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<pre>
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 ***
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</pre>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i001' id='i001'></a>
<img src='images/dust.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br />
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i002' id='i002'></a>
<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="THERE WAS A GRAY, SWIFTLY STEAMING SHIP BEARING DOWN UPON THE ADMIRAL PEKHARD." title=""/><br />
<span class='caption'>THERE WAS A GRAY, SWIFTLY STEAMING SHIP<br/>BEARING DOWN UPON THE ADMIRAL PEKHARD.</span>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>Ruth Fielding</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>Homeward Bound</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A RED CROSS WORKER’S</p>
<p>OCEAN PERILS</p>
<p> </p>
<p>BY</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>ALICE B. EMERSON</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>Author of “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” “Ruth</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>Fielding in the Saddle,” Etc.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>ILLUSTRATED</em></p>
</div>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i003' id='i003'></a>
<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br />
</div>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>NEW YORK</span></p>
<p>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY</p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>PUBLISHERS</span></p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p>Books for Girls</p>
<p>BY ALICE B. EMERSON</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>RUTH FIELDING SERIES</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</p>
</div>
<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND</p>
</td></tr></table>
<div class='center'>
<p>Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Copyright, 1919, by</p>
<p>Cupples & Leon Company</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class='sc'>Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Printed in U. S. A.</p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>CONTENTS</span></p>
</div>
<table class='c' summary='table of contents'>
<tr><td style='font-size:smaller'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>I.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Tea and a Toast</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chI'>1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>II.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Such a Dream!</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chII'>10</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>III.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>It’s All Over!</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIII'>20</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Two Exciting Things</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIV'>29</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>V.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Secret</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chV'>38</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A New Experience</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVI'>45</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Zeppelin</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVII'>52</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Afloat</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVIII'>60</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Queer Folks</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIX'>68</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>X.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>What Will Happen?</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chX'>76</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Developments</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXI'>84</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Man in the Motor Boat</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXII'>93</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>It Comes to a Head</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIII'>101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Battle in the Air</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIV'>111</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Abandoned</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXV'>121</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>On the Edge of Tragedy</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVI'>131</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Boarded</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVII'>140</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Conspiracy Laid Bare</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVIII'>149</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Tom Cameron Takes a Hand</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIX'>159</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Storm Breaks</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXX'>166</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Wreck</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXI'>172</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Adrift</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXII'>180</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>At the Moment of Need</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIII'>186</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Counterplot</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIV'>196</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Home as Found</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXV'>205</a></td></tr>
</table>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<h1><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1'></a>1</span>Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound</h1>
<h2><a name='chI' id='chI'></a>CHAPTER I—TEA AND A TOAST</h2>
<p>
“And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you
did not believe a poilu <em>could</em> love a fat girl!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2'></a>2</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“The cups are nicked; no wonder,” sighed
Ruth. “They have traveled many hundreds of
miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at
Briarwood——”
</p>
<p>
“Dear old Briarwood Hall,” murmured Jennie
Stone.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span>
</p>
<p>
“Listen to her!” gasped Helen. “If Major
Henri Marchand could hear her now!”
</p>
<p>
“He is a full colonel, I’d have you know,” declared
Jennie Stone. “And in charge of his section.
In <em>our</em> army it is the Intelligence Department—Secret
Service.”
</p>
<p>
“That is what Tom calls the ‘Camouflage Bureau.’
<em>Colonel</em> Marchand has a nice, sitting-down
job,” scoffed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“<em>You</em> ought to know!” pouted the plumper girl.
“You and my colonel have tramped all over the
French front together.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, no! There were some places we did not
go to,” laughed Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“Tut, tut!” said Ruth, shaking her chum a
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span>
little, and then kissing her. “Don’t be jealous,
Helen.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand—<em>that
was</em>! ‘Colonel,’ I should say,” said
Ruth. “Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all
during these past few months.”
</p>
<p>
“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. “<em>I</em> remember when you
got this tea set, Ruthie. Remember the Fox, and
all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we
treated you, Ruthie?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, <em>don’t</em>!” exclaimed Helen. “I treated my
Ruthie mean in those days, too—sometimes.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“‘Dregs’ is right, Ruth,” complained Jennie,
peering into her cup. “You never will strain tea
properly.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span>
</p>
<p>
“Pooh! If you do,” scoffed Helen, “you never
have any leaves left with which to tell your fortune.”
</p>
<p>
“‘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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
She drank her own toast to the last drop.
Then she shrugged her pretty shoulders and put
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6'></a>6</span>
her serious air aside. Her eyes sparkled once
more as she exclaimed:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“What busy times we’ve had, girls,” agreed
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Ruth is so brave,” sighed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Cat’s foot!” snapped Ruth. “I’m just as
scared as you are every time I hear a gun. Oh!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruth!” cried Helen, clasping her hands.
“I thought you wrote us that our boys had pushed
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span>
the Germans back so far that the guns could
scarcely be heard from here?”
</p>
<p>
“Must be some mistake about that,” muttered
Jennie, with her mouth full of tea-wafers. “There
goes another!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, girls!” exclaimed Ruth, “it is an air raid.
We have not had one before for weeks—and
never before in broad day!”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn’t come,” Helen
said, trembling. “Let us find a <em>cave voûtée</em>. I
saw signs along the main street of this village as
we drove through.”
</p>
<p>
“There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital,”
said Ruth, and then another heavy explosion
drowned what else she might have said.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Come, Ruthie!” cried Helen, looking back.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span>
not run away from the wards and leave their poor
<em>blessés</em> at such a time——”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do come, Ruthie!” cried her chum. “I am
frightened to death.”
</p>
<p>
“I will go downstairs with you——”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Then came the shuddering crash which rocked
the hospital and all the taller buildings about it!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
But that exploding shell drowned every other
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span><a name='chII' id='chII'></a>CHAPTER II—SUCH A DREAM!</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Jabez Potter had accepted the duty of the
child’s support without one softening thought of
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span>
love or kindness. She was a “charity child”; and
she was made to feel this fact continually in a
hundred ways.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span>
only because she was so much in earnest
and was of honest purpose in all things.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth had been there in charge of the supply
department of the hospital for some months, and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span>
Ruth much the nicest girl of any of his sister’s
acquaintances.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Talk about the American boys being ‘sudden’!
Theirs is nothing to the whirlwind work
of Henri Marchand!” exclaimed Helen.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16'></a>16</span>
the Hun to have made a mistake. It was a deliberate
expression of German “frightfulness.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<em>Madame la Directrice</em> of the hospital to their aid.
</p>
<p>
“She is killed!” gasped Jennie, gazing in horror
at their fallen comrade and friend.
</p>
<p>
“Murdered!” shrieked Helen, and covered her
face with her hands.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“La, la, la!” she murmured. “It is sad! That
so-heavy stone! Ah, the bone must be broken!
Poor child!”
</p>
<p>
“Isn’t she dead?” gasped Helen.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span>
“No, no! She is very bad wounded-perhaps.
See—let us turn her over—”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruthie! Ruthie!” begged Helen. “Speak
to me!”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“To the operating room!” commanded the
matron, when the <em>brancardiers</em> appeared with the
stretcher.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Why should it have to be Ruth?” groaned
Helen. “To think of our Ruthie being wounded—the
only one!”
</p>
<p>
They shut the two American girls out of the
operating room, of course. <em>The Médecin Chef</em>
himself came hurriedly to see what was needed
for the injured girl. <em>Mademoiselle Americaine</em>,
as Ruth was called about the hospital by the
grateful French people, was very popular and
much beloved.
</p>
<p>
Her two girl friends waited in great anxiety
outside the operating room. At last <em>Madame la
Directrice</em> came out. She smiled at the anxious
girls. That was the most glorious smile—so Jennie
Stone said afterward—that was ever beheld.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>Mademoiselle Americaine</em>.”
</p>
<p>
It was two hours later that Helen and Jennie
sat, one on either side of Ruth’s couch, in the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!
</p>
<p>
“Mercy’s sake, girls! What has happened to
me? I’m all bandaged up like a <em>grand blessé!</em>”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span><a name='chIII' id='chIII'></a>CHAPTER III—IT’S ALL OVER!</h2>
<p>
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——
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
For Major Soutre, the head surgeon, had said:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“So my work is finished,” she repeated, wagging
a doleful head upon her pillow.
</p>
<p>
“Poor dear!” sighed Jennie. “Don’t you want
me to make you something nice to eat?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span>
“It’s the principal thing,” declared the plump
girl stubbornly. “And Colonel Marchand says I
make <em>heavenly</em> broth!”
</p>
<p>
Helen sniffed disdainfully.
</p>
<p>
Ruth laughed weakly; but she only said:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“‘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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>I</em> 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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span>
and cheese, nine thousand, seven hundred and
six——”
</p>
<p>
“Jennie! Do stop! How <em>could</em> you eat so
much?” demanded Helen in horror.
</p>
<p>
“Bless you! the poilus did the eating; I only
did the seasoning and tasting. It’s <em>that</em> keeps me
so fat, I do believe. And then, I have served one
million cups of cocoa.”
</p>
<p>
“Why don’t you say a billion? You might as
well.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“It was the stone window-sill, they say,” murmured
Ruth contritely.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” exclaimed Jennie Stone. “I should say
that was a rise in the world.”
</p>
<p>
“You are never going into aviation, Tom?”
screamed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Not exactly. But an old Harvard chum of
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span>
mine, Ralph Stillinger, is going to take me up.
You know Stillinger. Why, he’s an ace!”
</p>
<p>
“And you are crazy!” exclaimed his sister,
rather tartly. “Why do you want to risk your life
so carelessly?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Will you really fly, Tom?” Ruth asked.
</p>
<p>
“Ralph has promised me a regular circus—looping
the loop, and spiraling, and all the tricks
of flying.”
</p>
<p>
“But you won’t fly into battle?” questioned
Helen anxiously. “Of course he won’t take you
over the German lines?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 “<em>grande blessée</em>.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
But Uncle Jabez Potter! Well, the letter itself
will show what kind of correspondent the old
miller was:
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“<span class='sc'>My Dear Niece Ruth</span>:
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span>
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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28'></a>28</span>
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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“Hoping this finds you the same, and wishing
very much to see you back at the Red Mill, I remain,
</p>
<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-right:2em;;'>“Yr. Obedient Servant,</p>
<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-right:2em;;'>“J. <span class='sc'>Potter</span>.”</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span><a name='chIV' id='chIV'></a>CHAPTER IV—TWO EXCITING THINGS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I wish I were going with you.”
</p>
<p>
“What! To leave your regiment and all?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span>
</p>
<p>
“No, I do not want to leave until this war is finished.
But I hate to think of your crossing the
ocean alone.”
</p>
<p>
“Pooh! I shall not be alone. Lots of other
people will be on the boat with me, Tommy.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“What will happen, do you suppose?” she demanded.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Pooh! I am just going on a joy ride in an
airplane. While you——”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Uh-huh!” he grunted understandingly.
</p>
<p>
“You know I have been running around and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span>
having good times for a good many years. Aunt
Alvirah is getting old. And perhaps Uncle Jabez
should be considered, too.”
</p>
<p>
“He’s an awful old grouch, Ruth,” said Tom
Cameron, shaking his head.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“He don’t need to run that mill,” said Tom
shortly. “He has plenty of money invested in one
way or another.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“He’s a blessed old miser!” exclaimed her
friend, “I don’t see how you have stood him all
these years, Ruthie.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“That’s a bit of ‘swank,’ you know, Tom,” said
Ruth slyly.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, my dear boy, I hope so!” Ruth said.
“But what will you be doing meanwhile? Getting
into more and more danger?”
</p>
<p>
“Not a bit!”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span>
with Ralph Stillinger. They say he is a most
reckless flier.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Ruth recovered herself quickly. She gave him
her good hand and squeezed his in a hearty fashion.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Right you are, Ruthie Fielding,” he agreed
cheerfully.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span>
thrilling nature might happen to them both before
they would see each other again.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“<em>Ma foi!</em>” 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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span>
us all. Oh, we feel it! Your going away from
Clair is a sorrow for all.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>brancardiers</em>,
had gathered to bid her God-speed.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“The dear, dear people!” she repeated, smiling
through her happy tears at Hetty.
</p>
<p>
“Ah, they know you, Mademoiselle,” said the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span>
girl with a practical nod. “And they know they
will seldom see your like again.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, la, la!” responded Ruth, using an expression
of Henriette’s, and laughed. Then suddenly:
“You are not taking the shortest road, Henriette
Dupay!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span>
to a stop where the Countess Marchand
could give Ruth her hand.
</p>
<p>
“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, <em>n’est-ce pas</em>, Hetty? We shall
never forget her, shall we?”
</p>
<p>
“<em>Ma foi</em>, no!” rejoined the practical French
girl. “She leaves her mark upon our neighborhood,
does she not, Madame la Countesse?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span><a name='chV' id='chV'></a>CHAPTER V—THE SECRET</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“It is quite the fashion to ‘sling’ an arm,” said
Clare, laughing. “They should pin the <em>Croix de
Guerre</em> on you, anyway, Ruth Fielding. After
what you have been through!”
</p>
<p>
“Deliver us from our friends!” groaned Ruth.
“Why should you wish to embarrass me? How
could I explain a war cross?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“How about American girls?” returned Clare
slyly.
</p>
<p>
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 “<em>Mademoiselle Americaine</em>” quite
a wonderful young woman. It was by her aid
that the police had captured three international
crooks of notorious character.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh! She looks completely done up!” gasped
Helen, as greeting.
</p>
<p>
“Come over to the canteen and get some nice
soup,” begged Jennie. “I have just tasted it. It
is fine.”
</p>
<p>
“‘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?”
</p>
<p>
“As though <em>he</em> would care!” smiled Jennie
Stone. “If I weighed a ton he would continue to
call me <em>petite poulet</em>.”
</p>
<p>
“‘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!”
</p>
<p>
“How about you, Ruthie?” asked Jennie, suspiciously.
“Let me see your left hand. What!
Has he not put anything on that third finger yet?”
</p>
<p>
“Have a care! A broken shoulderbone is
enough,” gasped Ruth. “I am looking for no
other ornament at present, thank you.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course,” said Ruth, who had a warm feeling for
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span>
the French teacher with whom she had
been so friendly at Briarwood Hall. “And she
has such a cosy and quiet little place.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span>
<em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, the British transport ship to
which she was assigned, who would give her any
needed attention during the voyage.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“It’s from Tom,” cried Helen excitedly, “I bet
a penny!”
