CHAPTER XVIII – THE NIGHT ALARM
Mr. Howbridge and Ruth quickly looked at one another. The same thought and suspicion came in each of their minds at the same time.
“Who’s that?” Dot asked, she and Tess having lingered behind the others to pick some flowers from the bank of the stream.
“Hush, children,” cautioned Ruth in a whisper. “We must not disturb the – fishermen.”
She added the last word after a look at her guardian. No further sound came from the cove where the voice had been uttering a protest and had been so suddenly hushed.
“Oh, look at those big red flowers! I’m going to get some of those!” cried Dot, darting off to one side. “My Alice-doll loves red flowers,” she added.
“I’ll get some, too,” said Agnes. “Mrs. MacCall also loves red flowers, though she says there’s nothing prettier than ‘Heeland hither’ as she calls it.”
“Oh, yes, we’ll get her some, and she’ll have a bouquet for the table,” assented Dot. “And then maybe she’ll let us have a little play party for Alice-doll to-morrow, and we can have things to eat.”
“Oh, you’re always thinking of your old Alice-doll!” complained Tess. “You’d think all the play parties and all this trip were just for her, and the things to eat, too.”
“We can eat the things Mrs. MacCall gives us – if she gives us any,” corrected Dot. “Come on, help me get the flowers.”
“Oh, all right, I will,” said Tess. “But you know, Dot Kenway, that Ruthie will give us anything we want for a party.”
As the two little girls darted toward the clump of gay blossoms Ruth called:
“Be careful. It may he swampy around here.”
“I’ll look after them,” offered Agnes, “and you and Mr. Howbridge can go see if those men – ”
She did not finish her sentence, which she had begun in a whisper, but nodded in the direction of the clump of trees, around the eddy of the river. It was from there the stifled exclamation had come.
“Yes, I think it would be a good plan to take a look there,” said Mr. Howbridge to Ruth in a low voice. “Especially if the children are out of the way. I don’t suppose it could by any chance be the same men, but – ”
“Look!” suddenly exclaimed Ruth, pointing to something moving behind a screen of bushes that hung over the river near the eddy. As she spoke the bushes parted and a motor boat shoved her bow out into the stream. In another instant the boat came fully into view, and there was revealed as occupants two roughly dressed men. They gave one quick glance along the bank toward Ruth and Mr. Howbridge, and then while one attended to the wheel the other sprang to the engine to increase the speed.
There was a nervous spluttering from the motor, and the boat shot out into the river, the two men in her crouching down as though they feared being fired at.
“There they are!” cried Ruth, clasping Mr. Howbridge’s arm in her excitement. “The same two men!”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Well, they’re the same two we saw down near the canal lock, in the boat,” Ruth went on. “I’m sure it’s the same boat, and I’m as positive as I ever was that they are the ones who robbed us.”
“It is the same boat we saw the other day,” agreed the lawyer. “And I think the same men. Whether they are the thieves is, of course, open to question. But I should very much like to question them,” he added. “Hold on there!” he called to the men. “I want to see you!”
But the boat did not stop, rather she increased her speed, and it seemed that one of the men laughed. They did not look back.
“I wish there was some way of taking after them!” exclaimed Ruth’s guardian. “But, as it is, it’s out of the question.”
They were on a lonely part of the river. No houses were near and there was no other boat in sight, not even a leaky skiff, though some farmer boy might have one hidden along the shore under the bushes. But a rowing craft would not have been effective against the speedy motor boat, and finding another craft to match the one containing the two rough men was out of the question.
Farther and farther away the men were speeding now. Agnes and the two younger girls, having heard the shouts of Mr. Howbridge, turned back from their flower-gathering trip.
“Is anything the matter?” asked Agnes.
“Oh, no, nothing much. Mr. Howbridge saw two men in that boat,” answered Ruth, with a meaning look at her sister. “But they did not stop.” And when she had a chance, after Dot and Tess had moved out of hearing distance, Ruth added: “They’re the same men, Agnes!”
“You mean the ones who robbed us?”
“I’m pretty sure; yes!”
“Oh dear!” voiced Agnes, and she looked around the now darkening woods. “I wish we hadn’t stopped in such a lonely place,” she murmured.
