The boy began to speak again. His words burned with anger. “That don’t satisfy us, you know it don’t, you meat hunter you—”
The young girl with very bright eyes that rode beside him, tugging at his arm, stopped the angry flood. She whispered in his ear. Ruth heard, and her face flushed.
What she had said was, “Don’t. It’s a girl.”
This made her more angry than ever, but she controlled her emotions and said no more.
A moment later the Speed King turned about and left the circle of fog-ridden sea to Ruth and Pearl and to the great fish that had ceased to struggle.
“Well,” said Ruth, rising wearily from her place fifteen minutes later, “since they don’t seem to want the fish, guess we’d better take him home. He’s worth a lot of money, and we need it.”
There was no spirit in her voice. There was no spring in her usually buoyant self as she did the work of dispatching the fish, taking the keg and lashing the prize for a tow to port. She had won what she wanted, but now she had it she was sure she was not going to enjoy it, not even the new dress.
Late that evening she delivered the prize to Captain Field, who promised to carry it to market for her. She wasn’t going to get a great deal of joy out of the money, but one could not quite throw it away.
“It’s tough luck,” Don said as she told him the story that evening. “I suppose those city people must have their sport, but it’s a little hard to understand why one person’s sport should interfere with another’s business.”
CHAPTER IX
OFF BLACK HEAD
In the meantime, notwithstanding the fact that Ruth and Pearl were on far away Monhegan, the old Fort Skammel mystery was not entirely neglected, nor was the sleepy old fortress allowed to bask unmolested in the sun.
With her two newly made pals away, Betty Bronson, who had lived for a long time on the banks of the romantic Chicago River, and who had but recently been taken up by a wealthy benefactress, found life hanging heavy on her hands. The ladies in the big summer cottage on the hill, which was her present home, drank quantities of tea, played numberless games of bridge, and gossiped as ladies will. All of which interested Betty not at all.
Fishing off the dock was not exciting. She tried for cunners off the rocks at the back of the island and was promptly and efficiently drenched from head to toe by an insolent wave.
After three days of this sort of thing she was prepared for any wild and desperate adventure. Hiring a punt from Joe Trott, she rowed across the bay to the old fort.
The day was bright and the bay calm. The grass by the old fort was as motionless and silent as were the massive stones which made up the walls of the fort.
“Peaceful,” she thought. “What could be more so? Like the schoolhouse by the road, the old fort is a ragged beggar sunning.”
No sooner had she gripped a flashlight and crept through a narrow square where once a massive cannon had protruded, than all this was changed. As if to make reality doubly real, the sun for a moment passed under a cloud, and the great silent circular chamber, which had once known the cannons’ roar, became dark at midday.
“Boo!” she shuddered and was tempted to turn back. Just in time she thought of tea and bridge. She went on.
“Ruth said it was down these stairs at the right,” she told herself, stepping resolutely down the ancient stone stairway. “Down a long passage, around a curve, through a small square dungeon-like place, then along a narrow passageway. Ooo-oo! That seems a long way.”
She was thinking of the face Ruth had seen in the fire. Just why she expected that face to remain there, like an oil painting on the floor, she probably could not have told. Perhaps she did not expect it. That she did expect to meet with some adventure, make some discovery, or experience a thrill was quite certain.
“I wish Ruth were here,” she told herself. “It’s really her mystery; but I’ll save it for her.”
At that she disappeared down the narrow passageway that led to the dim unknown.
Had she known just what was happening to Ruth at that moment she would have been surprised and startled. Ruth was experiencing adventure all her own.
On that day, still wondering and brooding over her curious experience with the swordfish and trying without much success to get the consent of her mind to enjoy the swordfish money gotten in such a strange manner, Ruth had gone for a walk to the back of the island.
Once there, fish and money were driven from her mind, for the view from the crest of Black Head, a bold headland towering two hundred feet above the sea, was glorious beyond compare. The day was clear. There was no storm, yet great breakers, racing in from the sea, sent out long, low rushes of sound as they broke against the impregnable black barrier.
As her keenly appreciative eyes took in the long line of fast racing gray-green surf, they suddenly fell upon a sight that made her blood run cold.
“What a terrible chance! How—how foolish!” she exclaimed as, springing from her rocky seat, she went racing back over the island.
Having arrived at the head of a rugged trail that led downward, she came to a sudden pause.
This, in view of the fact that she honestly believed that the boy and girl on the rocks by the rushing surf were in grave danger, might seem strange. Strange or not, she walked deliberately now. Dropping here, clinging there to drop again, she had made her way half the distance to them when she paused again to at last take a seat there in the sun.
The path from there on was steep but straight. She could reach the ones below in less than a moment’s time. But she would not, at least not yet.
“What’s the use?” she told herself a little bitterly. “Wouldn’t be so bad if one didn’t really like them. But I do.”
It was a rather strange situation. The boy and girl who were endangering their lives by playing in the high rolling surf were the very ones who had followed the swordfish the day before.
With her eyes on the shining surf and the two dancing figures before her, she gave herself over to reflection.
The boy and girl below were tempting death. There was no question about it. They were playing in the surf at an exceedingly dangerous moment. True, there was no wind, no storm upon the sea. But there had been a storm somewhere. That was evident. It might have happened on the faraway coast of Florida. No matter, the seas that had risen then had journeyed northward. Now they were reaching higher and higher on the sloping rock where the boy and girl played.
“They think the ocean is a plaything!” Ruth said almost bitterly. Having lived her life in a fisherman’s cabin by the sea, she knew the ocean was no plaything. Twice in her short life she had looked into eyes that saw nothing, on arms that would never move again, lifeless forms given up by the sea.
As she watched, in spite of her dislike for sports that tempted providence, she found herself fascinated by the wild, nymph-like daring of the twelve-year-old girl who in a single cotton garment drenched with salt spray, hatless and bare of feet, sprang far out after the receding waves to turn and rush back as the surf came thundering in.
Now as she watched, the spray hid her. She sprang to her feet.
“There! There! She’s gone!”
But, no, the spray cleared and the girl, drenched, chilled but triumphant, threw up her arms and laughed.
“Who can help but like them, these rich men’s children!” she exclaimed. “They are frank and fearless. They never quarrel. They are generous to a fault. And yet—” she paused for a moment to reflect, “they don’t seem to have any notion of the value of life. They have never been taught to be afraid.”
Not taught to be afraid. That was it. Too much fear was destructive; too little fear quite as bad.
Receding, the sea appeared to give up its attempt to snatch the daring ones to its breast. Ruth’s eyes and thoughts drifted away from the boy and girl on the rocks. She joyed in the beauty and power of nature revealed in that long line of thundering surf. Nowhere in all her life had she seen such surf as came be
ating in at the back of Monhegan.
Great men have felt the charm of it in all ages. Captain John Smith once tarried to raise a garden there. Governor Bradford of Plymouth Plantation was once there. And, at this very moment, Ruth caught a glimpse of a shock of white hair which belonged to one of the greatest inventors of modern times.
“Suppose he is sitting there watching the surf and trying to estimate the amount of power that is being wasted,” she thought with a smile.
But there was the surf again. Booming in louder than before it sent spray forty feet high on Black Head’s impregnable stronghold. There, too, were the daring ones, the boy and the wildly dancing girl.
“There! There!” she whispered tensely once more. “She is gone. The waves have her.”
Once more she was mistaken. With a scream of triumph the child emerged from the spray.
“Wish I had never seen them,” she mumbled angrily.
The death of a human being, particularly a child with all the bright glories of life before her, is something to give pause to every other human being in the world.
It did seem an unkind act of Providence that had thrust these two young people who knew so little of fear and of the sea into the presence of one who had experienced so much of the ocean’s wild terrors.
She had seen this boy and girl twice before. There had been the painful swordfishing episode. Then once, as she had guided her motor boat into the tiny harbor at Monhegan, a cry had struck her ear. She had taken it for a cry of distress. Surf had been rushing in masses of gray foam over the shoals before Monhegan. There had been something of a fog. Having caught the outlines of a green punt there in the foam, she had exclaimed:
“They have lost their oars. Their boat will be smashed on the rocks!”
With infinite pains, in danger every moment of losing her motor boat, she had worked her way close, then had shouted to them.
To her great disgust, she had seen the boy turn and laugh. Once again they were using the ocean as a plaything. Having thrown an anchor attached to a long painter among the rocks, they were riding the surf in their shallow punt.
A strange providence had saved them.
“But now they are at it again,” she told herself. “I’ll leave this island. I won’t be their keeper. I—”
She broke off, to stand for ten seconds, staring. A piercing scream had struck her ear. No cry of joy, this. As she looked she saw the boy alone on the slanting rock. On the crest of a wave she caught a fleck of white that was not foam.
“The girl! She’s out there! She’s swimming. She—”
Like a flash she shot down the rocky path. At the same instant an old man, his gray hairs flying, sprang down the other bank of the rocky run.
The old man reached the spot before her.
“No! No! Not you!” she panted. She knew that no white-haired patriarch could brave that angry swirl of foam and live.
The aged inventor knew this quite well. He knew something more. He had measured the boy’s strength and prowess and found it wanting.
“Not you either,” he panted as the suddenly panic-stricken and heart-broken city boy prepared to leap to the rescue.
“Not you!” The old man seized him and pinned him to the rock. “If someone is to undo the harm done by your recklessness it must be another.” The aged inventor paused, out of breath.
That other was Ruth. No one knew that better than she. The time had come when she must battle with death for the life of another.
“Go! Go for a boat!” she shouted to the boy and the man. Her voice carried above the roar of the surf. With that she leaped square into the arms of a gigantic wave to be carried away by it toward the spot where the white speck, which had a moment before been a joyous twelve-year-old girl, struggled more feebly and ever more feebly against the forces that strove to drag her down.
The battle that followed will always remain a part of Monhegan’s colorful history.