</p>
<p>
“What a spendthrift you are, Helen,” drawled
Jennie. But she watched Ruth narrowly as the
latter opened the sealed letter accompanying the
flowers.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Well!” exclaimed Tom’s sister, “what do you
know about <em>that</em>?”
</p>
<p>
“Who is the gallant, Ruthie?” demanded Jennie.
</p>
<p>
“Charlie Bragg. The dear boy! And a
steamer letter, too!”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<hr class='tb' />
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Hard luck for Stillinger and his passenger,
sure enough. The American airplane was seen
to fall, and, although a searching party discovered
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span>
the wrecked machine, neither its pilot nor
the passenger was found.”
</p>
<hr class='tb' />
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> drew away
from the pier and Helen and Jennie went ashore.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span><a name='chVI' id='chVI'></a>CHAPTER VI—A NEW EXPERIENCE</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Cave Voûteé</em>
with the number of persons to be accommodated
in these places of refuge, such number ranging
from fifteen to sixty.
</p>
<p>
The bomb-proof cellars were protected by sandbags and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46'></a>46</span>
were conveniently located so that people
might easily find shelter whenever the German
Fokkers or <em>Tauben</em> appeared. Naturally, as the
town was so near the aviation field, it was bound
to be a mark for the Hun bombing planes.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Tom had not realized before what the personnel
of each <em>équipé</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span>
here with Ralph Stillinger, the one ace in this
squadron.
</p>
<p>
“You may see some real stuff if you can stay a
day or two,” they told the young captain of infantry.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span>
that Lieutenant Stillinger was waiting for him out
by Number Four hangar—wherever that might
be.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“If you’re going up in the air, Captain, you’ll
be peckish,” the man said. “Get around that, sir.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Didn’t know but you’d backed out,” chuckled
the flying man.
</p>
<p>
“Your grandmother!” retorted Tom cheerfully.
“I stopped for a bite and a mug of coffee.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Come again!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s the
meaning of ‘zoom’?”
</p>
<p>
“Overstrain. Putting too much on her. Oh,
there is a new language to learn if you are going
to be a flying man.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t jump,” warned Stillinger. “Nothing
doing that way. Loss of speed—<em>perte de vitesse</em>
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 <em>stick</em>. You’ll be altogether too
high up for a safe jump, believe me!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>remous</em>,
meaning actually “whirlpools.” Yet these phenomena
can be met at almost any hour.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, at
Brest.
</p>
<p>
Why, Brest was right over there—somewhere!
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span>
Vaguely he could mark the curve of miles upon
miles of the French coast. What a height this
was!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“My heavens!” shouted Tom at last. “What
do you call <em>that</em>?”
</p>
<p>
“Real flying!” shouted Stillinger in return.
“How do you like it?”
</p>
<p>
Tom had no ready reply. He was not sure that
he liked it at all! But it certainly was a new experience.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span><a name='chVII' id='chVII'></a>CHAPTER VII—THE ZEPPELIN</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The whole sector had been quiet. Suddenly
there were several puffs of smoke, and then, high
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The raid was not aimed against the American
sectors to the east. They were a long way from
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span>
this point. Stillinger had flown far and was now
nowhere near his own unit, if that should come
into the fight.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Are we going to get into it?” questioned Tom.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t unhook that belt!” commanded Stillinger.
“We can do nothing yet.”
</p>
<p>
“It’s a surprise,” said Tom. “We must help.”
</p>
<p>
“You sit still!” returned his friend. “I presume
you can handle that make of gat?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Stillinger knew he was disobeying orders; but
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span>
atmosphere at this altitude. Unused as he was to
aviation, however, he showed the ace that he was
an asset, not a liability.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
But flying in the fog was an uncertain and trying
experience. Where the German airplanes
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Taking advantage of the fog, it was putting to
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span><a name='chVIII' id='chVIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII—AFLOAT</h2>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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
<em>Leviathan</em>—and thereafter followed the stern
lights of a destroyer. Thus she got into the roadstead,
and thence into the open sea.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The passengers, however, did not know this.
They were kept off the open decks during the
night, and before morning the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span>
</p>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“As aggressive as a gargoyle,” Ruth thought.
“And almost as homely! Yet she surely possesses
brains.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The black-eyed woman watched the girl of the
Red Mill curiously, seeing her left arm bandaged.
</p>
<p>
“Hurt yourself?” she asked shortly, in rather a
gruff tone.
</p>
<p>
“No,” said Ruth simply. “I was hurt. I did
not do it myself.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah-ha!” ejaculated the strange woman. “Are
you literal, or merely smart?”
</p>
<p>
“I am only exact,” Ruth told her.
</p>
<p>
“So! You did <em>not</em> hurt yourself? How,
then?” and she glanced significantly at the girl’s
bandaged arm.
</p>
<p>
“Why, do you know,” the girl of the Red Mill
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah-ha!” said the woman coolly. “Then you
are merely smart, after all.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
The black-eyed woman seemed to feel Ruth’s
implied scorn after all.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” she said, resetting her eyeglasses with
both hands, “I have been in Paris all through the
war.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, then you’d heard about it?” Ruth intimated.
“Well!”
</p>
<p>
“I certainly know all about the war,” said the
woman shortly.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You are Miss Fielding, I see by the purser’s
list,” said the curious person, staring at Ruth
through her glasses.
</p>
<p>
“I have not the pleasure of knowing you,” returned
the girl of the Red Mill. “Can I do anything
for you?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You are——?”
</p>
<p>
“An artist. I have studied with some of the
best painters in France. But I declare! even those
teachers have closed their <em>ateliers</em> and gone to
war. I must, perforce, close my own studio and
go back to America. And America is crude.”
</p>
<p>
“Seems to me I have heard that said before,”
sniffed Ruth. “Although my acquaintance among
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span>
artists has been small. Do you expect to find perfect
peace and quietness in the United States?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder where you got that, Miss Lentz,”
Ruth allowed herself to say in amazement.
</p>
<p>
“Got what?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Perfect nonsense!” snapped Irma Lentz, and
she got up and flounced away.
</p>
<p>
“Now,” thought the girl of the Red Mill, very
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
There certainly should be nobody using that
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span>
language on this British ship carrying Americans
to the United States! That was Ruth’s first
thought.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Besides, like the woman, he was speaking German
in a most excited and angry fashion.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span><a name='chIX' id='chIX'></a>CHAPTER IX—QUEER FOLKS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The seaman who was talking so excitedly to
Irma Lentz, and whom Ruth overheard on the
deck of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, used Low German
instead of the High German taught in the educational
institutions. Ruth, however, understood
quite a little of what was said.
</p>
<p>
“Stop talking to me!” Miss Lentz commanded,
breaking in upon what the man was saying.
</p>
<p>
“I must tell you, Fraulein——”
</p>
<p>
“Go tell Boldig. Not me. How dare you
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span>
speak to a passenger? You know it is against all
ship rules.”
</p>
<p>
“Undt am <em>I</em> 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?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Here, my man, this is no part of the deck for
you,” he said sharply. “Stoker, aren’t you? Get
back to your quarters.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span>
are as dangerous and deadly as the moccasin.
They strike without warning.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“What would you do,” she asked him in the
course of the meal, “if you heard two people
speaking German together on this ship?”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Not stewards,” Ruth said softly.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span>
</p>
<p>
“Do you mean passengers? Well, I speak German
myself.”
