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.
But when he tacked and the catboat swung her head seaward, they began
to observe the far side of the Thimble. It was almost circular, and
probably all of a thousand yards in circumference. The waves now ran
up the exposed ledges, hissing and gurgling among the cavities, and
sometimes throwing up spume-like geysers between the boulders.
"A bad rock for any vessel to stub her toe against trying to make
Sokennet Harbor," quoth Tom Cameron. "They say that the wreckers used
to have a false beacon here in the old times. They used to bring a sheep
out here and tie a lantern to its neck. Then, at low tide, they'd
drive the poor sheep over the rocks and the bobbing up and down of the
lantern would look like a riding light on some boat at anchor. Then the
lost vessel would dare run in for an anchorage, too, and she'd be
wrecked. Jack Crab's grandfather was hanged for it. So Phineas told me."
"How awful!" gasped Helen.
But Ruth suddenly seized her hand, exclaiming: "See there! what is it
fluttering on the rock? Look, Tom!"
At the moment the boy could not do so, as he had his hands full with the
tiller and sheet, and his eyes were engaged as well. When he turned to
look again at the Thimble, what had startled Ruth had disappeared.
"There was something white fluttering against the rock. It was down
there, either below high-water mark, or just above. I can't imagine
what it was."
"A seabird, perhaps," suggested Helen.
"Then where did it go to so suddenly? I did not see it fly away," Ruth
returned.
The catboat sailed slowly past the seaward side of the Thimble. There
were fifty places in which a person might hide upon the rock--plenty
of broken boulders and cracks in the base of the conical eminence that
formed the peculiarly shaped island.
The three watched the rugged shore very sharply as the catboat beat up
the wind--the girls especially giving the Thimble their attention. A
hundred pair of eyes might have watched them from the island, as far as
they knew. But certainly neither Ruth nor Helen saw anything to feed
their suspicion.
"What shall we do now?" demanded Tom. "Where do you girls want to go?"
"I don't care," Helen said.
"Seen all you want to of that deserted island, Ruthie?"
"Do you mind running back again, Tom?" Ruth asked. "I haven't any
reason for asking it--no good reason, I mean."
"Pshaw! if we waited for a reason for everything we did, some things
would never be done," returned Tom, philosophically.
"There isn't a thing there," declared Helen. "But I don't care in
the least where you sail us, Tom."
"Only not to Davy Jones' Locker, Tommy," laughed Ruth.
"I'll run out a way, and then come back with the wind and cross in
front of the island again," said Tom, and he performed this feat in
a very seamanlike manner.
"I declare! there's a landing we didn't see sailing from the other
direction," cried Helen. "See it--between those two ledges?"
"A regular dock; but you couldn't land there at high tide, or when
there was any sea on," returned her brother.
"That's the place!" exclaimed Ruth. "See that white thing fluttering
again? That's no seagull."
"Ruth is right," gasped Helen. "Oh, Tom! There's something fluttering
there--a handkerchief, is it?"
"Sing out! as loud as ever you can!" commanded the boy, eagerly. "Hail
the rock."
They all three raised their voices. There was no answer. But Tom was
pointing the boat's nose directly for the opening between the sharp
ledges.
"If there is nobody on the Thimble now, there _has_ been somebody there
recently," he declared. "I'm going to drop the sail and run in there.
Stand by with the oars to fend off, girls. We don't want to scratch
the catboat more than we can help."
His sister and Ruth sprang to obey him. Each with an oar stood at either
rail and the big sail came down on the run. But the _Jennie S._ had
headway sufficient to bring her straight into the opening between the
ledges.
Tom ran forward, seized the rope in the bow, and leaped ashore, carrying
the coil of the painter with him. Helen and Ruth succeeded in stopping
the boat's headway with the oars, and the craft lay gently rocking in
the natural dock, without having scraped her paint an atom.
"A fine landing!" exclaimed Tom, taking a turn or two with the rope
about a knob of rock.
"Yes, indeed," returned Ruth. She gave a look around. "My, what a
lonely spot!"
"It is lonely," the youth answered. "Kind of a Robinson Crusoe
place," and he gave a short laugh.
"Listen!" cried Ruth, and held up her hand as a warning.
"What did you hear, Ruth?"
"I thought I heard somebody talking, or calling."
"You did?" Tom listened intently. "I don't hear anything." He
listened again. "Yes, I do! Where did it come from?"
"I think it came from yonder," and the girl from the Red Mill pointed
to a big, round rock ahead of them.
"Maybe it did, Ruth. We'll--yes, you are right!" exclaimed the boy.
As he spoke there was a scraping sound ahead of them and suddenly a
tousled black head popped, up over the top of the boulder from which
fluttered the bit of white linen that had first attracted Ruth's
attention.
"Gracious goodness!" gasped Helen.
"It's Nita!" cried Ruth.
"Oh, oh!" shrilled the lost girl, flying out of concealment and meeting
Ruth as she leaped ashore. "Is it really you? Have you come for me? I--I
thought I'd have to stay here alone forever. I'd given up all hope
of any boat seeing me, or my signal. I--I'm 'most dead of fear, Ruth
Fielding! Do, do take me back to land with you."
The Western girl was clearly panic-stricken. The boldness and
independence she had formerly exhibited were entirely gone. Being
marooned on this barren islet had pretty well sapped the courage of
Miss Jane Ann Hicks.