The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat Part 28

Ruth shook her head.

"I'd rather not," she remarked. "I couldn't bear to do that. I'd much rather accuse him openly. But we won't even do that now. We'll just watch and wait, and we won't even tell Mr. Howbridge until we are more sure of our ground."

"All right," agreed Neale and Agnes after they had talked it over at some length.

It was agreed that they should all three keep their eyes on Hank, and note whether there were any further suspicious happenings.

"Of course you want to be careful of one thing," remarked Neale, as the three talked it over.

"What is that?" questioned Agnes quickly.

"You don't want that mule driver to suspect that you are watching him.

If he did suspect it he'd be more careful to hide his doings than ever."

"We won't let him suspect us, Neale," declared Ruth.

"Of course he may be as innocent as they make 'em, and on the other hand he may be as deep as----"

"The deep blue sea," finished Agnes.

"Exactly."

"He certainly doesn't appear very deep," remarked Ruth. "He looks rather simple minded."

"But sometimes those simple looking customers are the deepest," declared the youth. "I know we had that sort join the circus sometimes. You had to watch 'em every minute." And there the talk came to an end.

The mule driver came along some time later. He had a goodly string of fish. Agnes was asleep, but Ruth heard him putting them in the ice box.

She heard Neale speak to the man, and then, gradually, the _Bluebird_ became quiet.

"Well, he got fish, at any rate," Ruth reasoned as she turned over to go to sleep. "I hope he has no connection with those robbers. And yet, why should he hide a ring? Oh, I wonder if we shall ever see our things and mother's wedding ring again."

Ruth was too much of a philosopher to let this keep her awake. There was a slight feeling of timidity, as was natural, but she made herself conquer this.

Finally Ruth dozed off.

How long she slept she did not know, but she was suddenly awakened by hearing a scream. It was the high-pitched voice of a child, and after her first start Ruth knew it came from Tess.

"Oh, don't let him get me! Don't let him get me!" cried the little girl.

CHAPTER XIX

ON THE LAKE

Instantly Ruth was out of bed, and while she slipped on her bath robe and while her bare feet sought her slippers under the edge of her bunk, she cried:

"What is it, Tessie? Ruth is coming! Sister is coming!"

At once the interior of the _Bluebird_ seemed to pulsate with life. In the corridor which ran the length of the craft, and on either side of which the sleeping apartments were laid off, a night light burned.

Opening her door Ruth saw Mrs. MacCall peering forth, a flaring candle in her hand.

"What is it, la.s.s?" asked the st.u.r.dy Scotch woman. "I thought I heard a wee cry in the night."

"You did!" exclaimed Ruth. "It was Tess!"

In quick succession, with kimonas or robes over their sleeping garments, Neale, Mr. Howbridge and Agnes came from their rooms. But from the apartments of Tess and Dot no one came, and ominous quiet reigned.

"What was it?" asked Mr. Howbridge. "One of you girls screamed. Who was it?"

Something gleamed in his hand, and Ruth knew it to be a weapon.

"It was Tess who cried out!" Ruth answered. "All I could hear was something about her being afraid some one would catch her."

And then again from the room of Tess came a low cry of:

"Ruthie! Ruthie! Come here!"

"Yes, dear, I am coming," was the soothing reply. "What is it? Oh, my dear, what has happened?"

When she opened the door she saw her sister sitting up in bed, a look of fear on her face but unharmed. And a quick look in the adjoining apartment showed Dot to be peacefully slumbering, her "Alice-doll" close clasped in her arms.

"What was it, Tessie?" asked Ruth in a whisper, carefully closing Dot's door so as not to awaken her. "What did you see?"

"I--I don't just remember," was the answer. "I was dreaming that I was riding on that funny Uncle Josh mule that knows Neale, and then a clown chased me and I fell off and the elephant came after me. I called to you, and--"

"Was it all only a dream, dear?" asked Ruth with a smile.

"No, it wasn't all a dream," said Tess slowly. "A man looked in the window at me."

"What window?" asked Agnes.

Tess pointed to one of the two small cas.e.m.e.nts in her small apartment.

They opened on the bank of the river, and it would have been easy for any one pa.s.sing along the bank of the stream to have looked into Tess's windows, or, for that matter, into any of the openings on that side of the craft. But the windows, though open on account of the warm night, were protected by heavy screens to keep out mosquitoes and other insects.

"Do you really mean some one opened your window in the night, or did you just dream that, too?" asked Ruth. "You have very vivid dreams sometimes."

"I didn't dream about the _man_," insisted Tess. "He really opened the screen and looked in. See, it's loose now!"

The screens swung outward on hinges, and there, plainly enough, the screen of one of the cas.e.m.e.nts in Tess's room was partly open.

"Perhaps the wind blew it," suggested Agnes, wishing she could believe this.

Neale stepped over and tested the screen.

"It seems too stiff to have been blown open by the wind," was the comment.