</p>
<p>
“And so do I. At least, I can speak it,” laughed
the girl of the Red Mill. “But I don’t.”
</p>
<p>
“No. Ordinarily I never speak it myself—now,”
admitted the man. “But just what do you
mean, Miss Fielding?”
</p>
<p>
“I heard two people early this morning speaking
German in secret on deck.”
</p>
<p>
“Some of the deckhands?”
</p>
<p>
“One was a stoker. The other was one of our
first cabin passengers.”
</p>
<p>
The Red Cross man’s amazement was plain.
He stared at the girl in some perturbation, at the
same time neglecting his breakfast.
</p>
<p>
“You tell me this for a fact, Miss Fielding?”
</p>
<p>
“Quite.”
</p>
<p>
“Have you spoken to the captain—to any of
the officers?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But a passenger talking German with a stoker!
What were they saying?”
</p>
<p>
“They appeared to be quarreling.”
</p>
<p>
“Quarreling! Who was the passenger? Is
he here at table?” the Red Cross man asked
quickly.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span>
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” went on the Red Cross officer firmly,
“you speak to Mr. Dowd.”
</p>
<p>
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
<em>Admiral Pekhard</em>.
</p>
<p>
Even if Miss Lentz was out of sight, this other
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Hope just as hard as you can, Mr. Dowd,”
she replied merrily. “Yes, I want all my friends
to <em>will</em> that the shoulder will get well in quick time.
I haven’t the natural patience of the born invalid.”
</p>
<p>
He laughed in return, and turned to get into
step with her as she walked the deck.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span>
</p>
<p>
“Yet you do have some queer folks aboard,
even in war time, don’t you?” she asked.
</p>
<p>
“Why, bless you!” said the Englishman,
“everybody is more or less queer—‘save thee and
me.’ You know the story of the Quaker?”
</p>
<p>
“Surely,” rejoined Ruth. “But now I suppose
most of your queer passengers may be spies, or
something like that.”
</p>
<p>
She said it in so low a tone that nobody but the
first officer could possibly hear. He gave her a
quick glance.
</p>
<p>
“Meaning?” he asked.
</p>
<p>
“That I am afraid I am going to make you
place me right in the catalogue of ‘queer folks.’”
</p>
<p>
“Yes?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span><a name='chX' id='chX'></a>CHAPTER X—WHAT WILL HAPPEN?</h2>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, fully into her confidence.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The chance that there were actually spies
aboard the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
That German agents were aboard the <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
No group of German plotters had thus far
shown themselves to be so utterly unregardful of
their own safety.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
These same beliefs influenced Mr. Dowd’s
mind; and he said frankly:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span>
woman and that seaman, or stoker, or whatever
and whoever he is, should be watched. They may
purpose to do some damage to the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>
after she docks at New York.”
</p>
<p>
“True. And you say there is a third person—a
man named Boldig? His name is not on the
passenger list.”
</p>
<p>
“That is so,” admitted Ruth, who had read the
purser’s list.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. Her chum was
torn, Ruth knew, between a desire to go home
with the girl of the Red Mill and to stay near
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span>
Tom. As long as Tom Cameron was in active
service Helen would be anxious.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
The news that had reached Ruth just as she
boarded the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span>
Pekhard</em> was bulletined by the radio room
door.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I have not asked to have my status aboard
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span>
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?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Hoighty-toighty!” exclaimed the little man,
growing very red in the face. “You take much
for granted, Miss Fielding.”
</p>
<p>
“I make no mistake, I believe, in understanding
that you do not consider my information to Mr.
Dowd of importance.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Dowd is a young fool!” snapped the commander
of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. “He is trying
to stir up a mare’s nest.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Wait!” exclaimed the captain. “I am willing
to put one thing to the test.”
</p>
<p>
“You need do nothing to placate me, Captain
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span>
Hastings,” declared Ruth. “I am quite, quite satisfied
to drop the whole affair, I assure you.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
She wished very much just then that she had
not spoken at all to the <em>Admiral Pekhard’s</em> first
officer.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span><a name='chXI' id='chXI'></a>CHAPTER XI—DEVELOPMENTS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
His eyes sparkled, and it was evident that he
had found the pompous little commander much
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85'></a>85</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do you see him in that line, Miss Fielding?”
whispered the first officer.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“No,” she said to Mr. Dowd. “He is not
here.”
</p>
<p>
“Wait till the others come up. There! The
boatswain pipes.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span>
gazed upon her questioningly. Ruth slowly shook
her head.
</p>
<p>
“Any more firemen or coal passers down there,
boy?” Dowd asked the negro stoker.
</p>
<p>
“No, suh! Ain’t none of de watch lef’ behind,”
declared the man, as he followed his mates forward.
</p>
<p>
“Well, are you satisfied?” snapped the thin
voice of Captain Hastings.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“What officer?” demanded the captain, doubtfully.
“An officer of the ship? One of my officers?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, sir.”
</p>
<p>
“Ha, you want to examine my officers, then, I
presume?”
</p>
<p>
“Not at all,” Ruth said coldly. “I am not
taking any pleasure in this investigation, I assure
you.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span>
the officer is. And if he remembers the man on
deck——”
</p>
<p>
“Ah—yes—if he <em>does</em>,” said Captain Hastings
in his very nastiest way.
</p>
<p>
Ruth’s cheeks flamed again. Mr. Dowd placed
a gentle hand upon her sleeve.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“It’s all bosh!” she heard him say to Mr.
Dowd, as she started for the open deck.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span>
advice and brought this matter to the attention
of Mr. Dowd in the first place.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“This was on the starboard run, Miss Fielding?”
suggested Mr. Dowd.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, sir. It was right yonder,” and she
pointed to the spot in question.
</p>
<p>
“It must be Dykman, then, you wish to see, Mr.
Dowd,” said the under officer, saluting. “Shall
I send him here, sir?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span>
</p>
<p>
“If you will,” Dowd said, and remained himself
to talk pleasantly to the American girl.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Dykman, Miss Fielding,” Dowd said.
“Is Mr. Dykman the officer whom you saw, Miss
Fielding?”
</p>
<p>
Dykman bowed with a military manner. Ruth
eyed him quietly. He did not look like an Englishman,
that was sure.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“The sun was just coming up,” she said, watching
Dykman’s face.
</p>
<p>
“There were various members of the deck
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span>
watch here then, sir,” Dykman said respectfully.
“We were washing decks.”
</p>
<p>
“You came past here,” Ruth said quietly, “and
admonished the man for standing here. You told
him he had no business aft.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You intimated that he was a stoker,” Ruth
continued, with quite as much confidence as before.
</p>
<p>
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——
</p>
<p>
She glanced at Dowd. He was frowning and
had reddened. But he was not looking at her.
He was looking at Dykman.
</p>
<p>
“Well, sir?” he snapped suddenly.
</p>
<p>
“No, sir. I do not remember the occurrence,”
the sub-officer said respectfully but with a finality
there could be no mistaking.
</p>
<p>
“That will do, then,” said Mr. Dowd, and
waved his hand in dismissal.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span>
her frankly now that the sub-officer had gone, and
demanded angrily:
</p>
<p>
“Now, what do you suppose that means? Are
you positive you have identified Dykman?”
</p>
<p>
“He was the man who spoke to the stoker—yes.”
</p>
<p>
“Then why the—ahem! Well! Why should
he deny it?”
