Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

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