Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence; Or, The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands

by Alice B. Emerson

  CHAPTER XVII

  A DETERMINATION

  However the wind might sit and whatever may have been her secret opinionof Ruth Fielding's interest in Chessleigh Copley, Helen suddenly becamemute regarding that young man.

  But, after a moment, she was not at all mute upon the subject of the Kingof the Pipes and what might be going on on the island where they believedthe queer old man had his headquarters.

  "If it should be smugglers over there--only fancy!" sighed Helenecstatically. "Diamonds and silks and lots of precious things! My, oh,my!"

  "Better than pirates?" laughed Ruth.

  "Consider!" cried her chum boldly. "I said that island looked like apirate's den from the start."

  "Your fore-sight-hind-sight is wonderful," declared Ruth, shaking herhead and making big eyes at her friend.

  "Don't laugh--Oh! What's that?"

  From over the water, and unmistakably from the rocky island on the summitof which the blasted beech stood--a prominent landmark--came the strangecry, "co-ee! co-ee!" which they had heard before.

  "Do you suppose that poor old man is calling for help?" hesitated Ruth.

  "Your grandmother's aunt!" ejaculated Helen, in disgust.

  "We-ell that is even a more roundabout relationship than that betweenAunt Alvirah Boggs and me. Poor old soul, she is nobody's relation, asshe often says, but everybody's aunt."

  "There goes the signal again, and here comes that boat!" exclaimed Helensuddenly.

  "What boat?" demanded Ruth, looking in the direction of the distantCanadian island, toward which the canoe, with Totantora and Wonota in it,had now disappeared.

  "Turn around--do!" exclaimed Helen. "This way. That is the same boat wesaw going by some time ago. The boat with the yellow lady in it, asWonota called her."

  "This is very strange," murmured Ruth.

  "But the yellow lady is not with those men now," said Helen.

  "I do not see any woman aboard," admitted her friend.

  The boat--going not so fast now--crossed their line of vision and finallyrounded the end of the island on which the two chums believed the queerold man resided. At least, somebody had uttered the strange, shrill cryfrom that very spot.

  "Oh, dear! If we were not marooned here!" grumbled Helen.

  "What would you do?"

  "If we had a boat--even a canoe--we could follow that motor-launch andsee if those pirates make a landing."

  "Pirates!" repeated Ruth.

  "Smugglers, then. Your own Chess Copley says they may be smugglers, youknow."

  "I wish you would not speak in that way, Helen," objected Ruth. "He isnot my Chess Copley----or anything else."

  "Well, he certainly isn't mine," retorted Helen, with more gaiety. "Ican't say I approve of him--and I long since told you why."

  "I believe you are unfair, Helen," said Ruth seriously.

  "Dear me! if you don't care anything about him, why are you so anxious tohave me change my opinion of 'Lasses?"

  "For your own sake," said her friend shortly.

  "I wonder! For _my_ sake?"

  "Yes. Because you are not naturally unfair--and Chess feels it."

  "Oh, he does, does he?" snapped Helen. "I hope he does. Let him feel!"

  This heartless observation closed Ruth's lips on the subject. The twogirls watched the other island. They did not see the boat again. Nor didthey see anybody on the island or hear any other cry from there.

  They both began to grow anxious. No boat appeared from the direction ofthe camp, and it was past the hour now when Willie was to have called forthem with the _Gem_. Why didn't he come?

  "Of course, Mr. Hammond doesn't expect us to swim home," complainedHelen.

  "Something must have occurred. Totantora's being sent off so suddenlyreally worries me. Perhaps Mr. Hammond himself was obliged to leave thecamp and perhaps he went in the _Gem_, and Willie cannot return for usuntil later."

  "But where is Tom? Surely he must know all about this sudden trouble."

  "What was Tom going to do to-day?" asked Ruth quietly.

  "Oh, that's so! I had forgotten," said Tom's sister, in despair. "He wasgoing around to Oak Point with some of the men. That's down the river,beyond Chippewa Point, and they could scarcely get back in the othermotor-boat before dark."

  "That's the answer, I guess," sighed Ruth.

  "Then we are marooned!" ejaculated Helen. "I do think it is too mean--andmy goodness! we ate every crumb of lunch."

  "The two 'Robinson Crusoesses,' then, may have to go on short rations,"but Ruth said it with a smile. "I guess we are not in any real danger ofstarvation, however."

  "Just the same, a joke can easily become serious when one is deserted ona desert island."

  "But you were looking for adventure," retorted Ruth.

  "Well!"

  "Now you have it," said Ruth, but soberly. "And worrying about it willnot help us a particle. Might as well be cheerful."

  "You are as full of old saws as a carpenter's abandoned tool-chest," saidHelen smartly. "Oh! What is this I hear? The smuggler's boat again?"

  They did hear a motor, but no boat appeared from the other side of theKingdom of Pipes. The sound drew nearer. The motor-boat was coming downthe river, through a passage between the island where the girls were andthe American side.

  "Come on! I don't care who it is," cried Helen, starting to run throughthe bushes. "We'll hail them and ask them for rescue."

  But when she came in sight of the craft, to Ruth's surprise Helen did notat once shout. Ruth only saw the bow of the boat coming down streamherself; but suddenly she marked the small name-board with its giltlettering:

  LAURIETTE

  "Here's Chess, I do believe!" she cried.

  "Humph!" grumbled Helen.

  "Now, Helen Cameron!" gasped Ruth, "are you going to be foolish enough torefuse to be taken off this island by Chessleigh Copley?"

  "Didn't say I was."

  "And don't be unkind to him!" pleaded Ruth.

  "You seem so terribly fond of him that I guess he won't mind how I treathim."

  "You know better," Ruth told her admonishingly. "Chess thinks a greatdeal of you, while you treat him too unkindly for utterance."

  "He'd better not think of me too much," said Helen scornfully. "His headwon't stand it. Tom says 'Lasses never was strong in the deeper strata ofcollege learning."

  Ruth was not to be drawn into any controversy. She called to the youngman when, dressed in flannels and standing at his wheel and engine, hecame into view.

  "Hurrah! Here's good luck!" shouted Chess, swerving the bow of the_Lauriette_ in toward the island instantly.

  "Hurrah! Glad you think it's good luck," said Helen sulkily. "I guess younever were marooned."

  "That's navy blue you've got on--not maroon," said Chess soberly. "Do yousuppose I am color-blind?"

  "Smarty!"

  "Now, children, this is too serious a matter to quarrel over," admonishedRuth, but smiling because her chum showed, after all, interest enough inthe young man to be "scrappy." "What do you suppose we have seen, Chess?"

  "I'd like to know first of all how you came here without a boat?"

  "My goodness, yes!" gasped Helen. "I'd almost forgotten about Wonota andTotantora."

  Ruth shook her head. "I am not likely to forget that," she said.

  She explained to the young man as they got into the launch and he pushedout from the shore about the difficulty that had arisen over the Indians.He was naturally deeply interested in Ruth's trouble and in the fate ofthe Indians. But on top of that Helen eagerly told about the speedylaunch, the yellow lady, and their suspicions regarding what was going onat the island that they had nicknamed the Kingdom of Pipes.

  "I tell you what," Chess said, quite as eagerly as Helen, "I was comingover to take you all for a sail on the river to-night. Let's get Tom andjust us four keep watch on that island. I believe there is somethinggoing on there that ought to be looked into."

  "I--I d
on't know that it is our business to look into it," suggestedRuth, doubtfully.

  But for once Helen agreed with Chess, and against Ruth's better judgmentit was determined to come back to this locality after dinner and lurkabout the mysterious island in the Copley launch.