</p>
<p>
“It seems to clinch my argument,” Ruth said.
“There is something underhanded going on—some
plot—some mystery. This Dykman must be in
it.”
</p>
<p>
“By Jove!”
</p>
<p>
“Have you known the man long?”
</p>
<p>
“He is a new member of the ship’s company—as
I am,” admitted Dowd.
</p>
<p>
“He may be ‘Boldig,’” said Ruth, smiling
faintly.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span>
believe that Captain Hastings would allow further
search. You see what kind of a man he is, Miss
Fielding.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
He went away abruptly, and Ruth had time to
think it over. She did not fancy the situation at
all.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span><a name='chXII' id='chXII'></a>CHAPTER XII—THE MAN IN THE MOTOR BOAT</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
And this must be through Captain Hastings.
Nobody else, she was sure, could have been tactless
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span>
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?
</p>
<p>
At about this time there probably was not a
steamship crossing the Atlantic of the character
of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span>
Miss Lentz and her associates, whoever they
might be.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
From where she sat she had a good view of the
main deck and of all the ship forward of the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span>
smoke stacks. The sea remained calm and the
<em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
She noted, after a time, that some of the points
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The man fulfilled her request. Meanwhile nobody
else seemed to notice the man peering out
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span>
from the canvas cover of the motor boat. Indeed,
the fellow had disappeared now and was
lying quiet.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span><a name='chXIII' id='chXIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII—IT COMES TO A HEAD</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> within a
short time.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> did not
lose sight of her. He was there for a purpose—that
was sure.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
A dull explosion sounded from somewhere deep
in the hold of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
It seemed as though any ship’s officer with good
sense would have told the commander privately
of the catastrophe. But immediately the full
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span>
nature of the disaster was made known to the excited
and terrified passengers.
</p>
<p>
“My heavens, Dykman!” squealed Captain
Hastings, “you don’t mean to say it is a torpedo?
We’ve seen no periscope.”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> was already going down.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
And here was necessity!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>—a
plot among some of the ship’s company,
both passengers and crew!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She was but one day from port; it was not improbable
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She did not believe the latter was caused by a
torpedo from a lurking submarine. The conspirators
aboard the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> had deliberately
brought about the catastrophe.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span>
</p>
<p>
At last there was a stirring inside. A voice
mumbled:
</p>
<p>
“Yes? Yes? Eight bells? I will be right
up.”
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Dowd! Mr. Dowd!” Ruth called.
“Wake up! The ship is sinking!”
</p>
<p>
“I’ll be right with you, boy,” said the officer,
more briskly, but evidently not altogether himself.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“What’s <em>that</em>?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“What is that you say, Miss Fielding?” he repeated.
</p>
<p>
“Come quickly, Mr. Dowd!” she begged.
“The ship is sinking. Those people have blown
it up.”
</p>
<p>
“Then there was something wrong!” cried the
officer. “Did—did Captain Hastings come to
you? I—I gave him your note after I fell——”
</p>
<p>
“He did nothing but wait until those people
did their worst,” declared Ruth angrily. “It is
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span>
too late to talk about it now. Hurry!” and she
turned away to seek her own stateroom.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
At least she considered all possibilities but one.
That never for a moment entered her mind.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Being all alone, she had much difficulty in arraying
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110'></a>110</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
Just as she did so she heard a man shouting up
the passage:
</p>
<p>
“Anybody here? Get out on deck! Last call!
The boats are leaving!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span><a name='chXIV' id='chXIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV—A BATTLE IN THE AIR</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Tauben</em>.
</p>
<p>
The Zeppelin was aimed seaward. She doubtless
had started upon a coast raid along the English shore.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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——
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
If the young fellow cringed as he crouched behind
the machine gun, it was no wonder. That
was a very narrow escape.
</p>
<p>
He glanced back at Stillinger. The pilot had
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span>
dropped one of the levers and was holding his left
wrist tightly. Tom could see something red running
through Stillinger’s fingers—blood!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
Again a shell burst near the rocking machine.
It did no harm; but it showed that the Germans
were getting an almost perfect range.
</p>
<p>
Tom Cameron was not a coward. He gripped
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span>
</p>
<p>
Those next few seconds were to be the most
thrilling of all Tom Cameron’s life.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span>
of the airplane toward the earth, five thousand
feet or more below.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“This is the first time I have taken a prisoner.
It is a notable event. Will you drink this cordial,
<em>Mein Herr</em>? It is an occasion worthy of a
libation.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“You are making one mistake,” Tom said, finally
finding his voice. “I am not an Englishman.
I am American.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Tom said no more. This <em>ober-leutnant</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
A subordinate officer looked in at the forward
entrance to the cabin, and asked a question. The
<em>leutnant</em> arose.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119'></a>119</span>
</p>
<p>
“I go to con the ship. We shall soon be over
the sea. You, <em>Mein Herr</em>, must be placed in durance,
I fear. Come this way.”
</p>
<p>
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
<em>leutnant</em>.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Yet the Germans would cross the sea, of course,
and find their way over London. He had heard
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span><a name='chXV' id='chXV'></a>CHAPTER XV—ABANDONED</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
It was the result of premeditated evil. The
man shouting the warning that all boats were leaving
the supposedly sinking <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, had
intended to bring her running from her room.
The cord stretched across the passage was there
to trip her.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> did
not greatly surprise Ruth. She had a very poor
opinion of the pompous little skipper.
</p>
<p>
But Mr. Dowd!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She was trapped. She believed herself alone
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span>
on a deserted ship in a trackless ocean. She had
no means of leaving the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>; surely
had the steamship not been about to go down, it
would not have been abandoned by all—passengers,
crew, and officers.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. The disappearance
of the light seemed to close all communication between
the abandoned girl and humankind.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
It did not seem to Ruth as though the <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> had sunk a foot lower than before she
left the deck to obtain her possessions. There
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span>
her, especially when she traveled. She opened
the bag and searched among its contents.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
If the order had been given to make for the
nearest point of land, the people who had abandoned
the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> might easily believe
the steamship under the sea long since.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span>
</p>
<p>
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——
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Of course, it could not be possible that Mr.
Dowd, chief officer of the ship, had been left behind
as she had been.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span>
all upon the steamship. One fear, at least, immediately
rolled off her mind.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> had been drugged.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em>.
</p>
<p>
Only, by the mercy of Providence, or by a vital
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Miss Fielding!” he muttered. “Yes, yes. I
am coming at once. The ship is sinking, you
say?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“He has gone without us. Certainly he did not
strive to be sure that everybody was off the ship
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span>
before he left. He evidently must have left it to
his subordinates to do that. And I am sure they
were not all trustworthy.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“But I was so confused—why, yes, you came
and aroused me once, did you not, Miss Fielding?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. Somebody must have given you an opiate.
Who bandaged your head, Mr. Dowd?”
she asked.
</p>
<p>
“The surgeon. He was here and fixed me up.
He—he gave me a drink that he said would fix
me all right.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span>
was abandoned? He must have known you would
be helpless.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span><a name='chXVI' id='chXVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI—ON THE EDGE OF TRAGEDY</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I am afraid, as you say, Miss Fielding, that
we are alone on the ship. I do not hear a sound,”
he said.
