Ruth Fielding Down East.

by Alice B. Emerson.

CHAPTER I

THE WIND STORM

Across the now placidly flowing Lumano where it widened into almost the proportions of a lake just below the picturesque Red Mill, a bank of tempestuous clouds was shouldering into view above the sky line of the rugged and wooded hills. These slate-colored clouds, edged with pallid light, foredoomed the continuance of the peaceful summer afternoon.

Not a breath of air stirred on the near side of the river. The huge old elms shading the Red Mill and the farmhouse connected with it belonging to Mr. Jabez Potter, the miller, were like painted trees, so still were they.

The brooding heat of midday, however, had presaged the coming storm, and it had been prepared for at mill and farmhouse. The tempest was due soon.

The backyard of the farmhouse--a beautiful lawn of short gra.s.s--sloped down to the river. On the bank and over the stream itself was set a summer-house of fair proportions, covered with vines--a cool and shady retreat on the very hottest day of midsummer.

A big robin redbreast had been calling his raucous weather warning from the top of one of the trees near the house; but, with her back to the river and the coming storm, the girl in the pavilion gave little heed to this good-intentioned weather prophet.

She did raise her eyes, however, at the querulous whistle of a striped creeper that was wriggling through the intertwined branches of the trumpet-vine in search of insects. Ruth Fielding was always interested in those busy, helpful little songsters.

"You cute little thing!" she murmured, at last catching sight of the flashing bird between the stems of the old vine. "I wish I could put _you_ into my scenario."

On the table at which she was sitting was a packet of typewritten sheets which she had been annotating, and two fat note books. She laid down her gold-mounted fountain pen as she uttered these words, and then sighed and pushed her chair back from the table.

Then she stood up suddenly. A sound had startled her. She looked all about the summer-house--a sharp, suspicious glance. Then she tiptoed to the door and peered out.

The creeper fluttered away. The robin continued to shout his warning. Had it really been a rustling in the vines she had heard? Was there somebody lurking about the summer-house?

She stepped out and looked on both sides. It was then she saw how threatening the aspect of the clouds on the other side of the river were.

The sight drove from her thoughts for the moment the strange sound she had heard. She did not take pains to look beneath the summer-house on the water side.

Instead, another sound a.s.sailed her ears. This time one that she could not mistake for anything but just what it was--the musical horn of Tom Cameron's automobile. Ruth turned swiftly to look up the road. A dark maroon car, long and low-hung like a racer, was coming along the road, leaving a funnel of dust behind it. There were two people in the car.

The girl beside the driver--black-haired and pet.i.te--fluttered her handkerchief in greeting when she saw Ruth standing by the summer-house.

At once the latter ran across the yard, over the gentle rise, and down to the front gate of the Potter farmhouse. She ran splendidly with a free stride of untrammeled limbs, but she held one shoulder rather stiffly.

"Oh, Ruth!"

"Oh, Helen!"

The car was at the gate, and Tom brought it to a prompt stop. Helen, his twin sister, was out of it instantly and almost leaped into the bigger girl's arms.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" sobbed Helen. "You _are_ alive after all that horrible experience coming home from Europe."

"And you are alive and safe, dear Helen," responded Ruth Fielding, quite as deeply moved.

It was the first time they had met since separating in Paris a month before. And in these times of war, with peace still an uncertainty, there were many perils to fear between the port of Brest and that of New York.

Tom, in uniform and with a ribbon and medal on his breast, grinned teasingly at the two girls.

"Come, come! Break away! Only twenty seconds allowed in a clinch. Don't Helen look fine, Ruth? How's the shoulder?"

"Just a bit stiff yet," replied the girl of the Red Mill, kissing her chum again.

At this moment the first sudden swoop of the tempest arrived. The tall elms writhed as though taken with St. Vitus's dance. The hens began to screech and run to cover. Thunder muttered in the distance.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Ruth, paling unwontedly, for she was not by nature a nervous girl. "Come right into the house, Helen. You could not get to Cheslow or back home before this storm breaks. Put your car under the shed, Tom."

She dragged her friend into the yard and up the warped flag stones to the side door of the cottage. A little old woman who had been sitting on the porch in a low rocking chair arose with difficulty, leaning on a cane.

"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" murmured Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was not long out of a sick bed herself and would never again be as "spry" as she once had been. "Do come in, dearies. It is a wind storm."

Ruth stopped to help the little old woman. She continued pale, but her thought for Aunt Alvirah's comfort caused her to put aside her own fear.

The trio entered the house and closed the door.

In a moment there was a sharp patter against the house. The rain had begun in big drops. The rear door was opened, and Tom, laughing and shaking the water from his cap, dashed into the living room. He wore the insignia of a captain under his dust-coat and the distinguishing marks of a very famous division of the A. E. F.

"It's a buster!" he declared. "There's a paper sailing like a kite over the roof of the old mill----"

Ruth sprang up with a shriek. She ran to the back door by which Tom had just entered and tore it open.

"Oh, do shut the door, deary!" begged Aunt Alvirah. "That wind is 'nough to lift the roof."

"What _is_ the matter, Ruth?" demanded Helen.

But Tom ran out after her. He saw the girl leap from the porch and run madly down the path toward the summer-house. Back on the wind came a broken word or two of explanation:

"My papers! My scenario! The best thing I ever did, Tom!"

He had almost caught up to her when she reached the little pavilion. The wind from across the river was tearing through the summer-house at a sixty-mile-an-hour speed.

"Oh! It's gone!" Ruth cried, and had Tom not caught her she would have dropped to the ground.

There was not a sc.r.a.p of paper left upon the table, nor anywhere in the place. Even the two fat notebooks had disappeared, and, too, the gold-mounted pen the girl of the Red Mill had been using. All, all seemed to have been swept out of the summer-house.

CHAPTER II

THE MYSTERY OF IT

For half a minute Tom Cameron did not know just what to do for Ruth. Then the water spilled out of the angry clouds overhead and bade fair to drench them.

He half carried Ruth into the summer-house and let her rest upon a bench, sitting beside her with his arm tenderly supporting her shoulders. Ruth had begun to sob tempestuously.

Ruth Fielding weeping! She might have cried many times in the past, but almost always in secret. Tom, who knew her so well, had seen her in dangerous and fear-compelling situations, and she had not wept.