service for the +dead in the Prayer Book. + +Somehow the ceremony affected Tom Cameron strongly. At the feet of the +row of men were laid two bodies lashed in a covering, or shroud. They +were the men mowed down by the machine gun which Tom himself had +manipulated from the American airplane. + +The Germans are sentimentalists, it must be confessed. They would take +time on their way to raid an enemy city from the air in a most cowardly +fashion, to read the burial service over their comrades. + +For the airship was over the sea now, and, as though from the deck of a +sailing ship, the dead bodies could be slid into the water. But the +height from which they would fall was much greater than on any ocean +vessel. + +The book was closed. Two bearers at the head and two at the feet of each +corpse raised them on narrow stretchers, the foot-ends of which were +rested upon the rail. A gesture from the officer, and the stretchers +were tipped. The bodies slid quietly over the rail and disappeared. + +The officer put the Prayer Book in his pocket and adjusted his helmet +and goggles. The men with him followed suit. He dismissed them, and +almost at once the throbbing of the motors was increased. + +Tom Cameron ran back to the closet and shut himself in. He felt sure the +commander would come through the cabin to the forward deck. However, the +German did not try the knob of the closet door. + +Tom saw him pass along the deck to the pilot house, facing the stiff +gale. His garments blew about him furiously, and it seemed that the wind +had suddenly increased in violence. + +The course of the airship was changed. Tom knew that, for the next time +a German passed along the deck he saw that his coat-tails flapped +sideways. The Zeppelin was being steered across the course of the gale. + +If he could only get to the steering gear and do something to it—wreck +it in some way, at least, put it out of commission for a while. What +would happen to him did not matter. Tom Cameron had been taking chances +for some time. + +He could feel the Zeppelin stagger under the beating of the fierce gale. +There was a black cloud just ahead of the flying craft. Suddenly this +cloud was striped again and again with yellow lightning. + +Then how it did rain! The downpour slanted across the airship, beating +in waves, like those of a troubled sea, against the cabin framework. Tom +felt the whole structure rock and tremble. + +He felt that the ship was rising. The commander purposed to get above +this electric storm. Again and again the lightning flashed. It ran along +the wires, limning each stay luridly. + +In addition Tom began to feel the creeping cold of the higher atmosphere +searching through his clothing. He buttoned his leather coat and looked +about for something of additional warmth. The cold was seeping right +into the closet around the window frame. + +Then it was that Tom found the blanket. He lifted the cushion on the +bench by chance, and there it was, neatly folded. This closet must be +used at times for a sleeping place. + +He could barely see what he was about, for it had grown black outside. +Only the recurrent flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. And that +scene, when he stared through the window, was wild indeed. + +Tom put on his helmet and the goggles fastened thereto and wrapped +himself in the blanket. He lay down with his head close to the window. +Slowly the Zeppelin was rising above the tempest. By and by the last +whisps of the storm-cloud disappeared; but the gale still thundered +through the wire stays of the ship and buffeted the great envelope above +the swinging cabin and bridges. + +“Such a craft might be easily torn to pieces by the wind!” The thought +was not cheering, and Tom put it aside as he did all other depressing +ideas. + +It seemed to him that he had already gone through so much that his life +was charmed. At least, he never felt less fear than he did at the +present time. + +The sharp gale continued. The Zeppelin had risen much higher, but it +could not get above the wind-storm. Although it may have been steering +to a nicety, he was sure that the huge craft was drifting off her course +to a considerable degree. + +After a couple of hours the commander of the Zeppelin came back from the +pilot-house. He saw Tom’s face pressed close to the window and waved his +hand. + +When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back to the door and opened it a +narrow crack. The _ober-leutnant_ went right through the cabin and +disappeared. + +Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the scheme which had been slowly +forming in his mind? Was the moment propitious? + +The young American hesitated. It meant peril—perhaps death—for him, +whether he succeeded or failed. He knew that well enough. Such an +attempt as he purposed might only be bred of desperation. + +He tore off the helmet and goggles which had masked him. He rolled the +blanket and laid it along the bench as his own body had lain. On to the +end of the roll next the window he pulled the helmet and arranged the +goggles so that a glance through the window would show a man lying +apparently asleep on the cushioned bench. + +Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color over his head and prepared to +steal out of the closet, his pistol in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI—THE WRECK + + +Youth is fain to be reckless, but there was no lack of reasoning behind +Tom Cameron’s intention. + +He was a prisoner on this airship which was bound on a raid over London. +If the Zeppelin was not brought down and wrecked on English soil, she +would return to her base and Tom would be sent to a German internment +camp for the duration of the war. + +Imprisonment by the Hun was not a desirable fate to contemplate. If the +Zeppelin was brought down during the raid over London, he would very +likely be killed in its fall. He might as well risk death now, and +perhaps in doing so deliver a stroke that would make this raid +impossible. + +He slipped out of the closet in which he had been confined and closed +the door behind him. He ran quickly to the after door of the long cabin, +which he had previously seen could be fastened upon the inside by a +bolt. He shot this bolt, and then ran forward again and opened the door +to the deck. + +The wind almost took his breath. He was obliged to force the door shut +again with his shoulder, and stood panting to recover himself. There was +some considerable risk in facing the gale outside there. + +It was impressed upon his mind more clearly now what it would mean if +the Zeppelin could no longer be steered. This gale would sweep the +airship down the English Channel and directly out into the Atlantic! + +As this thought smoldered in