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

“Punchers,” he finished, wagging his head.

“That’s it. Nice society for a girl. Likely to make her ladylike and real happy, too.”

“Great cats!” ejaculated the ranchman, “I thought I was doin’ the square thing by Jane Ann–”

“And giving her a name like that, too!” broke in Mercy. “How dared you?”

“Why–why–” stammered Mr. Hicks. “It was my grandmother’s name–and she was as spry a woman as ever I see.”

“Your grandmother’s name!” gasped Mercy. “Then, what right had you to give it to your niece? And when she way a helpless baby, too! Wasn’t she good enough to have a name of her own–and one a little more modern?”

“Miss, you stump me–you sure do!” declared Mr. Hicks, with a sigh. “I never thought a gal cared so much for them sort o’ things. They’re surprisin’ different from boys; ain’t they?”

“Hope you haven’t found it out too late, Mister Wild and Woolly,” said Mercy, biting her speech off in her sharp way. “You had better take a fashion magazine and buy Nita–or whatever she wants to call herself–clothes and hats like other girls wear. Maybe you’ll be able to keep her on a ranch, then.”

“Wal, Miss! I’m bound to believe you’ve got the rights of it. I ain’t never had much knowledge of women-folks, and that’s a fact–”

He was interrupted by the maid coming to the door. “There’s a boy here, Miss Kate,” she said, “who is asking for the gentleman.”

“Asking for the gentleman?” repeated Miss Kate.

“Yes, ma’am. The gentleman who has just came. The gentleman from the West.”

“Axing for me?” cried the ranchman, getting up quickly.

“It must be for you, sir,” said Aunt Kate. “Let the boy come in, Sally.”

In a minute a shuffling, tow-headed, bare-footed lad of ten years or so entered bashfully. He was a son of one of the fishermen living along the Sokennet shore.

“You wanter see me, son?” demanded the Westerner. “Bill Hicks, of Bullhide?”

“Dunno wot yer name is, Mister,” said the boy. “But air you lookin’ for a gal that was brought ashore from the wreck of that lumber schooner?”

“That’s me!” cried Mr. Hicks.

“Then I got suthin’ for ye,” said the boy, and thrust a soiled envelope toward him. “Jack Crab give it to me last night. He said I was to come over this morning an’ wait for you to come. Phin says you had come, w’en I got here. That’s all.”

“Hold on!” cried Tom Cameron, as the boy started to go out, and Mr. Hicks ripped open the envelope. “Say, where is this Crab man?”

“Dunno.”

“Where did he go after giving you the note?”

“Dunno.”

Just then Mr. Hicks uttered an exclamation that drew all attention to him and the fisherman’s boy slipped out.

“Great cats!” roared Bill Hicks. “Listen to this, folks! What d’ye make of it?

“‘Now I got you right. Whoever you be, you are wanting to get hold of the girl. I know where she is. You won’t never know unless I get that five hundred dols. The paper talked about. You leave it at the lighthouse. Mis Purling will take care of it and I reckon on getting it from her when I want it. When she has got the five hundred dols. I will let you know how to find the girl. So, no more at present, from

    “‘J. Crab.’

“Listen here to it, will ye? Why, if once I get my paws on this here Crab–”

“You want to get the girl most; don’t you?” interrupted Mercy, sharply.

“Of course!”

“Then you’d better see if paying the money to him–just as he says–won’t bring her to you. You offered the reward, you know.”

“But maybe he doesn’t really know anything about Nita!” cried Heavy.

“And maybe he knows just where she is,” said Ruth.

“Wal! he seems like a mighty sharp feller,” admitted the cattleman, seriously. “I want my Jane Ann back. I don’t begredge no five hundred dollars. I’m a-goin’ over to that lighthouse and see what this Missus Purling–you say she’s the keeper?–knows about it. That’s what I’m going to do!” finished Hicks with emphasis.

CHAPTER XXII

THIMBLE ISLAND

Miss Kate said of course he could use the buckboard and ponies, and it was the ranchman’s own choice that the young folks went, too. There was another wagon, and they could all crowd aboard one or the other vehicle–even Mercy Curtis went.

“I don’t believe that Crab man will show up at the light,” Ruth said to Tom and Helen. “He’s plainly made up his mind that he won’t meet Nita’s friends personally. And to think of his getting five hundred dollars so easy!” and she sighed.

For the reward Mr. Hicks had offered for news of his niece, which would lead to her apprehension and return to his guardianship, would have entirely removed from Ruth Fielding’s mind her anxiety about Briarwood. Let the Tintacker Mine, in which Uncle Jabez had invested, remain a deep and abiding mystery, if Ruth could earn that five hundred dollars.

But if Jack Crab had placed Nita in good hands and was merely awaiting an opportunity to exchange her for the reward which the runaway’s uncle had offered, then Ruth need not hope for any portion of the money. And certainly, Crab would make nothing by hiding the girl away and refusing to give her up to Mr. Hicks.

“And if I took money for telling Mr. Hicks where Nita was, why–why it would be almost like taking blood money! Nita liked me, I believe; I think she ought to be with her uncle, and I am sure he is a nice man. But it would be playing the traitor to report her to Mr. Hicks–and that’s a fact!” concluded Ruth, taking herself to task. “I could not think of earning money in such a contemptible way.”

Whether her conclusion was right, or not, it seemed right to Ruth, and she put the thought of the reward out of her mind from that instant. The ranchman had taken a liking to Ruth and when he climbed into the buckboard he beckoned the girl from the Red Mill to a seat beside him. He drove the ponies, but seemed to give those spirited little animals very little attention. Ruth knew that he must be used to handling horses beside which the ponies seemed like tame rabbits.

“Now what do you think of my Jane Ann?” was the cattleman’s question. “Ain’t she pretty cute?”

“I am not quite sure that I know what you mean by that, Mr. Hicks,” Ruth answered, demurely. “But she isn’t as smart as she ought to be, or she wouldn’t have gone off with Jack Crab.”

“Huh!” grunted the other. “Mebbe you’re right on that p’int. He didn’t have no drop on her–that’s so! But ye can’t tell what sort of a yarn he give her.”

“She would better have had nothing to say to him,” said Ruth, emphatically. “She should have confided in Miss Kate. Miss Kate and Jennie were treating her just as nicely as though she were an invited guest. Nita–or Jane, as you call her–may be smart, but she isn’t grateful in the least.”

“Oh, come now, Miss–”

“No. She isn’t grateful,” repeated Ruth. “She never even suggested going over to the life saving station and thanking Cap’n Abinadab and his men for bringing her ashore from the wreck of the Whipstitch.”

“Great cats! I been thinkin’ of that,” sighed the Westerner. “I want to see them and tell ’em what I think of ’em. I ’spect Jane Ann never thought of such a thing.”

“But I liked her, just the same,” Ruth went on, slowly. “She was bold, and brave, and I guess she wouldn’t ever do a really mean thing.”