Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point: or, Nita, the Girl Castaway

Ruth laughed. “There is a resemblance,” she admitted. “But I don’t understand why Crab should have any interest in the girl, anyway.”

“Neither do I. Let’s keep still about it. Of course, we’ll tell Nell,” said Tom. “But nobody else. If that old ranchman is her uncle he ought to be told where she is.”

“Maybe she was not happy with him, after all,” said Ruth, thoughtfully.

“My goodness!” Tom cried, preparing to go back to the other boys who were calling him. “I don’t see how anybody could be unhappy under such conditions.”

“That’s all very well for a boy,” returned the girl, with a superior air. “But think! she had no girls to associate with, and the only women were squaws and a Mexican cook!”

Ruth watched Nita, but did not see the assistant lighthouse keeper speak to the runaway during the passage home, and from the dock to the bungalow Ruth walked by Nita’s side. She was tempted to show the page of the newspaper to the other girl, but hesitated. What if Nita really was Jane Hicks? Ruth asked herself how she would feel if she were burdened with that practical but unromantic name, and had to live on a lonely cattle ranch without a girl to speak to.

“Maybe I’d run away myself,” thought Ruth. “I was almost tempted to run away from Uncle Jabez when I first went to live at the Red Mill.”

She had come to pity the strange girl since reading about the one who had run away from Silver Ranch. Whether Nita had any connection with the newspaper article or not, Ruth had begun to see that there might be situations which a girl couldn’t stand another hour, and from which she was fairly forced to flee.

The fishing party arrived home in a very gay mood, despite the incident of Ruth’s involuntary bath. Mary Cox kept away from the victim of the accident and when the others chaffed Ruth, and asked her how she came to topple over the rock, The Fox did not even change color.

Tom scolded in secret to Ruth about Mary. “She ought to be sent home. I’ll not feel that you’re safe any time she is in your company. I’ve a mind to tell Miss Kate Stone,” he said.

“I’ll be dreadfully angry if you do such a thing, Tom,” Ruth assured him, and that promise was sufficient to keep the boy quiet.

They were all tired and not even Helen objected when bed was proposed that night. In fact, Heavy went to sleep in her chair, and they had a dreadful time waking her up and keeping her awake long enough for her to undress, say her prayers, and get into bed.

In the other girls’ room Ruth and her companions spent little time in talking or frolicking. Nita had begged to sleep with Mercy, with whom she had spent considerable time that day and evening; and the lame girl and the runaway were apparently both asleep before Ruth and Helen got settled for the night.

Then Helen dropped asleep between yawns and Ruth found herself lying wide-awake, staring at the faintly illuminated ceiling. Of a sudden, sleep had fled from her eyelids. The happenings of the day, the mystery of Nita, the meanness of Mary Cox, her own trouble at the mill, the impossibility of her going to Briarwood next term unless she found some way of raising money for her tuition and board, and many, many other thoughts, trooped through Ruth Fielding’s mind for more than an hour.

Mostly the troublesome thoughts were of her poverty and the seeming impossibility of her ever discovering any way to earn such a quantity of money as three hundred and fifty dollars. Her chum, lying asleep beside her, did not dream of this problem that continually troubled Ruth’s mind.

The clock down stairs tolled eleven solemn strokes. Ruth did not move. She might have been sound asleep, save for her open eyes, their gaze fixed upon the ceiling. Suddenly a beam of light flashed in at one window, swinging from right to left, like the blade of a phantom scythe, and back again.

Ruth did not move, but the beam of light took her attention immediately from her former thoughts. Again and once again the flash of light was repeated. Then she suddenly realized what it was. Somebody was walking down the path toward the private dock, swinging a lantern.

She would have given it no further thought had not a door latch clicked. Whether it was the latch of her room, or another of the bedrooms on this floor of the bungalow, Ruth could not tell. But in a moment she heard the balustrade of the stair creak.

“It’s Izzy again!” thought Ruth, sitting up in bed. “He’s walking in his sleep. The boys did not tie him.”

She crept out of bed softly so as not to awaken Helen or the other girls and went to the door. When she opened it and peered out, there was no ghostly figure “tight-roping it” on the balustrade. But she heard a sound below–in the lower hall. Somebody was fumbling with the chain of the front door.

“He’s going out! I declare, he’s going out!” thought Ruth and sped to the window.