his mind, others took fire from it. He +faced a desperate venture. + +If he carried through his purpose, with the Germans manning this airship +he would be swept to a lingering but almost certain death. + +The airship could not keep afloat for many hours. It took a deal of +petrol to drive the huge machine from its base to England and back +again. The store of fuel must be exhausted in a comparatively short +time, and the Zeppelin would slowly settle to the surface of the sea. + +Under these conditions he was pretty sure to be drowned, even if the +Germans did not kill him immediately. He thought of his sister Helen—of +his father—of Ruth Fielding. Already, perhaps, the loss of Ralph +Stillinger and the airplane was known behind the French and British +lines. Helen must learn of the catastrophe in time. Ruth might hear of +the wreck of the airplane before she sailed for home. + +Thought of the girl of the Red Mill well nigh unmanned Tom Cameron for a +moment. To attempt to carry through the scheme he had plotted in his +mind was, very likely, hastening his own death. Had he a right to do +this? + +It was a hard question to decide. Personal fear did not enter into the +matter at all. The question was whether he owed his first duty to his +family and Ruth or to the cause which he and every other right-thinking +American had subscribed to when the United States got into this World +War. + +That was the point! Tom Cameron sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and +again opened the door which gave egress to the forward deck of the +German airship. + +He pulled the door shut and breasted the cutting wind that rocked the +airship as though she were in a heavy sea. He scrambled somehow along +the deck to the pilot-house. There was a square of the same clouded +glass in the door of this room. Through it he saw the shadow of a man +with a row of instruments before him as well as several levers under his +hand. + +Tom had very little idea regarding the exact use of either the levers or +the instruments. But he knew that he could put the Zeppelin out of +commission with a few smashing blows if once he could get this man out +of the way. + +This whole forward part of the ship seemed deserted save for the man +inside the room. Of course, the helmsman, or whatever he was called, +must be in communication with all other parts of the great aircraft. If +Tom would put his determination into practice he must overcome this +man—and that quickly. + +He opened the door. The man was aware of his presence, for the roar of +the wind and the throbbing of the motors immediately reached the +German’s ears more acutely. Tom saw him turn his head to look over his +shoulder. + +The young American had gripped his pistol by the barrel. He raised it +and with all his force brought the weapon’s butt down on the padded +helmet the man wore. Again and again he struck, while the fellow wheeled +about and tried to grapple with him. + +Tom broke the German’s goggles and the face before him was at once +bathed in blood. Again and again he struck. The man sunk to his +knees—then supinely to the deck, lying across the threshold of the room. + +The American strode over him and looked swiftly about the hut. In a +corner was fastened an iron bar. He seized it, and with repeated blows +smashed the clock-faces and more delicate instruments, as well as +beating the levers into a twisted wreck. + +The Zeppelin lurched sideways, rolled, and then righted itself. But it +lost headway and Tom felt sure that it would drift now at the mercy of +the furious gale. He had accomplished his purpose. + +But he had the result of his act to face. The other members of the crew +of the Zeppelin would be warned of the catastrophe almost immediately. +They would soon break through the door of the cabin and reach the +forward deck. + +He stepped out of the wrecked hut and glanced back. Already the roar of +the motors was subsiding. He surely had put the whole works out of +commission. + +Tom scrambled around the pilot-house into the extreme bow of the craft. +Here was a waist-high bin, or storage box, with a hinged cover. He +opened it and looked in. It seemed roomy, and there were only some cans +and boxes in the receptacle. In a flash he jumped in, lowered the cover, +and crouched there in the darkness. + +What went on after that he could neither see nor hear. But he could feel +the pitching and rolling of the damaged Zeppelin! He knew, too, by that +peculiar sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach that attends such a +swift passage downward, that the ship was rapidly falling. + +This lasted only for a few moments. Then the airship found a steadier +keel. It had not begun to spin as a biplane or a monoplane would have +done. In some way her descent had been stopped and her balance +recovered. But her motors had stopped entirely, and that meant that the +wind was driving her as it pleased. + +With the cessation of the motors his ear became tuned to other +sounds—the shrieking of the wind through the stays and the thumping of +its blasts upon the elephant-like envelope. Nor was the passage the +craft made a smooth one. + +Now and again it pitched as though about to dive into the sea. This sea +was roaring, too—a monotone of sound that could not be mistaken. The +aircraft was at the mercy of the elements. + +He crouched in the box, quite ready to spring up and empty his pistol +into the faces of any of his enemies who lifted the cover. But for some +reason they did not track him here. + +It could not be possible that they were long mystified as to who had +done the deed. The figure he had laid upon the bench in the little room +at the end of the closet would not have long led them astray. He had +brought about the disaster and the thought of it delighted him. + +No matter what finally became of him, he had stopped this Zeppelin from +ever reaching the English shore! There was one cruel raid over London +halted in the very beginning. He could have shouted aloud in his +delight. + +He thrust up the heavy cover of the box and cocked his ear to listen for +near-by sounds. There was considerable hammering and boisterous talk +going on, the sound of which he caught from moment to moment. But it was +mostly smothered in the roar of the waves and the shrieking of the wind. + +They were very near the surface of the boisterous sea. He heard the +bursting of a wave below the airship and the spray of it, tossed high in +the air, swept across the structure and showered him as he crouched +under the open box lid. In a minute or two now, the Zeppelin would be a +hopeless wreck. + +It came, indeed, more quickly than he had apprehended. There was a +sudden dip, and the craft was swerved half around with a mighty wrench +of parting stays