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

“I reckon not, Miss!” agreed Mr. Hicks. “My Jane Ann is plumb square, she is. I can forgive her for running away from us. Mebbe thar was reason for her gittin’ sick of Silver Ranch. I–I stand ready to give her ’bout ev’rything she wants–in reason–when I git her back thar.”

“Including a piano?” asked Ruth, curiously.

“Great cats! that’s what we had our last spat about,” groaned Bill Hicks. “Jib, he’s had advantages, he has. Went to this here Carlisle Injun school ye hear so much talk about. It purty nigh ruined him, but he can break hosses. And thar he l’arned to play one o’ them pianners. We was all in to Bullhide one time–we’d been shipping steers–and we piled into the Songbird Dancehall–had the place all to ourselves, for it was daytime–and Jib sot down and fingered them keys somethin’ scand’lous. Bashful Ike–he’s my foreman–says he never believed before that a sure ’nough man like Jibbeway Pottoway could ever be so ladylike!

“Wal! My Jane Ann was jest enchanted by that thar pianner–yes, Miss! She was jest enchanted. And she didn’t give me no peace from then on. Said she wanted one o’ the critters at the ranch so Jib could give her lessons. And I jest thought it was foolishness–and it cost money–oh, well! I see now I was a pretty mean old hunks–”

“That’s what I heard her call you once,” chuckled Ruth. “At least, I know now that she was speaking of you, sir.”

“She hit me off right,” sighed Mr. Hicks. “I hadn’t never been used to spending money. But, laws, child! I got enough. I been some waked up since I come East. Folks spend money here, that’s a fact.”

They found Mother Purling’s door opened at the foot of the lighthouse shaft, and the flutter of an apron on the balcony told them that the old lady had climbed to the lantern.

“She doesn’t often do that,” said Heavy. “Crab does all the cleaning and polishing up there.”

“He’s left her without any help, then,” Ruth suggested. “That’s what it means.”

And truly, that is what it did mean, as they found out when Ruth, the Cameron twins, and the Westerner climbed the spiral staircase to the gallery outside the lantern.

“Yes; that Crab ain’t been here this morning,” Mother Purling admitted when Ruth explained that there was reason for Mr. Hicks wishing to see him. “He told me he was mebbe going off for a few days. ‘Then you send me a substitute, Jack Crab,’ I told him; but he only laughed and said he wasn’t going to send a feller here to work into his job. He is handy, I allow. But I’m too old to be left all stark alone at this light. I’m going to have another man when Jack’s month is out, just as sure as eggs is eggs!”

Mr. Hicks was just as polite to the old lady as he had been to Miss Kate; and he quickly explained his visit to the lighthouse, and showed her the two letters that Crab had written.

“Well, ain’t that the beatenest?” she cried. “Jack Crab is just as mean as they make ’em, I always did allow. But this is the capsheaf of all his didoes. And you say he run off with the little girl the other night in Mr. Stone’s catboat? I dunno where he could have taken her. And that day he’d been traipsing off fishing with you folks on the motor launch; hadn’t he? He’s been leavin’ me to do his work too much. This settles it. Me and Jack Crab parts company at the end of this month!”

“But what is Mr. Hicks to do about his niece, Mother Purling?” cried Ruth. “Will he pay the five hundred dollars to you–?”

“I just guess he won’t!” cried the old lady, vigorously. “I ain’t goin’ to be collector for Crab in none of his risky dealin’s–no, ma’am!”

“Then he says he won’t give Nita up,” exclaimed Tom.

“Can’t help it. I’m a government employe. I can’t afford to be mixed up in no such didoes.”

“Now, I say, Missus!” exclaimed the cattleman, “this is shore too bad! Ye might know somethin’ about whar I kin find this yere reptile by the name of Crab–though I reckon a crab is a inseck, not a reptile,” and the ranchman grinned ruefully.

The young folks could scarcely control their laughter at this, and the idea that a crustacean might be an insect was never forgotten by the Cameron twins and Ruth Fielding.

“I dunno where he is,” said Mother Purling, shortly. “I can’t keep track of the shiftless critter. Ha’f the time when he oughter be here he’s out fishing in the dory, yonder–or over to Thimble Island.”

