ROBERTO, THE GYPSY
Ruth Fielding, following the death of her parents and while she was
still a small girl, had left Darrowtown and Miss True Pettis, and all
her other old friends and acquaintances, to live with her mother's
uncle, at the Red Mill. Her coming to the mill and her early adventures
in and about that charming place were related in the first volume of
this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill."
Ruth made many friends in her new home, among them Helen and Tom
Cameron, the twin, motherless children of a wealthy dry-goods merchant
who had a beautiful home, called "the Outlook," near the mill, and Mercy
Curtis, the daughter of the railroad station agent at Cheslow, the
nearest important town to Ruth's new home. Ruth, Helen, and Mercy all
went to Briarwood Hall, a girls' school some distance from Cheslow,
while Master Tom attended a military academy at Seven Oaks, near the
girls' institution of learning. The incidents of their first term at
school are related in the second volume of the series, while in the
mid-winter vacation Ruth and her friends go to Snow Camp in the
Adirondacks.
Later, our friends spent part of a summer vacation at Lighthouse Point
on the Atlantic Coast, after which they visited Silver Ranch in Montana.
The sixth volume tells of another mid-winter camping adventure on Cliff
Island, while the volume previous to our present story--number seven, in
fact--was entitled "Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm."
This story narrated Ruth's particular interest in Sadie Raby, a strange,
wild girl who ran away from cruel people who had taken her "to raise."
Her reunion with her twin brothers, Willie and Dickie, and how they all
three became the special care of Mr. Steele, the wealthy owner of
Sunrise Farm, is told. It is through Ruth's efforts that the Rabys are
settled in life and win friends.
Now Ruth and her schoolmates had returned to the Red Mill and Cheslow,
and but a brief space would elapse before the girls would begin their
third year at Briarwood Hall; they were all looking toward the beginning
of the fall term with great eagerness.
Had Ruth Fielding been able to think at this moment of the boat's
overturn, or of anything but her uncle's peril, she might have
considered that the possibility of her ever seeing Briarwood Hall again
was somewhat doubtful!
The hurrying water tugged at her as though a hundred hands had laid hold
of her person. She was nearly arm-pit deep in the flood, and her uncle's
body was so heavy that she had all she could do to hold his head above
the surface.
She could not get him back into the boat, even, and perhaps that would
not have been a wise move. For the old skiff, shaking and rocking, was
likely to be torn free by the battling current. If it should swing into
deep water, it must sink almost at once, for the water was pouring in
through the hole that had been battered in its side.
The flour was fast becoming saturated with the river-water, and its
increased weight would bear the boat to the bottom, if it slipped from
the reef.
Unable to see any good of boarding the boat again, Ruth tried to work
her way along the reef until she stood upon a higher part of it. Uncle
Jabez was unconscious, blood flowed from a deep cut on his head, and he
lay a dead weight in her arms.
Never had Ruth Fielding been in greater peril. She was frightened, but
mostly for the old man who seemed so seriously hurt.
Tossing her loosened hair out of her eyes, she stared longingly at the
landing near Lakeby's store. It was some distance up-stream, and not a
person was in sight. She feared, too, that it was too far away for her
voice to carry.
Yet she must scream for help. She shouted again and again, endeavoring
to put all the strength of her voice into the cries. Was that an answer?
The girl held her uncle high in her arms and looked all about.
Nobody was at the store landing. Nobody was behind on the other shore of
the river--and she was glad that Aunt Alvirah and Mercy had not seen the
accident, for neither of them could have helped in this predicament.
Yes! there was the repeated shout--and nearer. Ruth's eyes turned to the
north shore of the Lumano again. There was somebody running down the
bank--not near the store kept by Timothy Lakeby, but directly opposite
the rock on which the old boat had stranded.
"Oh! oh! Help! help!" shrieked the girl of the Red Mill.
"Hold on! I'm coming!"
The voice came to her more strongly than before. She could not see who
the person was, but she knew he was alone. She could not imagine how he
was to aid them.
Why did he not run to the store and bring other men to help? There! he
seemed to have leaped right into the river!
"Oh, dear me! the strongest swimmer could not reach us, let alone help
Uncle Jabez ashore," was Ruth's thought.
But up came the figure into sight again. Dripping, of course, now he
stood firmly on a peak of rock that was thrust above the tide, and shook
back the long black hair from his eyes.
He was a wild looking person. His feet were bare and his ragged trousers
were rolled to his knees. He wore neither vest nor coat, and his shirt
was open at his throat. To Ruth he seemed very bronzed and rough
looking.
But whoever, or whatever, he might be, the girl prayed that he would
prove able to rescue Uncle Jabez. She felt that she could save herself,
but she was having all she could do to bear up the unconscious miller.