Two thoughts stuck in Ruth’s mind as, throwing the foam from her face, she struck for the place where the white spot had last been. She must get a firm grip on the girl; then she must go out, out, OUT. Nothing else could save them. By a great good fortune this was a moment of comparative calm. But such calms are deceiving. Ruth was not to be deceived. The ocean was a cat playing with a mouse. At any moment it might be raging again. To attempt a landing on the rocks, to allow one’s self to be cast high against Black Head’s pitiless wall was to meet death at a single blow.
“I must go out, out, OUT. There is life,” she told herself over and over.
But first the girl. A low wave lifted her. Riding its crest, she caught a glimpse of that slight figure. But now she was gone, perhaps forever.
But no; there she was closer now, still battling feebly against the blind forces dragging her down.
With almost superhuman strength the fisher girl leaped against the waves. Now she had covered half the distance, now two-thirds, and now she reached the child. As if to torment her, a wave snatched her away. She disappeared.
“Gone!” she murmured.
But no, there she was, closer now. Her hand shot out. She grasped a shred of white. It gave way. A second stroke, and she had her.
Gripping her firmly with one hand, she swam with the other. Swimming now with all her might, she made her way out until the sea grew wild again.
Nothing could be done now but keep heads above the foam and spray. One, two, three waves, each one higher than the last, carried them toward the terrible wall of stone. Now they were five yards back, now eight, now ten. With an agonizing cry, the girl saw the rocks loom above them.
But now, just in the nick of time, as if a hand had been laid upon the water and a mighty voice had whispered, “Peace! Be still!” the waves receded.
Ruth, looking into the younger girl’s eyes, read understanding there.
“Can you cling to my blouse? I can swim better.”
The girl’s answer was a grip at the collar that could not be broken.
The next moment a fearful onrush found them farther out, safer. But Ruth’s strength was waning. There was no haven here. A boat was their only hope.
Hardly had she thought this than a dark prow cut a wave a hundred yards beyond them. Above the prow was a sea-tanned face.
“Captain Field!” She shouted aloud with joy. Captain Field is the youngest, bravest of all the Atlantic seaboard.
“Now we will be saved,” she said, huskily. The girl’s grip on her jacket tightened.
The rescue of two girls by a small fishing schooner tossed by such a sea was no easy task. More than once it seemed the boat would be swamped and all lost. Three times the waves snatched them away as they were upon the point of being drawn aboard. But in the end, steady nerves, strong muscles and brave hearts won. Dripping, exhausted, but triumphant, Ruth and the one she had saved were lifted over the gunwale. At once the staunch little motor boat began its journey to a safe harbor, and all the comforts of home.
CHAPTER X
THE TILTING FLOOR
That evening Ruth sat before a tiny open grate in her room at Field’s cabin. She was alone; wanted to be. The summer folks were giving a concert up at the big hotel. Pearl and Don had gone. She had wanted to sit and think.
She had been angry for hours. “I’ll leave Monhegan in the morning,” she told herself, rising to stamp back and forth across the narrow room. “If Don isn’t ready to go, I’ll take the tug to Booth Harbor and go down by steamer. I won’t stay here, not another day!”
She slumped down in her chair again to stare moodily at the fire. What had angered her? This she herself could not very clearly have told. Perhaps it was because they had tried to make a heroine of her. She hadn’t meant to be a heroine, wouldn’t be made one. The whole population of the island, a hundred and fifty or more, had flocked down to the dock when Captain Field brought her and the rescued girl in.
There had been shouts of “What a wonder! A miracle girl!”
An artist had wanted her to
pose for a portrait. “So romantically rugged,” he had said as he gripped her arm with fingers that were soft.
“Romantically rugged.” She didn’t want her portrait painted; had only wanted dry clothes.
“They had no right to do it,” she told herself savagely. “If that boy and girl hadn’t been tempting God and Providence by playing in the surf, I wouldn’t have been obliged to risk my life to save the girl. And on top of that they have the nerve to want me to pose as a heroine!”
She slumped lower in her chair. Yes, she’d go home tomorrow. She had begun by loving Monhegan. The bold, stark beauty of it had fascinated her. Nowhere else did the surf run so high. Nowhere else were the headlands so bold. No surf was so green, blue and purple as that which rose and fell off Black Head, Burnt Head and Skull Rock.
But now the cold brutality of nature as demonstrated here left her terrified and cold.
Perhaps, after all, she was only in a physical slump after a heroic effort. For all that, she had formed a resolve to leave Monhegan in the morning. Like a spike in a mahogany log, the resolve had struck home. It would not be withdrawn.
As for Pearl, she was at that moment listening to such music as it was seldom her privilege to hear—Tittle’s Serenade done on harp, flute, violin and cello. Her eyes were half closed, but for all that she was seeing things. She was, as in a vision, looking into the night where a single ray of light fell upon a mysterious dark-winged seaplane speeding away through the fog above the sea.
* * * *
It was at noon of that day that Betty found herself moving slowly, cautiously down the narrow passageway at the heart of old Fort Skammel, that was supposed to lead to the spot where Ruth had seen the face in the light of her Roman candle on the Fourth of July.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 125