THE RED FLAME IN THE NIGHT
The sound of the drumming wheels! It had roared in the ears of Ruth
Fielding for hours as she sat on the comfortably upholstered seat in
the last car of the afternoon Limited, the train whirling her from the
West to the East, through the fertile valleys of Upper New York State.
This had been a very long journey for the girl, but Ruth knew that it
would soon come to an end. Cheslow was not many miles ahead now; she
had searched it out upon the railroad timetable, and upon the map
printed on the back of the sheet; and as the stations flew by, she had
spelled their names out with her quick eyes, until dusk had fallen and
she could no longer see more than the signal lamps and switch targets
as the train whirled her on.
But she still stared through the window. This last car of the train
was fairly well filled, but she had been fortunate in having a seat
all to herself; she was glad this was so, for a person in the seat
with her might have discovered how hard it was for her to keep back
the tears.
For Ruth Fielding was by no means one of the "crying kind," and she
had forbidden herself the luxury of tears on this occasion.
"We had all that out weeks ago, you know we did!" she whispered,
apostrophizing that inner self that really wanted to break the brave
compact. "When we knew we had to leave dear old Darrowtown, and Miss
True Pettis, and Patsy Hope, and--and 'all other perspiring friends,'
to quote Amoskeag Lanfell's letter that she wrote home from
Conference.
"No, Ruth Fielding! Uncle Jabez Potter may be the very nicest kind of
an old dear. And to live in a mill--and one painted red, too! That
ought to make up for a good many disappointments--"
Her soliloquy was interrupted by a light tap upon her shoulder. Ruth
glanced around and up quickly. She saw standing beside her the tall
old gentleman who had been sitting two seats behind on the other side
of the aisle ever since the train left Buffalo.
He was a spare old gentleman, with a gaunt, eagle-beaked face, cleanly
shaven but for a sweeping iron-gray mustache, his iron-gray hair waved
over the collar of his black coat--a regular mane of hair which
flowed out from under the brim of his well-brushed, soft-crowned hat.
His face would have been very stern in its expression had it not been
for the little twinkle in his bright, dark eyes.
"Why don't you do it?" he asked Ruth, softly.
"Why don't I do what, sir?" she responded, not without a little gulp,
for that lump would rise in her throat.
"Why don't you cry?" questioned the strange old gentleman, still
speaking softly and with that little twinkle in his eye.
"Because I am determined not to cry, sir," and now Ruth could call up
a little smile, though perhaps the corners of her mouth trembled a
bit.
The gentleman sat down beside her, although she had not invited him to
do so. She was not at all afraid of him and, after all, perhaps she
was glad to have him do it.
"Tell me all about it," he suggested, with such an air of confidence
and interest that Ruth warmed more and more toward him.
But it was a little hard to begin. When he told her, however, that he
was going to Cheslow, too--indeed, that that was his home--it was
easier by far.
"I am Doctor Davison, my dear," he said. "If you are going to live in
Cheslow you will hear all about Doctor Davison, and you would better
know him at first-hand, to avoid mistakes," and his eyes twinkled more
than ever, though his stern mouth never relaxed.
"I expect that my new home is some little way outside of Cheslow,"
Ruth said, timidly. "They call it the Red Mill."
The humorous light faded out of the dark, bright eyes of the
gentleman. Yet even then his countenance did not impress her as being
unkindly.
"Jabez Potter's mill," he said, thoughtfully.
"Yes, sir. That is my uncle's name."
"Your uncle?"
"My great uncle, to be exact," said Ruth. "He was mother's uncle."
"Then you," he said, speaking even more gently than before, "are
little Mary Potter's daughter?"
"Mother was Mary Potter before she married papa," said Ruth, more
easily now. "She died four years ago."
He nodded, looking away from her out of the window at the
fast-darkening landscape which hurried by them.
"And poor papa died last winter. I had no claim upon the kind friends
who helped me when he died," pursued Ruth, bravely. "They wrote to
Uncle Jabez and he--he said I could come and live with him and Aunt
Alvirah Boggs."
In a flash the twinkle came back into his eyes, and he nodded again.
"Ah, yes! Aunt Alviry," he said, giving the name its old-fashioned,
homely pronunciation. "I had forgotten Aunt Alviry," and he seemed
quite pleased to remember her.
"She keeps house for Uncle Jabez, I understand," Ruth continued. "But
she isn't my aunt."
"She is everybody's Aunt Alviry, I think," said Doctor Davison,
encouragingly.
For some reason this made Ruth feel better. He spoke as though she
would love Aunt Alviry, and Ruth had left so many kind friends behind
her in Darrowtown that she was glad to be assured that somebody in the
new home where she was going would be kind, too.
Miss True Pettis had not shown her Uncle Jabez's letter and she had
feared that perhaps her mother's uncle (whom she had never seen nor
known much about) might not have written as kindly for his niece to
come to the Red Mill as Miss True could have wished. But Miss True was
poor; most of the Darrowtown friends had been poor people. Ruth had
felt that she could not remain a burden on them.
Somehow she did not have to explain all this to Doctor Davison. He
seemed to understand it when he nodded and his eyes twinkled so
glowingly.
"Cheslow is a pleasant town. You will like it," he said, cheerfully.
"The Red Mill is five miles out on the Lake Osago Road. It is a pretty
country. It will be dark when you ride over it to-night; but you will
like it when you see it by daylight."
He took it for granted that Uncle Jabez would come to the station to
meet her with a carriage, and that comforted Ruth not a little.
"You will pass my house on that road," continued Doctor Davison. "But
when you come to town you must not pass it."
"Sir?" she asked him, surprised.
"Not without stopping to see me," he explained, his eyes twinkling
more than ever. And then he left her and went back to his seat.
But Ruth found, when he had gone, that the choke came back into her
throat again and the sting of unshed tears to her eyes. But she would
not let those same tears fall!
She stared out of the plate-glass window and saw that it was now quite
dark. The whistle of the fast-flying locomotive shrieked its
long-drawn warning, and a group of signal lights flashed past. Then
she heard the loud ringing of a gong at a grade crossing. They must be
nearing Cheslow now.
And then she saw that they were on a curve quite a sharp curve, for
she saw the lights of the locomotive and the mail car far ahead upon
the gleaming rails. They began to slow down, too, and the wheels
wailed under the pressure of the brakes.
She could see the signal lights along the tracks ahead and then--with
a start, for she knew what it meant--a sharp red flame appeared out
of the darkness beyond the rushing engine pilot.
Danger! That is what that red light meant. The brakes clamped down
upon the wheels again so suddenly that the easily-riding coach jarred
through all its parts. The red eye was winked out instantly; but the
long and heavy train came to an abrupt stop.