</p>
<p>
“But you do not think the ship is sinking, do
you, Mr. Dowd?” Ruth asked.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span>
fireroom—I doubt if a hole torn in the outside of
the ship would sink her.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But one would think Captain Hastings—or
the engineer—or somebody—would have discovered
the truth,” Ruth said, in doubt.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Your Captain Hastings as well,” said Ruth
scornfully.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span>
mind. We must give him credit for making a
clean get-away,” and in the lantern-light Ruth saw
that he smiled.
</p>
<p>
“I hope they are all safe,” she responded reflectively.
“The poor things! To have to drift
about in open boats all night!”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Yes?” said the startled young woman.
</p>
<p>
“What about the radio? Didn’t they send a
wireless? Couldn’t they have called for help?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Strange! With two operators—Rollife and
an assistant—how could they neglect such a
chance?”
</p>
<p>
“I heard nothing about it,” repeated Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
He led the way swiftly along the deck. The
radio station had been built into the forward
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span>
house, for the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> was an old steamship,
her keel having been laid long before Marconi
made his dream come true.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Dowd tried the door. It did not yield.
He shook it—or tried to—crying:
</p>
<p>
“Sparks! Sparks! Hey! Where are you?”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“What in the name of Mike was meant by locking
me into this room?”
</p>
<p>
“Great Land!” gasped Dowd. “It’s Rollife
himself.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span>
</p>
<p>
“Who is it? Dowd?” demanded the angry
radio man at last.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” replied the first officer. “Who did
this?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Hold your horses! There’s a lady here.
How shall I get you out, Sparks?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t give a hang <em>how</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
“Wait,” said Dowd. “I’ll get a screwdriver
and take off the hinges of the door. Then you
can push outwards.”
</p>
<p>
“What the deuce has happened, anyway?” demanded
Rollife, as the first officer of the <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> started away.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span>
the explosion. My door was nailed almost on
the very minute the old ship was hit. But why
doesn’t she sink?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Let me out of here,” growled the radio operator,
“and I’ll find some way of sending an S O S—don’t
fear!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“What’s that you say?” demanded Rollife,
from inside the room. “No likelihood of the
old tub sinking?”
</p>
<p>
“Not at all! Not at all!”
</p>
<p>
“Well, I certainly am relieved,” said the radio
man. “I’ve been conjuring up all kinds of horrors
in here.”
</p>
<p>
“Huh!” exploded Dowd. “You were asleep
till I pounded on the door.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Where was your assistant?” Dowd asked.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
That Rollife himself came from the United
States there could be no doubt. His speech fully
betrayed his nationality.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span>
held at one side. He was a big, fresh-faced man
with a square jaw and a direct glance.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, 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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
Mr. Dowd and she had been allowed their freedom.
Only Rollife had been locked up. And the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> would be able to send
into the air an S O S for help.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>?
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span><a name='chXVII' id='chXVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII—BOARDED</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth Fielding’s mental vision saw more clearly.
There was something else coming—something far
more tragic than anything that had thus far occurred.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Surely there was something still to happen to
the <em>Admiral Pekhard.</em> If not, why then all the
scurry to get away from the ship, the conspirators
themselves included in the stampede?
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span>
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“What has happened to you, Mr. Dowd?” she
cried. “Did you fall into the water?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I know,” she said hastily. “But to what
end?”
</p>
<p>
“How’s that?”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Why—by Jove!” gasped Dowd, “I had not
thought of that, Miss Fielding.”
</p>
<p>
He crept up the ladder and stood upon the deck,
the water running from the garments that clung
closely to his limbs and body.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“It would seem so,” he admitted, and his tone
betrayed as much anxiety as she felt herself.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span>
</p>
<p>
At the moment a shout from Rollife, the radio
man, aroused them.
</p>
<p>
“I’ve found it!” he cried.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Can you fix it?” Dowd asked quietly.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Ruth looked at Mr. Dowd. Her unspoken
question was: “Shall we take him into our confidence?
Shall we tell him our fears?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“What is that?” she whispered, pointing.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“It is a light in a small boat I believe. At first
I thought it might be a submarine. But I do not
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span>
believe a submarine would show anything less
than a searchlight in traveling on the surface at
night.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! Who can it be?” murmured Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“You put a hard question, Miss Fielding.
Surely it cannot be our friends coming back.”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?”
</p>
<p>
“I mean a boat sent by Captain Hastings to
make sure that nobody was left on the steamship.”
</p>
<p>
“Do you consider that likely?” she asked.
</p>
<p>
“Well—no, I do not,” he admitted.
</p>
<p>
“Then you think it may be people who have not
our interest at heart?” was her quick demand.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course. I give him credit for being fairly
sane,” she said.
</p>
<p>
“On the other hand, who would have any suspicion
that the ship would not sink save those who
had brought about the panic?”
</p>
<p>
“The Germans!” exclaimed the girl.
</p>
<p>
“Exactly. I believe,” said Dowd quietly, “that
here come the men who caused the explosion in
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span>
the fire room and opened the seacocks. They
purpose to take charge of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>,
of course. If they get aboard we shall be at their
mercy.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, can we stop them? Can we hold them
off?” murmured Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“If we can’t beat them off!” Ruth exclaimed.
“Haven’t you arms aboard?”
</p>
<p>
“My dear young lady——”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“I think we could put up a pretty good fight,”
admitted Dowd thoughtfully. “There are automatic
pistols.”
</p>
<p>
“Bring one for me,” commanded Ruth. “I can
shoot a pistol. Three of us might hold off a small
boarding party, I should think.”
</p>
<p>
“If they mean us harm,” added Dowd.
</p>
<p>
“Make them lie off there and wait till morning
so that we can see what they look like,” begged
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“That might be attempted.”
</p>
<p>
His lack of certainty rankled in the girl’s quick
mind. She ejaculated:
</p>
<p>
“Surely we can try, Mr. Dowd! There is another thing:
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span>
the deck guns! Had you thought of
them?”
</p>
<p>
“My goodness, no!” admitted the first officer.
</p>
<p>
“If we could slue around one of those guns, a
single shot might sink the boat off there. If they
are enemies, I mean.”
</p>
<p>
“Now you have suggested something, Miss
Fielding! Wait! Let me have your torch. I
will take a look at the guns.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
And when he came she saw that something was
decidedly wrong. He wagged his head despairingly.
</p>
<p>
“No use,” he said. “Those fellows were
sharper than one would think. The breech-block
of each gun is missing.”
</p>
<p>
“That light is drawing close, Mr. Dowd!” Ruth
exclaimed. “Get the pistols you spoke of—do!”
</p>
<p>
But first Dowd called to the radio man up above
them: “Hi, Sparks, see that boat coming?”
</p>
<p>
“What boat?” demanded the other, stopping
his work for the moment. Then he saw the light.
“Holy heavens! what’s that?”
</p>
<p>
“One of the boats coming back—and not with
friends,” said Dowd.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span>
</p>
<p>
“Let me get these wires welded and I’ll show
’em!” rejoined Rollife. “I’ll send a call——”
</p>
<p>
At the moment the sudden explosion of a motor
engine exhaust startled them. It was no rowboat
advancing toward the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. Probably
its crew had been rowing quietly so as not to
startle those left aboard the ship.
</p>
<p>
“The pistols, Mr. Dowd!” begged Ruth again.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span>
the weapon’s hammer—but not a shot was fired!
</p>
<p>
“Great guns, Dowd!” shouted the radio man,
exasperated. “This gat isn’t loaded.”
</p>
<p>
“Neither is mine!” exclaimed Ruth, who had
made a quick examination in the darkness.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, my soul!” groaned the first officer. “I
got the wrong weapons!”
</p>
<p>
“And no more clips of cartridges? Well,
you——”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span><a name='chXVIII' id='chXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII—THE CONSPIRACY LAID BARE</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Drop that torch and your guns!” he commanded
sharply. “Put up your hands!”
</p>
<p>
“It’s Dykman!” muttered Mr. Dowd. “The
cut-throat villain!”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span>
outward. Dykman crossed the deck with his lamp
warily, while the flaxen-haired man held the three
under the muzzle of his pistol.
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean by such actions, Dykman?”
demanded Dowd angrily.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Then he shot a question at the radio man:
“Did you get those wires fixed?”
</p>
<p>
“Hanged if I don’t wish I hadn’t touched ’em,”
growled the radio man.
</p>
<p>
“You’ve sent no message, then?”
</p>
<p>
Rollife shook his head.
</p>
<p>
“All right. Krueger!” shouted Dykman, who
seemed to be in command of the traitors.
</p>
<p>
“I thought so!” muttered Rollife. “That
squarehead never did look right to me.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“By ‘home’ I suppose you mean Germany!”
snorted Rollife.
</p>
<p>
“That is exactly what I mean.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t worry,” grinned Dykman. “She’s not
damaged much. We opened seacocks——”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, yes, I found that out,” admitted Dowd.
“And I closed them.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Man, but you have the brass!” exclaimed
Dowd. “Some of these destroyers will catch you,
sure.”
</p>
<p>
“We’ll see about that,” grumbled Dykman.
“We’ll put you two men where you will be able
to do no harm, at least.”
</p>
<p>
“And Miss Fielding?” questioned Dowd
quickly. “You will see that she comes to no harm,
Mr. Dykman?”
</p>
<p>
“She is rather an awkward prisoner, considering the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span>
use we intend to make of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>.
Women will be much in the way, I assure
you.”
</p>
<p>
“But there is Miss Lentz,” murmured Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“It was your fault I did not,” said Ruth boldly.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Will be shortly, Mr. Boldig,” said the assistant
radio man.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span>
her way to her stateroom, while Dowd and Rollife
went the other way.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span>
</p>
<p>
“No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep
the key,” said Ruth firmly.
</p>
<p>
“Come, now! No foolishness!” he said angrily.
“Do as you are told.”
</p>
<p>
“No. I shall keep the key,” she repeated.
</p>
<p>
“Why, you—well,” and he laughed shortly,
“I will make sure that you stay in there, my lady.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“If we feed you at all, Miss Fielding, it will
have to be through the port. <em>Au revoir</em>!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The thought of sleep was repugnant to her.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
These Germans had played a shrewd game to
get possession of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. It was
not for the purpose of sinking the transport ship
that they had brought about her abandonment.
No, indeed!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em>, 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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“You have shown yourself to be a good deal
of a coward, Guelph. Always fearful of disaster!
Look you: If you <em>will</em> that nothing shall
balk us, no disaster will arrive. It is the <em>will</em> of
the German people that will make them in the
end the victors in this war. Remember that,
Guelph.”
</p>
<p>
The other muttered something about taking
unnecessary chances. Boldig at once declared:
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span>
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. Ha,
we will make the Englanders gnash their teeth in
rage!”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Huh!” growled the other, “gold is good, I
grant you.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span><a name='chXIX' id='chXIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX—TOM CAMERON TAKES A HAND</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span>
Suppose he had been the means, after all, of
crippling the Zeppelin?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>ober-leutnant</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span>
he would make it impossible for the Zeppelin ever
to reach England, unless it drifted there by accident.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
An hour passed, then another. The Zeppelin’s
speed was not increased, nor did he see the commander
in all the time.
</p>
<p>
He believed the airship must have drifted out
over the sea.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
These ruminations were scarcely to the point,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span>
however; Tom desired to do something, not to
remain inactive.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Der gomblements of der commander,” he said,
gutturally, and backed out of the narrow doorway.
</p>
<p>
“He’s all right, your commander!” exclaimed
Tom impulsively, making for the fare with all the
zest of good appetite.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
He stopped eating to listen. He heard nothing
from the outer cabin.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span><a name='chXX' id='chXX'></a>CHAPTER XX—THE STORM BREAKS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>ober-leutnant</em> read from a
book.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
For the airship was over the sea now, and, as
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
He could barely see what he was about, for it
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span>
</p>
<p>
When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back
to the door and opened it a narrow crack. The
<em>ober-leutnant</em> went right through the cabin and
disappeared.
</p>
<p>
Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the
scheme which had been slowly forming in his
mind? Was the moment propitious?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color
over his head and prepared to steal out of the
closet, his pistol in his hand.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span><a name='chXXI' id='chXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI—THE WRECK</h2>
<p>
Youth is fain to be reckless, but there was no
lack of reasoning behind Tom Cameron’s intention.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span>
then ran forward again and opened the door to
the deck.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
As this thought smoldered in his mind, others
took fire from it. He faced a desperate venture.
</p>
<p>
If he carried through his purpose, with the Germans
manning this airship he would be swept to
a lingering but almost certain death.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span>
lines. Helen must learn of the catastrophe in
time. Ruth might hear of the wreck of the airplane
before she sailed for home.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span>
with a few smashing blows if once he
could get this man out of the way.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span>
instruments, as well as beating the levers into a
twisted wreck.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span>
in the very beginning. He could have
shouted aloud in his delight.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The envelope boomed and tore at the frame for
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The tumbling sea separated him from the Germans.
Perhaps it was as well.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span><a name='chXXII' id='chXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII—ADRIFT</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The situation of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, or catch her wireless calls. The
Germans would be in trouble then without
doubt.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span>
she very well knew, for women—prisoners
or otherwise.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span>
woman whose murmured complaint of, “Oh, my
back! and oh, my bones!” had become the familiar
quotation of Ruth and her young friends.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>,
the enemy might succeed in putting into commission
a craft that would greatly aid in the submarine
warfare.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
It was noon before the beat of the <em>Admiral Pekhard’s</em>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She smelled coffee and heard the rattle of
dishes; so she opened the window.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She felt that it might be well to make a friend
among the mutineers if she could do so.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do you want anything, Miss Fielding?” he
asked.
</p>
<p>
At first she would not speak; but when he repeated
his question, adding:
</p>
<p>
“You know, I can draw those nails in your door
as well as I could hammer them in,” she hastened
to reply:
</p>
<p>
“I want nothing.”
</p>
<p>
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 <em>you</em> aboard his craft;
so I fear you are apt to remain with us.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span><a name='chXXIII' id='chXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII—AT THE MOMENT OF NEED</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span>
with the Almighty, to do all that she could
to bring things out right herself.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She must, however, gain something else first.
Her wit must win what her physical force might
not. She bided her time till evening.
</p>
<p>
Again the man came to her window with food.
It proved to be another platter of ham and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span>
eggs, flanked this time with a pot of wretched
tea.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Is there nobody to cook for you hard-working
men?” repeated Ruth briskly. “How many of
you are there?”
</p>
<p>
“Eleven, Miss, counting Mr. Boldig.”
</p>
<p>
“Why, that’s not so many. And you feed Mr.