She heard the jar of the big front door as it was opened, and then pulled shut again. She heard no step on the porch, but a figure soon fluttered down the steps. It was not Isadore Phelps, however. Ruth knew that at first glance. Indeed, it was not a boy who started away from the house, running on the grass beside the graveled walk.

Ruth turned back hastily and looked at the other bed–at Mercy’s bed. The place beside the lame girl was empty. Nita had disappeared!

CHAPTER XVIII

ANOTHER NIGHT ADVENTURE

Ruth was startled, to say the least, by the discovery that Nita was absent. And how softly the runaway girl must have crept out of bed and out of the room for Ruth–who had been awake–not to hear her!

“She certainly is a sly little thing!” gasped Ruth.

But as she turned back to see what had become of the figure running beside the path, the lantern light was flashed into her eyes. Again the beam was shot through the window and danced for a moment on the wall and ceiling.

“It is a signal!” thought Ruth. “There’s somebody outside besides Nita–somebody who wishes to communicate with her.”

Even as she realized this she saw the lantern flash from the dock. That was where it had been all the time. It was a dark-lantern, and its ray had been intentionally shot into the window of their room.

The figure she had seen steal away from the bungalow had now disappeared. If it was Nita–as Ruth believed–the strange girl might be hiding in the shadow of the boathouse.

However, the girl from the Red Mill did not stand idly at the window for long. It came to her that somebody ought to know what was going on. Her first thought was that Nita was bent on running away from her new friends–although, as as far as any restraint was put upon her, she might have walked away at any time.

“But she ought not to go off like this,” thought Ruth, hurrying into her own garments. By the faint light that came from outside she could see to dress; and she saw, too, that Nita’s clothing had disappeared.

“Why, the girl must have dressed,” thought Ruth, in wonder. “How could she have done it with me lying here awake?”

Meanwhile, her own fingers were busy and in two minutes from the time she had turned from the window, she opened the hall door again and tiptoed out.

The house was perfectly still, save for the ticking of the big clock. She sped down the stairway, and as she passed the glimmering face of the time-keeper she glanced at it and saw that the minute hand was just eight minutes past the hour.

In a closet under the stairs were the girls’ outside garments, and hats. She found somebody’s tam-o’-shanter and her own sweater-coat, and slipped both on in a hurry. When she opened the door the chill, salt air, with not a little fog in it, breathed into the close hall.

She stepped out, pulled the door to and latched it, and crossed the porch. The harbor seemed deserted. Two or three night lights sparkled over on the village side. What vessels rode at anchor showed no lights at their moorings. But the great, steady, yellow light of the beacon on the point shone steadily–a wonderfully comforting sight, Ruth thought, at this hour of the night.

There were no more flashes of lantern light from the dock. Nor did she hear a sound from that direction as she passed out through the trimly cut privet hedge and took the shell walk to the boathouse. She was in canvas shoes and her step made no sound. In a moment or two she was in the shadow again.

Then she heard voices–soft, but earnest tones–and knew that two people were talking out there toward the end of the dock. One was a deep voice; the other might be Nita’s–at least, it was a feminine voice.

“Who under the sun can she have come here to meet?” wondered Ruth, anxiously. “Not one of the boys. This can’t be merely a lark of some kind–”

Something scraped and squeaked–a sound that shattered the silence of the late evening completely. A dog instantly barked back of the the bungalow, in the kennels. Other dogs on the far shore of the cove replied. A sleep-walking rooster began to crow clamorously, believing that it was already growing day.

The creaking stopped in a minute, and Ruth heard a faint splash. The voices had ceased.

“What can it mean?” thought the anxious girl. She could remain idle there behind the boathouse no longer. She crept forth upon the dock to reconnoiter. There seemed to be nobody there.

And then, suddenly, she saw that the catboat belonging to Mr. Stone’s little fleet–the “Jennie S.” it was called, named for Heavy herself–was some distance from her moorings.

The breeze was very light; but the sail was raised and had filled, and the catboat was drifting quite rapidly out beyond the end of the dock. It was so dark in the cockpit that Ruth could not distinguish whether there were one or two figures aboard, or who they were; but she realized that somebody was off on a midnight cruise.

“And without saying a word about it!” gasped Ruth. “Could it be, after all, one of the boys and Nita? Are they doing this just for the fun of it?”