and superstructure. A wave dashed completely over the +platform. He shut the cover of the box to keep out the water. + +The next few minutes were indeed disastrous ones. He was in a sorry +situation. He did not know what was happening to the other castaways, +but he felt and heard the frame of the great airship being wrenched to +pieces by the ravenous sea. + +The envelope boomed and tore at the frame for freedom. At last it must +have been wrenched free by the wind, and the sound of its booming and +clashing gradually drifted away. The box he was in rocked and pitched +like a small boat in the sea. He ventured to look out again, clearing +his eyes of the salt spray. + +It was already evening. There was a lurid light upon the tossing waves. +Near him was a mass of twisted framework and a barge-like hulk that rode +high. Upon it he saw clinging several wind-swept figures. + +Then the sea tore the bow of the forward deck of the Zeppelin entirely +free from the rest of the structure. Tom Cameron went drifting off to +leeward in his uncertain refuge. + +The tumbling sea separated him from the Germans. Perhaps it was as well. + +As his raft rose upon a wave he looked back into the deep trough and saw +the remains of the airship turning slowly, around and around, as though +being drawn down into the vortex of a whirlpool. His lighter craft shot +downward into the next valley, and that was the last glimpse Tom had of +the wrecked Zeppelin and its crew. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII—ADRIFT + + +Ruth Fielding did not close her eyes all that trying night. Morning +found her as wakeful in her stateroom as when she had been nailed into +it by Boldig, the leader of the German mutineers. + +The situation of the _Admiral Pekhard_ was not difficult; and although +she was without steerage-way she was in no danger. There was a heavy +swell on from a storm that had passed somewhere to the northward; but +the night remained quite calm, if dark. + +The thumping of the pumps continued until dawn. Then the water was +evidently cleared from the fireroom, and the men could go to work +cleaning the grates and making ready to lay new fires in all but the +damaged boiler. + +There was much to do about the engine, however, to delay the putting of +the ship under steam. The water, rising as high as it had, had seeped +into the machinery and must be wiped out and the parts thoroughly oiled. + +Thus far the signals by radio had not been answered by the approach of +the submarine that Boldig had reason to expect. As Ruth had heard him +boast, the big German submarine, No. 714, must be lurking near, awaiting +news of the British steamship from Brest. + +The Germans had taken a big chance. Of course, the ship and the +submersible might not meet at all. Instead, a patrol boat might hail the +_Admiral Pekhard_, or catch her wireless calls. The Germans would be in +trouble then without doubt. + +Of course they had the motor boat in which they had got away from the +ship in the first place. They could pile into that and make for some +port where they knew they had friends. There were such ports to the +south, for Spain was not as successfully neutral as her government would +have liked to be. German propaganda was active in that country. + +Ruth was not in much fear at present as to her own treatment. The +mutineers had their hands full. What would finally happen to her if the +Germans carried their plans to fulfilment, was a question she dared not +contemplate. + +Dowd and Rollife she presumed would be removed to the submarine and +taken back to Germany—if the submarine ever reached her base again. But +there were no provisions on submarines, she very well knew, for +women—prisoners or otherwise. + +This uncertainty, although she tried to crowd the thought down, brought +her to the verge of despair when she allowed the topic to get possession +of her mind. And she despaired of Tom Cameron, as well. What had become +of him—if he was the passenger the unfortunate Ralph Stillinger had +taken up into the air with him on his last flight? + +Had Tom really been killed? Had Helen learned his fate by this time? +Ruth wished she was back in Paris with her chum that they might +institute a search for Tom Cameron. + +Nor was the girl of the Red Mill free from worry regarding those at +home. Uncle Jabez’s letter, which she had received before leaving the +hospital, had filled her heart with forebodings. She had written at once +to assure him and Aunt Alvirah that she was returning soon. + +But now the time of that return seemed very doubtful indeed. If she was +sent to Germany as a prisoner—or kept aboard this steamship which the +Germans intended to make into a “mother ship” for U-boats—it might be +long months, even years, before she reached home. + +Tom had said the war would soon be over; but there was no surety of +that. It was only a hope. Ruth might never again see the dear little old +woman whose murmured complaint of, “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” had +become the familiar quotation of Ruth and her young friends. + +Aunt Alvirah was dear to Ruth. The girl desired more strongly than ever +before in her life to be with the poor old woman again. + +She could no longer hear the snapping of the radio, now that daylight +had come. Either Krueger, the assistant and traitorous radio operator, +had managed to communicate with the commander of the German U-boat 714, +or further effort to this end was considered useless now. Another +attempt might be made again when night came. Ruth knew it to be a fact +that the German submersibles seldom rose to the surface of the sea and +put up their radio masts except at night. + +It was during the dark hours that those sharks of the sea received +orders from Nauen, the great German radio station, and communicated with +each other, as well as with such supply ships as might be working in +conjunction with the submarines. + +If these mutineers were successful in carrying out their plan, and made +a junction with the U-boat that carried a crew to supplement those +Germans already aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, the enemy might succeed in +putting into commission a craft that would greatly aid in the submarine +warfare. + +Thus far it had been so daringly conceived and well carried through that +the conspiracy promised to rise to one of the very greatest German +intrigues of the war. Its final success, however, rested on time and +place. The submarine and the stolen steamer must come together soon, or +the latter would surely run across one of the innumerable patrol ships +with which the Allies were scouring this part of the Atlantic. + +It was noon before the beat of the _Admiral Pekhard’s_ propellers +announced that she was