Over all, Ruth wore a woolen sweater one
of those stretchy, clinging coats with great pearl
buttons that was just the thing for a skating frolic.
It had been her one reckless purchase since being
at Briarwood, she and Helen having gone down into
Lumberton on Saturday and purchased coats. While
Ruth and Tom were yet some yards from the open water
the girl began to unbutton this.
“Careful, Tom!” she gasped. “Not
too near wait!”
“It’s thick ’way to the edge,”
he returned, pantingly.
“No, it isn’t. That’s
why Mary Cox went in. I saw the ice break under
her when she tried to turn and escape.”
Thus warned, Tom dug the heel of his
right skate into the ice as a brake, and they slowed
down.
Ruth let go of his hand and wriggled
out of her coat in a moment. Then she dropped
to her knees and slid along the ice, while Tom flung
himself forward and traveled just as though he were
sliding down hill.
“Take this, Tom!” cried
Ruth, and tossed the coat to him. “We’ll
make a chain I’ll hold your feet.
Not too near!”
“Hold on, Bobbins!” yelled
young Cameron. “We’ll have you out
in a minute!”
Mary Cox had screamed very loudly
at first; and she struggled with her fellow victim,
too. Bob Steele was trying to hold her up, but
finally he was obliged to let her go, and she went
under water with a gurgling cry.
“Grab her again, Bobbins!”
called Tom, flinging Ruth’s coat ahead of him,
but holding firmly to it himself by the two sleeves.
“I’ve got her!”
gasped Bob Steele, his teeth chattering, and up The
Fox came again, her hair all dripping, and her face
very pale.
“Good!” said Tom.
“She’s swallowed enough water to keep
her still for a while what? Come
on, now, old boy! Don’t wait! Catch
hold!”
As Ruth had warned him, the edge of
the ice was fragile. He dared not push himself
out too far with the sharp toes of his skates.
He dug them into the ice now hard, and made another
cast with the coat.
His chum caught it. Tom drew
them slowly toward the edge of the ice. Ruth
pulled back as hard as she could, and together they
managed to work their bodies at least two yards farther
from the open water. The ice stopped cracking
under Tom’s breast.
There was the ring of skates and shouting
of voices in their ears, and Ruth, raising herself
slightly, looked around and screamed to the crowd
to keep back. Indeed, the first of Tom’s
school friends would have skated right down upon them
had they not thus been warned.
“Keep back!” Ruth cried.
“We can get them out. Don’t come
nearer!”
Tom seconded her warning, too.
But mainly he gave himself up to the work of aiding
the two in the water. Bob Steele lifted the girl
up he was a strong swimmer even in that
icy bath and did it with one hand, too,
for he clung to Ruth’s coat with the other.
Mary Cox began to struggle again.
Fortunately Bob had her half upon the ice.
Tom reached forward and seized her shoulder.
He dragged back with all his strength. The ice
crashed in again; but Mary did not fall back, for
Tom jerked her heavily forward.
“Now we’ve got her!” called Tom.
And they really had. Mary Cox
was drawn completely out of the water. Mr. Hargreaves,
meanwhile, had flown to the rescue with two of the
bigger boys. They got down on the ice, forming
a second living chain, and hitching forward, the tutor
seized the half-conscious girl’s hand.
The others drew back and dragged Mr. Hargreaves, with
the girl, to firm ice.
Meanwhile Tom, with Ruth to help him,
struggled manfully to get Bob Steele out. That
youngster was by no means helpless, and they accomplished
the rescue smartly.
“And that’s thanks to
you, Ruthie!” declared Tom, when the tutor and
Miss Reynolds had hurried the half-drowned girl and
young Steele off to the Minnetonka. “I’d
never have gotten him but for you and look
at your coat!”
“It will dry,” laughed
the girl from the Red Mill. “Let’s
hurry after them, Tom. You’re wet a good
deal, too and I shall miss my coat, being
so heated. Come on!”
But she could not escape the congratulations
of the girls and boys when they reached the steamboat.
Even Mary Cox’s closest friends gathered around
Ruth to thank her. Nobody could gainsay the fact
that Ruth had been of great help in the recovery of
Mary and Bob from the lake.
But Helen! had the other girls and
Miss Reynolds not been in the little cabin
of the boat which had been given up to the feminine
members of the party, she would have broken down and
cried on Ruth’s shoulder. To think that
she had been guilty of neglecting her chum!
“I believe I have been bewitched,
Ruthie,” she whispered. “Tom, I
know, is on the verge of scolding me. What did
you say to him?”
“Nothing that need trouble you
in the least, you may be sure, Helen,” said
Ruth. “But, my dear, if it has taken such
a thing as this which is not a thing
to go into heroics over to remind you that
I might possibly be hurt by your treatment, I am very
sorry indeed.”
“Why, Ruth!” Helen gasped. “You
don’t forgive me?”