Yet the heavy voice she had heard did not sound like that of either of the three boys at the bungalow. Not even Bob Steele, when his unfortunate voice was pitched in its very lowest key, could rumble like this voice.

The girl of the Red Mill was both troubled and frightened. Suppose Nita and her companion should be wrecked in the catboat? She did not believe that the runaway girl knew anything about working a sailboat. And who was her companion on this midnight escapade? Was he one of the longshoremen?

Suddenly she thought of Jack Crab. But Crab was supposed to be at the lighthouse at this hour; wasn’t he? She could not remember what she had heard about the lighthouse keeper’s assistant.

Nor could Ruth decide at once whether to go back to the house and give the alarm, or not. Had she known where Phineas, the boatkeeper, lodged, she would certainly have tried to awaken him. He ought to be told that one of the boats was being used–and, of course, without permission.

The sail of the catboat drifted out of sight while she stood there undecided. She could not pursue the Jennie S. Had she known where Phineas was, they might have gone after the catboat in the Miraflame; but otherwise Ruth saw no possibility of tracking the two people who had borrowed the Jennie S.

Nor was she sure that it was desirable to go in, awaken the household, and report the disappearance of Nita. The cruise by night might be a very innocent affair.

“And then again,” murmured Ruth, “there may be something in it deeper than I can see. We do not really know who this Nita is. That piece in the paper may not refer to her at all. Suppose, instead of having run away from a rich uncle and a big cattle ranch, Nita comes from bad people? Mrs. Kirby and the captain knew nothing about her. It may be that some of Nita’s bad friends have followed her here, and they may mean to rob the Stones!

“Goodness! that’s a very bad thought,” muttered Ruth, shaking her head. “I ought not to suspect the girl of anything like that. Although she is so secret, and so rough of speech, she doesn’t seem to be a girl who has lived with really bad people.”

Ruth could not satisfy herself that it would be either right or wise to go in and awaken Miss Kate, or even the butler. But she could not bring herself to the point of going to bed, either, while Nita was out on the water.

She couldn’t think of sleep, anyway. Not until the catboat came back to the dock did she move out of the shadow of the boathouse. And it was long past one o’clock when this occurred. The breeze had freshened, and the Jennie S. had to tack several times before the boatman made the moorings.

The starlight gave such slight illumination that Ruth could not see who was in the boat. The sail was dropped, the boat moored, and then, after a bit, she heard a heavy step upon the dock. Only one person came toward her.

Ruth peered anxiously out of the shadow. A man slouched along the dock and reached the shell road. He turned east, moving away toward the lighthouse. It was Jack Crab.

“And Nita is not with him!” gasped Ruth. “What has he done with her? Where has he taken her in the boat? What does it mean?”

She dared not run after Crab and ask him. She was really afraid of the man. His secret communication with Nita was no matter to be blurted out to everybody, she was sure. Nita had gone to meet him of her own free will. She was not obliged to sail away with Crab in the catboat. Naturally, the supposition was that she had decided to remain away from the bungalow of her own intention, too.

“It is not my secret,” thought Ruth. “She was merely a visitor here. Miss Kate, even, had no command over her actions. She is not responsible for Nita–none of us is responsible.

“I only hope she won’t get into any trouble through that horrid Jack Crab. And it seems so ungrateful for Nita to walk out of the house without saying a word to Heavy and Miss Kate.

“I’d best keep my own mouth shut, however, and let things take their course. Nita wanted to go away, or she would not have done so. She seemed to have no fear of Jack Crab; otherwise she would not have met him at night and gone away with him.

“Ruth Fielding! you mind your own business,” argued the girl of the Red Mill, finally going back toward the silent house. “At least, wait until we see what comes of this before you tell everything you know.”

And so deciding, she crept into the house, locked the door again, got into her room without disturbing any of the other girls, and so to bed and finally to sleep, being little the wiser for her midnight escapade.

CHAPTER XIX

THE GOBLINS’ GAMBOL

Helen awoke Ruth in the morning with the question that was bound to echo and re-echo through the bungalow for that, and subsequent days:

“Where is Nita?”

Ruth could truthfully answer: “I do not know.”

