 |
"It's just as so as it can be," and Ruth continued to laugh.
The tears suddenly flooded into Rebecca's eyes. She could not turn quickly enough to hide them from Ruth's keen vision. But all she said was:
"Well, Ruthie! I congratulate you. Think of it! Two hundred dollars offered for each set of those old papers. Well!"
"You see, it would scarcely have been wise to have built the fire with them," Ruth said drily.
"I—I should say not. And—and they have lain in our attic for years."
"And you brought them to college as waste paper," Ruth added.
Rebecca was silent. Ruth, smiling roguishly, stole up behind her. Suddenly she put both arms around Rebecca Frayne and hugged her tight.
"Becky! Don't you understand?" she cried.
"Understand what?" Rebecca asked gruffly, trying to dash away her few tears.
"Why, honey, I did it for you. I believed the papers must be worth something. I had heard of a set of New York illustrated papers for the years of the Civil War selling for a big price. These, I believed, must be even more interesting to collectors of such things.
"So I wrote to Mr. Cameron, and he sent me the names of old book dealers, and they sent me the addresses of several collectors. This Mr. Radley has a regular museum of such things, and he offers the best price—four hundred dollars for the lot if they prove to be as perfect as I said they were. And they are."
"Yes—but——"
"And, of course, the money is yours, Rebecca," said Ruth, promptly. "You don't for a moment suppose that I would take your valuable papers and cheat you out of the reward just because I happened to know more about their worth than you did? What do you take me for?"
"Oh—oh, Ruthie!"
"What do you take me for?" again demanded Ruth Fielding, quite as though she were offended.
"For the best and dearest girl who ever lived!" cried Rebecca Frayne, and cast herself upon Ruth's breast, holding her tightly while she sobbed there.
This was one surprise. But there was another later, and this was a surprise for Ruth herself.
She was very glad to have been the means of finding Rebecca such a nice little fortune as this that came to her for the old periodicals. With what the girl's brother could send her, Rebecca would be pretty sure of sufficient money to carry her through her freshman year and pay for her second year's tuition at Ardmore.
"Something may be found then for Rebecca to do," thought Ruth, "that will not so greatly shock her notions of gentility. Dear me! she's as nice a girl as ever lived; but she is a problem."
Ruth had other problems, however, on her mind. One of these brought about the personal surprise mentioned above. She had found time finally to complete the scenario of "Crossed Wires," and after some changes had been made in it, Mr. Hammond had informed her that it would be put in the hands of a director for production. It called for so many outdoor scenes, however, that the new film would not be made until spring.
Spring was now fast approaching, and Ruth determined to be at the Red Mill on a visit when the first scenes were taken for her photo-drama.
Of course, if she went, Helen must go. They stood excellently well in all their classes, and it was not hard to persuade Dr. Milroth, who had good reports of both freshmen, to let them go to Cheslow.
Ruth's coming home was in the nature of a surprise to Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah. The old housekeeper was outspoken in her joy at seeing "her pretty" once more. Uncle Jabez was startled into perhaps a warmer greeting of his niece than he ordinarily considered advisable.
"I declare for't, Ruth! Ain't nothin' the matter, is there?" he asked, holding her hand and staring into her face with serious intent.
"Oh, no, Uncle. Nothing at all the matter. Just ran home to see how you all were, and to watch them take the pictures of the old mill."
"Ain't lost any of that money, have ye?" persisted the miller.
"Not a penny. And Mr. Hammond sent me a nice check on account of royalties, too," and she dimpled and laughed at him.
"All right," grunted Uncle Jabez. "Ye wanter watch out for that there money. Business is onsartain. Ain't no knowin' when everything'll go to pot here. I never see the times so hard."
But Ruth was not much disturbed by such talk. Uncle Jabez had been prophesying disaster ever since she had known him.
Maggie welcomed Ruth cordially, as well as Ben. Maggie was still the puzzling combination of characteristics that she had seemed to Ruth from the first. She was willing to work, and was kind to Aunt Alvirah; but she always withdrew into herself if anybody tried to talk much to her.
The others at the Red Mill had become used to the girl's reticence; but to Ruth it remained just as tantalizing. She had the feeling that Maggie was by no means in her right environment.
"Doesn't she ever write letters?" Ruth asked Aunt Alvirah. "Doesn't she ever have a visitor?"
"Why, bless ye, my pretty! I don't know as she writes much," Aunt Alvirah said, as she moved about the kitchen in her old slow fashion. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! Well Ruthie, she reads a lot. She's all for books, I guess, like you be. But she don't never talk much. And a visitor? Why, come to think on't, she did have one visitor."
"Is that so?" cried the curious Ruth. "Let's hear about it. I feel gossipy, Aunt Alvirah," and she laughed.
She knew that Maggie was away from the house, and they were alone. She could trust Aunt Alvirah to say nothing to the girl regarding her queries.
"Yes, my pretty," the old woman said, "she did have one visitor. Another gal come to see her the very week you went away to college, Ruthie."
"Is that so? Who was she?"
"Maggie didn't say. I didn't ask her. Ye see, she ain't one ter confide in a body," explained Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head and lowering herself into her rocking chair. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
"But didn't you see this visitor?"
"Why, yes, Ruthie. I seen her. It was funny, too," Aunt Alvirah said, shaking her head. "I meant to write to you about it; then I forgot.
"I hears somebody knock on the door one day, and I opened the door and there I declare stood Maggie herself. Or, I thought 'twas her."
