Alice B. Emerson

“ When he shifted the helm to run for the entrance to the bay, the waves began to slap against the Stazy’s side. She rolled terrifically and the aspect of affairs was instantly changed.
“Oh, dear me!” moaned Jennie Stone. “How do you feel, Henri? I did not bargain for this rough stuff, did you? Oh!”
“‘Mister Captain, stop the ship, I want to get off and walk!’” sang Helen gaily. “Don’t lose all hope, Heavy. You’ll never sink if you do go overboard.”
“Isn’t she mean?” sniffed the plump girl. “And I am only afraid for Henri’s sake.”
“I don’t like this for my own sake,” murmured Aunt Kate. ”

“ Helen and Jennie sprang at Ruth like a pair of terriers after a cat, demanding information and explanation all in a breath. But when they realized the state of mind of the strange woman, they calmed down.
They wrapped her in a dry raincoat and put her in the back of the big car. She remained quietly there with Jennie’s Aunt Kate while Ruth related her adventure with Mr. Peterby Paul and the “Whosis.”
“Goodness!” gasped Helen, “I guess he named her rightly. There must be something altogether wrong with the poor creature to make her wander about these wet woods, screeching like a loon.” ”

“ Ruth slept peacefully and awoke the next morning in a perfectly serene frame of mind. She was quite as convinced as ever that she had been robbed of her scenario; and she was, as well, sure that “John, the hermit,” had produced his picture play from her manuscript. But Ruth no longer felt anxious and excited about it.
She clearly saw her way to a conclusion of the matter. If the old actor was identified by Ben and Uncle Jabez as the tramp they had seen and conversed with, the girl of the Red Mill was pretty sure she would get the best of the thief. ”

“ The other girls were drowsy when Ruth kissed Mother Paisley good-night and entered the small shack. She was glad to escape any interrogation. By morning she had gained control of herself, but her eyes betrayed the fact that she had not slept.
“You certainly do not look as though you were enjoying yourself down here,” Tom Cameron said to her at breakfast time, and with suspicion. “Maybe we did come to the wrong place for our vacation after all. How about it, Ruth? Shall we start off in the cars again and seek pastures new?” ”

“ A girl keeps all her best and softest attributes to the fore, while a boy thinks it is more manly to show a prickly surface—like the burr of a chestnut.”
“Listen to them!” exclaimed Aunt Kate, with laughter. “All the wise sayings of the ancient world must be crammed under those pretty caps you wear, along with your hair.”
“That is what we get at college,” said Helen seriously. “Dear old Ardmore! Ruth! won’t you be glad to get back to the grind again?”
“I—don’t—know,” said her chum slowly. “We have seen so much greater things than college. It’s going to be rather tame, isn’t it?” ”

“ I did seize upon your manuscript in that summer-house near the mill where they say you live, and I was prepared to make the best use of it possible for Bella’s sake.
“We have had such bad luck! Poverty for one’s self is bad enough. I have withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for years. But my child is growing up——”
“Would you want her to grow up to know that her father is a thief?” Ruth demanded hotly.
“Hunger under the belt gnaws more potently than conscience,” said Pike, with a grandiloquent gesture. ”

“ Indeed, they had not passed a farmstead on the road for the last five miles. Over the top of the wooded crest to the north curled a slate colored storm [Pg 75] cloud, its upper edge trembling with livid lightnings. The veriest tyro of a weather prophet could see that a storm was about to break. But nobody had foretold the sudden stopping of the honeymoon car in the lead!
“What is the matter with you?” cried Helen, standing up in the tonneau of the big car, when Tom pulled up suddenly to keep from running the maroon roadster down. “Don’t you see it is going to rain? We want to get somewhere.” ”

“ Nor you wouldn’t if you worked for Aunt Suse. She says I’ll give her her nevergitovers—an’ I hope I do!” with which final observation she ran to unlace Aunt Kate’s shoes.
“Poor little thing,” said Ruth to Helen. “She is worse off than an orphan. Her Aunt Susan is worse than Uncle Jabez ever was to me. And she has no Aunt Alvirah to help her to bear it. We ought to do something for her.”
“There! You’ve begun. Every waif and stray on our journey must be aided, I suppose,” pouted Helen, half exasperated.
But Tom was glad to see that Ruth had found a new interest. ”

“ He was angrily driving some of the swimmers away from his fishing location at that moment. It was plain the members of the moving picture company used the hermit as a butt for their jokes.
While one fellow was taking up the hermit’s attention in front, another bather rose silently behind him and reached into the bottom of the skiff. What this second fellow did Tom and Ruth could not see.
“The old chap can’t swim a stroke,” explained one of the laughing bathers to the visitors. “He’s as afraid of water as a cat. Now you watch.” ”