again under control. The rolling motion that had +finally become nauseating to even as good a sailor as Ruth, was now +overcome. The ship plowed through the sea steadily, if slowly. + +Occasionally the girl heard a footstep pass her stateroom window; but +she kept the port nearly closed so that nobody could peer in. Some time +after the screw had started a man came and knocked on the pane. + +She smelled coffee and heard the rattle of dishes; so she opened the +window. + +The man thrust in to her a pot of coffee and a platter of ham and +eggs—coarse fare, but welcome, for Ruth found she had a robust appetite. +She placed a piece of silver in the man’s palm and heard a muttered +“Thank you!” in German. + +She felt that it might be well to make a friend among the mutineers if +she could do so. + +It was not long after she was fed that another footstep halted at her +open port. The voice of Boldig, the recreant officer of the ship came to +her ear. + +“Do you want anything, Miss Fielding?” he asked. + +At first she would not speak; but when he repeated his question, adding: + +“You know, I can draw those nails in your door as well as I could hammer +them in,” she hastened to reply: + +“I want nothing.” + +He laughed most disagreeably. “You might as well be good natured about +it, my dear,” he said. “No knowing how long we shall be shipmates. I am +quite sure the commander of the submersible will not take _you_ aboard +his craft; so I fear you are apt to remain with us.” + +She said nothing. The threat was only what she had feared. What could +she do or say? She was adrift on a sea of circumstances more terrifying +than the ocean itself. + +Boldig went away laughing; she threw herself upon her berth, trembling +and weeping. All her spirit was broken now; she could not control the +fears that possessed her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII—AT THE MOMENT OF NEED + + +The bravest and most cheerful person will come after a time to a point +where he or she can bear no more with high courage. Nerves and will had +both given way in Ruth Fielding’s case. For an hour or more she was +merely a very ill, very much frightened young woman. + +The injury she had suffered when the Clair hospital was bombed—that +injury which still troubled her physically—had naturally helped +undermine her wonderful courage and self-possession. The news from +Charlie Bragg of Tom Cameron’s possible disaster had likewise shaken +her. What had happened aboard this steamship during the past twenty-four +hours had completed her undoing. + +Ruth Fielding had an unwavering trust in a Higher Power that guides and +guards; but she was no supine believer in what one preacher of a robust +doctrine has termed “leaving and loafing.” She considered it eminently +fit, while leaving results with the Almighty, to do all that she could +to bring things out right herself. + +Therefore she did not wholly give way to either aches or pains or to the +feeling of helplessness that had come over her. Not for long did she +lose courage. + +She got off her bed, closed the window, and proceeded to make a fresh +toilet. Meanwhile she considered how she might barricade her door if +Boldig removed the nails and attempted to enter the stateroom against +her will. Of course, the lock could easily be smashed. + +She finally saw how she might move the bed between the door and the +washstand, so that the latter would brace the bed in such a way that the +door could not be forced inward. She could sleep in the bed in that +position, and she decided to take this precaution. + +That was in case Boldig removed the spikes holding fast her door. Now +that she had considered the matter from every side, she was not sure but +she desired to have the German officer release her—no matter what his +reason might be for so doing. + +She must, however, gain something else first. Her wit must win what her +physical force might not. She bided her time till evening. + +Again the man came to her window with food. It proved to be another +platter of ham and eggs, flanked this time with a pot of wretched tea. + +“Goodness!” exclaimed Ruth, “is ham and eggs all you know how to cook? I +shall be squealing, or clucking pretty soon. Is there nothing else to +eat aboard?” + +“Ain’t no cook, Miss,” the man said. “We’re all so busy, anyway, that we +just have to get what we can quickly. I’m sorry,” for she had dropped +another half-dollar into his palm. + +“Is there nobody to cook for you hard-working men?” repeated Ruth +briskly. “How many of you are there?” + +“Eleven, Miss, counting Mr. Boldig.” + +“Why, that’s not so many. And you feed Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife, of +course?” + +“They haven’t had as much as you, Miss. Mr. Boldig said they could stand +a little fasting, anyway. We haven’t had any decent grub ourselves.” + +“I could cook for you!” Ruth cried eagerly. “I’ll do it, too, if you men +want me to. I’d rather do that than be shut up here all the time. +And—then—I’d like a change from ham and eggs,” and she laughed. + +“Yes, ma’am. I s’pected you would. But I don’t see——” + +“You tell the other men what I say—that I would cook for you all if I +were let out of here. But I must be guaranteed that you will not harm me +if I do this.” + +“Who’d want to harm you, Miss?” returned the man, with some sharpness. + +“I don’t know that anybody would. I am sure if I worked for you, and +cooked for you, you would not see any of your mates hurt me?” + +“No, indeed, Miss,” said the fellow warmly. “Nor anybody else. I’ll tell +the other boys. And I’ll speak to Mr. Boldig——” + +“Send him here,” interrupted Ruth quickly. “Tell him I want to speak to +him. But you speak to your mates and tell them what I am willing to do. +If I cook for you I want ‘safe conduct.’” + +“Of course, ma’am. Nobody shall hurt you. And I’ll tell Mr. Boldig to +come.” + +Within half an hour she heard Boldig’s quick step upon the deck. He +barked in at the open window: + +“What’s this you are up to, Miss Fielding? You’ll set my men all by the +ears. You are a dangerous character, I believe. What do you mean by +telling them you will cook for them if I let you out of your room?” + +Ruth thought he was not so angry as he made out to be. She said boldly: + +“I am willing to earn the good will of the men in that way, Mr. Boldig. +You know why I do it. I shall appeal to them if you undertake to treat +me in any way unbecoming your position as a gentleman and an officer.” + +“You have a small opinion of me, Miss Fielding!” he exclaimed. + +“That is your fault, not mine,” she told him coolly. “And I hope you +will show me that I am wrong.” + +He went away without further word, and in a little while she heard +somebody drawing the nails from the doorframe. + +“Who is that?” she