"But yes! Hereafter I will be cheerful. Life is worth living after all!"

Tom, who sat next to her at table (he usually managed to do that) smiled at Ruth approvingly.

"Bravo!" he whispered. "There are other scenarios to write."

"Tom!" she whispered sharply, "I want to tell you something about that."

"About what?"

"My scenario."

"You don't mean----"

"I mean I know what has become of it."

"Never!" gasped Tom. "Are you--are--you----"

"I am not '_non compos_,' and-so-forth," laughed Ruth. "Oh, there is nothing foolish about this, Tom. Let me tell you."

She spoke in so low a tone that the others could not have heard had they desired to. She and Tom put their heads together and within the next few minutes Ruth had told him all about the hermit's scenario and her conviction that he had stolen his idea and a large part of his story from Ruth's lost ma.n.u.script.

"It seems almost impossible, Ruth," gasped her friend.

"No. Not impossible or improbable. Listen to what that man on Reef Island told me about this hermit, so-called." And she repeated it all to the excited Tom. "I am convinced," pursued Ruth, "that this hermit could easily have been in the vicinity of the Red Mill on the day my ma.n.u.script disappeared."

"But to prove it!" cried Tom.

"We'll see about that," said Ruth confidently. "You know, Ben told us he had seen and spoken to a tramp-actor that day. Uncle Jabez saw him, too.

And you, Tom, followed his trail to the Cheslow railroad yards."

"So I did," admitted her friend.

"I believe," went on Ruth earnestly, "that this man who came here to live on Beach Plum Point only three weeks ago, is that very vagrant. It is plain that this fellow is playing the part of a hermit, just as he plays the parts Mr. Hooley casts him for."

"Whew!" whistled Tom. "Almost do you convince me, Ruth Fielding. But to prove it is another thing."

"We _will_ prove it. If this man was at the Red Mill on that particular day, we can make sure of the fact."

"How will you do it, Ruth?"

"By getting one of the camera men to take a 'still' of the hermit, develop it for us, and send the negative to Ben. He and Uncle Jabez must remember how that traveling actor looked----"

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Tom, jumping up to the amazement of the rest of the party. "That's a bully idea."

"What is it?" demanded Helen. "Let us in on it, too."

But Ruth shook her head and Tom calmed down.

"Can't tell the secret yet," Helen's twin declared. "That would spoil it."

"Oh! A surprise! I love surprises," said Jennie Stone.

"I don't. Not when my chum and my brother have a secret from me and won't let me in on it," and Helen turned her back upon them in apparent indignation.

After that Ruth and Tom discussed the matter with more secrecy. Ruth said in conclusion:

"If he was there at the mill the day my story was stolen, and now submits this scenario to Mr. Hammond--and it is merely a re-hash of mine, Tom, I a.s.sure you----"

"Of course I believe you, Ruth," rejoined the young fellow.

"Mr. Hammond should be convinced, too," said the girl.

But there was a point that Tom saw very clearly and which Ruth Fielding did not seem to appreciate. She still had no evidence to corroborate her claim that the hermit's story of "Plain Mary" was plagiarized from her ma.n.u.script.

For, after all, n.o.body but Ruth herself knew what her scenario had been like!

CHAPTER XXV

LIFTING THE CURTAIN

Ruth slept peacefully and awoke the next morning in a perfectly serene frame of mind. She was quite as convinced as ever that she had been robbed of her scenario; and she was, as well, sure that "John, the hermit," had produced his picture play from her ma.n.u.script. But Ruth no longer felt anxious and excited about it.

She clearly saw her way to a conclusion of the matter. If the old actor was identified by Ben and Uncle Jabez as the tramp they had seen and conversed with, the girl of the Red Mill was pretty sure she would get the best of the thief.

In the first place she considered her idea and her scenario worth much more than five hundred dollars. If by no other means, she would buy the hermit's story at the price Mr. Hammond was willing to pay for it--and a little more if necessary. And if possible she would force the old actor to hand over to her the script that she had lost.

Thus was her mind made up, and she approached the matter in all cheerfulness. She had said nothing to anybody but Tom, and she did not see him early in the morning. One of the stewards brought the girls' breakfast to the shack; so they knew little of what went on about the camp at that time.

The rain had ceased. The storm had pa.s.sed on completely. Soon after breakfast Ruth saw the man who called himself "John, the hermit," making straight for Mr. Hammond's office.

That was where Ruth wished to be. She wanted to confront the man before the president of the film corporation. She started over that way and ran into the most surprising incident!

Coming out of the cook tent with a huge ap.r.o.n enveloping her queer, tight dress and tilting forward upon her high heels, appeared Bella Pike! Ruth Fielding might have met somebody whose presence here would have surprised her more, but at the moment she could not imagine who it could be.

"Ara-bella!" gasped Ruth.

The child turned to stare her own amazement. She changed color, too, for she knew she had done wrong to run away; but she smiled with both eyes and lips, for she was glad to see Ruth.

"My mercy!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "If it ain't Miss Fielding! How-do, Miss Fielding? Ain't it enough to give one their nevergitovers to see you here?"

"And how do you suppose I feel to find you here at Beach Plum Point,"

demanded Ruth, "when we all thought you were so nicely fixed with Mr. and Mrs. Perkins? And Mrs. Holmes wrote to me only the other day that you seemed contented."

"That's right, Miss Fielding," sighed the actor's child. "I was. And Miz Perkins was always nice to me. Nothing at all like Aunt Suse Timmins. But, you see, they ain't like pa."