Nor did anybody else know, or suspect, or imagine. What had happened in the night was known only to Ruth and she had determined not to say a word concerning it unless she should be pointedly examined by Miss Kate, or somebody else in authority.

Nobody else had heard or seen Nita leave the bungalow. Indeed, nobody had heard Ruth get up and go out, either. The catboat rocked at its moorings, and there was no trace of how Nita had departed.

As to why she had gone so secretly–well, that was another matter. They were all of the opinion that the runaway was a very strange girl. She had gone without thanking Miss Kate or Heavy for their entertainment. She was evidently an ungrateful girl.

These opinions were expressed by the bulk of the party at the bungalow. But Ruth and Helen and the latter’s brother had their own secret about the runaway. Helen had been shown the paper Tom had found. She and Tom were convinced that Nita was really Jane Ann Hicks and that she had been frightened away by Jack Crab. Crab maybe had threatened her.

On this point Ruth could not agree. But she could not explain her reason for doubting it without telling more than she wished to tell; therefore she did not insist upon her own opinion.

In secret she read over again the article in the newspaper about the lost Jane Ann Hicks. Something she had not noticed before now came under her eye. It was at the end of the article–at the bottom of the last column on the page:

“Old Bill certainly means to find Jane Ann if he can. He has told Chief Penhampton, of Bullhide, to spare no expense. The old man says he’ll give ten good steers–or five hundred dollars in hard money–for information leading to the apprehension and return of Jane Ann. And he thinks some of starting for the East himself to hunt her up if he doesn’t hear soon.”

“That poor old man,” thought Ruth, “really loves his niece. If I was sure Nita was the girl told of here, I’d be tempted to write to Mr. Hicks myself.”

But there was altogether too much to do at Lighthouse Point for the young folks to spend much time worrying about Nita. Phineas said that soft-shell crabs were to be found in abundance at the mouth of the creek at the head of the cove, and that morning the boys made nets for all hands–at least, they found the poles and fastened the hoops to them, while the girls made the bags of strong netting–and after dinner the whole party trooped away (Mercy excepted) to heckle the crabs under the stones and snags where Phineas declared they would be plentiful.

The girls were a bit afraid of the creatures at first, when they were shaken out of the scoops; but they soon found that the poor things couldn’t bite until the new shells hardened. The boys took off their shoes and stockings and waded in, whereupon Bob suddenly began to dance and bawl and splash the water all over himself and his companions.

“What under the sun’s the matter with you, Bobbins?” roared Tom, backing away from his friend to escape a shower-bath.

“Oh! he’s got a fit!” squealed Isadore.

“It’s cramps!” declared Heavy, from the shore, and in great commiseration.

“For pity’s sake, little boy!” cried Bob’s sister, “what is the matter with you now? He’s the greatest child! always getting into some mess.”

Bob continued to dance; but he got into shoal water after a bit and there it was seen that he was doing a sort of Highland fling on one foot. The other had attached to it a big hardshell crab; and no mortgage was ever clamped upon a poor man’s farm any tighter than Mr. Crab was fastened upon Bob’s great toe.

“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” repeated the big fellow, whacking away at the crab with the handle of his net.

Isadore tried to aid him, and instead of hitting the crab with his stick, barked Bob’s ankle bone nicely.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” yelled the youth in an entirely different key.

The girls were convulsed with laughter; but Tom got the big crab and the big boy apart. Bob wasn’t satisfied until he had placed the hardshell between two stones and wrecked it–smashed it flat as a pancake.

“There! I know that fellow will never nip another inoffensive citizen,” groaned Bob, and he sat on a stone and nursed his big toe and his bruised ankle until the others were ready to go home.

They got a nice mess of crabs; but Bob refused to eat any. “Never want to see even crabs a la Newburgh again,” he grunted. “And I don’t believe that even a fried soft-shell crab is dead enough so that it can’t bite a fellow!”

There was a splendid smooth bit of beach beyond the dock where they bathed, and even Mercy had taken a dip that morning; but when the girls went to their bedrooms at night each girl found pinned to her nightdress a slip of paper–evidently a carbon copy of a typewritten message. It read:

“THE GOBLINS’ GAMBOL–You are instructed to put on your bathing suit, take a wrap, and meet for a Goblins’ Gambol on the beach at ten sharp. The tide will be just right, and there is a small moon. Do not fail.”