"What?" gasped Ruth, very much interested.
"She looked a sight like her," said Aunt Alvirah, laughing to herself at the remembrance. "Yet I knowed Maggie had gone upstairs to make the beds, and this here girl who had knocked on the door was all dressed up."
"'Why, Maggie!' says I. And she says, kinder tart-like:
"'I ain't Maggie. But I want to see her.'
"So I axed her in; but she wouldn't come. I seen then maybe she was a little younger than Maggie is. Howsomever I called to Maggie, and she went out, and the two of 'em walked up and down the road for an hour. The other gal never come in. And I seen her start back toward Cheslow. Maggie never said no word about her from that day to this.
"Do you know what I think about it, Ruthie?" concluded Aunt Alvirah.
"No, Aunt Alvirah," said the girl of the Red Mill, reflectively.
"I think that was Maggie's sister. Maybe she works out for somebody in Cheslow."
Ruth merely nodded. She did not think much of that phase of the matter. What she was really puzzling over was her memory of the girl she and Helen had interviewed on the island in Lake Remona before the Christmas holidays.
That girl had looked very much like Maggie, too!
CHAPTER XXI
MANY THINGS HAPPEN
It was, of course, hard to tell by merely seeing them taken what the pictures about the old Red Mill would be like; but Ruth and Helen both acted in them as "extras" and were greatly excited over the film, one may be sure.
The director, not the cross Mr. Grimes this time, assured Ruth that he was confident "Crossed Wires" would make good on the screen. Hazel Gray played the lead in the picture, as she had in "The Heart of a School Girl," and Ruth and Helen were glad to meet the bright little screen actress again.
Miss Gray seemed to have forgotten all about Tom Cameron and Ruth, for some reason, felt glad. She ventured to ask Helen if her twin was still as enamored of the young actress as he had seemed to be the year before.
"Why, no," Helen said thoughtfully. "You know how it is with boys; they have one craze after another, Ruthie."
"No. Do they?" asked the other.
"Yes. Tom made a collection of the photographs of a slap-stick comedian at first. Then he decorated his room at Seven Oaks with all the pictures he could find of Miss Gray. Now, when I was over there with father the other day, what do you suppose is his chief decoration on his room walls?"
"I haven't the least idea," Ruth confessed.
"Great, ugly, brutal boxers! Prize-fighters! Awful pictures, Ruth! I suppose next he will make a collection of the photographs of burglars!" and Helen laughed.
The chums were whisked back to Ardmore, having been absent five days. They were so well prepared in their recitations, however, that they did not fall behind in any particular. Indeed, these two bright-minded girls found it not difficult to keep up with their classes.
Even Jennie Stone, leisure loving as she naturally was, had no real difficulty in being well to the front in her studies. And she had become one of the most faithful of devotees of gymnastic practice.
Ardmore's second basket ball five pushed the first team hard; and Jennie Stone was on the second five. As the spring training for the boats opened she, as well as Ruth and Helen, tried for the freshmen eight-oared shell. All three won places in that crew.
Jennie was still somewhat over-weight. But the instructor put her at bow and her weight counted there. Ruth was stroke and Helen Number 2. As practice went on it was proved that the freshman crew was a very well balanced one.
They more than once "bumped" the sophomore shell in trial races, and once came very near to catching the junior eight. The seniors and juniors began now to pay more attention to the freshman class; especially to those members who showed well in athletics.
Because of their characters and their class standing, several of the instructors besides Miss Cullam, the mathematics teacher, were the friends of the Briarwoods. Miss Cullam had shown a warm appreciation of Ruth Fielding's character all through the year. Not that Ruth was a prize pupil in Miss Cullam's study, for she was not. Mathematics was the one study it was hard for Ruth to interest herself in. But when the girl of the Red Mill had a hard thing to do, she always put her whole mind to it; and, therefore, she made a good mark in mathematics in spite of her distaste for the study.
"You are doing well, Miss Fielding," Miss Cullam declared. "Better than I expected. I have no doubt that you will pass well in the year's examinations."
"And you won't be afraid that I'll crib the answers, Miss Cullam?" Ruth asked, laughing.
"Hush! don't repeat gossip," Miss Cullam said smiling, however, rather ruefully. "Even when the gossip emanates from an old cross-patch of a teacher who gets nervous and worries about improbabilities. No. I do not believe any of my girls would take advantage of the examination papers. Yet, I would give a good deal to know just where those papers and that vase went."
"Has nothing ever been heard from Miss Rolff since she left Ardmore?" Ruth asked.
"No. Not a word. And it is hard on the sororities, too. Heretofore, the girls have enjoyed the benefits of the associations for three years. You, I am sure, Ruth, would have been invited by this time to join one of the sororities."
"And I should dearly love to," sighed Ruth. "The Kappa Alpha. It looks good to me. But there are other things in college—and out of it, too. Oh see, Miss Cullam! Here is what I wanted to show you," and the girl of the Red Mill brought forth a large envelope from her handbag.
They were talking together in the library on this occasion, it being a Saturday afternoon when there was nothing particular to take up either the teacher's time or the pupil's. Ruth emptied the envelope on the table.
"See these photographs? They are stills taken in connection with my new scenario. I want you to see just how lovely a place the old Red Mill, where I live, is."
Miss Cullam adjusted her eyeglasses with a smile, and picked up the topmost picture which Mr. Hammond had sent to Ruth.
