Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound Part 10

"Your opinion of me must be even worse than that you have expressed of your first officer," tartly rejoined the girl. "If you will excuse me, Captain Hastings, I will withdraw. Really our opinions I feel sure would never coincide."

"Wait!" exclaimed the captain. "I am willing to put one thing to the test."

"You need do nothing to placate me, Captain Hastings," declared Ruth. "I am quite, quite satisfied to drop the whole affair, I a.s.sure you."

"It has gone too far, as it is, Miss Fielding," declared Captain Hastings. "Dowd will not be satisfied if you do not have the opportunity of identifying the stoker you say you saw talking with Miss Lentz. And that, in itself, is no crime."

"Then why trouble yourself-and me-about the matter any further?" asked Ruth, with a shrug, and her hand still on the k.n.o.b of the door.

"Confound it, you know!" burst forth the captain, "it has to go on my report-on the log, you know. That fool, Dowd, insists. I want you to see the stokers together, Miss Fielding, as the watches are being changed at eight bells. If you can pick out the man you say you saw on the after deck, I will examine him. Though it's all bally foolishness, you know,"

added the captain in a tone that did not fail to reach Ruth Fielding's ear and increased her feeling of disgust for the pompous little man, as well as her vexation with the whole situation.

She wished very much just then that she had not spoken at all to the _Admiral Pekhard's_ first officer.

CHAPTER XI-DEVELOPMENTS

At ten minutes or so before noon a smart little sub-officer came to Ruth's stateroom and asked her to accompany him to the engine-room, amidships. As a last thought the girl took a chiffon veil with her, and before she stepped into the quarters where all the shiny machinery was, she threw the veil over her head and face. It had suddenly been impressed on her mind that she did not care to have the man she had taken for a German identify her, even if she did him.

She found both Mr. Dowd and the commander of the steamship on this deck.

The first officer came to Ruth in rather an apologetic way.

"I did not know," he said gently, "that I was getting you into any trouble when I repeated what you told me to Captain Hastings. This is my very first voyage with him-and, believe me, it shall be my last!"

His eyes sparkled, and it was evident that he had found the pompous little commander much to his distaste. The captain did not seek to speak to Ruth at all. He stood at one side as the stokers filed in from forward, ready to relieve those working in the fireroom below.

"Do you see him in that line, Miss Fielding?" whispered the first officer.

She scrutinized the men carefully. Early that morning she had had plenty of opportunity to get the appearance of the German who spoke to Irma Lentz photographed on her mind, and she knew at first glance that he was not in this group.

However, she took her time and scrutinized them all carefully. There was not a single flaxen-haired man among them, and n.o.body that in the least seemed like the man she had in mind.

"No," she said to Mr. Dowd. "He is not here."

"Wait till the others come up. There! The boatswain pipes."

The shrill whistle started the waiting stokers down the ladder into the stoke-hole. In a minute or two a red, sweating, ashes-streaked face appeared as the first of the watch relieved came up into the engine room. This was not the man Ruth looked for.

One after another the men appeared-Irish, Swede, Dane, negro, and nondescript; but never a German. And not one of the fellows looked at all like the man Ruth expected to see. Dowd gazed upon her questioningly. Ruth slowly shook her head.

"Any more firemen or coal pa.s.sers down there, boy?" Dowd asked the negro stoker.

"No, suh! Ain't none of de watch lef' behind," declared the man, as he followed his mates forward.

"Well, are you satisfied?" snapped the thin voice of Captain Hastings.

"Not altogether," Ruth bravely retorted. "It might be that the man was not a stoker. I only thought so because the officer who interrupted the conversation I overheard seemed to consider him a stoker. He sent the man off that part of the deck."

"What officer?" demanded the captain, doubtfully. "An officer of the ship? One of my officers?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ha, you want to examine my officers, then, I presume?"

"Not at all," Ruth said coldly. "I am not taking any pleasure in this investigation, I a.s.sure you."

"It will be easy enough to find the officer whom Miss Fielding refers to," said Mr. Dowd, interposing before Captain Hastings could speak again. "I know who was on duty at that hour this morning. It will be easily discovered who the officer is. And if he remembers the man on deck--"

"Ah-yes-if he _does_," said Captain Hastings in his very nastiest way.

Ruth's cheeks flamed again. Mr. Dowd placed a gentle hand upon her sleeve.

"Never mind that oaf," he whispered. "He doesn't know how to behave himself. How he ever got command of a ship like this-well, it shows to what straits we have come in this wartime. Do you mind meeting me later abaft the stacks on deck? I will bring the men, one of whom I think may be the chap we are looking for. Of course he will remember if he drove a seaman or a stoker off the after deck this morning."

Ruth did not see how she could refuse the respectful and sensible first officer, but she certainly was angry with Captain Hastings and she swept by him to the stairway without giving him another glance.

"It's all bosh!" she heard him say to Mr. Dowd, as she started for the open deck.

Her dignity was hurt, as well as her indignation aroused. She was not in the habit of having her word doubted; and it seemed that Captain Hastings certainly did consider that there was reason for thinking her untruthful. She was more than sorry that she had taken the Red Cross man's advice and brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Dowd in the first place.

Yet the first officer was her friend. She could see that. He did not intend to let the matter rest at a point where Captain Hastings would have any reason for intimating that Ruth had not been exact in her statements of fact.

Of course, the girl of the Red Mill had not taken so close a look at the ship's officer who had driven the stoker off the deck, as she had at the stoker himself. But she was quite confident she would know him. She had not seen him since, that was sure.

After half an hour or so Mr. Dowd came to the place where she sat sheltered from the stiff breeze that was blowing, with a uniformed man in toll. It was not the officer whom she had seen early in the morning.

"I quite remember seeing Miss Fielding on deck at dawn," said the young fellow politely. "But I do not remember seeing any of the crew except those at work scrubbing down."

"This was on the starboard run, Miss Fielding?" suggested Mr. Dowd.

"Yes, sir. It was right yonder," and she pointed to the spot in question.

"It must be Dykman, then, you wish to see, Mr. Dowd," said the under officer, saluting. "Shall I send him here, sir?"

"If you will," Dowd said, and remained himself to talk pleasantly to the American girl.

After a time another man in uniform approached the spot. He was not a young man; yet he was smooth-faced, ruddy, and had a smart way about him. But his countenance was lined and there was a small scar just below his eye on one cheek.

"Mr. Dykman, Miss Fielding," Dowd said. "Is Mr. Dykman the officer whom you saw, Miss Fielding?"

Dykman bowed with a military manner. Ruth eyed him quietly. He did not look like an Englishman, that was sure.

"This is the officer I saw this morning," she said, confidently. She felt that she could not be mistaken, although she had not noted his manner and countenance so directly at the time indicated. He looked surprised but said nothing in rejoinder, glancing at Mr. Dowd, instead, for an explanation.

"We are trying," said the first officer, "to identify a man-one of the crew-who was out of place on the deck here this morning during your watch, Mr. Dykman. About what time was it, Miss Fielding?"