“Which is Thimble Island?” asked Tom, quickly.

“Just yon,” said the lighthouse keeper, pointing to a cone-shaped rock–perhaps an imaginative person would call it thimble-shaped–lying not far off shore. The lumber schooner had gone on the reef not far from it.

“Ain’t no likelihood of his being over thar now, Missus?” asked Mr. Hicks, quickly.

“An’ ye could purty nigh throw a stone to it!” scoffed the old woman. “Not likely. B’sides, I dunno as there’s a landin’ on the island ’ceptin’ at low tide. I reckon if he’s hidin’, Jack Crab is farther away than the Thimble. But I don’t know nothin’ about him. And I can’t accept no money for him–that’s all there is to that.”

And really, that did seem to be all there was to it. Even such a go-ahead sort of a person as Mr. Hicks seemed balked by the lighthouse keeper’s attitude. There seemed nothing further to do here.

Ruth was rather interested in what Mother Purling had said about Thimble Island, and she lingered to look at the conical rock, with the sea foaming about it, when the others started down the stairway. Tom came back for her.

“What are you dreaming about, Ruthie?” he demanded, nudging her.

“I was wondering, Tommy,” she said, “just why Jack Crab went so often to the Thimble, as she says he does. I’d like to see that island nearer to; wouldn’t you?”

“We’ll borrow the catboat and sail out to it. I can handle the Jennie S. I bet Helen would like to go,” said Tom, at once.

“Oh, I don’t suppose that Crab man is there. It’s just a barren rock,” said Ruth. “But I would like to see the Thimble.”

“And you shall,” promised Tom.

But neither of them suspected to what strange result that promise tended.

CHAPTER XXIII

MAROONED

It was after luncheon before the three friends got away from the Stone bungalow in the catboat. Tom owned a catrigged boat himself on the Lumano river, and Helen and Ruth, of course, were not afraid to trust themselves to his management of the Jennie S.

The party was pretty well broken up that day, anyway. Mercy and Miss Kate remained at home and the others found amusement in different directions. Nobody asked to go in the Jennie S., for which Ruth was rather glad.

Mr. Hicks had gone over to Sokennet with the avowed intention of interviewing every soul in the town for news of Jack Crab. Somebody, surely, must know where the assistant lighthouse keeper was, and the Westerner was not a man to be put off by any ordinary evasion.

“My Jane Ann may be hiding over thar amongst them fishermen,” he declared to Ruth before he went away. “He couldn’t have sailed far with her that night, if he was back in ’twixt two and three hours. No, sir-ree!”

And that was the thought in Ruth’s mind. Unless Crab had sailed out and put Nita aboard a New York, or Boston, bound steamer, it seemed impossible that the girl could have gotten very far from Lighthouse Point.

“Shall we take one of the rowboats in tow, Ruth?” queried Tom, before they left the Stone dock.

“No, no!” returned the girl of the Red Mill, hastily. “We couldn’t land on that island, anyway.”

“Only at low tide,” rejoined Tom. “But it will be about low when we get outside the point.”

“You don’t really suspect that Crab and Nita are out there, Ruth?” whispered Helen, in her chum’s ear.

“It’s a crazy idea; isn’t it?” laughed Ruth. Yet she was serious again in a moment. “I thought, when Mother Purling spoke of his going there so much, that maybe he had a reason–a particular reason.”

“Phineas told me that Jack Crab was the best pilot on this coast,” remarked Tom. “He knows every channel, and shoal, and reef from Westhampton to Cape o’ Winds. If there was a landing at Thimble Island, and any secret place upon it, Jack Crab would be likely to know of it.”

“Can you sail us around the Thimble?” asked Ruth. “That’s all we want.”

“I asked Phin before we started. The sea is clear for half a mile and more all around the Thimble. We can circle it, all right, if the wind holds this way.”

“That’s all I expect you to do, Tommy,” responded Ruth, quickly.

But they all three eyed the conical-shaped rock very sharply as the Jennie S. drew nearer. They ran between the lighthouse and the Thimble. The tide, in falling, left the green and slime-covered ledges bare.

“A boat could get into bad quarters there, and easily enough,” said Tom, as they ran past.