“Nonsense!” laughed Mr. Howbridge. “I shall begin to think you doubt my ability as guardian. My physical, not my mental,” he added.
“Oh, no, it isn’t that,” Agnes made haste to say. “Only – ”
“And we have Neale, and Hank, too,” broke in Ruth. “While Mrs. MacCall is a tower of strength herself, even if she is getting old.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” murmured Agnes. “But – well, don’t let’s talk about it,” she finished.
“And I think we’d better be going back. It will soon be quite dark.”
“Yes,” agreed the lawyer. “We had better go back.”
He looked up the river. The boat containing the two rough men was no longer in sight, but finally there drifted down on the night wind the soft put-put of the motor.
“We thought you had deserted us,” said Neale when he saw, from the deck of the
Bluebird
, the lawyer and the girls returning.
“We went farther than we intended,” answered Ruth.
“How’s the motor?” asked the lawyer.
“Hank and I will have it fixed in the morning.”
“Where is Hank now?” Agnes wanted to know, and it seemed as though she had begun to rely on the rugged and rough strength of the man who had driven the mules.
“Oh, he went off for a walk, and he said maybe he’d fish a while,” Neale said. “He’s a bug on fishing.”
Then, while Mrs. MacCall took charge of Tess and Dot, giving exclamations of delight at the flowers, even while comparing them with her Highland heather, Agnes and Ruth told Neale what had happened – the swift-departure of the motor boat and its two occupants.
“They were evidently having a dispute when we came along,” said Ruth. “We heard one of them say something about the Klondike.”
“The Klondike!” exclaimed Neale, and there was a queer note in his voice.
“Yes, they certainly said that,” agreed Agnes. “Oh, I do wish we were away from here.” And from the deck of the boat she looked at the wooded shores of the river extending on either side of the moored craft. The Gentory was not very wide at this point, but the other shore was just as lonely and deserted as that where the voyagers had come to rest for the night.
“Don’t be so nervous and fussy,” said Ruth to Agnes. “Mr. Howbridge won’t like it. He will think we don’t care for the trip, and – ”
“Oh, I like the trip all right,” broke in Agnes. “It’s just the idea of staying all night in this lonely place.”
“We have plenty of protectors,” asserted Ruth. “There’s Neale and – ”
“What’s that?” asked the boy, hearing his name spoken.
“Agnes was saying she was timid,” went on Ruth, for Mr. Howbridge had gone to the dining-room for a glass of milk Mrs. MacCall had suggested he take before going to bed. “I tell her with you and Mr. Howbridge and Hank to protect us – ”
“Aggie timid! Oh, yes, we’ll look after you!” he promised with a laugh. “At the same time – Oh, well, I guess Hank won’t stay late,” and he looked at his watch.
“You seem worried,” said Agnes to her friend when they were alone for a moment. “Do you think these men – those Klondikers – are likely to make trouble?”
“No, not exactly that,” Neale answered. “To tell you the truth I was thinking of Hank. I may as well tell you,” he went on. “I didn’t see any connection between the two happenings before, but since you mentioned those men there may be.”
“What are you driving at?” asked Agnes, in surprise.
“Just this – ” answered Neale. “But let’s call Ruth.” Ruth came and then Neale continued: “Hank suddenly dropped his tools when we were working over the motor and said he was going for a walk. He also mentioned fishing. I didn’t think much of it at the time, for he may be odd that way when it comes to a steady job. But now I begin to think he may have gone off to meet those men.”
“But he didn’t meet them,” Ruth said. “We saw them speed away in motor boat alone.”
“They may have met Hank later,” the boy said.
“But what makes you suspicious of him?” Ruth asked.
“I’ll tell you.” And Neale related the episode of the gold ring.
“Oh, do you think it could be one of ours that the men took? Do you think Hank is in with them, and wants his share of the ‘swag’ as one man called it?” questioned Agnes eagerly.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Neale. “But he certainly had a ring. It rolled to the deck and he picked it up quickly enough.”
“Say, Ruthie!” exclaimed Agnes impulsively, “now’s a good chance while he’s away. We could look through the place where he keeps what few things he has – in that curtained off corner by his cot.”
