HUNTING FOR AMY
In spite of her seemingly heartless words, it was Ann Hicks who agreed to
go with Ruth to hunt for the lost girl. Helen frankly acknowledged that
she was afraid to tramp about the woods and fields at night, with only a
boy and a lantern for company.
"Come along, Ruthie. I have helped find stray cattle on the range more
times than you could shake a stick at," declared good-natured Ann Hicks.
"Rouse out that lazy boy of Grandma Smith's."
Mrs. Sadoc Smith had to give just so much advice, and see that the
expedition was properly equipped. A thermos bottle filled with coffee went
into Ruth's bag, while Curly was laden with a substantial lunch, a roll of
bandages, a bottle of arnica and some smelling-salts, beside the lantern.
"Huh!" protested the boy to Ann, "if she was sending us out to find a lost
_boy_ all she'd send would be that cat-o'-nine-tails of hers that hangs in
the woodshed. I know Gran!"
"And the cat-o'-nine-tails, too, eh?" chuckled the Western girl.
"You bet!" agreed Curly, feelingly.
They set forth with just one idea about the search. Amy Gregg, as far as
Curly could remember, had expressed a wish to go to but one place. That
was the old dam up in Norman's Woods, where he and Ruth had gone fishing.
They were quite sure that it would be useless to hunt for the girl in any
neighbor's house. And Mrs. Sadoc Smith's premises had already been
searched. They had shouted for Amy till their throats were sore before the
news had come from Briarwood Hall. The fact that Amy had been suffering
from a physical ailment, as well as one of the mind, troubled Ruth
exceedingly.
"Maybe she was just 'sickening for some disease,' as Aunt Alvirah says,"
the girl of the Red Mill told Ann Hicks, as they went along. "A sore
throat is the forerunner of so many fevers and serious troubles. She might
be coming down with scarlet fever."
"Goodness gracious! don't say _that_" begged Ann.
Ruth feared it, nevertheless. The two girls followed Curly through the
narrow path, the dripping bushes wetting their skirts, and briers at times
scratching them. Ann was a good walker and could keep up quite as well as
Ruth. Beside, Curly was not setting a pace on this occasion, but stumbled
on with the lantern, rather blindly.
"Tell you what," he grumbled. "I don't fancy this job a mite."
"You're not 'afraid to go home in the dark,' are you, Curly?" asked Ann,
with scorn.
"Not going home just now," responded the boy, grinning. "But the woods
aren't any place to be out in this time of night--unless you've got a dog
and a gun. There! see that?"
"A cat, that's all," declared Ruth, who had seen the little black and
white animal run across their track in the flickering and uncertain light
of the lantern. "Here, kitty! kitty! Puss! puss! puss!"
"Hold on!" cried the excited Curly. "You needn't be so particular about
calling that cat."
"Why not? It must be somebody's cat that's strayed," said Ruth.
"Ya-as. I guess it is. It's a pole-cat," growled Curly. "And if it came
when you called it, you wouldn't like it so much, I guess."
"Oh, goodness!" gasped Ann. "Don't be so friendly with every strange
animal you see, Ruth Fielding. A pole-cat!"
"Wish I had a gun!" exclaimed Curly. "I'd shoot that skunk."
"Glad you didn't then," said Ruth, promptly. "Poor little thing."
"Ya-as," drawled the boy. "'Poor little thing.' It was just aiming for
somebody's hencoop. One of 'em 'll eat chickens faster than Gran's hens
can hatch 'em out."
Pushing on through the woods at this slow pace brought them to the ruined
grist mill and the old dam not before ten o'clock. There was a pale and
watery moon, the shine of which glistened on the falling water over the
old logs of the dam, but gave the searchers little light. The moon's rays
merely aided in making the surroundings of the mill more ghostly.
Nobody lived within a mile of the mill site, Curly assured the girls, and
if Amy had found this place it was not likely that she had likewise found
the nearest human habitation, for that was beyond the mill and directly
opposite to Briarwood and the town of Lumberton.
They shouted for Amy, and then searched the ghostly premises of the ruined
mill. Years before the roof had been burned away and some of the walls
fallen in. Owls made their nests in the upper part of the building, as the
party found, much to the girls' excitement when a huge, spread-winged
creature dived out of a window and went "whish! whish! whish!" off through
the long grass, to hunt for mice or other small, night-prowling creatures.
