Читать книгу Ruth Fielding In the Saddle; College Girls in the Land of Gold - Emerson Alice B. - Страница 5

Tom and his father had visited his sister and Ruth at Ardmore; the young fellow was no stranger to the girls whom Ruth had invited to join the party bound for Freezeout Camp. Of course, Jennie Stone knew Helen’s black-eyed twin from old times when they were children.

“Dear me, how you’ve grown, Tommy!” observed the plump girl, looking Tom over with approval.

“For the first time since I’ve known you, Jennie, I cannot return the compliment,” Tom said seriously.

“Gee!” sighed the erstwhile fat girl, ecstatically, “am I not glad!”

That next day all arrived. Ruth and Helen were the last, they reaching the hotel just before bedtime. But Tom was forever wandering through the foyer and parlors to spy a certain hat and figure that he was sure he should know again. He was tempted to tell Helen and her chums about the chauffeur and the strange young lady while they were all enjoying a late supper.

“However, a man alone, with such a number of girls, has to be mighty careful,” so Tom told himself, “that they don’t get something on him. They’d rig me to death, and I guess Tommy had better keep his tongue between his teeth.”

The train on which the party had obtained reservations left the Pennsylvania Station at ten o’clock in the forenoon. Half an hour before that time Tom came down to the hotel entrance ahead of the girls and instructed the starter to bespeak two taxicabs.

As Tom stepped out of the wide open door he saw the motor-car with the monogram on the door, the same chauffeur driving, and the girl with the “stunning” hat in the tonneau. The car was just moving away from the door and it was but a fleeting glimpse Tom obtained of it and its occupants. They did not even glance at him.

“Guess I was fooling myself after all,” he muttered. “At any rate, I fancy they aren’t so greatly interested. They’re not following us, that’s sure.”

The girls came hurrying down, with Miss Cullam in tow, all carrying their hand baggage. Trunks had gone on ahead, although Ruth had warned them all that, once off the train at Yucca, only the most necessary articles of apparel could be packed into the mountain range.

“Remember, we are dependent upon burros for the transportation of our luggage; and there are only just about so many of the cunning little things in all Arizona. We can’t transport too large a wardrobe.”

“Are the burros as cunning as they say they are?” asked Trix Davenport.

“All of that,” said Tom. “And great singers.”

“Sing? Now you are spoofing!” declared the coxswain of Ardmore’s freshman eight.

“All right. You wait and see. You know what they call ’em out there? Mountain canaries. Wait till you hear a love-lorn burro singing to his mate. Oh, my!”

“The idea!” ejaculated Miss Cullam. “What does the boy mean by ‘love-lorn’?”

It was a hilarious party that alighted from the taxicabs in the station and made its way to the proper part of the trainshed. The sleeping car was a luxurious one, and when the train pulled out and dived into the tunnel under the Hudson (“just like a woodchuck into its hole,” Trix said) they were comfortably established in their seats.

Tom had secured three full sections for the girls. Miss Cullam had Lower Two while Tom himself had Upper Five. There was some slight discussion over this latter section, for the berth under Tom had been reserved for a lady.

“Well, that’s all right,” said Tom philosophically. “If she can stand it, I can. Let the conductor fight it out with her.”

“Perhaps she will want you to sleep out on the observation platform, Tommy,” said Jennie Stone, wickedly. “To be gallant you’d do it, of course?”

“Of course,” said Tom, stoutly. “Far be it from me to add to the burden on the mind of any female person. It strikes me that they are mostly in trouble about something all the time.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Helen. “Villain! Is that the way I’ve brought you up?”

Tom grinned at his sister wickedly. “Somehow your hand must have slipped when you were molding me, Sis. What d’you think?”

When the time came to retire, however, there was no objection made by the lady who had reserved Lower Five. Of course, in these sleeping cars the upper and lower berths were so arranged that they were entirely separate. But in the morning Tom chanced to be coming from his berth just as the lady started down the corridor for the dressing room.

“My!” thought Tom. “That’s some pretty girl. Who – ”

Then he caught a glimpse of her face, just as she turned it hastily from him. He had seen it once before – just as a certain motor-car was drawing away from the front of the Delorphion Hotel.

“No use talking,” he thought. “I’ve got to take somebody into my confidence about this girl. To keep such a mystery to myself is likely to affect my brain. Humph! I’ll tell Ruth. She can keep a secret – if she wants to,” and he went off whistling to the men’s lavatory at the other end of the car.

Later he found Ruth on the observation platform. They were alone there for some time and Tom took her into his confidence.

“Don’t tell Helen, now,” he urged. “She’ll only rig me. And I’m bound to have a bad enough time with all you girls, as it is.”

