Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence Part 17

"Why not take her away to some other place and just pound it into her?"

"Not to the Kingdom of Pipes!" laughed Ruth suddenly.

"No. Let the old pirate have that place to his heart's content. But there are other islands."

"True enough. Fourteen hundred of them."

"Come on!" exclaimed the energetic Helen. "Let's get Willie and the _Gem_ and go somewhere with Wonota. You've all day to hammer at her. Get your continuity and try to get it into Wonota's head that she is deeply and desperately in love with Grand."

In spite of Helen's brusk way of speaking, Ruth decided that her idea might be well worth following. Helen took some knitting and a parasol--and a hamper. Ruth gathered her necessary books and script; and likewise got Wonota. Then they boarded the launch and Willie took them up the river to a tiny islet not far from the Kingdom of Pipes, after all.

"I don't see anybody moving over there," Helen remarked, as Willie landed them at the islet selected. She was looking at the island on which Ruth had had her adventure with the King of the Pipes. "It looks deserted enough. We might have gone there just as well as not."

"I feel as well satisfied to keep away from that queer old fellow," her chum said.

"Who's that?" asked Willie, the boatman, overhearing their remarks.

Ruth told him about the strange man, and Willie laughed.

"Oh! That old jigger? Was he the fellow the boss wanted we should shoo off that island? Why didn't he say so? Old Charley-Horse Pond. We all know him about here."

"Oh!" cried Helen. "Is he crazy?"

"Not enough to make any difference. Just got a twist in his brain. Calls himself a king, does he? Mebbe he will be a duke or an emperor next time.

Or a doctor. Can't tell. He gets fancies."

"And of course he is not dangerous?" said Ruth.

"Just about as dangerous as a fly," drawled Willie. "And not so much. For flies bite--sometimes, and old Charley-Horse Pond ain't even got teeth to bite with. No, Ma'am!"

"But what are the 'pipes' he talks about? Why 'King of the Pipes'?"

demanded the insistent Helen.

"Got me. Never heard of 'em," declared Willie. "Now, you ladies all right here?"

"All right, Willie," said Ruth as the _Gem_ was backed off the island.

"I'll come for you at half past three, eh? That's all right, then," and the boatman was off.

The three girls, really glad to be away from the crowd and the confusion of the moving picture camp, settled down to several hours of companionship. Helen could be silent if she pleased, and with her knitting and a novel proceeded to curl up under a tamarack tree and bury herself for the time being.

Helen had not, however, forgotten the "inner woman," as she p.r.o.nounced it. When lunch time came she opened the covered basket which she had brought in addition to the book and the knitting, and produced sandwiches and cake, besides the wherewithal for the making of a cup of tea over a can of solidified alcohol. They lunched famously.

It was while they were thus engaged, and chatting, that the staccato exhaust of a motor-boat drew their attention to the Island of Pipes. From the other side, a boat was poking around into the pa.s.sage leading to the American sh.o.r.e.

"My goodness!" exclaimed Helen, "the King of the Pipes isn't in that boat, is he?"

"Not at all," Ruth a.s.sured her. "I see n.o.body who looks like him among those men--"

"All are not men, Miss Ruth," interrupted Wonota, the keen-eyed.

"What do you mean, Wonota?" gasped Helen, whirling around to gaze again at the pa.s.sing launch.

But Ruth did not say a word. She had been examining the boat closely. She saw it was the very speedy boat she and Chess Copley had seen out on the wider part of the river several weeks before. The launch was not moving rapidly now, but Ruth was sure that it was a powerful craft.

It was Helen who marked the figure Wonota had spoken of in the boat. It certainly did not appear to be a man.

"Why Ruth! See! That is a woman!"

"A yellow-faced lady," said Wonota calmly. "I saw her first, Miss Ruth."

All three of the girls on the island stared after the moving motor-boat.

Ruth saw the woman. She was dressed plainly but in modern garments. She did not seem to be one of the summer visitors to the islands. Indeed, her clothing--such as could be seen--pointed to city breeding, but nothing was chosen, it would seem, for wear in such a place as this. She might have been on a ferryboat going from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e of the Hudson!

"She _is_ a yellow lady," Wonota repeated earnestly.

"I should say she was!" exclaimed Helen. "What do you think of her, Ruth?"

"I am sure I do not know what to say," the girl of the Red Mill answered.

"Does she look like a white woman to you, Helen?"

"She is yellow," reiterated Wonota.

"She certainly is not an Indian," observed Helen. "What say, Ruth?"

"She surely is not," agreed her chum.

"A yellow lady," murmured Wonota again, as the boat drew behind another island and there remained out of sight.

CHAPTER XVI

MAROONED

"I wonder if the boat did come from that island over yonder?" Ruth murmured, after a few moments of thought.

"For goodness' sake! what are you worrying about?" asked Helen Cameron.

"I'm not worrying at all," Ruth returned, smiling. "But I am curious."

"About that yellow lady?"

"About what happens on that island the queer old man lives on."

"You don't know that he really lives there," was the prompt rejoinder.