asked before she unlocked the door. + +“It’s me, ma’am,” said the rather drawling voice of the man Boldig +called “Fritz.” + +He did not seem to be a typical German at least. When Ruth opened her +door she found the man to be rather a simple-looking fellow. He grinned +and touched his forelock. + +“I’m to show you where they cook, Miss, and how to find the mess tins +and all. There’s a good fire in one of the galley ranges. The boys is +all your friends, Miss. You needn’t be afraid of us.” + +“I am not at all afraid of you, Fritz,” she said, smiling at him. “I +count you as my friend aboard here, if nobody else is.” + +“Sure you can count on me, Miss. You know,” he added confidentially, “I +ain’t a reg’lar German. Not like Mr. Boldig and these other fellers. I +was born in Boston, and I’d rather be right there now than over on this +side of the pond. But you needn’t tell anybody I said so.” + +“I won’t say anything about it,” she told him, following him through the +passages toward the steward’s and cook’s quarters. “But why, then, if +your heart is not in this business, why did you join in the expedition +to take charge of the _Admiral Pekhard?_” + +“Their money, Miss,” Fritz told her. “There’s a heap of money in it. +When I finish the voyage, though, I’m going to get back to the States. +I’m through with all this then. I’ll have money enough to open a shop of +my own.” + +“And do you suppose you will be welcome at home, when people know of +your treachery?” asked Ruth indignantly. + +“No, Miss. I won’t be welcome if they know it. But they won’t. I ain’t +fool enough to tell ’em.” + +In ten minutes Ruth had learned all that was necessary for her to know +about the cooking quarters and the tools she had to work with. There was +a good fire, as Fritz had said, and she at once went to work on baking +powder biscuit—and she made a heap of them. She knew that thirteen men +(counting the two prisoners aft) could eat a lot of bread. In the cold +storage room was fresh meat and plenty of bacon and ham. She had to work +alone, for the Germans had all they could do to steer the ship, keep +lookout, stoke the fires and run the engines properly. She wondered that +they got any sleep at all, and Fritz admitted to her that they were only +allowed two hours’ relief at a time. + +Boldig was a driver; but he was just the sort of man to head such a +piratical expedition as this. He worked hard himself, and knew how to +get every ounce of work possible out of those under him. + +He looked in at Ruth working in the kitchen, and spoke quite nicely to +her. Perhaps the great plate of biscuits, pork chops, and French fried +potatoes she gave him to take up to the wheelhouse, caused him to +consider her wishes to a degree. + +Later she insisted that Mr. Dowd and Rollife, the radio man, should have +their share. She made one of the men go to Boldig for the keys to their +rooms, and she piled a tray high with good things for the prisoners to +eat. Boldig would not let her go herself to the men in durance. He would +not trust her to talk with them. + +She washed her dishes, banked her fire, and laid out what she purposed +to cook for breakfast. Then, very tired indeed and with the lame +shoulder fairly “jumping,” she retired to her stateroom. It was then ten +o’clock, and having had no sleep at all the night before Ruth was +desperately tired. + +She entered her room, locked the door, and pushed the bed as she had +planned between the door and the stationary washstand. Then she went to +bed, feeling that she would be safe. + +But nobody had to wake her in the morning. The sea had become rough over +night, and at the slow pace she was traveling the _Admiral Pekhard_ +rolled a good deal in the roughening waves. + +Ruth awoke with a bright idea in her head, and she proceeded to put it +into execution as soon as she got the men’s breakfast out of the way. +For Boldig and the chief officer and radio man, as well as herself, she +had some of Aunt Alvirah’s griddle cakes with eggs and bacon. Between +two of the cakes she put on one of the plates for the imprisoned men, +she slipped a paper on which she had written before leaving her +stateroom: + + “I am free while I do the cooking. I can get to your rooms if I only + had keys to free you. Tell me what to do. R. F.” + +She had given her word to Boldig to do no harm; but she did not think +this was breaking her word. It might be possible for Mr. Dowd, Rollife +and herself to get free—even free of the ship. The motor boat was still +trailing the steamship, although if the sea became much rougher she +presumed the mutineers would have to find some means of getting the +launch inboard. + +Half an hour later Boldig came into the galley, his face aflame. He +slapped down the piece of paper she had written her note on before Ruth, +and glared at her. + +“It is impossible to trust a woman!” he growled. “Did you suppose I +would let you send food to those fellows without examining it myself? I +am not so foolish. Now, my lady, you shall keep on cooking; but your +friends aft there can go without anything fancy. I’ll take them what I +please hereafter.” + +He turned on his heel and whipped out of the place. Ruth was almost in +tears. And they were not inspired by terror, although she had been +startled by the man’s words and look. It seemed that she was not to be +able to aid her friends—or herself—to escape. + +Yet, even in her grief and in the midst of her worry, a gleam of +amusement came to her at Boldig’s, “It is impossible to trust a woman.” +This from a traitor—a person impossible to trust! + +But even Fritz had not much to say to her when he came to help peel +vegetables for the men’s dinner. He admitted to her that thus far +Krueger had not been able to pick up any word from the submersible that +had been engaged to meet the pirates if they accomplished their part of +the plot—which they had. The radio was crackling most of the day, +showing that the leaders of the mutineers were getting anxious. + +After she had cleared up the dinner dishes (and that was no easy work, +because of her lame shoulder) Ruth went and lay down. She took the +trouble to brace the bedstead against the washstand as before. Some time +after she had fallen asleep she was awakened by a noise at the door. She +awoke with her gaze fastened on the knob, and was sure it was being +turned. But the door was locked as well as barricaded. + +Before she could be positive that anybody was there who meant her harm, +there was a sudden hail from the open deck. She heard several men +running. Then a shout in German: + +“Mr. Boldig! It is a man afloat! Man overboard!” + +Ruth thought she heard somebody run from her door. + +She arose and tremblingly put on her dress. Then she hastened to pull +aside the