Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie Part 6

"Out of my bag. In this tiny box. I have never traveled without matches since the time we girls were lost in the snow up in the woods that time.

Remember?"

"I should say I do remember our adventures at Snow Camp," sighed Helen.

"But I never would have remembered to carry matches, just the same."

"Now, I break the head off this one. Do you see? One is now shorter than the other. I put them together-_so_. Now I hide them in my hand. You pull one, Helen. If you pull the longer one you get the lower berth."

"I get something else, too, don't I?" said Helen.

"What?"

"The match!" laughed the other girl. "There! Oh, dear me! it's the short one."

"Oh, that's too bad, dear," cried Ruth, at once sympathetic. "If you really dread getting into the upper berth--"

"Be still, you foolish thing!" cried Helen, hugging her. "If we were going to the guillotine and I drew first place, you'd offer to have your dear little neck chopped first. I know you."

The next moment Helen began on something else. "Oh, me! oh, my! what a pair of little geese we are, Ruthie."

"What about?" demanded her chum.

"Why! see this b.u.t.ton in the wall? And we were scrambling all over the place for the electric light bulb. Can't we punch it on?" and she tried the b.u.t.ton tentatively.

"Now you've done it!" groaned Ruth.

"Done what?" demanded Helen in alarm. "I guess that hasn't anything to do with the electric lights. Is it the fire alarm?"

"No. But it costs money every time you punch that b.u.t.ton. You are as silly as poor, little, flaxen-haired Amy Gregg was when she came to Briarwood Hall and did not know how to manipulate the electric light b.u.t.tons."

"But what have I _done_?" demanded Helen. "Why will it cost me money?"

Ruth calmly reached down the ice-water pitcher from its rack. "You'll know in a minute," she said. "There! hear it?"

A faint tinkling approached. It came along the deck outside and Helen pushed back the blind a little way to look out. Immediately a soft, drawling voice spoke.

"D'jew ring fo' ice-water, missy? I got it right yere."

Ruth already had found a dime and she thrust it out with the pitcher. It was their own particular "colored gemmen," as Helen gigglingly called him. She dodged back out of sight, for she had removed her shirtwaist.

He filled the pitcher and went tinkling away along the deck with a pleasant, "I 'ank ye, missy. Goo' night."

"I declare!" cried Helen. "He's one of the genii or a bottle imp. He appears just when you want him, performs his work, and silently disappears."

"That man will be rich before we get to Old Point Comfort," sighed Ruth, who was of a frugal disposition.

They closed the blind again, and a little later the lamp on the deck outside was extinguished. The girls had said their prayers, and now Helen, with much hilarity, "shinnied up" to the berth above, kicking her night slippers off as she plunged into it.

"Good-bye-if I don't see you again," she said plaintively. "You may have to call the fire department with their ladders, to get me down."

Ruth snapped off the light, and then registered her getting into bed by a b.u.mp on her head against the lower edge of the upper berth.

"Oh, my, Helen! You have the best of it after all. Oh, how that hurt!"

"M-m-m-m!" from Helen. So quickly was she asleep!

But Ruth could not go immediately to Dreamland. There had been too much of an exciting nature happening.

She lay and thought of Curly Smith, and of the disguised boy, and of the obnoxious school teacher who had accused her and Helen of robbing her.

The odor of Tom's roses finally became so oppressive that she got up to open the blind again for more air. She again struck her head. It was impossible to remember that berth edge every time she got up and down.

As she stepped lightly upon the floor in her bare feet she heard a stealthy footstep outside. It brought Ruth to an immediate halt, her hand stretched out toward the blind. Through the interstices of the blind she could see that the white moonlight flooded the deck.

Stealthily she drew back the blind and peered out.

The person on the deck had halted almost opposite the window. Ruth knew now that the steamer must be well across the Five Fathom Bank, with the Delaware Lightship behind them and the Fenwick Lightship not far ahead.

To the west was the wide entrance to Delaware Bay, and the land was now as far away from them as it would be at any time during the trip.

She peered out quietly. There stood the curly-haired boy again, leaning on the rail, and looking wistfully off to the distant sh.o.r.e.

Was it Henry Smith? Was he the boy who had come aboard the boat in girl's clothes? And if so, what would he do when the boat docked at Old Point Comfort and the detectives appeared? They would probably have a good description of the boy wanted, and could pick him out of the crowd going ash.o.r.e.

Ruth was almost tempted to speak to the boy-to whisper to him. Had she been sure it was Curly she would have done so, for she knew him so well.

But, as before, his face was turned away from her.

He moved on, and Ruth softly slid back the blind and stole to bed again, for the third time b.u.mping her head. "My! if this keeps on, I'll be all lumps and hollows like an outline map of the Rocky Mountains," she whimpered, and then cuddled down under the sheet and lay looking out of the open window.

The sea air blew softly in and cooled her flushed cheeks. The odor of the roses was not so oppressive, and after a time she dropped to sleep.

When she awoke it was because of the change in the temperature some time before dawn. The moon was gone; but there was a faint light upon the water.

Helen moved in the berth above. "Hullo, up there!" whispered Ruth.

"Hullo, down there!" was the quick reply. "What ever made me wake up so early?"

"Because you want to get up early," replied Ruth, this time sliding out of her berth so adroitly that she did _not_ b.u.mp her head.

Helen came tumbling down, skinning her elbow and landing with a thump on the floor. "Gracious to goodness-and all hands around!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Talk about sleeping on a shelf in a Pullman car! Why, that's 'Home Sweet Home' to _this_. I came near to breaking my neck."

"Come on! scramble into your clothes," said Ruth, already at the wash basin.

Helen peered out. "Why-oh, my!" she said, shivering and holding the lacy neck of her gown about her. "It's da-ark yet. It must be midnight."

"It is ten minutes to four o'clock," said Ruth promptly. She had studied the route and knew it exactly. "That is Chincoteague Island Light yonder. That's where those cunning little ponies that Madge Steele's father had at Sunrise Farm came from."

"Wha-at?" yawned Helen. "Did they come from the light?"

"No, goosy! from the island. They are bred there."

Ten minutes later the chums were out on the open deck. They raced forward to see if they could see the sun. His face was still below the sea, but a flush along the edge of the horizon announced his coming.