"That's dear old Aunt Alvirah herself feeding the chickens. She doesn't know that we took that picture of her. If I had said 'photograph' to the dear old creature, she would have been determined to put on her best bib and tucker!"
"That's the back yard. Isn't it, dear? Who is that on the porch?" asked Miss Cullam.
"On the porch? Why, is anybody on the porch? I don't remember that."
Ruth stooped to peer closer at the unmounted photograph in the teacher's hand.
"Why! there is somebody standing there," she murmured. "You can see the head and shoulders just as plain——"
"And the face," said Miss Cullam, with strange eagerness.
"Oh, I know!" cried Ruth, and she laughed heartily. "Of course. That's Maggie."
"Maggie?"
"Yes. The girl who helps Aunt Alvirah. And she's quite an interesting character, Miss Cullam. I'll tell you about her some day."
"Yes?" said Miss Cullam, reflectively.
"Now, here is the front of the old house——"
"Allow me to keep this picture for a little while, will you, Miss Fielding?" broke in the teacher, still staring at the clearly exposed face of Maggie on the porch.
"Why, yes, certainly," responded the girl, curiously.
"I wish to show this girl's face to somebody else. She seems very familiar to me," the mathematics teacher said.
CHAPTER XXII
CAN IT BE A CLUE?
Ruth gave the matter of Maggie's photograph very little thought. Not at that time, at least. She merely handed the print over to Miss Cullam and forgot all about it.
These were busy days, both in the classroom and out of it. The warmth of late spring was in the air; every girl who felt at all the blood coursing in her veins, tried to be out of doors.
The whole college was eager regarding the coming boat races. Ardmore was to try out her first eight-oared crew with three of several colleges, and two of the trials would be held upon Lake Remona.
There were local races between the class crews every Saturday afternoon. Jennie Stone had to choose between basket ball and rowing, for there were Saturdays when both sports were in ascendency.
"No use. I can't be in two places at once," declared Jennie, regretfully resigning from the basketball team.
"No, honey," said Helen. "You're not big enough for that now. A few months ago you might have played basket ball and sent your shadow to pull an oar with us. See what it means to get thin."
"My! I feel like another girl," said the fleshy one ecstatically. "What do you suppose my father will say to me in June?"
"He'll say," suggested Helen, giggling, "'you took so much away, why do you bring so little back from college?'"
It was several days before Miss Cullam returned to Ruth the picture she had borrowed; and when she did she made a statement regarding it that very much astonished the girl of the Red Mill.
"I will tell you now, my dear; why I wished to keep the photograph," the teacher said. "I showed it to Dr. Milroth and to several of the other members of the faculty."
"Indeed?" responded Ruth, quite puzzled.
"Some of them agree with me. Dr. Milroth does not. Nevertheless, I wish you would tell me all about this Maggie who works for your aunt——"
"Maggie!" gasped Ruth. "What do you mean, Miss Cullam? Was it because her face is in the picture that you borrowed it?"
"Yes, my dear. I think, as do some of the other instructors, that Maggie looks very much like the Miss Rolff who last year occupied the room you have and who left us so strangely before the close of the semester."
"Oh, Miss Cullam!"
"Foolish, am I?" laughed the teacher. "Well, I suppose so. You know all about Maggie, do you?"
"No!" gasped Ruth.
Eagerly she explained to the mathematics teacher how the strange girl had appeared at the Red Mill and why she had remained there. Miss Cullam was no less excited than Ruth when she heard these particulars.
"I must tell Dr. Milroth this," Miss Cullam declared. "Say nothing about it, Ruth Fielding. And she says her name is 'Maggie'? Of course! Margaret Rolff. I believe that is who she is."
"But to go out to housework," Ruth said doubtfully.
"That doesn't matter. We must learn more about this Maggie. Say nothing until I have spoken to Dr. Milroth again."
But if this was a clue to the identity and where-abouts of the girl who had left Ardmore so abruptly the year before, Ruth learned something the very next day that, unfortunately, put it quite beyond her ability to discover further details in the matter.
A letter arrived from Aunt Alvirah and after reading it once through Ruth hurried away to Miss Cullam with the surprising news it contained.
Maggie had left the Red Mill. Without any explanation save that she had been sent for and must go, the strange girl had left Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez, and they did not know her destination. Ben, the hired man, had driven her to the Cheslow railway station and she had taken an eastbound train. Otherwise, nothing was known of the strange girl's movements.
"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Cullam. "I am certain, then, that she is Margaret Rolff. Even Dr. Milroth has come to agree that it may be that strange girl. I hoped there was a chance of learning what really became of those missing examination papers—and, of course, the vase. But how can we discover what became of them if the girl has disappeared again?"
"Well, it's a very strange thing, I am sure," Ruth admitted. "Of course, I'll write the folks at the Red Mill that if Maggie—or whatever her real name is—ever turns up there again, they must let me know at once."
"Yes, do," begged the teacher. "Now that the subject has come up again I feel more disturbed than ever over those papers. Were they lost, or weren't they? My dear Ruth! you don't know how I feel about that mystery. All these girls whom I think so highly of, are still under suspicion."
"I hope nothing like that will happen this year, dear Miss Cullam," Ruth said warmly. "I feel that we freshmen all want to pass our examinations honestly—or not at all."
"That is exactly what I believe about the other girls," groaned the teacher. "But the sorority members admit that Margaret Rolff was instructed to remove the Egyptian vase from the library as a part of the stunt she was expected to do during the initiation ceremonies.