“I am not at all sure, Helen,
that you either need or want my forgiveness,”
returned Ruth. “You have done nothing yourself
for which you need to ask it er, at least,
very little; but your friends have insulted and been
unkind to me. I do not think that I could have
called girls my friends who had treated you
so, Helen.”
Miss Cox had retired to a small stateroom
belonging to one of the officers of the boat, while
her clothing was dried by the colored stewardess.
Bob Steele, however, borrowed some old clothes of
some of the crew, and appeared when the lunch was
ready in those nondescript garments, greatly adding
to the enjoyment of the occasion.
“Well, sonny, your croup will
bother you sure enough, after that dip,” declared
his sister. “Come! let sister tuck your
bib in like a nice boy. And don’t
gobble!”
Bob was such a big fellow his
face was so pink, and his hair so yellow that
Madge’s way of talking to him made him seem highly
comic. The fellows from Seven Oaks shouted with
laughter, and the girls giggled. Mr. Hargreaves
and Miss Reynolds, both relieved beyond expression
by the happy conclusion of what might have been a very
serious accident, did not quell the fun; and fifty
or sixty young people never had such a good time before
in the saloon of the lake steamer, Minnetonka.
Suddenly music began somewhere about
the boat and the young folk began to get restive.
Some ran for their skates again, for the idea was
to remain near the steamer for a while and listen
to the music before going back to shore. The
music was a piano, guitar, violin, and harp, and when
Ruth heard it and recognized the latter instrument
she was suddenly reminded of Miss Picolet and the
strange harpist who (she firmly believed) had caused
the startling sound at the fountain.
“Let’s go and see who’s
playing,” she whispered to Helen, who had clung
close to her ever since they had come aboard the steamboat.
And as Tom was on the other side of his sister, he
went with them into the forward part of the boat.
“Well, what do you know about
that?” demanded Tom, almost before the
girls were in the forward cabin. “Isn’t
that the big man with the red waistcoat that frightened
that little woman on the Lanawaxa? You
know, you pointed them out to me on the dock at Portageton,
Helen? Isn’t that him at the harp?”
“Oh! it is, indeed!” ejaculated
his sister. “What a horrid man he is!
Let’s come away.”
But Ruth was deeply interested in
the harpist. She wondered what knowledge of,
or what connection he had with, the little French
teacher, Miss Picolet. And she wondered, too,
if her suspicions regarding the mystery of the campus the
sounding of the harpstring in the dead of night were
borne out by the facts?
Had this coarse fellow, with his pudgy
hands, his corpulency, his drooping black mustache,
some hold upon Miss Picolet? Had he followed
her to Briarwood Hall, and had he made her meet him
behind the fountain just at that hour when the Upedes
were engaged in hazing Helen and herself? These
thoughts arose in her mind again as Ruth gazed apprehensively
at the ugly-looking harpist.
Helen pulled her sleeve and Ruth was
turning away when she saw that the little, piglike
eyes of the harpist were turned upon them. He
smiled in his sly way and actually nodded at them.
“Sh! he remembers us,”
whispered Helen. “Oh, do come away, Ruth!”
“He isn’t any handsome
object, that’s a fact,” muttered Tom.
“And the cheek of him nodding to
you two girls!”
After the excitement of the accident
on the lake our friends did not feel much like skating
until it came time to go back to the landing.
Mr. Hargreaves was out on the ice with those students
of the two schools who preferred to skate; but Miss
Reynolds remained in the cabin. Mary Cox had
had her lunch in the little stateroom, wrapped in
blankets and in the company of an oil-stove, for heat’s
sake. Now she came out, re-dressed in her own
clothes, which were somewhat mussed and shrunken in
appearance.
Helen ran to her at once to congratulate
Mary on her escape. “And wasn’t
it lucky Tom and Ruth were so near you?” she
cried. “And dear old Ruthie! she’s
quite a heroine; isn’t she? And you must
meet Tom.”
“I shall be glad to meet and
thank your brother, Helen,” said The Fox, rather
crossly. “But I don’t see what need
there is to make a fuss over Fielding. Your
brother and Mr. Hargreaves pulled Mr. Steele and me
out or the lake.”
Helen stepped back and her pretty
face flushed. She had begun to see Mary Cox
in her true light. Certainly she was in no mood
just then to hear her chum disparaged. She looked
around for Tom and Ruth; the former was talking quietly
with Miss Reynolds, but Ruth had slipped away when
The Fox came into the cabin.
Mary Cox walked unperturbed to the
teacher and Tom and put out her hand to the youth,
thanking him very nicely for what he had done.
“Oh, you mustn’t thank
me more than the rest of them,” urged Tom.
“At least, I did no more than Ruthie.
By the way, where is Ruthie?”
But Ruth Fielding had disappeared,
and they did not see her again until the call was
given for the start home. Then she appeared from
the forward part of the boat, very pale and silent,
and all the way to the shore, skating between Tom
and Helen, she had scarcely a word to say.