Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point: or, Nita, the Girl Castaway

Nita, the runaway, looked from brother to sister with sudden interest. “Does your father give you everything you ask him for?” she demanded.

“Not much!” cried Tom. “But dear old dad is pretty easy with us and–Mrs. Murchiston says–gives in to us too much.”

“But, does he buy you such things as boats–right out–for you just to play with?”

“Why, of course!” cried Tom.

“And I couldn’t even have a piano,” muttered Nita, turning away with a shrug. “I told him he was a mean old hunks!”

“Whom did you say that to?” asked Ruth, quietly.

“Never you mind!” returned Nita, angrily. “But that’s what he is.”

Ruth treasured these observations of the runaway. She was piecing them together, and although as yet it was a very patched bit of work, she was slowly getting a better idea of who Nita was and her home surroundings.

Finally the Miraflame ran in between a sheltering arm of rock and the mainland. The sea was very still in here, the heave and surge of the water only murmuring among the rocks. There was an old fishing dock at which the motor boat was moored. Then everybody went ashore and Phineas and Jack Crab pointed out the best fishing places along the rocks.

These were very rugged ledges, and the water sucked in among them, and hissed, and chuckled, and made all sorts of gurgling sounds while the tide rose. There were small caves and little coves and all manner of odd hiding places in the rocks.

But the girls and boys were too much interested in the proposed fishing to bother about anything else just then. Phineas placed Ruth on the side of a round-topped boulder, where she stood on a very narrow ledge, with a deep green pool at her feet. She was hidden from the other fishers–even from the boys, who clambered around to the tiny cape that sheltered the basin into which the motor boat had been run, and from the point of which they expected to cast for bass.

“Now, Miss,” said the boatkeeper, “down at the bottom of this still pool Mr. Tautog is feeding on the rocks. Drop your baited hook down gently to him. And if he nibbles, pull sharply at first, and then, with a stead, hand-over-hand motion, draw him in.”

Ruth was quite excited; but once she saw Nita and the man, Crab, walking farther along the rocks, and Ruth wondered that the fellow was so attentive to the runaway. But this was merely a passing thought. Her mind returned to the line she watched.

She pulled it up after a long while; the hook was bare. Either Mr. Tautog had been very, very careful when he nibbled the bait, or the said bait had slipped off. It was not easy to make the jelly-like body of the scallop remain on the hook. But Ruth was as anxious to catch a fish as the other girls, and she had watched Phineas with sharp and eager eyes when he baited the hook.

Ruth dropped it over the edge of the rock again after a minute. It sank down, down, down–Was that a nibble? She felt the faintest sort of a jerk on the line. Surely something was at the bait!

Again the jerk. Ruth returned the compliment by giving the line a prompt tug. Instantly she knew that she had hooked him!

“Oh! oh! oh!” she gasped, in a rising scale of delight and excitement.

She pulled in on the line. The fish was heavy, and he tried to pull his way, too. The blackfish is not much of a fighter, but he can sag back and do his obstinate best to remain in the water when the fisher is determined to get him out.

This fellow weighed two pounds and a half and was well hooked. Ruth, her cheeks glowing, her eyes dancing, hauled in, and in, and in–There he came out of the water, a plump, glistening body, that flapped and floundered in the air, and on the ledge at her feet. She desired mightily to cry out; but Phineas had warned them all to be still while they fished. Their voices might scare all the fish away.

She unhooked it beautifully, seizing it firmly in the gills. Phineas had shown her where to lay any she might catch in a little cradle in the rock behind her. It was a damp little hollow, and Mr. Tautog could not flop out into the sea again.

Oh! it was fun to bait the hook once more with trembling fingers, and heave the weighted line over the edge of the narrow ledge on which she stood. There might be another–perhaps even a bigger one–waiting down there to seize upon the bait.

And just then Mary Cox, her hair tousled and a distressfully discontented expression on her face, came around the corner of the big boulder.

“Oh! Hullo!” she said, discourteously. “You here?”

“Sh!” whispered Ruth, intent on the line and the pool of green water.

“What’s the matter with you?” snapped The Fox. “Don’t say you’ve got a bite! I’m sick of hearing them say it over there–”

“I’ve caught one,” said Ruth, with pride, pointing to the glistening tautog lying on the rock.

“Oh! Of course, ’twould be you who got it,” snarled Mary. “I bet he gave you the best place.”

“Please keep still!” begged Ruth. “I believe I’ve got another bite.”

“Have a dozen for all I care,” returned Mary. “I want to get past you.”

“Wait! I feel a nibble–”

But Mary pushed rudely by. She took the inside of the path, of course. The ledge was very narrow, and Ruth was stooping over the deep pool, breathlessly watching the line.

With a half-stifled scream Ruth fell forward, flinging out both hands. Mary clutched at her–she did try to save her. But she was not quick enough. Ruth dropped like a plummet and the green water closed over her with scarcely a splash.

Mary did not cry out. She was speechless with fear, and stood with clasped hands, motionless, upon the path.

“She can swim! she can swim!” was the thought that shuttled back and forth in The Fox’s brain.

But moment after moment passed and Ruth did not come to the surface. The pool was as calm as before, save for the vanishing rings that broke against the surrounding rocks. Mary held her breath. She began to feel as though it were a dream, and that her school companion had not really fallen into the pool. It must be an hallucination, for Ruth did not come to the surface again!

CHAPTER XV

TOM CAMERON TO THE RESCUE

The three boys were on the other side of the narrow inlet where the Miraflame lay. Phineas had told them that bass were more likely to be found upon the ocean side; therefore they were completely out of sight.

The last Tom, Bob and Isadora saw of the girls, the fishermen were placing them along the rocky path, and Mercy was lying in a deck chair on the deck of the launch, fluttering a handkerchief at them as they went around the end of the reef.

“I bet they don’t get a fish,” giggled Isadore. “And even Miss Kate’s got a line! What do girls know about fishing?”

“If there’s any tautog over there, I bet Helen and Ruth get ’em. They’re all right in any game,” declared the loyal Tom.

“Madge will squeal and want somebody to take the fish off her hook, if she does catch one,” grinned Bob. “She puts on lots of airs because she’s the oldest; but she’s a regular ‘scare-cat,’ after all.”

“Helen and Ruth are good fellows,” returned Tom, with emphasis. “They’re quite as good fun as the ordinary boy–of course, not you, Bobbins, or Busy Izzy here; but they are all right.”

“What do you think of that Nita girl?” asked Busy Izzy, suddenly.

“I believe there’s something to her,” declared Bob, with conviction. “She ain’t afraid of a living thing, I bet!”

“There is something queer about her,” Tom added, thoughtfully. “Have you noticed how that Crab fellow looks at her?”

“I see he hangs about her a good bit,” said Isadore, quickly. “Why, do you suppose?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” returned Tom Cameron.

They were now where Phineas had told them bass might be caught, and gave their attention to their tackle. All three boys had fished for perch, pike, and other gamey fresh-water fish; but this was their first casting with a rod into salt water.

“A true disciple of Izaak Walton should be dumb,” declared Tom, warningly eyeing Isadore.