"And in that vase were my papers. Of course, the girls did not know the examination papers were there before the vase was taken. But what became of them afterward?"
"Why, Miss Cullam," Ruth said thoughtfully, "of course they must still be in the vase."
"Perhaps. Then, perhaps not," murmured the teacher. "Who knows?"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SQUALL
The first college eight went off to Gillings, and, as it was only a few miles by rail, half the student body, at least, went to root for the crew. The Ardmore boat was beaten.
"Oh, dear! To come home plucked in such a disgusting way," groaned Helen, who, with Jennie, as well as Ruth, was among the disgruntled and disappointed girls who had gone to see the race. "It is awful."
"It's taught them a lesson, I wager," Ruth said practically. "We have all been rowing in still water. The river at Gillings is rough, and the local eight was used to it. I say, girls!"
"Say it," said Jennie, gruffly. "It can't be anything that will hurt us after what we've seen to-day. Three whole boatlengths ahead!"
"Never mind," broke in Helen. "The races with Hampton and Beardsley will be on our own lake."
"And if there is a flutter of wind, our first eight will be beaten again," from Jennie Stone.
"No, no, girls!" Ruth cried. "I heard the coach tell them that hereafter she was going to make them row if there was a hurricane. And that's what we must do."
"Who must do, Ruthie? What do you mean?" asked Helen.
"The freshman eight."
"E-lu-ci-date," drawled Jennie.
"We must learn to handle our shell in rough water. If there is a breath of wind stirring we mustn't beat it to land," said Ruth, vigorously. "Let's learn to handle our shell in really rough water."
"Sounds reasonable," admitted Jennie. "Shall we all take out accident policies?"
"No. All learn to swim. That's the wisest course," laughed Ruth.
"Ain't it the trewth?" agreed Jennie, making a face. "I'm not much of a swimmest in fresh water. But I never could sink."
The freshmen with the chums in the eight-oared shell proved to be all fair swimmers. And that crew was not the only one that redoubled its practice after the disastrous race at Gillings College.
Each class crew did its very best. The coaches were extremely stern with the girls. Ardmore had a reputation for turning out champion crews, and the year before, on their own water, the Ardmore eight had beaten Gillings emphatically.
"But if we can win races only on our own course," The Jasper, the Ardmore College paper declared, "what is the use of supporting an athletic association and four perfectly useless crews?"
They had all been so sure of victory over Gillings—both the student body and the faculty—that the disgrace of their beating cut all the deeper.
"It is fortunate," said the same stern commenter, "that our races with Hampton, and again with Beardsley, will be on Lake Remona. At least, our crew knows the water here—on a perfectly calm day, at any rate."
"I see Merry Dexter's fine Italian hand in that," Ruth declared, when she and her chums read the criticism of the chief college eight. "And if it is true of the senior shell, how much more so of our own? We must be ready to risk a little something for the sake of pulling a good race."
"Goodness!" murmured Helen. "When we're away off there in the middle of the course between the landing and Bliss Island, for instance, and a squall threatens, it is going to take pluck, my dear, to keep us all steady."
"I tell you what!" exclaimed Jennie Stone.
"Tell it, if you're sure it won't hurt us," laughed Helen.
"Let's get the coach to have us circle the island when we're out in practice. It's always a little rough off both ends of Bliss Island, and we should get used to rough water before our final home races."
For, before the season was over, the four Ardmore eights would compete, and that race was the one which the three under-classes particularly trained for.
Jennie's suggestion sounded practical to her chums; so there were three already agreed when it was broached to the freshmen eight. The coach thought well of it, too; for there was always a motor boat supposed to be in sight of the shells when they were out at practice.
This was in April, and, in Ardmore's latitude, a very uncertain month April is—a time of showers and smiles, calms and uncertain gales. Nevertheless, so thoroughly were the freshmen eight devoted to practice that it had to be a pretty black looking afternoon, indeed, that kept them from stepping into their boat.
The boatkeeper was a weather-wise old man, who had guarded the Ardmore girls against disaster on the lake for a decade. Being so well used to reading the signs he never let the boats out when he considered the weather threatening in any measure.
One afternoon, when there had been a call passed for the freshmen eight to gather at the boathouse immediately after recitations, Johnnie, as the boatman was called, had been called away from his post. Only a green assistant was there to look after the boats, and he was much too bashful to "look after the girls," as Jennie, giggling, observed.
"I don't see why they don't put blinders on that young man," she said. "Whenever he has to look at one of us girls his freckles light up as though there was an electric bulb behind each individual one."
"Oh, Heavy! Behave!" murmured Helen, yet amused, too, by the bashfulness of the assistant.
"We are a sight, I admit," went on Jennie. "Everything in the shell, girls? Now! up with it. Come on, little Trix," she added to the coxswain. "Don't get your tiller-lines snarled, and bring your 'nose-warmer'"—by which inelegant term she referred to the megaphone which, when they were really trying for speed was strapped to the coxswain's head.
The eight oarswomen picked the light shell up, shoulder high, and marched down the platform to the float. Taking their cue from the tam-o'-shanters the seniors had made them wear early in their college experience, the freshmen eight wore light blue bandannas wound around their heads, with the corners sticking up like rabbit-ears, blue blouses, short skirts over bloomers, and blue stockings with white shoes. Their appearance was exceedingly natty.