“ The girls went to “doll up,” to quote the slangy Tom, for Reef Harbor was one of the most fashionable of Maine coast resorts and the knockabout clothing they had been wearing at Beach Plum Point would never do at the Harbor hotels.
The Stazy was a comfortable and fast motor-yacht. As to her sea-worthiness even Tom could not say, but she looked all right. And to the eyes of the members of Ruth Fielding’s party there was no threat of bad weather. So why worry about the pleasure-craft’s balance and her ability to sail the high seas? ”

“ But the housekeeper went through the open window after Bella, although in a more conventional manner, paying no heed to Ruth’s plea. The frightened girl, however, escaped her aunt’s clutch by slipping off the borrowed skirt and descending the trumpet-vine trellis by the kitchen door.
“Do let her go, Miss Timmins!” begged Ruth, as the panting woman, carrying Ruth’s skirt, returned to the window where the girl of the Red Mill stood. “She is scared to death. She was doing no harm.” ”

“ And then——
“Who ever saw ghosts carrying garbage cans before?” ejaculated the girl of the Red Mill. “Mercy me, Heavy! do stop your wailing. It is the chef and his two assistants who have got up to dump the garbage on the out-going tide. What a perfect scare-cat you are!”
“You don’t mean it, Ruth?” whimpered the plump girl. “Is that all they were?”
Helen began to giggle. And it covered her own fright. Ruth was rather annoyed.
“If you had remained in bed and minded your own business,” she said to Jennie, “you would not have seen ghosts, or got us up to see them. ”

“ But as Tom was to drive the big car he insisted that Ruth sit with him in the front seat for company. As for his racing car, he had turned that over to Marchand. It, too, was well laden; but at the start Jennie squeezed in beside her colonel, and the maroon speeder was at once whisperingly dubbed by the others “the honeymoon car.”
“Poor children!” said Aunt Kate in private to the two other girls. “They cannot marry until the war is over. That my brother is firm upon, although he thinks well of Colonel Henri. And who could help liking him? He is a most lovable boy.” ”

“ Hammond!”
“But it seems impossible,” he said weakly.
“That old man is an actor—an old-school actor. You can see that easily enough,” she declared. “There was such a person about the Red Mill the day my script was lost. Oh, it’s plain enough.”
“Not so plain, Miss Ruth,” said Mr. Hammond firmly. “And you must not make wild accusations. That will do no good—and may do harm in the end. It does not seem probable to me that this old hermit could have actually stolen your story. A longshore character like him——”
“He’s not!” cried Ruth. “Don’t you see that he is playing a part? He is no fisherman. ”

“ Where do we camp to-night, Tommy?”
“No more camping, I pray!” squealed Jennie. “I am no Gypsy.”
“The hotel at Hampton is recommended as the real thing. They have a horse show every year at Hampton, you know. It is in the midst of a summer colony of wealthy people. It is the real thing,” Tom repeated.
They made a pleasant and long run that afternoon and arrived at the Hampton hotel in good season to dress for dinner. Jennie and her aunt met some people they knew, and naturally Jennie’s fiancé and her friends were warmly welcomed by the gay little colony. ”

“ It was some time past noon before the thunder began to mutter again. The automobile party was then in the hilly country. Heretofore farms had been plentiful, although hamlets were few and far between.
“If it rains,” said Ruth cheerfully, “of course we can take refuge in some farmhouse.”
“Ho, for adventure among the savage natives!” cried Helen.
“I hope we shall meet nobody quite as savage as Miss Susan Timmins,” was Aunt Kate’s comment. ”

“ Tom promptly proposed.
“My duty as a chaperon——” began the good woman, when her niece broke in with:
“In numbers there is perfect safety, Auntie. There are a whole lot of girls down there at the Point.”
“And we have chaperons of our own, I assure you,” interposed Mr. Hammond, treating Aunt Kate’s objection seriously. “Miss Loder has a cousin who always travels with her. Our own Mother Paisley, who plays character parts, has daughters of her own and is a lovely lady. You need not fear, Madam, that the conventions will be broken.”
“We won’t even crack ’em, Aunt Kate,” declared Helen rouguishly. ”