Dowd and Mr. Rollife, of course?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, ma’am. I s’pected you would. But I
don’t see——”
</p>
<p>
“You tell the other men what I say—that I
would cook for you all if I were let out of here.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span>
But I must be guaranteed that you will not harm
me if I do this.”
</p>
<p>
“Who’d want to harm you, Miss?” returned
the man, with some sharpness.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“No, indeed, Miss,” said the fellow warmly.
“Nor anybody else. I’ll tell the other boys. And
I’ll speak to Mr. Boldig——”
</p>
<p>
“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.’”
</p>
<p>
“Of course, ma’am. Nobody shall hurt you.
And I’ll tell Mr. Boldig to come.”
</p>
<p>
Within half an hour she heard Boldig’s quick
step upon the deck. He barked in at the open
window:
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
Ruth thought he was not so angry as he made
out to be. She said boldly:
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span>
me in any way unbecoming your position as a
gentleman and an officer.”
</p>
<p>
“You have a small opinion of me, Miss Fielding!”
he exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
“That is your fault, not mine,” she told him
coolly. “And I hope you will show me that I am
wrong.”
</p>
<p>
He went away without further word, and in a
little while she heard somebody drawing the nails
from the doorframe.
</p>
<p>
“Who is that?” she asked before she unlocked
the door.
</p>
<p>
“It’s me, ma’am,” said the rather drawling
voice of the man Boldig called “Fritz.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>Admiral
Pekhard?</em>”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And do you suppose you will be welcome at
home, when people know of your treachery?”
asked Ruth indignantly.
</p>
<p>
“No, Miss. I won’t be welcome if they know
it. But they won’t. I ain’t fool enough to tell
’em.”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span>
sleep at all the night before Ruth was desperately
tired.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>
rolled a good deal in the roughening waves.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span>
although if the sea became much rougher she presumed
the mutineers would have to find some
means of getting the launch inboard.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Boldig! It is a man afloat! Man overboard!”
</p>
<p>
Ruth thought she heard somebody run from
her door.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span><a name='chXXIV' id='chXXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV—COUNTERPLOT</h2>
<p>
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 <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> with a joy that increased deliriously
as he became assured that the ship was
steaming head-on to his poor raft.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
It was providential that the course of the <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em> was bringing her almost directly
toward the drifting bit of wreckage. She was
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“That is no part of an underseas boat!” cried
Boldig to the lookout. “What is it?”
</p>
<p>
“There is a man in it—see! He waves his
coat. It looks like a boat—no! It is one mystery,
Herr Boldig.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
No passengers on her decks, no officers on her
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span>
bridge until this one hailed him, and no crew along
her waist watching him. Besides she was coming
along at such a crippled gait.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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
<em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span>
</p>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You fell with an airship—yes?” this man
asked, and Tom nodded.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You have the good fortune to escape both
peril by air and sea, <em>Mein Herr?</em>” said Boldig.
“Your companions?”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>Herr Leutnant-Commander</em> over the
city!”
</p>
<p>
“Ah!” said Boldig. “I thought you did not
seem entirely German.”
</p>
<p>
“It is the heart that counts, is it not?” Tom returned.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“And you, <em>Mein Herr?</em>” Tom asked with a
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span>
gesture indicating the <em>Admiral Pekhard’s</em> empty
decks.
</p>
<p>
“Our story you shall learn later,” said Boldig.
“But rest assured. You are among friends.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The hand seized his own. The touch thrilled
him before he heard her voice or caught a glimpse
of Ruth Fielding’s face.
</p>
<p>
“Tom! Tom Cameron!” she murmured.
“You are saved and have been sent to me.”
</p>
<p>
“Ruth!” He almost fell down the stairway
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Tom! Dear Tom!” she murmured.
</p>
<p>
“Great heavens, Ruth! how did you come here?
What is the meaning of this business? Those
Germans out there——?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Pirates!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“What under the sun——”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” gasped Ruth, hearing Boldig outside.
“Here he comes! He has been so brutal—so disgusting!
Oh, Tom!”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span>
pushed the muzzle of his weapon against the
man’s breast.
</p>
<p>
“Up with your hands!” Tom commanded.
“Quick!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“That man has the keys to their staterooms.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
Was this Tom Cameron, Ruth thought? She
had never seen Tom assume such a character before.
She had forgotten what army training had
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Dowd had handcuffs, too, and Boldig, Fritz,
and the other unwounded seamen were quickly
manacled and shut into separate rooms below.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
There was a gray, swiftly steaming ship, a
warship, bearing down upon the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>,
and the Stars and Stripes was at her masthead!
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span><a name='chXXV' id='chXXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV—HOME AS FOUND</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
For at first came happenings almost as exciting
as those that had already taken place. The <em>Seattle</em>
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 <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>.
</p>
<p>
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
<em>Seattle</em>, of the fast cruiser type, bound home for
orders, felt an attempt must be made to punish the
Germans connected with the plot.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The commander of the American cruiser made
his plans quickly. He sent a large crew aboard
the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>. 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.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Rollife had insisted on remaining at his
post. The chatter of the <em>Admiral Pekhard’s</em>
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 <em>Seattle</em> started for the
spot at top-speed.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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, <em>Herr Kapitan-Leutnant</em> Scheiner,
nicely. He sent his first in command and the special
crew brought from the submarine base at
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207'></a>207</span>
Kiel to the passenger ship, crowding the small
launch to the very guards.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Before the smoke of the <em>Seattle</em> was sighted the
two deck guns of the <em>Admiral Pekhard</em>, 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 <em>Seattle</em>
ordered <em>Kapitan-Leutnant</em> Scheiner to surrender
his boat and crew.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The <em>Admiral Pekhard</em> was sent to Plymouth,
as that port was nearer than Brest. Besides, the
<em>Seattle’s</em> commander had learned already by radio
that the entire ship’s company of the British ship
had safely reached that port.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Dowd and Rollife went with the <em>Admiral
Pekhard</em>; 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.
</p>
<p>
“You are due to reach New York anyway, Miss
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208'></a>208</span>
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.”
</p>
<hr class='tb' />
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth saw an automobile swing into the road a
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209'></a>209</span>
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:
</p>
<p>
“Tom is coming, Aunty. I sha’n’t be long
away.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“All right, Ruthie?” asked Tom, smiling at
her.
</p>
<p>
“Quite all right, Tom.”
</p>
<p>
“Got the whole day free, have you?”
</p>
<p>
“Until supper time. We can take a nice, long
jaunt.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span>
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Well,” returned Ruth Fielding, looking at him
with shining eyes, “who knows?”
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p> </p>
<p>THE END</p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<img src='images/z221.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width:100%; max-width:525px;' /><br />
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<p>
<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES</span>
</p>
<p>
By ALICE B. EMERSON
</p>
<div class='figleft' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i004' id='i004'></a>
<img src='images/z222.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br />
</div>
<p>
<i>12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors.</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.</i>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction.
</p>
<p>
1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL<br />
2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL<br />
3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP<br />
4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT<br />
5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH<br />
6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND<br />
7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM<br />
8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES<br />
9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES<br />
10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE<br />
11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE<br />
12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE<br />
13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS<br />
14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT<br />
15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND<br />
16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST<br />
17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST<br />
18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE<br />
19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING<br />
20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH<br />
21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS<br />
22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA<br />
</p>
<p>
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, <em>Publishers</em> NEW YORK
</p>
<pre>
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