Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie Part 8

"Sorry you missed that, young ladies. The instrument is in Room Seventy," said the purser, bustling away.

"'Too late! too late! the villain cried!'" murmured Helen. "We missed that."

"Never mind," said Ruth, smiling. "If we go back to New York by boat we can hang around the wireless telegraph room all the time and you can send messages to all your friends."

"No I can't," said Helen shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because I won't have any money left by that time," Helen declared ruefully. "Goodness! how much it does cost to travel."

"It does, I guess, if you practise such generosity as you have practised," said Ruth. "Do use a little judgment, Helen. You tip recklessly, and you buy everything you see."

"No," declared her chum. "There's one thing I've seen that I wouldn't buy if it was selling as cheap as 'two bits,' as these folks say down here."

"What's that?" asked Ruth, with a laugh.

"That old maid school marm from New England," Helen replied promptly.

"Poor thing!" commented Ruth.

"There you go! Pitying her already! How do you know that she won't try to have us arrested?"

"Goodness! we'll hope not," said Ruth, as they surged toward the gangway with the rest of the disembarking pa.s.sengers, the boat having already docked.

The crowd came out into the sunshine of a perfect morning upon a bustling dock. There was a goodly crowd from the hotels to see the newcomers land. Some of the pa.s.sengers were met by friends; but neither Nettie Parsons nor her aunt were in sight.

The porter who carried the girls' bags, however, handed them over to a hotel porter and evidently said a good word for them to that functionary; for he was very attentive and led the chums out of the crowd toward the broad veranda of the hotel front.

Ruth and Helen had sharp eyes, and they saw two plain-clothes men standing by to watch the forthcoming pa.s.sengers.

"The officers looking for that boy," whispered Ruth.

"Oh, dear! do you suppose he _was_ Curly?"

"I don't know. I must write to Mrs. Smith as soon as we get to the hotel."

The chums had traveled considerably by land, and had ventured into more than one hotel; but never alone. When they had gone to Montana to visit Ann Hicks, Ann's Uncle Bill had been with them and had looked after the transportation matters. And in going into the Adirondacks they had traveled in a private car.

The porter took them immediately to a reception parlor, and took Mrs.

Parson's card that she had given Ruth to the hotel manager. The manager came himself to greet the girls. Mrs. Parsons' name was evidently well known at this hotel.

"At this time of year there is a choice of rooms at your disposal," he said. "I will show you the suite Mrs. Parsons usually has; but if the rooms a.s.signed you are not satisfactory, we can accommodate you elsewhere."

As they went up to the rooms Helen whispered: "Don't you feel kind of _bridey_?"

"Kind of what?" gasped her chum.

"Why, as though you were on your bridal tour?" said Helen. "We've got on brand new clothes, and everybody treats us as though we were queens."

"Maybe you feel that you are a queen," giggled Ruth. "But not me. If you are a bride, Helen Cameron, where is the gloom?"

"Gloom?" repeated Helen. "Do you mean _groom_?"

"Not in your case," sniffed Ruth. "He will be a 'gloom' all right, the way you make the money fly. See how you tipped that fellow below just now. He's standing in a trance, looking at that dollar yet."

"I-I didn't have anything smaller," confessed the culprit.

"Well, you ought to have had change."

"My! do you want me to do as the old lady said she did when going to church? She always carried some b.u.t.tons in her purse, for then, if she had run out of change, when the contribution box was pa.s.sed she'd still have something to drop in."

Ruth went off into a gale of laughter. "I wonder how that darkey would have looked if you had contributed a b.u.t.ton to him."

The manager here threw open a door which gave entrance upon two big rooms, with a bathroom between, the windows opening upon a balcony. To the girls it seemed a most delightful place-so high and airy-and such a view!

"Oh, this will be lovely," Ruth a.s.sured him. "And are Mrs. Parsons'

rooms yonder?"

"Right through that door," replied the man. "There are the b.u.t.tons. Ring for any attendance you may need. If everything is not perfectly satisfactory, young ladies, let me know."

He bowed himself out. Helen performed several stately steps about the first room. "I tell you, my dear, we are very important. Nettie's Aunt Rachel is a _dear_! Or are all people down here in Dixie as polite as this person with the side whiskers?"

"Why! I think people are kind to us almost everywhere," said Ruth, laying off her hat and coat.

"What shall we do first?" asked Helen.

"I told you. I am going right down to the ladies' writing room-I saw it as we came through the lower floor-and write to Mrs. Smith. If Curly _did_ run away, we know where he is."

"Do we?" asked Helen, doubtfully.

"Why-I--Well, he was aboard that steamer, I am sure," Ruth said.

"Is he now?" asked Helen. "I believe he went overboard and was picked up by that fishing boat."

"Goodness! do you really believe so?"

"I am quite positive that the disguised boy did just that," said Helen, nodding her dark head confidently.

"Well, I can tell Mrs. Smith nothing about that; it would only scare her. But I want her to write to me as soon as she can and tell me if Curly is at home. Poor boy! what ever would become of him if he ran away?"

"And with the police after him!" Helen added. "I am sure he never committed any real crime."

"So am I sure. But he was always playing jokes and was up to all kinds of mischief. He was bound to get into trouble," Ruth said, with a sigh.

"Everybody around there disliked him so."

Ruth went downstairs and easily found the writing room. Outside was a periodical and newspaper stand. The New York morning papers had just arrived and Ruth bought one before she entered the writing room. Before beginning the letter to Mrs. Sadoc Smith, she opened the paper and almost the first brief article she noticed was the following: