Ruth Fielding Down East Part 33

"Did your father bring you here?"

"No'm."

"Nor send for you?"

"Not exactly," confessed Bella.

"Well!"

"You see, he sent me money. Only on Tuesday. Forty dollars."

"Forty dollars! And to a child like you?"

"Well, Miss Fielding, if he had sent it to Aunt Suse I'd never have seen a penny of it. And pa didn't know what you'd done for me and how you'd put me with Miz Perkins."

"I suppose that is so," admitted the surprised Ruth. "But why did you come here?"

"'Cause pa wrote he had an engagement here. I came through Boston, an' got me a dress, and some shoes, and a hat--all up to date--and I thought I'd surprise pa----"

"But, Bella! I haven't seen your father here, have I?"

"No. There's a mistake somehow. But this nice Miz Paisley says for me not to worry. That like enough pa will come here yet."

"I never!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ruth. "Come right along with me, Bella, and see Mr.

Hammond. Something must be done. Of course, Mrs. Perkins and the doctor's wife have no idea where you have gone?"

"Oh, yes'm. I left a note telling 'em I'd gone to meet pa."

"But we must send them a message that you are all right. Come on, Bella!"

and with her arm about the child's thin shoulders, Ruth urged her to Mr.

Hammond's office--and directly into her father's arms!

This was how Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike came to meet her father--in a most amazing fashion!

"Pa! I never did!" half shrieked the queer child.

"Arabella! Here? How strange!" observed the man who had been acting the part of the Beach Plum Point hermit. "My child!"

Mr. Pike could do nothing save in a dramatic way. He seized Bella and hugged her to his bosom in a most stagy manner. But Ruth saw that the man's gray eyes were moist, that his hands when he seized the girl really trembled, and he kissed Bella with warmth.

"I declare!" exclaimed Mr. Hammond. "So your name is something-or-other-Fitzmaurice Pike?"

"John Pike, if it please you. The other is for professional purposes only," said Bella's father. "If you do not mind, sir," he added, "we will postpone our discussion until a later time. I--I would take my daughter to my poor abode and learn of her experience in getting here to Beach Plum Point."

"Go as far as you like, Mr. Pike. But remember there has got to be a settlement later of this matter we were discussing," said the manager sternly.

The actor and his daughter departed, the former giving Ruth a very curious look indeed. Mr. Hammond turned a broad smile upon the girl of the Red Mill.

"What do you know about _that_?" Mr. Hammond demanded. "Why, Miss Ruth, yours seems to have been a very good guess. That fellow is an old-timer and no mistake."

"My guess was good in more ways than one," said Ruth. "I believe I can prove that this Pike was at the Red Mill on the day my scenario was stolen."

She told the manager briefly of the discovery she had made through the patriarchal old fellow on Reef Island the day before, and of her intention of sending a photograph of Pike back home for identification.

"Good idea!" declared Mr. Hammond. "I will speak to Mr. Hooley. There are 'stills' on file of all the people he is using here on the lot at the present time. If you are really sure this man's story is a plagiarism on your own----"

She smiled at him. "I can prove that, too, I think, to your satisfaction.

I feel now that I can sit down and roughly sketch my whole scenario again.

I must confess that in two places in this 'Plain Mary' this man Pike has really improved on my idea. But as a whole his ma.n.u.script does not flatter my story. You'll see!"

"Truly, you are a different young woman this morning, Miss Ruth!"

exclaimed her friend. "I hope this matter will be settled in a way satisfactory to you. I really think there is the germ of a splendid picture in this 'Plain Mary.'"

"And believe me!" laughed Ruth, "the germ is mine. You'll see," she repeated.

She proved her point, and Mr. Hammond did see; but the outcome was through quite unexpected channels. Ruth did not have to threaten the man who had made her all the trouble. John M. F. Pike made his confession of his own volition when they discussed the matter that very day.

"I feel, Miss Fielding, after all that you did for my child, that I cannot go on with this subterfuge that, for Bella's sake, I was tempted to engage in. I did seize upon your ma.n.u.script in that summer-house near the mill where they say you live, and I was prepared to make the best use of it possible for Bella's sake.

"We have had such bad luck! Poverty for one's self is bad enough. I have withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for years. But my child is growing up----"

"Would you want her to grow up to know that her father is a thief?" Ruth demanded hotly.

"Hunger under the belt gnaws more potently than conscience," said Pike, with a grandiloquent gesture. "I had sought alms and been refused at that mill. Lurking about I saw you leave the summer-house and spied the gold pen. I can give you a p.a.w.n ticket for that," said Mr. Pike sadly. "But I saw, too, the value of your scenario and notes. Desperately I had determined to try to enter this field of moving pictures. It is a terrible come down, Miss Fielding, for an artist--this mugging before the camera."

He went on in his roundabout way to tell her that he had no idea of the ownership of the scenario. Her name was not on it, and he had not observed her face that day at the Red Mill. And in his mind all the time had been his own and his child's misery.

"It was a bold attempt to forge success through dishonesty," he concluded with humility.

Whether Ruth was altogether sure that Pike was quite honest in his confession or not, for Bella's sake she could not be harsh with the old actor. Nor could he, Ruth believed, be wholly bad when he loved his child so much.

As he turned over to Ruth every sc.r.a.p of ma.n.u.script, as well as the notebooks she had lost, she need not worry about establishing her ownership of the script.

When Mr. Hammond had examined her material he agreed with Ruth that in two quite important places Bella's father had considerably improved the original idea of the story.

This gave Ruth the lead she had been looking for. Mr. Hammond admitted that the story was much too fine and too important to be filmed here at this summer camp. He decided to make a great spectacular production of it at the company's main studio later in the fall.

So Ruth proceeded to force Bella's father to accept two hundred dollars in payment for what he had done on the story. As her contract with Mr.

Hammond called for a generous royalty, she would make much more out of the scenario than the sum John Pike had hoped to get by selling the stolen idea to Mr. Hammond.

The prospects of Bella and her father were vastly improved, too. His work as a "type" for picture makers would gain him a much better livelihood than he had been able to earn in the legitimate field. And when Ruth and her party left Beach Plum Point camp for home in their automobiles, Bella herself was working in a two-reel comedy that Mr. Hooley was directing.

"Well, thank goodness!" sighed Helen, "Ruth has settled affairs for two more of her 'waifs and strays.' Now don't, I beg, find anybody else to become interested in during our trip back to the Red Mill, Ruthie."

Ruth was sitting beside Tom on the front seat of the big touring car. He looked at her sideways with a whimsical little smile.

"I wish you would turn over a new leaf, Ruthie," he whispered.

"And what is to be on that new leaf?" she asked brightly.