The girls giggled a good deal over this. They all declared they had not written the message, or caused it to be written. There was a typewriter downstairs, Heavy admitted; but she had never used it. Anyhow, the suggestion was too tempting to refuse.

At ten the girls, shrouded in their cloaks and water proofs, crept down stairs and out of the house. The door was locked, and they could not imagine who had originated this lark. The boys did not seem to be astir at all.

“If Aunt Kate hears of this I expect she’ll say something,” chuckled Heavy. “But we’ve been pretty good so far. Oh, it is just warm and nice. I bet the water will be fine.”

They trooped down to the beach, Mercy limping along with the rest. Ruth and Helen gave her aid when she reached the sand, for her crutches hampered her there.

“Come on! the water’s fine!” cried Madge, running straight into the smooth sea.

They were soon sporting in it, and having a great time, but keeping near the shore because the boys were not there, when suddenly Helen began to squeal–and then Madge. Those two likewise instantly disappeared beneath the water, their cries ending in articulate gurgles.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Heavy. “There’s somebody here! Something’s got me!”

She was in shallow water, and she promptly sat down. Whatever had grabbed her vented a mighty grunt, for she pinioned it for half a minute under her weight. When she could scramble up she had to rescue what she had fallen on, and it proved to be Isadore–very limp and “done up.”

“It’s the boys,” squealed Helen, coming to the surface. “Tom swam under water and caught me.”

“And this is that horrid Bob!” cried Madge. “What have you got there, Heavy?”

“I really don’t know,” giggled the stout girl. “What do you think it looks like?”

“My–goodness–me!” panted Busy Izzy. “I thought–it–it was Ruth! Why–why don’t you look where you’re sitting, Jennie Stone?”

But the laugh was on Isadore and he could not turn the tables. The boys had been out to the diving float watching the girls come in. And in a minute or two Miss Kate joined them, too. It was she who had planned the moonlight dip and for half an hour they ran races on the sand, and swam, and danced, and had all sorts of queer larks.

Miss Kate was about to call them out and “shoo” the whole brood into the house again when they heard a horse, driven at high speed, coming over the creek bridge.

“Hullo! here comes somebody in a hurry,” said Tom.

“That’s right. He’s driving this way, not toward the railroad station,” rejoined Heavy. “It’s somebody from Sokennet.”

“Who can it be this time of night?” was her aunt’s question as they waited before the gateway as the carriage wheeled closer.

“There’s a telegraph office, you know, at Sokennet,” said Heavy, thoughtfully. “And–yes!–that’s Brickman’s old horse. Hullo!”

“Whoa! Hullo, Miss!” exclaimed a hoarse voice. “Glad I found you up. Here’s a message for you.”

“For me?” cried Heavy, and dripping as she was, ran out to the carriage.

“Sign on this place, Miss. Here’s a pencil. Thank you, Miss; it’s paid for. That’s the message,” and he put a telegraph envelope into her hand.

On the outside of the envelope was written, “Stone, Lighthouse Point.” Under the lamp on the porch Heavy broke the seal and drew out the message, while the whole party stood waiting. She read it once to herself, and was evidently immensely surprised. Then she read it out loud, and her friends were just as surprised as she was:

“Stone, Lighthouse Point, Sokennet.–Hold onto her. I am coming right down. “W. Hicks.”

CHAPTER XX

“WHAR’S MY JANE ANN?”

Three of Heavy’s listeners knew in an instant what the telegram meant–who it was from, and who was mentioned in it–Ruth, Helen and Tom. But how, or why the telegram had been sent was as great a mystery to them as to the others; therefore their surprise was quite as unfeigned as that of the remaining girls and boys.

“Why, somebody’s made a mistake,” said Heavy. “Such a telegram couldn’t be meant for me.”

“And addressed only to ‘Stone,’” said her aunt. “It is, of course, a mistake.”

“And who are we to hold on to?” laughed Mary Cox, prepared to run into the house again.

“Wait!” cried Mercy, who had come leaning upon Madge’s arm from the shore. “Don’t you see who that message refers to?”

“No!” they chorused.

“To that runaway girl, of course,” said the cripple. “That’s plain enough, I hope.”

“To Nita!” gasped Heavy.

“But who is it that’s coming here for her? And how did ‘W. Hicks’ know she was here?” demanded Ruth.