Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point Part 27

"Yes, indeed," returned Ruth. She gave a look around. "My, what a lonely spot!"

"It is lonely," the youth answered. "Kind of a Robinson Crusoe place," and he gave a short laugh.

"Listen!" cried Ruth, and held up her hand as a warning.

"What did you hear, Ruth?"

"I thought I heard somebody talking, or calling."

"You did?" Tom listened intently. "I don't hear anything." He listened again. "Yes, I do! Where did it come from?"

"I think it came from yonder," and the girl from the Red Mill pointed to a big, round rock ahead of them.

"Maybe it did, Ruth. We'll--yes, you are right!" exclaimed the boy.

As he spoke there was a sc.r.a.ping sound ahead of them and suddenly a tousled black head popped, up over the top of the boulder from which fluttered the bit of white linen that had first attracted Ruth's attention.

"Gracious goodness!" gasped Helen.

"It's Nita!" cried Ruth.

"Oh, oh!" shrilled the lost girl, flying out of concealment and meeting Ruth as she leaped ash.o.r.e. "Is it really you? Have you come for me? I--I thought I'd have to stay here alone forever. I'd given up all hope of any boat seeing me, or my signal. I--I'm 'most dead of fear, Ruth Fielding! Do, do take me back to land with you."

The Western girl was clearly panic-stricken. The boldness and independence she had formerly exhibited were entirely gone. Being marooned on this barren islet had pretty well sapped the courage of Miss Jane Ann Hicks.

CHAPTER XXIV

PLUCKY MOTHER PURLING

Tom Cameron audibly chuckled; but he made believe to be busy with the painter of the catboat and so did not look at the Western girl. The harum-scarum, independent, "rough and ready" runaway was actually on the verge of tears. But--really--it was not surprising.

"How long have you been out here on this rock?" demanded Helen, in horror.

"Ever since I left the bungalow."

"Why didn't you wave your signal from the top of the rock, so that it could be seen on the point?" asked Ruth, wonderingly.

"There's no way to get to the top of the rock--or around to the other side of it, either," declared the runaway. "Look at these clothes! They are nearly torn off. And see my hands!"

"Oh, you poor, poor thing!" exclaimed Helen, seeing how the castaway's hands were torn.

"I tried it. I've shouted myself hoa.r.s.e. No boat paid any attention to me. They were all too far away, I suppose."

"And did that awful man, Crab, bring you here?" cried Ruth.

"Yes. It was dark when he landed and showed me this cave in the rock.

There was food and water. Why, I've got plenty to eat and drink even now. But n.o.body has been here----"

"Didn't he come back?" queried Tom, at last taking part in the conversation.

"He rowed out here once. I told him I'd sink his boat with a rock if he tried to land. I was afraid of him," declared the girl.

"But why did you come here with him that night?" demanded Ruth.

"'Cause I was foolish. I didn't know he was so bad then. I thought he'd really help me. He told me Jennie's aunt had written to my uncle----"

"Old Bill Hicks," remarked Tom, chuckling.

"Yes. I'm Jane Hicks. I'm not Nita," said the girl, gulping down something like a sob.

"We read all about you in the paper," said Helen, soothingly. "Don't you mind."

"And your uncle's come, and he's just as anxious to see you as he can be," declared Ruth.

"So they _did_ send for him?" cried Jane Ann.

"No. Crab wrote a letter to Silver Ranch himself. He got you out here so as to be sure to collect five hundred dollars from your uncle before he gave you up," grunted Tom. "Nice mess of things you made by running off from us."

"Oh, I'll go back with Uncle Bill--I will, indeed," said the girl.

"I've been so lonely and scared out here. Seems to me every time the tide rose, I'd be drowned in that cave. The sea's horrid, I think! I never want to see it again."

"Well," Tom observed, "I guess you won't have to worry about Crab any more. Get aboard the catboat. We'll slip ash.o.r.e mighty easy now, and let him whistle for you--or the money. Mr. Hicks won't have to pay for getting you back."

"I expect he's awful mad at me," sighed Jane Ann, _alias_ Nita.

"I know that he is awfully anxious to get you back again, my dear,"

said Ruth. "He is altogether too good a man for you to run away from."

"Don't you suppose I know that, Miss?" snapped the girl from the ranch.

They embarked in the catboat and Tom showed his seamanship to good advantage when he got the _Jennie S._ out of that dock without rubbing her paint. But the wind was very light and they had to run down with it past the island and then beat up between the Thimble and the lighthouse, toward the entrance to Sokennet Harbor.

Indeed, the breeze fell so at times that the catboat made no headway.

In one of these calms Helen sighted a rowboat some distance away, but pulling toward them from among the little chain of islands beyond the reef on which the lumber schooner had been wrecked.

"Here's a fisherman coming," she said. "Do you suppose he'd take us ash.o.r.e in his boat, Tom? We could walk home from the light. It's growing late and Miss Kate will be worried."

"Why, Sis, I can scull this old tub to the landing below the lighthouse yonder. We don't need to borrow a boat. Then Phineas can come around in the _Miraflame_ to-morrow morning and tow the catboat home."

But Jane Ann had leaped up at once to eye the coming rowboat--and not with favor.

"That looks like the boat that Crab came out to the Thimble in," she exclaimed. "Why! it _is_ him."

"Jack Crab!" exclaimed Helen, in terror. "He's after you, then."