bed and open her door. She felt that she was safer out upon +deck. Besides, she was curious to know what the cry had meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV—COUNTERPLOT + + +To one who had been more than forty-eight hours drifting in a +scuttle-butt in mid-Atlantic, the sight of almost any kind of craft +would have been welcome. Tom Cameron hailed first the plume of drifting +smoke, then the mast and stacks, and then the high, camouflaged bow of +the _Admiral Pekhard_ with a joy that increased deliriously as he became +assured that the ship was steaming head-on to his poor raft. + +The steamship was moving very slowly, and it was hours before, waving +his coat frantically as he stood in his bobbing craft, he knew he had +been sighted by the lookout. The latter had not expected to see anything +like Tom and the remains of the wrecked Zeppelin in these waters. The +lookout had been straining his eyes to catch sight of a periscope. + +It was providential that the course of the _Admiral Pekhard_ was +bringing her almost directly toward the drifting bit of wreckage. She +was almost on top of Tom before the lookout hailed and Boldig ran up to +the bridge to get a better look at the object which had caused the +excitement. + +“That is no part of an underseas boat!” cried Boldig to the lookout. +“What is it?” + +“There is a man in it—see! He waves his coat. It looks like a boat—no! +It is one mystery, Herr Boldig.” + +But the latter now had his glasses fixed on the drifting raft. He saw +the broken stays, the slipper-shaped bow of the Zeppelin, and he +suddenly understood. It was not the first wreck of a Zeppelin’s frame +work that he had seen floating in the sea; but it was the first in which +he had seen a living man. + +Boldig himself hailed—hailed in German. And fortunately for Tom Cameron +he replied in the same language. His accent was irreproachable. Had it +not been, the German officer might have thought twice about attempting +to rescue the lone castaway. + +The young American had no idea at first that this was a German-manned +steamship—that she had been boldly taken over on the high seas by a gang +of German pirates. Yet he was sharp enough to realize almost at once +that there was something wrong with her. + +No passengers on her decks, no officers on her bridge until this one +hailed him, and no crew along her waist watching him. Besides she was +coming along at such a crippled gait. + +He knew she must be a passenger ship, and the Union Jack at her masthead +showed her nationality. But where was she going and why was she not +convoyed? + +Tom had already seen the smoke of several destroyers or converted +trawlers, but had not been himself sighted by their lookouts. This was +his first chance of rescue, and he was not at all particular just then +who the people were aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, as he saw she was +named. With that name and under that flag she must be a British ship. As +he was drifting in a part of a German Zeppelin, he naturally expected to +be taken aboard as a prisoner. Yet he did or said nothing to reveal his +true identity for the time being. If they wished to think him a German +at first, all right; explanations could come later. + +Boldig called three men to man the motor boat that trailed astern. He +had to stop the ship’s engines to do this, for steam could not be kept +up without the small force of stokers at his command working at top +speed through their entire watch. The whole crew were almost exhausted. +Those whose watch it was below at this time must be allowed to sleep to +recover their strength. It was a ticklish situation in more ways than +one. + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ began to roll in the trough of the sea. As she +rolled toward him Tom could better see her deck and upperworks. He +marked a woman’s figure come out of the after companion on the upper +deck. She stood there alone and shaded her eyes with her hand as she +looked off at him. + +The siege Tom Cameron had been through since the Zeppelin was wrecked +had racked his body a good deal, but by no means had it weakened his +mind. He was sure there was something wrong with this craft. The three +men were an hour in tuning up the motor-boat engine and getting that +craft near enough to his raft to take Tom aboard. + +The latter saw that neither of the three men was an officer. One was +Fritz, and he spoke to the castaway in English. But Tom was wary. There +was a flaxen-haired, big-bodied fellow who glowered at him and spoke +nothing but German. + +“You fell with an airship—yes?” this man asked, and Tom nodded. + +The American had done secret service work behind the German lines on one +occasion. There he had assumed the character of a Prussian military +officer, and gradually he took on the attitude that he had used +familiarly at that time. His speech and appearance bore out the claim he +meant to make if these people proved to be Germans, as he more than half +suspected. How the Germans ever got control of a British ship was a +mystery! + +Boldig met Tom Cameron at the rail when he came up the captain’s ladder. +He offered a hand that the American was forced to accept. + +“You have the good fortune to escape both peril by air and sea, _Mein +Herr?_” said Boldig. “Your companions?” + +“Are gone,” Tom replied in German, shaking his head. “I am of all, the +lone fortunate. ‘The survival of the fit’—is it not so? We were bound +for London. Because I had lived there much, I was to pilot _Herr +Leutnant-Commander_ over the city!” + +“Ah!” said Boldig. “I thought you did not seem entirely German.” + +“It is the heart that counts, is it not?” Tom returned. + +He knew this arrogant-looking man must be a German through and through. +The British flag flying over the ship did not reassure him. He had +ventured his story of being the Zeppelin pilot as a bit of camouflage. +If he was mistaken—if this was an honest vessel and crew—he carried +papers in his money belt that would explain who he really was. + +“And you, _Mein Herr?