"If we don't win in the races, we'll be worth looking at," Helen once said pridefully.
The assistant boatkeeper remained at a distance and said not a word to them, although there was a bank of black cloud upon the western horizon into which the sun would plunge after a time.
"We're the first out," cried one of the girls. "There isn't another boat on the lake."
"Wrong, Sally," Ruth Fielding said. "I just saw a boat disappear behind Bliss Island."
"Not one of ours?" cried Jennie, looking about as they lowered the shell into the water.
"No. It was a skiff. Came from the other side, I guess. Or perhaps it came up the river from the railroad bridge."
"Now," said Trix Davenport, the coxswain, "are we going to ask that boy to get out the launch and follow us?"
"Oh, goodness me! No," said Helen, with assurance. "We don't want him tagging us. Do we, girls?"
"Perhaps it might be better," Ruth said slowly.
But the chorus of the other girls cried her down. Besides, she did not believe there was any danger. Of course, a rowing shell is an uncertain thing; but she had never yet seen an accident on the lake.
All stepped in, adjusted their oars, and the coxswain pushed off. Having adjusted the rudder-lines, Trix affixed the megaphone, and lifted her hand. The eight strained forward, and the coxswain began to beat time.
Ruth set the pace in a long, swinging stroke, and the other seven fell into time. The shell shot out from the landing just as the coach appeared around the corner of Dare Hall, on her way down from the gymnasium. She gave one glance at the sky, and then started to run.
"Those foolish girls!" she exclaimed. "Where's Johnny?"
The freshman eight was far out upon the lake when she reached the boathouse, and she quickly saw that the old boatkeeper was not in sight. She tried to signal the crew of the shell to return; but the girls in the frail craft were too interested in their practice to look back toward the shore. Indeed, in a very few minutes, they swept through the slightly rough water at the eastern end of the island and disappeared behind it. The coach, Miss Mallory, beckoned the assistant boatman and ordered out the launch. But there was something wrong with the engine, and he lost some time before getting the craft started.
Meanwhile, the cloudbank was rolling up from the west. The sun suddenly was quenched. A breath of cold wind swept down the lake and fretted the tiny waves. They sprang up in retaliation and slapped the bow of the launch, which finally got under its sputtering way.
Then a squall of wind swooped down and Miss Mallory was almost swept off her feet. The boatman steered carefully, but the engine was not yet working in good fashion. The coach made a mistake, too, in directing the launch. Instead of starting directly up the lake, and rounding the head of the island to meet the freshman shell, she ordered the boatman to trail the boat that had disappeared.
The launch was some time in beating around the lower end of the island.
CHAPTER XXIV
TREASURE HUNTING
The freshmen shell was well around the end of Bliss Island and behind it, before the squall broke. Pulling into the rising gale as they were and the water being always a little rough here, at first none of Ruth Fielding's associates in the craft realized that there was the least danger.
They were well off shore, for near the island the water was shallow and there were rocks. These rowing shells are made so lightly that a mere scraping of the keel over a sunken boulder would probably completely wreck the craft, and well the girls knew this.
Trix Davenport steered well out from the dangerous shallows. "Pull away, girls!" she shouted through her megaphone. "It's going to blow."
And just then the real squall swept down upon them. Ruth, although setting a good, long stroke, found of a sudden that the shell was scarcely moving ahead. The wind was so strong that they were only holding their own against it.
"Pull!" shouted the coxswain again.
Ruth bent forward, braced her feet firmly and drove the long oar-blade deep into the jumping little waves. Those waves quickly became larger and "jumpier." A white wreath formed upon their crests. The shell in a very few seconds was in the midst of white water.
Once with Uncle Jabez, and in a heavy punt, the girl of the Red Mill had been caught in the rapids of the Lumano below the mill, and had fought with skill and courage to help save the boat. This effort was soon to be as great—and she realized it.
She set a pace that drove the shell on in the teeth of the squall; but the boat shivered with every stroke. It was as though they were trying to push the narrow, frail little shell into a solid wall.
In pulling her oar Ruth scarcely ever raised her eyes to a level with the coxswain's face; but when she chanced to, she saw that Trix was pallid and her eyes were clouded with fear.
Ruth hoped none of the other girls saw that mask of dread which the situation had forced upon their little coxswain. She wanted to cry out to Trix—to warn her to hide her emotion. But she had no breath to spare for this.
Every ounce of breath and of muscle she owned, Ruth put into her stroke. She felt the rhythmic spring of the craft, and knew that her mates were keeping well up with her. They were doing their part bravely, even though they might be frightened.
And then, suddenly and fortunately, the freshman craft found a sheltered bit of water. A high shoulder of the hilly island broke the force of the wind.
"Ashore! Put us ashore!" Ruth managed to gasp so that Trix heard her.
"We—we'll wreck the shell!" complained Trix. "It's so shallow."
"We'll not drown in shallow water," ejaculated Ruth, expelling the words between strokes.
The coxswain shot them shoreward. She caught a glimpse of another boat pulled up on the beach—the skiff they had earlier seen rounding the point of the island.
In thirty seconds they were safe. The rain began to pour down upon them in a brisk torrent. But that did not matter.
"Rather be half drowned in the rain than wholly drowned in the lake!" Jennie Stone declared, as they scrambled out into the shallow water, more than ankle deep, and lifted the treacherous shell out of the lake.
"Goodness! what a near one that was!" Helen declared.