Ruth shook her head.
“I’d rather not,” she remarked. “I couldn’t bear to do that. I’d much rather accuse him openly. But we won’t even do that now. We’ll just watch and wait, and we won’t even tell Mr. Howbridge until we are more sure of our ground.”
“All right,” agreed Neale and Agnes after they had talked it over at some length.
It was agreed that they should all three keep their eyes on Hank, and note whether there were any further suspicious happenings.
“Of course you want to be careful of one thing,” remarked Neale, as the three talked it over.
“What is that?” questioned Agnes quickly.
“You don’t want that mule driver to suspect that you are watching him. If he did suspect it he’d be more careful to hide his doings than ever.”
“We won’t let him suspect us, Neale,” declared Ruth.
“Of course he may be as innocent as they make ’em, and on the other hand he may be as deep as – ”
“The deep blue sea,” finished Agnes.
“Exactly.”
“He certainly doesn’t appear very deep,” remarked Ruth. “He looks rather simple minded.”
“But sometimes those simple looking customers are the deepest,” declared the youth. “I know we had that sort join the circus sometimes. You had to watch ’em every minute.” And there the talk came to an end.
The mule driver came along some time later. He had a goodly string of fish. Agnes was asleep, but Ruth heard him putting them in the ice box. She heard Neale speak to the man, and then, gradually, the
Bluebird
became quiet.
“Well, he got fish, at any rate,” Ruth reasoned as she turned over to go to sleep. “I hope he has no connection with those robbers. And yet, why should he hide a ring? Oh, I wonder if we shall ever see our things and mother’s wedding ring again.”
Ruth was too much of a philosopher to let this keep her awake. There was a slight feeling of timidity, as was natural, but she made herself conquer this.
Finally Ruth dozed off.
How long she slept she did not know, but she was suddenly awakened by hearing a scream. It was the high-pitched voice of a child, and after her first start Ruth knew it came from Tess.
“Oh, don’t let him get me! Don’t let him get me!” cried the little girl.
CHAPTER XIX – ON THE LAKE
Instantly Ruth was out of bed, and while she slipped on her bath robe and while her bare feet sought her slippers under the edge of her bunk, she cried:
“What is it, Tessie? Ruth is coming! Sister is coming!”
At once the interior of the
Bluebird
seemed to pulsate with life. In the corridor which ran the length of the craft, and on either side of which the sleeping apartments were laid off, a night light burned. Opening her door Ruth saw Mrs. MacCall peering forth, a flaring candle in her hand.
“What is it, lass?” asked the sturdy Scotch woman. “I thought I heard a wee cry in the night.”
“You did!” exclaimed Ruth. “It was Tess!”
In quick succession, with kimonas or robes over their sleeping garments, Neale, Mr. Howbridge and Agnes came from their rooms. But from the apartments of Tess and Dot no one came, and ominous quiet reigned.
“What was it?” asked Mr. Howbridge. “One of you girls screamed. Who was it?”
Something gleamed in his hand, and Ruth knew it to be a weapon.
“It was Tess who cried out!” Ruth answered. “All I could hear was something about her being afraid some one would catch her.”
And then again from the room of Tess came a low cry of:
“Ruthie! Ruthie! Come here!”
“Yes, dear, I am coming,” was the soothing reply. “What is it? Oh, my dear, what has happened?”
When she opened the door she saw her sister sitting up in bed, a look of fear on her face but unharmed. And a quick look in the adjoining apartment showed Dot to be peacefully slumbering, her “Alice-doll” close clasped in her arms.
“What was it, Tessie?” asked Ruth in a whisper, carefully closing Dot’s door so as not to awaken her. “What did you see?”
“I – I don’t just remember,” was the answer. “I was dreaming that I was riding on that funny Uncle Josh mule that knows Neale, and then a clown chased me and I fell off and the elephant came after me. I called to you, and – ”
“Was it all only a dream, dear?” asked Ruth with a smile.
“No, it wasn’t all a dream,” said Tess slowly. “A man looked in the window at me.”
“What window?” asked Agnes.