“Poor boy,” Ruth said, commiseratingly. “You are in for a bad time, aren’t you? What about this strange and mysterious female in Lower Five?”

But as he related the details of the mystery, about the chauffeur and all, Ruth grew rather grave.

“As we go through to the dining car for breakfast let us see if we can establish her identity,” she told him. “Never mind saying anything to the other girls about it. Just point her out to me.”

“Say! I’m not likely to spread the matter broadcast,” retorted Tom. “Only I am curious.”

So was Ruth. But she bided her time and sharply scrutinized every female figure she saw in the cars as they trooped through to breakfast. She waited for Tom to point out this “mysterious lady;” but the girl of Lower Five did not appear.

The train was rushing across the prairies in mid-forenoon when Tom came suddenly to Ruth and gave her a look that she knew meant “Follow me.” When she got up Jennie drawled:

“Now, see here, Ruthie! What’s going on between that perfectly splendid brother of Cameron’s and you? Are you trying to make the rest of us girls jealous?”

“Perhaps,” Ruth replied, smiling, then hurried with her chum’s brother into the next car.

“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth suddenly, and she stopped by the door.

“Know her?” asked Tom, with curiosity.

Ruth nodded and hastily turned away so that the girl might not see that she was observed.

“Well, now!” cried Tom. “Tip me off. Explain – elucidate – make clear. I’m as puzzled as I can be.”

“So am I, Tommy,” Ruth told him. “I haven’t the least idea why that girl should be interested in our affairs. And I’m not sure that she is.”

“Who is she?” he demanded.

“She goes to college with us. Not in our class, you understand. I am sure none of our party had an idea Edie Phelps was going West this vacation.”

“Huh!” said Tom suspiciously. “What’s up your sleeve, Ruth?”

“My arm!” she cried, and ran back to the other girls and Miss Cullam, laughing at him.

Edith’s presence on this train was puzzling.

“That was a man’s handwriting on the envelope Helen and I picked up addressed to Edith,” Ruth told herself. “Some man has been writing to her from that Mohave County town. Who? And what for?”

“Not that it is really any of my business,” she concluded.

She did not take Helen into her confidence in the matter. Let the other girls see Edith Phelps if they chanced to; she determined to stir up no “hurrah” over the sophomore.

Besides, it was not at all sure that Edith was going to Arizona. Her presence upon this train did not prove that her journey West had any connection with the letter Edith had received from Yucca.

“Why so serious, honey?” asked Helen a little later, pinching her chum’s arm.

“This is a serious world, my dear,” quoth Ruth, “and we are growing older every minute.”

“What novel ideas you do have,” gibed her chum, big-eyed. But she shook her a little, too. “There you go, Ruthie Fielding! Always having some secret from your owniest own chum.”

“How do you know I have a secret?” smiled Ruth.

“Because of the two little lines that grow deeper in your forehead when you are puzzled or troubled,” Helen told her, rather wickedly. “Sure sign you’ll be married twice, honey.”

“Don’t suggest such horrid possibilities,” gasped the girl of the Red Mill in mock horror. “Married twice, indeed! And I thought we had both given up all intention of being wedded even the first time?”

This chaff was all right to throw in Helen’s eyes; but all the time Ruth expected one of the party to discover the presence of Edith Phelps on the train. She felt that with such discovery there would come an explosion of some kind; and she shrank from having any trouble with the sophomore.

Of course, with Miss Cullam present, Edith was not likely to display her spleen quite so openly as she sometimes did when alone with the other Ardmore girls. But Ruth knew Helen would be so curious to know what Edith’s presence meant that “the fat would all be in the fire.”

It was really amazing that Edith was not discovered before they reached Chicago. After that her reservation was in another car. Then on the fifth night of their journey came something that quite put the sophomore out of Ruth Fielding’s mind, and out of Tom Cameron’s as well.

They had changed trains and were on the trans-continental line when the startling incident happened. The porter had already begun arranging the berths when the train suddenly came to a jarring stop.

“What is the matter?” asked Miss Cullam of the porter. She already had her hair in “curlers” and was longing for bed.

“I done s’pect we broke in two, Ma’am,” said the darkey, rolling his eyes. “Das’ jes’ wot it seems to me,” and he darted out of the car.

There was a long wait; then some confusion arose outside the train. Tom came in from the rear. “Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he said.

“What is it, Tommy?” demanded his sister.

“The train broke in two and the front end got over a bridge here, and, being on a down grade, the engineer could not bring his engine to a stop at once. And now the bridge is afire. Come on out, girls. You might as well see the show.”