Ruth looked at the skiff drawn up on the shore, and then up into the grove of trees.
"I wonder where the girl is who was in that boat?" she said.
"Was it a girl?" asked Helen, with interest.
"Yes. She must have found shelter somewhere from this rain. Come on! We may be able to keep reasonably dry up there in the woods."
The other girls followed Ruth, for she was naturally their leader. The rain continued to beat down upon them; but before they reached the opening in which was situated the Stone Face, Ruth spied an evergreen, the drooping branches of which offered them reasonable shelter.
"Come on into the green tent, girls!" shouted Jennie Stone, plunging into the dimly lighted circle under the tree. "Oh! Goodness! What's that?"
"A dog!"
"A cow! and I'm afraid of co-o-ows!" wailed Sally Blanchard, seizing upon Ruth as the nearest savior.
"Don't be silly, child," vouchsafed Helen, who had followed Jennie. "How would a cow come upon this island—a mile from shore?"
"Or a dog?" laughed Ruth. "What did you see, Jennie Stone?"
"She just tried to fool us," Helen declared.
"Didn't either," the stout girl said warmly. "Something ran out at the far side as I came in."
"An animal?" gasped Trix Davenport.
"Well," returned Jennie Stone, "it certainly wasn't a vegetable. At least, I never saw a vegetable run as fast as that thing did."
"You needn't try to scare us to death, Heavy," complained Helen. "Of course it must have been the girl Ruth said came ashore in that skiff."
"Well, I didn't think of her," admitted Jennie. "But she ran like a ferret. I'd like to know who she is."
"Remember the girl we found over here that night in the snowstorm?" whispered Helen to Ruth. "The girl who looked like that Maggie?"
"Oh, don't I!" exclaimed Ruth, shaking her head.
"What do you suppose she was after—and what is this one over here on the island for?" pursued Helen, languidly.
Ruth made no reply, but her cheeks flushed and her eyes grew brighter. She stooped and peered out at the decreasing rainfall. There was a path leading straight toward the Stone Face. Had this girl whom Jennie had seen gone in that direction?
The other members of the freshman crew were so inordinately busy chattering and laughing and telling jokes and stories that nobody for the moment noticed Ruth Fielding, who stole out from the covert through the fast slackening rainfall without saying a word. Lightly running over the crest of the hill, she came in sight of the huge boulder at which she and Helen had experienced their never-to-be-forgotten adventure the winter before.
She saw nobody at the foot of the boulder, but she pressed on to the edge of the grove to make sure. And then she saw that somebody had certainly and very recently been at work near the boulder.
There was a pickaxe—perhaps the very one she had seen there in the winter—and a shovel. Some attempt had been made to dig over the gravelly soil for some yards from the foot of the boulder.
"Goodness me! what can this mean?" thought the girl of the Red Mill. "Something must be buried here! Treasure hunters! Fancy!" and she laughed a little uncertainly. "Can somebody believe that this is one of the hiding places of Captain Kidd's gold? Who ever heard the like?"
The rain ceased falling. There was a tooting of a horn down behind the island. The launch had come in sight of the shell and Miss Mallory was trying to signal the girls to return to the shore.
But Ruth did not go back. She heard the girls shout for her, but instead of complying she went straight across to the Stone Face and picked up the heavy pickaxe.
"I don't believe whoever has been digging has found anything yet," she told herself. "No. She's been here before—for, of course, it is that girl. She couldn't have dug all this over in a few minutes. No. She has been here and dug unsuccessfully. Then she has come back to-day for another attempt at—at the treasure, shall we call it? Well!"
There was already an excavation more than a foot in depth and several yards in circumference. Whatever it was the strange girl had been after she was not quite sure of its burial place.
In the winter when she had essayed to dig for the hidden thing there had been too much frost in the ground. Besides, doubtless Ruth and Helen's inquisitiveness had frightened the strange girl away. Now she was back again—somewhere now on Bliss Island. She had not accomplished her purpose as yet. Ruth smote the hard ground at her feet with all her strength. The pick sunk to its helve in the earth, now softened by the spring rain.
"Oh! I hit something!" she gasped.
In all probability she would not have continued to dig had this success not met her at the beginning. Really, her swinging of the pickaxe had been idly done. But the steel rang sharply on something. She raised the pick and used it thereafter more cautiously. There certainly was something below the surface—not very far down——
Dropping the pickaxe, Ruth gained possession of the shovel and threw aside the loose earth. Yes! there was some object hidden there—some "treasure" which she desired to see.
In a few moments, becoming impatient of the shovel, she cast it aside and stooping, with her feet planted firmly in the muddy earth, she groped in the hole with both hands.
Before she dragged the object into sight Ruth Fielding was positive by its shape and the feel of it, of the nature of the object. As she rose up at last, firmly grasping the object, a sharp voice said behind her:
"Well, now that you've interfered and found it, suppose you hand it over to me. You haven't any business with that vase, you know!"
CHAPTER XXV
THE END OF A PERFECT YEAR
Helen Cameron came running over the hill and down the sloppy path through the grove. When she reached the Stone Face where Ruth and the strange girl were standing, she cried:
"What is the matter with you, Ruthie Fielding? Come on over to the boat. Miss Mallory sent me after you.... Why! who's this?"
"Don't you remember this girl, Helen?" asked Ruth, seriously.
"Why! it's the girl who was camping in the snow, isn't it?" said Helen, curiously eyeing the stranger. "How-do?"
