A mistake could scarcely be made in the sex of the comical looking
individual at whom the chums had been led to stare so boldly, when once
they heard the voice. That shrill, sharp tone could never have come from
a male throat. Now, too, the Unknown drew a pair of spectacles from her
bag, adjusted them, and glared at Ruth and Helen.
"I want to know," repeated the woman sternly, "what you mean by
following me around this boat?"
The chums were tongue-tied in their embarrassment for the moment, but
Helen managed to blurt out: "We--we didn't know----"
She was on the verge of making a bad matter worse, by saying that they
didn't know the lady was a lady! But Ruth broke in with:
"Oh, I beg your pardon, I am sure. We did not mean to offend you. Won't
you forgive us, if you think we were rude? I am sure we did not intend
to be."
It would have been hard for most people to resist Ruth's mildness and
her pleading smile. This person with the spectacles and the short hair
was not moved by the girl of the Red Mill at all. Later Ruth and Helen
understood why not.
"I don't want any more of your impudence!" the stern woman said. "Go
away and leave me alone. I'd like to have the training of all such girls
as you. _I'd_ teach you what's what!"
"And I believe she would," gasped Helen, as she and Ruth almost ran back
up to the saloon deck again. "Goodness! she is worse than Miss Brokaw
ever thought of being--and we thought _her_ pretty sharp at times."
"I wonder what and who the woman is," Ruth murmured. "I am glad she is
nobody whom I have to know."
"Hope we have seen the last of the hateful old thing!"
But they had not. As the girls walked forward through the saloon and
approached the spot where they had sat watching the mysterious woman
with the short hair and the shorter temper, a youth got up from one of
the seats and strolled out upon the deck ahead of them. Ruth started,
and turned to look at Helen.
"My dear!" she said. "Did you see _that_?"
"Don't point out any other mysteries to me--please!" cried Helen. "We'll
get into a worse pickle."
"But did you see that boy?" insisted Ruth.
"No. I'm not looking for boys."
"Neither am I," Ruth returned. "But I could not help seeing how much
that one resembled Curly Smith."
"Dear me! You certainly have Henry Smith on the brain," cried Helen.
"Well, I can't help thinking of the poor boy. I hope we shall hear from
his grandmother again. I am going to write and mail the letter just as
soon as we reach Old Point Comfort."
The girls had walked slowly on, past the seat where the odd looking
woman whom they had watched had sat down to examine the contents of her
handbag. There were few other passengers about, for as the evening
closed in almost everybody had sought the open deck.
Suddenly, from behind them, came a sound which seemed to be a cross
between a steam whistle gone mad and the clucking of an excited hen.
Ruth and Helen turned in amazement and saw the lank, mannish figure of
the strange woman flying up the saloon.
"Stop them! Come back! My ticket!" were the words which finally became
coherent as the strange individual reached the vicinity of the girl
chums. An officer who was passing through happened to be right beside
the two girls when the excited woman reached them.
She apparently had the intention of seizing hold upon Ruth and Helen,
and the friends, startled, shrank back. The ship's officer promptly
stepped in between the girls and the excited person with the short hair.
"Wait a moment, madam," he said sharply. "What is it all about?"
"My ticket!" cried the short-haired woman, glaring through her
spectacles at Ruth and Helen.
"Your ticket?" said the officer. "What about it?"
"It isn't there!" and she pointed tragically to the seat on which she
had previously rested.
"Did you leave it there?" queried the officer, guessing at the reason
for her excitement.
"I just did, sir!" snapped the stern woman.
"Your ticket for your trip to Norfolk?"
"No, it isn't. It's my ticket for my railroad trip from Norfolk to
Charleston. I had it folded in one of those Southern Railroad Company's
folders. And now it isn't in my bag."
"Well?" said the officer calmly. "I apprehend that you left the folder
on this seat--or think you did?"
"I know I did," declared the excited woman. "Those girls were following
me around in a most impudent way; and they were right here when I got up
and forgot that folder."
"The inference being, then," went on the officer, "that they took the
folder and the ticket?"
