"What was Crab showing her the paper for?"

"What can Crab have to do with it, anyway?" returned Ruth, although she had not forgotten the interest the a.s.sistant lighthouse keeper had shown in Nita from the first.

"Don't know. But if he recognized her----"

"From the picture?" asked Ruth.

"Well! you look at it. That drawing of the girl on horseback looks more like her than the photographic half-tone," said Tom. "She looks just that wild and harum-scarum!"

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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sociate with, and the only women were squaws and a Mexican cook!"

Ruth watched Nita, but did not see the a.s.sistant lighthouse keeper speak to the runaway during the pa.s.sage 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 c.o.x 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 a.s.sured 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 c.o.x, 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 quant.i.ty 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 bal.u.s.trade 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 bal.u.s.trade. 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed out through the trimly cut privet hedge and took the sh.e.l.l 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.