But the other was not pleased to allow the situation to develop into merely a well-bred meeting of three former acquaintances. She did not vouchsafe Helen a glance, but said, directing her words toward Ruth:
"I want that vase. It doesn't belong to you."
"Goodness, Ruthie!" put in her chum, for the first time seeing the object in Ruth's hands. "What is that thing?"
"I just dug it up here. It is the Egyptian vase taken from the Ardmore library last year I believe."
"It doesn't matter where it came from. I want it," cried the strange girl, and she stepped forward quickly as though to seize the muddy vase.
But Helen sprang forward and pushed her back.
"Hold on! I guess if Ruth's got it, you'll have to wait and prove property," said Helen. "How about it, Ruth?"
"She must tell us all about it," said Ruth, firmly. "Perhaps I may let her have it—if she tells us the truth."
"The truth!" exclaimed Helen.
"I won't tell you a thing!" cried the strange girl. "You haven't any right to that vase."
"Nor have you," Ruth told her.
"Well——"
"Nor has Margaret Rolff," went on Ruth, coolly. "I take it you are acting for her, aren't you?"
"Why," cried Helen, beginning to understand. "That is the girl who left Ardmore last year?"
"And came to the Red Mill after spending the summer at a camp on the Lumano and helped Aunt Alvirah," Ruth added, with a smile.
"Well, I never! Not Maggie?" demanded Helen.
"I think I am right," Ruth said quietly. "Am I not?" to the other girl. "Our Maggie is Margaret Rolff, and you must be her sister. At least, you look enough like her to be some relative."
The other made a gesture of resignation and dropped her hands. "I might as well confess it," she admitted. "You are Ruth Fielding, and Margy told me long ago you might be trusted."
"And this is my particular friend, Helen Cameron," Ruth said, "who is to be fully trusted, too."
"I suppose so," said the girl. "My name is Betty. I'm Margy's younger sister. Poor Margy. She never was very strong. I mean that she was always giving in to other people—was easily confused.
"She's bright enough, you know," pursued the other girl, warmly; "but she is nervous and easily put out. What those girls did to her last year at this college was a shame!"
Another hail from behind the hill warned Ruth that she must attend Miss Mallory's command or there would be trouble.
"We cannot wait to hear it all, Miss—Betty, did you say your name was? Where are you staying?"
"I have been working in Greenburg all winter. We're poor girls and have no parents. Margy is with me now," said the girl. "And I want that vase. I want it for Margy. She will never be satisfied until she can give it back to the dean of the college herself and explain how she came to hide it, and then forgot where she hid the vase."
"Tell me where to find you in Greenburg," said Ruth, hastily. "No! I'll not let you have the vase now. I will not show it to anybody else, however, and we'll come over to town this evening and bring it with us, and talk with Maggie."
"Oh, Miss Fielding——"
"That must satisfy you," said Ruth, firmly; and Betty Rolff had to be satisfied with this promise. She told the chums where she and Margaret were staying and then Ruth and Helen ran back to their friends, Ruth concealing the hastily wiped silver vase under the loose front of her blouse.
"Goodness!" she said to Helen, "I hope nobody will see it. Do I bulge much?"
There was so much excitement among the crew of the freshman eight, however, that Ruth's treasure-trove was not discovered. Under Miss Mallory's direction they launched the shell again, climbed aboard, and made a safe passage to the dock.
A notice was put up that very evening, however, to the effect that none of the racing shells were to be taken out unless the launch was manned and went with the frailer craft.
The students of Ardmore were allowed to leave the college grounds in the evening if they were properly chaperoned. And when Ruth went to Miss Cullam and explained a little of what was afoot, the mathematics instructor was only too glad to act in the capacity of chaperon.
Helen had telephoned for a car, and the three rode down to Greenburg immediately after dinner. Ruth carried the recovered vase, just as she had dug it out of the hole by the Stone Face on Bliss Island, wrapped in a paper. She had not had time either to clean it or to examine it more thoroughly.
They easily found the boarding house, the address of which Betty Rolff had given to Ruth. It was a respectable place, but was far from sumptuous. It was evident, as Ruth had been previously informed, that the Rolff girls were not very well off in this world's goods.
When the visitors climbed to the second floor bedroom where the sisters were lodged, Miss Cullam took the lead, walked straight in, seized Margaret Rolff in her arms and implanted a kiss upon the pale cheek of the girl who had for so many months been Aunt Alvirah's assistant at the Red Mill.
"You poor girl!" said the mathematics teacher. "What you must have been through! Now, I am delighted to see you again, and you must tell me all about it—how you came to take the vase, and bury it, and all."
There was a good deal of talk on both sides before all this that Miss Cullam asked was explained. But the facts were made clear at last.
In the first place, Margaret Rolff had always been very much afraid of the dark and of being alone at night. But she wanted so much to become a member of the Kappa Alpha that she did not try to cry off when she received her instructions as a candidate for membership in that sorority.
The first part of her initiation test was easy enough. She secured the Egyptian vase from the reception room of the library without being apprehended. Then she was rowed across the lake to the island by several black-robed and hooded figures whom she did not know.
Left with a flashlight and a spade to bury the stolen vase within a short distance of the Stone Face, Margaret had tried her best to control her nerves and do as she was commanded. But she could never really remember whether she had buried the vase or not. The idea had been for her to bury it, and then another candidate would be made to search for it the next night.