"Yes, sir, I am convinced they did just that," declared the woman,
glaring at the horrified Ruth and Helen.
Said the latter, angrily: "Why, the mean old thing! Who ever heard the
like?"
"Oh, I know girls through and through!" snapped the strange woman. "I
should think I ought to by this time--after fifteen years of dealing with
the minxes. I could see that those two were sly and untrustworthy, the
instant I saw them."
"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth.
"Nasty cat!" muttered Helen.
The officer was not greatly impressed. "Have you any real evidence
connecting these young ladies with the loss of your ticket?" he asked.
"I say it's stolen!" cried the sharp-voiced one.
"And it may, instead, have been picked up, folder and all, by a quite
different party. Perhaps the purser already has your lost ticket----"
At that moment the purser himself appeared, coming up the saloon. Behind
him were two of the under stewards burdened with magnificent bunches of
roses. A soft voice appealed at Ruth's elbow:
"If missy jes' let me take her stateroom key, den all dem roses be
'ranged in dar mos' skillful--ya-as'm; mos' skillful."
"Why! did you ever!" gasped Helen, amazed.
"Those are never for _us_?" cried Ruth.
"You are Miss Cameron?" asked the smiling purser of Ruth's chum. "These
flowers came at the last moment by express for you and your friend. In
getting under way they were overlooked; but the head stewardess opened
the box and rearranged the roses, and I am sure they have not been hurt.
Here is the card--Mr. Thomas Cameron's compliments."
"Oh, the dear!" cried Helen, clasping her hands.
"_Those_ were the roses you thought he sent to Hazel Gray," whispered
Ruth sharply.
"So they are!" cried Helen. "What a dunce I was. Of course, old Tom
would not forget us. He's a good, good boy!"
She ran ahead to the stateroom. Ruth turned to see what had happened to
the woman who thought they had taken her railroad ticket. The deck
officer had turned her over to the purser and it was evident that the
latter was in for an unpleasant quarter of an hour.
The roses seemed fairly to fill the stateroom, there were so many of
them. The girls preferred to arrange them themselves; so the three
porters left after having been tipped.
The chums opened the blind again so that they could look out across the
water at the Jersey shore. Sandy Hook was now far behind them. Long
Branch and the neighboring seaside resorts were likewise passed.
The girls watched the shore with its ever varying scenes until past six
o'clock and many of the passengers had gone into the dining saloon. Ruth
and Helen finally went, too. They saw nothing of the unpleasant woman
whose ire had been so roused against them; but after they came up from
dinner, and the orchestra was playing, and the Brigantine Buoy was just
off the port bow, the girls saw somebody else who began to interest them
deeply.
The moon was coming up, and its silvery rays whitened everything upon
deck. The girls sat for a while in the open stern deck watching the
water and the lights. It was very beautiful indeed.
It was Helen who first noticed the figure near, with his back to them
and with his head upon the arm that rested on the steamer's rail. She
nudged Ruth.
"See him?" she whispered. "That's the boy who you said looked like Henry
Smith. See his curly hair?"
"Oh, Helen!" gasped Ruth, a thought stabbing her suddenly. "Suppose it
is?"
"Suppose it is what?"
"Suppose it _should_ be Curly whom the police were after? You know, that
dressed-up boy--if it was he we saw on the dock--had curly hair."
"So he had! I forgot that when we were trailing that queer old maid,"
chuckled Helen.
"This is no laughing matter, dear," whispered Ruth, watching the
curly-haired boy closely. "Having gotten rid of his disguise, there was
no reason why that boy should not stay aboard the steamboat."
"No; I suppose not," admitted Helen, rather puzzled.
"And if it is Curly--"
"Oh, goodness me! we don't even know that Henry Smith has run away!"
exclaimed Helen.
Instantly the boy near them started. He rose and clung to the rail for a
moment. But he did not look back at the two girls.
Ruth had clutched Helen's arm and whispered: "Hush!" She was not sure
whether the boy had heard or not. At any rate, he did not look at them,
but walked slowly away. They did not see his face at all.