_” Tom asked with a gesture indicating the _Admiral +Pekhard’s_ empty decks. + +“Our story you shall learn later,” said Boldig. “But rest assured. You +are among friends.” + +He hastened to show the flaxen-haired man and Fritz how properly to pay +off the line holding the motor boat in trail. The engines started again, +and the ship began to pull ahead. + +Tom, standing upon the after deck, gazed quietly around him. He felt +that the situation was strained. There was something threatening in the +pose of Boldig after all. This was no tramp steam freighter with half a +crew. No, indeed! She was a well found and well furnished passenger +craft. Where were the crew and passengers that should be aboard of her? + +And just then he saw a white hand beckoning at the after cabin +companionway. He remembered the woman he had observed from the wreck of +the Zeppelin standing at that doorway. Swiftly Tom crossed the deck +behind Boldig’s back and reached the door which was open more than a +crack. + +The hand seized his own. The touch thrilled him before he heard her +voice or caught a glimpse of Ruth Fielding’s face. + +“Tom! Tom Cameron!” she murmured. “You are saved and have been sent to +me.” + +“Ruth!” He almost fell down the stairway to reach her. He took her in +his arms with such ardor that she could not escape. In that moment of +reunion and relief she met his lips with as frank and warm a kiss as +though she had really been his sister. + +“Tom! Dear Tom!” she murmured. + +“Great heavens, Ruth! how did you come here? What is the meaning of this +business? Those Germans out there——?” + +“And there are only two faithful men aboard—the first officer and the +radio chief. Both locked in their rooms, Tom. We are four against eleven +of these pirates!” + +“Pirates!” + +“No less,” the girl hastened to say. “I cannot tell you all now. The +others escaped in the small boats; but Mr. Dowd, Mr. Rollife, and I were +left. Then the German members of the crew, and this officer, Boldig, +came back and took the ship. They expect a big submarine with an extra +crew to pick them up.” + +“What under the sun——” + +“Oh!” gasped Ruth, hearing Boldig outside. “Here he comes! He has been +so brutal—so disgusting! Oh, Tom!” + +Her friend wheeled and leaped up the stair again. As he went he drew the +automatic pistol from his bosom where he had hidden it and kept it dry. +As Boldig thrust back the door Tom pushed the muzzle of his weapon +against the man’s breast. + +“Up with your hands!” Tom commanded. “Quick!” + +Boldig fell back a pace. Tom followed him out on the open deck. He +reached quickly and snatched the pistol from the German’s holster with +his left hand. + +Then, his eye flickering to the men at the rail and seeing the +flaxen-haired man trying to draw his pistol, Tom sent one bullet in that +direction. The man, Guelph, sank, groaning, to the deck. + +“Pick up that pistol, muzzle first, and bring it here!” commanded Tom to +Fritz, and the latter obeyed quite meekly. Neither he nor the third +seaman was armed. After all, Boldig did not trust his underlings. + +“How shall we get your two friends out of their rooms?” Tom asked Ruth +without looking around at her, for he kept his gaze upon Boldig and the +others. + +“That man has the keys to their staterooms.” + +“Come and search his pockets,” said Tom. “Don’t stand between me and +him. Understand?” he added to Boldig. “I will shoot to kill if you try +any tricks. Keep your hands up!” + +Was this Tom Cameron, Ruth thought? She had never seen Tom assume such a +character before. She had forgotten what army training had done for her +childhood’s friend. When he had come to see her on his leaves-of-absence +from the front he had seemed all boy as usual. But now! + +She found the keys, and in five minutes Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife, armed +from the right collection of weapons in the captain’s room this time, +joined the wonderfully arrived castaway on the open deck. + +Dowd had handcuffs, too, and Boldig, Fritz, and the other unwounded +seamen were quickly manacled and shut into separate rooms below. + +Ruth tried to make the wounded Guelph more comfortable, although he was +not seriously hurt. While she was doing this, and her three friends were +searching the rest of the crew for arms and separating them so that they +could do no harm, the girl chanced to glance over the rail and saw a +sight that called forth a cry of rejoicing from her very heart. + +There was a gray, swiftly steaming ship, a warship, bearing down upon +the _Admiral Pekhard_, and the Stars and Stripes was at her masthead! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV—HOME AS FOUND + + +To clear up all the mysteries about their adventures—about Tom’s +wonderful flight in the airplane, his capture by the Zeppelin’s +commander, his wrecking of the Hun machine, his providential escape from +the sea; as well, the trials and dangers through which Ruth had +passed—to clear up all these things certainly took much time. It was not +until the excitement was over that they really could talk it all out. + +For at first came happenings almost as exciting as those that had +already taken place. The _Seattle_ had more to do than merely to take +the Germans aboard as prisoners and Ruth and her friends as honored +passengers, while they put a prize crew on the _Admiral Pekhard_. + +For the German plot had been so far-reaching, and it had come so near +being carried through to a successful finish, that the commander of the +_Seattle_, of the fast cruiser type, bound home for orders, felt an +attempt must be made to punish the Germans connected with the plot. + +That U-boat 714 must be caught. They made the assistant wireless +operator, Krueger, admit that within the hour he had caught a message +from the U-boat and had sent one in reply. The submarine would arrive +about nightfall, Krueger said. + +The commander of the American cruiser made his plans quickly. He sent a +large crew aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_. Then the cruiser steamed away +to a distance. But she was a very fast ship and she did not remain far +out of sight of the British steamship. + +Mr. Rollife had insisted on remaining at his post. The chatter of the +_Admiral Pekhard’s_ radio kept the American commander in touch with all +that went on. When the submarine appeared on the surface, not many +hundred yards away from the ship that was supposed to be in the hands of +German plotters, the _Seattle_ started for the spot at top-speed. + +It was a great race! Tom was as excited as any sailor aboard, and until +it was all over he was not content to remain with Ruth below decks. + +Four of the cruiser’s prize crew, masquerading as Germans, manned the +motor boat and shot over to the gray side of the huge submarine. They +could all speak German. They fooled the U-boat commander, _Herr +Kapitan-Leutnant_ Scheiner, nicely. He sent his first in command and the +special crew brought from the submarine base at Kiel to the passenger +ship, crowding the small launch to the very guards. + +When these men went, one by one, up the ladder, they were met behind the +shelter of the rail by a number of determined American blue jackets, who +disarmed them and knocked them down promptly if they ventured to offer +resistance. + +Before the smoke of the _Seattle_ was sighted the two deck guns of the +_Admiral Pekhard_, their breechlocks replaced, were trained upon the +open hatch of the U-714. Through a