"Hold on!" shouted the rescuer again.
Once more he plunged forward. He disappeared off the rock. Was he
swimming again? The half-overturned boat hid him from Ruth's gaze.
Suddenly he shouted close at hand. Up he bobbed on the higher point of
rock just beyond the boat.
"What's the matter, Missy?" he demanded. "Is the old man hurt?"
"He hit his head. See! he is unconscious," explained Ruth.
"I'll get him! Look out, now; I've got to push off this old boat, Missy.
She ain't no good, anyway."
Ruth saw that he was a big, black-haired, strong looking boy. His
complexion was very dark and his eyes sparkling--like cut jet beads. He
might have been seventeen or eighteen years old, but he was fully as
tall, and apparently as strong, as an ordinary man.
His long hair curled and was tangled like a wild man's. His beard had
begun to grow on his lip and chin. In his ears Ruth saw small gold rings
and his wrists and forearms--which were bared--were covered with an
intricate pattern of tattooing in red and blue ink.
Altogether, she had never seen so strange a boy in all her life--and
certainly none so strong. He leaped into the broken boat, seized Ruth's
oar that had not been lost in the overset, and bracing it against the
rock, pushed the trembling boat free in a moment.
Ruth could not repress a scream. It looked as though he, too, must be
thrown into the river, as the boat was caught by the current and jerked
free.
But the wild boy laughed and leaped upon the higher part of the rock. As
the miller's old boat drifted down stream, he sprang into the water
again and reached the girl and her burden.
"Give him to me!" commanded the boy. "I can bear him up better than you,
Missy. We'll get him ashore--and you can't be any wetter than you are
now."
"Oh, never mind me!" cried Ruth. "I am not afraid of a ducking. And I
can swim."
"You don't want to try swimming in _this_ place, Missy," he returned.
"You follow right behind me--so."
He turned, carrying the heavy figure of the miller in his arms as though
he weighed but a hundred pounds instead of nearer two, and set off
toward the shore along the ledge of rock by which he had come.
Ruth saw, now, that beyond where the boat had been wrecked, the rock
joined the shore, with only here and there a place where it was deep
under water.
She saw, too, that the boat was now sinking. It had not sailed ten yards
in the fierce current before its gunwales disappeared. It sank in a
deeper channel below--flour and all! Ruth realized that Uncle Jabez
would be sorely troubled over the loss of those bags of flour.
Ruth paddled to the shore behind the strong boy, but before they really
reached terra firma, she knew that Uncle Jabez was struggling back to
consciousness. The boy lowered the miller easily to the ground.
"He's coming 'round, Missy," he said. His smile was broad, and the
little gold rings twinkled in his ears.
Ruth, wet and bedrabbled as she was, did not think of her own
discomfort. She knelt beside Uncle Jabez and spoke to him. For some
seconds he was so dazed that he did not seem to recognize her. Then he
stammered:
"Ha--ha----I knowed we couldn't do it. No--no gal kin do a man's work.
Ha!"
This seemed rather hard on Ruth, after she had done her best, and it had
not been her fault that the boat was wrecked, but she was too excited
just then to trouble about the miller's grumbling.
"Oh, Uncle! you're not badly hurt, are you?"
"Ha--hum! I dunno," stuttered the miller, and sat up. He rubbed his
forehead and brought his hand, with a little blood upon it, back to the
level of his eyes. "I vum!" he ejaculated, with more interest than
before. "I must ha' cracked my head some. Why was it I didn't drown?"
"This little missy, here," said the black-eyed youth, quickly. "_She_
saved you, Mister. She held your head above water till I come."
"Why--why----Niece Ruth! you did _that_?"
"Oh, it was nothing, Uncle Jabez! I am so glad you are not hurt worse.
This boy really saved you. He brought you ashore."
"Who be ye, young man?" asked the miller. "I'm obleeged to ye--if what
my niece says is true."
"Oh, I am named Roberto. You need not to thank--no!" exclaimed the
stranger, suddenly getting up and looking all about.
"But it was very brave of him," declared Ruth, and she seized the boy's
hand. "I--I am so glad you were near."
"Here's Tim and Joe Bascom coming," said Uncle Jabez, who was facing the
store.
Instantly Roberto, as he called himself, jerked his hand from Ruth's
grasp. He had seen the men coming, too, and without a word he turned and
fled back into the woods.
"Why--why----" began Ruth, in utter surprise.
"What's the matter with that feller?" demanded Uncle Jabez, just as the
storekeeper and Farmer Bascom arrived.
"I seen the feller, Jabe," said the latter, eagerly. "He's one o' them
blamed Gypsies. I run him out o' my orchard only yisterday."