Tess pointed to one of the two small casements in her small apartment. They opened on the bank of the river, and it would have been easy for any one passing along the bank of the stream to have looked into Tess’s windows, or, for that matter, into any of the openings on that side of the craft. But the windows, though open on account of the warm night, were protected by heavy screens to keep out mosquitoes and other insects.
“Do you really mean some one opened your window in the night, or did you just dream that, too?” asked Ruth. “You have very vivid dreams sometimes.”
“I didn’t dream about the
man
,” insisted Tess. “He really opened the screen and looked in. See, it’s loose now!”
The screens swung outward on hinges, and there, plainly enough, the screen of one of the casements in Tess’s room was partly open.
“Perhaps the wind blew it,” suggested Agnes, wishing she could believe this.
Neale stepped over and tested the screen.
“It seems too stiff to have been blown open by the wind,” was the comment.
“But of course,” Mr. Howbridge suggested, “the screen may not have been tightly closed when Theresa went to bed.”
“Oh, yes it was, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. MacCall positively. “I looked at them myself. I didn’t want any of the mosquitoes to be eatin’ ma pretties. The screens were tight closed!”
“Oh dear, I don’t like it here!” said Tess, on the verge of tears. “I don’t want tramps looking in my room, and this man was just like a tramp.”
The noise of some one moving around on the upper deck of the craft attracted the attention of all.
“That’s Hank!” exclaimed Neale. “I’ll go and see if he heard anything unusual or saw any one. It may be that some fellow was passing along the river road and was impudent enough to pull open a screen and look in, thinking he might pick up something off a shelf.”
But Hank, who in his curtained-off place had been awakened by the confusion below him, declared he had seen or heard nothing.
“I’m a sound sleeper,” he said. “Once I get to bed I don’t do much else but sleep.”
So nothing was to be got out of him.
And it was difficult to tell whether or not Tess had dreamed about the man, as she had said she dreamed about the elephant and the mule. Neale volunteered to look on the bank underneath the window for a sign of footprints. He did look, using his flashlight, but discovered nothing.
“I guess it was all a dream,” said Ruth. “Go to sleep, Tess dear. You’ll be all right now.”
“I’m not going to sleep alone,” insisted the little girl, her lips beginning to quiver.
“I’ll stay with you,” offered Ruth, and so it was arranged.
“It’s an awful queer happening,” remarked Agnes.
“Lots of things seem queer on this trip,” put in Tess. “Maybe we better give up the houseboat trip.”
“You won’t say that in the morning,” laughed Neale.
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, I know,” the boy laughed.
They all went back to their beds, but it was some time before several of them resumed their interrupted slumbers. Tess, the innocent cause of it all, fell off to dreamland with Ruth’s arm around her in the rather cramped quarters, for the bunks were not intended to accommodate two. But once Tess was breathing deeply and regularly, Ruth slipped back to her own apartment, pausing to whisper to Agnes that Tess seemed all right now.
Ruth remained awake for some time, her mind busy with many things, and mingled with her confused thoughts were visions of the mule driver, Hank Dayton, signaling to some tramp confederates in the woods the fact that all on board the
Bluebird
were deep in slumber, so that robbery might be easily committed.
“Oh, but I’m foolish to think such things,” the Corner House girl told herself. “Absolutely foolish!”
And at last she convinced herself of that and went to sleep.
The next morning Neale and Mr. Howbridge, with Hank to help, made a careful examination of the soft earth on the river bank under Tess’s window. They saw many footprints, and the stub of a cigarette.
But the footprints might have been made by themselves when they had moored the boat the evening before. As for the cigarette stub, though Hank smoked, he said he never used cigarettes. A pipe was his favorite, and neither Mr. Howbridge nor Neale smoked.
“Some one passing in the daytime before we arrived may have flung the stub away,” said the lawyer. “I think all we can do is to ascribe the alarm to a dream Tess had.”
The little girl had forgotten much of the occurrence of the night when questioned about it next morning. She hardly recalled her dream, but she did insist that a man had looked in her window.
“Well, next time we tie up over night we’ll do it in or near some city or village, and not in such a lonely place,” decided Mr. Howbridge.
Neale and Hank made good their promise to repair the motor, and shortly after breakfast the craft was in shape to travel on.
The weather continued fine, and if it had not been for th