"Goodness! that owl is as big as a turkey!" gasped Ruth, clinging to Ann
in her fright.
"Bigger," announced Curly. "Old Scratch! I'd like to shoot him and have
him stuffed."
"I'd rather have some of the turkey stuffing," chuckled Ann Hicks. "Owl
would be rather tough, I reckon."
"Oh, not to eat!" scoffed Curly. "I'd put him in Gran's parlor. And that
reminds me of an owl story----"
"Don't tell us any old stories; tell us new ones, if you must tell any,"
Ann interrupted.
"How do you know whether this is old or young till I've told it?" demanded
Curly, as they all three sat on the ruined doorstep of the mill to rest.
"Quite right, Curly," sighed Ruth. "Go ahead. Make us laugh. I feel like
crying."
"Then you can cry over it," retorted the boy. "There was a butcher who had
a stuffed owl in his shop and an old Irishman came in and asked him: 'How
mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?'
"'It's an owl,' said the butcher.
"The old man repeated his question--'how mooch for the broad-faced
bur-r-rd?'
"'It's an owl, I tell you!' exclaimed the butcher.
"'I know it's _ould_,' says the Irishman. 'But what d'ye want for it?
It'll make soup for me boar-r-rders!'"
"That's a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of
finding poor little Amy, instead of telling funny tales."
"Oh, how can I help----"
Curly stopped. Ann, who was sitting in the middle, grabbed both him and
Ruth. "Listen to that!" she whispered. "_That_ isn't another owl, is it?"
"What is it?" gasped Ruth.
Somewhere in the ruin of the mill there was a noise. It might have been
the voice of an animal or of a bird, but it sounded near enough like a
human being to scare all three of the young people on the doorstep.
"Sa-ay," quavered Curly. "You don't suppose there are such things as
ghosts, do you, girls?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Ruth. "Don't try to scare us either, Curly."
"Honest, I'm not. I'm right here," cried the boy. "You know I never made
that noise----"
"There it is again!" exclaimed Ann.
The sound was like the cry of something in distress. Ruth got up suddenly
and tried to put on a brave front. "I can't sit here and listen to that,"
she said.
"Let's go," urged Ann. "I'm ready."
"Oh, say----" began Curly, when Ruth interrupted him by seizing the
lantern.
"Don't fret, Curly Smith," she said. "We're not going without finding out
what that sound means."
"Maybe it's young owls, and the old one will come back and pick our eyes
out," suggested Ann.
"Get a club, Curly," commanded Ruth. "We'll be ready, then, for man or
beast."
This order gave Curly confidence, and made him pluck up his own waning
courage. These girls depended upon him, and he was not the boy to back
down before even a ghostly Unknown.
He found a club and went side by side with Ruth into the mill. The sound
that had disturbed them was repeated. Ruth was sure, now, that it was
somebody sobbing.
"Amy! Amy Gregg!" she called again.
"Pshaw!" murmured Ann. "It isn't Amy. She'd have been out of here in a
hurry when we shouted for her before."
Ruth was not so sure of that. They came to a break in the flooring. Once
there had been steps here leading down into the cellar of the mill, but
the steps had rotted away.
"Amy!" called Ruth again. She knelt and held the lantern as far down the
well as she could reach. The sound of sobbing had ceased.
"Amy, _dear_!" cried Ruth. "It's Ruth and Ann, And Curly is with us. Do
answer if you hear me!"
There was a murmur from below. Ann cried out in alarm, but Curly
exclaimed: "I believe that's Amy, Ruth! She must be hurt--the silly thing.
She's tumbled down this old well."
"How will we get to her?" cried Ruth. "Amy! how did you get down there?
Are you hurt, Amy?"
"Go away!" said a faint voice from below.
"Old Scratch! Isn't that just like her?" groaned Curly. "She was hiding
from us."
"Here," said Ruth, drawing up the lantern and setting it on the floor. "It
can't be very deep. I'm going to drop down there, Curly, and then you pass
down the lantern to me."
"You'll break your neck, Ruth!" cried Ann.
"No. I'm not going to risk my neck at all," Ruth calmly affirmed.
She set the lantern on the broken floor and swung herself down into the
black hole. She hung by her hands and her feet did not touch the bottom.
Suddenly she felt a qualm of terror. Perhaps the cellar was a good deal
deeper than she had supposed!
She could not raise herself up again, and she almost feared to drop. "Let
down the light, Curly!" she whispered.