trumpet the officer in command of the +crew from the _Seattle_ ordered _Kapitan-Leutnant_ Scheiner to surrender +his boat and crew. + +When he made a dive for the open hatch, the forward gun of the British +ship, manned by American gunners, put a shell right down that +hatchway—and Scheiner was instantly killed. + +The _Admiral Pekhard_ was sent to Plymouth, as that port was nearer than +Brest. Besides, the _Seattle’s_ commander had learned already by radio +that the entire ship’s company of the British ship had safely reached +that port. + +Mr. Dowd and Rollife went with the _Admiral Pekhard_; but after due +consideration, and listening to the pleadings of Ruth Fielding and Tom +Cameron, the latter pair were allowed to remain aboard the American +cruiser. + +“You are due to reach New York anyway, Miss Fielding,” said the +commander. “And from what he tells me of his experience, I believe +Captain Cameron has earned a furlough. Although I presume he will first +have to be reported as being absent without leave.” + + * * * * * + +All this is in the past, now. It seemed to Ruth Fielding, standing on +the porch of the old farmhouse attached to the Red Mill and looking down +the rutted highway, that many, many of her experiences during the months +of war must have been dreams. + +Even the injured shoulder troubled her no more. She was her old +vigorous, cheerful self again. Yet there was a difference. There was a +poise of mind and a seriousness about the girl of the Red Mill that +would never again wear off. No soul that has been seared in any way by +the awful flame of the Great War will ever recover from it. The scar +must remain till death. + +The war was well nigh over. Tom’s prophecy was to be fulfilled. The Hun, +driven to madness by his own sins, could fight no more. The actual +fighting might end any day. On a ship coming homeward were Helen and +Jennie—the latter with a tall and handsome French colonel at her side, +who had been given special leave of absence from the French Intelligence +Department. + +Ruth saw an automobile swing into the road a couple of miles away and +grow larger and larger very rapidly as it rushed down toward her. She +wound a chiffon veil about her head as she called back into the open +doorway of the farmhouse kitchen: + +“Tom is coming, Aunty. I sha’n’t be long away.” + +“All right, my pretty! All right!” returned the voice of Aunt Alvirah, +quite strong and cheerful again. “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! All +right!” + +She hobbled to the door on her cane. Her apple-withered cheeks had a +little color after all. The little old woman began to mend the moment +she set eyes on “her pretty” again. + +When the automobile pulled down at the gate for Ruth to step in beside +the begoggled Tom and the engine was shut off, they could hear the +grinding of the mill-stones. Times had improved. Uncle Jabez, as dusty +and solemn of visage as ever, but with a springier step than was his +wont, came to the door and waved a be-floured hand to them. + +“All right, Ruthie?” asked Tom, smiling at her. + +“Quite all right, Tom.” + +“Got the whole day free, have you?” + +“Until supper time. We can take a nice, long jaunt.” + +“I wish it was going to continue forever—just for you and me, Ruth!” he +murmured longingly, as he slipped in the clutch and the engine began to +purr. “A life trip, dear!” + +“Well,” returned Ruth Fielding, looking at him with shining eyes, “who +knows?” + + + THE END + + + + +MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY + + Quiet in the kitchen, + Still as any mouse, + Not a sign of any + Children in the house. + Mother starts to fidget, + Wonders where they are, + It would not be like them + To have wandered far. + Just as she’s decided + To investigate, + There’s a little rustle, + Clatter of a plate. + Wide the door is opened + As the latch bar lifts, + Comes a gay procession + Bearing love and gifts; + Bearing joy and Jell-O + Smiles and love and cakes; + Jell-O made by Janey, + And what care she takes + As she brings to Mother + For her birthday treat + This dessert delicious + And such fun to eat! + Bobby follows after + With a laden dish, + Waiting for the time to + Shout a birthday wish. + ‘Course it doesn’t matter + If he spills a few, + Can’t see Mother’s eyes and + Keep it level, too! + “What a happy birthday,” + Lovely Mother cries + “Smiles and cakes and Jell-O + For a big surprise!” + +There are six pure fruit flavors of Jell-O: Strawberry, Raspberry, +Lemon, Orange, Cherry and Chocolate. Every child wants the little book, +“Miss Jell-O Gives a Party,” and we will send it free upon request, but +be sure your name and address are plainly written. + +_America’s most famous dessert_ + +Jell-O + +THE JELL-O COMPANY, Inc. Le Roy, N. Y. Bridgeburg, Ont. + +_Reprinted by permission of John Martin’s Book, the Child’s Magazine_ + + + + +THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES + +By ALICE B. EMERSON + + +12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her +adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every +reader. + +Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction. + + 1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + 2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + 3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + 4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + 5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + 6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + 7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + 8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + 9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + 10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + 11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE + 12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE + 13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + 14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT + 15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND + 16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST + 17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST + 18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE + 19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING + 20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH + 21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS + 22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound, by Alice B. Emerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND *** + +***** This file should be named 36748-0.txt or 36748-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/4/36748/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +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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