Everything about the initiation went wrong, however, because Margaret lost her nerve. The members of the sorority could not find the place where the candidate had really dug her hole and buried the vase. And Margaret had fled in a panic from the college before further inquiry could be made.
"All this time," explained the practical sister, Betty, "Margy has wanted to know if she did bury the vase or not. She felt she had stolen from the college and could be punished for it. I think those girls that set her the task should be punished."
"They have been," said Miss Cullam, grimly. "Yet, it was really a misunderstanding all around. Now, let me see that vase, Ruth Fielding."
The latter was glad to do this. The teacher opened the package and immediately turned the vase upside down and shook it. There was evidently something inside, and after some work with the handiest of all feminine tools, a hatpin, a soggy mass of paper was dislodged from the Egyptian vase.
"The missing examination papers, girls!" sighed Miss Cullam, with much satisfaction. "There, Margaret! You may have the vase and return it to Dr. Milroth to-morrow if you like. And I hope you will return to the college and be with us next year.
"I have what I am after and feel more contented in my mind than I have for some months. Dear me, girls! you don't at all understand what a number of trials and perplexities are heaped upon the minds of us poor teachers."
* * * * *
There were many other incidents occurring at Ardmore before the end of what Helen Cameron declared was a "perfect year." But nothing created more interest than the recovery of the Egyptian vase with the missing examination papers, unless it was the boat races. Though to a few, perhaps, certain plans for the coming summer overtopped even these in importance. These were such a very great secret that the chums scarcely dared discuss them.
But those readers who may so desire will read about the happenings that developed from these plans of Ruth and her friends in the subsequent volume of the series, entitled, "Ruth Fielding in the Saddle; or, College Girls in the Land of Gold."
First of the races was that with the first eight of Beardsley; and the crew of Ardmore won. Then came the trial between Ardmore and Hampton College, and the former won that as well.
Ardmore was in high fettle at that. The Jasper was quite as enthusiastically complimentary now as it had been critical after the race with Gillings, for in winning the race against Hampton College, the Ardmore crew had been forced to row through very rough water.
Commencement came in June, and two days before the graduation exercises of the senior class, the local aquatic sports were held. The main incident of this carnival was the race between the class eights.
The shells were started at twenty-yard intervals, and in the order of the classes. The freshman eight, in which rowed Ruth, Helen and Jennie, had practised vigorously all these weeks and now they displayed the value of their exertions.
Within the first quarter they "bumped" the sophomore eight. This crew dropped out of the race immediately and the freshmen spun ahead, Ruth setting a wonderfully effective stroke, and little Trix Davenport swaying her body in time with the motion of the boat and shouting encouragement through her megaphone.
On and on crept the freshman eight until there was barely a hand's breadth between the nose of their shell and the stern of the junior craft. The crowd along shore cheered the younger girls vociferously, and although they did not quite "bump" the juniors before crossing the mile line——
"We came so near it there was no fun in it!" declared Jennie Stone, delightedly. "Oh, girls! some of us are going to be great rowists after a few more years at Ardmore."
"Dear me," panted Helen, making the last pun of the term. "It should be called Hard-more. I never worked so hard in my life as I have this first year at college."
"But it will never hurt us," laughed Ruth, later. "We have got on famously."
"You have, my dear," interposed Helen. "You stand A, number one in classes. And look at that new play of yours—a big success! Money is rolling in on you——"
"Think a little of yourself," proposed Ruth. "Don't you consider your time well spent here, my dear chum?"
"Sure! It is the end of a perfect year," agreed Helen.
"And think of me—little me!" cried Jennie Stone, bursting into the chums' study at that moment, and in time to hear the last of the conversation. "Do you know what's happened, girls?"
"No! What?" demanded the curious Helen.
"I have lost another pound," said the ex-fat girl, in a sepulchral voice.
THE END
THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
By ALICE B. EMERSON
12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.
Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every reader.
Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction.
1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING
20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH
21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS
22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA
23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO
24. RUTH FIELDING AT CAMERON HALL
25. RUTH FIELDING CLEARING HER NAME
26. RUTH FIELDING IN TALKING PICTURES
27. RUTH FIELDING AND BABY JUNE
28. RUTH FIELDING AND HER DOUBLE
29. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREATEST TRIUMPH
30. RUTH FIELDING AND HER CROWNING VICTORY
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Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.
May Hollis Barton is a new writer for girls who is bound to win instant popularity. Her style is somewhat of a reminder of that of Louisa M. Alcott, but thoroughly up-to-date in plot and action. Clean tales that all the girls will enjoy reading.
1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY
2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL
3. NELL GRAYSON'S RANCHING DAYS
4. FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY
5. PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
6. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
7. HAZEL HOOD'S STRANGE DISCOVERY
8. TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY
9. THE GIRLS OF LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
10. KATE MARTIN'S PROBLEM
11. THE GIRL IN THE TOP FLAT
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1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM
2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL
4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL
5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP
6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK
7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS
8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH
9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS
10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARLS
11. BETTY GORDON ON THE CAMPUS
12. BETTY GORDON AND THE HALE TWINS
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15. BETTY GORDON AND THE MYSTERY GIRL
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Books for Girls
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RUTH FIELDING SERIES
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RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP Or, Lost in the Backwoods.
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT Or, Nita, The Girl Castaway.
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box.
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans.
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund.
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton.
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE Or, The Missing Examination Papers.
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold.
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