“ Ruth sighed, in agreement.
“Yes. We have always pampered the boy,” declared Helen, her eyes twinkling. “I know just what I’ll wear, Ruthie.”
“Oh, we’ve clothes enough,” admitted the girl of the Red Mill rather listlessly.
“Shucks!” said Tom again. “Never mind the fashions. Get that letter written, Sis.”
So it was agreed. Helen wrote, the letter was sent. With Jennie Stone’s usual impulsiveness she accepted for herself and “mon Henri” and Aunt Kate, promising to be at Cheslow within three days, and all within the limits of a ten-word telegram! ”

“ Afterward, when Ruth had been thanked by [Pg 98] Mrs. Drake and the other women, and the cars were rolling along the highway again, the girl of the Red Mill said to Helen Cameron:
“I guess Tom is more than half right. Altogether, the most serious topic of conversation for all kinds and conditions of female humans is the matter of dress—in one way or another.”
“How dare you slur your own sex so?” demanded Helen.
“Well, look at this case,” her chum observed. “This Mary Marsden had been lost in the storm and killed for all they knew, yet Abby Drake’s first thought was for the woman’s dress.” ”

“ CHAPTER XI MR. PETERBY PAUL AND “WHOSIS”
Ruth Fielding was more than a little startled, for the appearance of this bearded and gruff-spoken man was much against him.
She had become familiar, however, during the past months with all sorts and conditions of men—many of them much more dangerous looking than this stranger.
Her experiences at the battlefront in France had taught her many things. Among them, that very often the roughest men are the most tender with and considerate of women. ”

“ It was, however, on a picnic plane of existence, and there was much hilarity.
These actor folk were very pleasant people. Even the star, Miss Loder, was quite unspoiled by her success.
“You know,” she confessed to Ruth (everybody confided in Ruth) , “I never would have been anything more than a stock actress in some jerkwater town, as we say in the West, if the movies hadn’t become so popular. I have what they call the ‘appealing face’ and I can squeeze out real tears at the proper juncture. Those are two very necessary attributes for a girl who wishes to gain film success.” ”

“ And a great actor!”
“But we believe he is not acting when he tells us he loves Jennie,” Aunt Kate said.
[Pg 33] “Surely not!” cried Helen.
“He is the soul of honor,” Ruth declared. “I trust him as I do—well, Tom. I never had a brother.”
“I’ve always shared Tom with you,” pouted Helen.
“So you have, dear,” admitted Ruth. “But a girl who has had no really-truly brother really has missed something. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But, at least, if you have brothers you understand men better.”
“Listen to the wisdom of the owl!” scoffed Helen. “Why, Tommy is only a girl turned inside out. ”

“ Ruth obeyed the command. The Stazy staggered into the next wave. The water that came in over her bow almost drowned them, but Ruth, hanging to the steering wheel, brought the craft through the roller without swamping her.
“Good for our Ruth!” shouted Helen, as soon as she could get her breath.
[Pg 192] “Oh, Ruth! you always come to our rescue,” declared Jennie gratefully.
“Hi! I thought you were a nervous wreck, young lady,” Tom sputtered, scrambling forward to relieve her. “Get you into a tight corner, and you show what you are made of, all right.”
The girl of the Red Mill smiled at them. ”

“ Had Tom been present the girl of the Red Mill would have called his attention to the mystery and left it to him to decide whether to investigate or not. But Ruth was quite an independent person when she was alone; and under the circumstances, with Henri Marchand so busy comforting Jennie, Ruth did not consider for a moment calling the Frenchman to advise with her.
As for Helen and Aunt Kate, they were quite overcome by their fears. Ruth was not really afraid of thunder and lightning, as many people are. ”

“ Even Ruth Fielding had paid no attention to the warning of the Reef Island hermit regarding a change in the weather, in spite of the fact that she was anxious to return to the camp near Herringport. It was not until the Stazy was outside the inlet late in the afternoon that Skipper Phil Gordon noted the threatening signs in sea and sky.
“That’s how it goes,” the one-armed mariner said. “When we aren’t dependent on the wind to fill our canvas, we neglect watching every little weather change. She’s going to blow by and by.” ”

“ I wish you’d marry some nice fellow, Sis, so that we’d always have a chaperon on tap and handy.”
She made a little face at him. “I am going to be old-maid aunt to your many children, [Pg 28] Tommy-boy. I am sure you will have a full quiver. We will have to look for a chaperon.”
“Aunt Kate!” exclaimed Ruth. “Heavy’s Aunt Kate. She is just what Helen declares she wants to be—an old-maid aunt.”
“And a lovely lady,” cried Helen.
“Sure. Ask her. Beg her,” agreed Tom. “Tell her it is the crying need. We have positively got to have some fun.” ”