CHAPTER II
THE MYSTERY OF IT
For half a minute Tom Cameron did not know just what to do for Ruth. Thenthe water spilled out of the angry clouds overhead and bade fair to drenchthem.
He half carried Ruth into the summer-house and let her rest upon a bench,sitting beside her with his arm tenderly supporting her shoulders. Ruthhad begun to sob tempestuously.
Ruth Fielding weeping! She might have cried many times in the past, butalmost always in secret. Tom, who knew her so well, had seen her indangerous and fear-compelling situations, and she had not wept.
"What is it?" he demanded. "What have you lost?"
"My scenario! All my work gone!"
"The new story? My goodness, Ruth, it couldn't have blown away!"
"But it has!" she wailed. "Not a scrap of it left. My notebooks--my pen!Why!" and she suddenly controlled her sobs, for she was, after all, aneminently practical girl. "Could that fountain pen have been carried awayby the windstorm, too?"
"There goes a barrel through the air," shouted Tom. "That's heavier than afountain pen. Say, this is some wind!"
The sound of the dashing rain now almost drowned their voices. It sprayedthem through the porous shelter of the vines and latticework so that theycould not sit on the bench.
Ruth huddled upon the table with Tom Cameron standing between her and thedrifting mist of the storm. She looked across the rain-drenched yard tothe low-roofed house. She had first seen it with a home-hungry heart whena little girl and an orphan.
How many, many strange experiences she had had since that time, whichseemed so long ago! Nor had she then dreamed, as "Ruth Fielding of the RedMill," as the first volume of this series is called, that she would leadthe eventful life she had since that hour.
Under the niggard care of miserly old Jabez Potter, the miller, her greatuncle, tempered by the loving kindness of Aunt Alvirah Boggs, the miller'shousekeeper, Ruth's prospects had been poor indeed. But Providence movesin mysterious ways. Seemingly unexpected chances had broadened Ruth'soutlook on life and given her advantages that few girls in her spheresecure.
First she was enabled to go to a famous boarding school, Briarwood Hall,with her dearest chum, Helen Cameron. There she began to make friends andwiden her experience by travel. With Helen, Tom, and other young friends,Ruth had adventures, as the titles of the series of books run, at SnowCamp, at Lighthouse Point, at Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at SunriseFarm, with the Gypsies, in Moving Pictures, and Down in Dixie.
With the eleventh volume of the series Ruth and her chums, Helen Cameronand Jennie Stone, begin their life at Ardmore College. As freshmen theirexperiences are related in "Ruth Fielding at College; Or, The MissingExamination Papers." This volume is followed by "Ruth Fielding in theSaddle; Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold," wherein Ruth's first bigscenario is produced by the Alectrion Film Corporation.
As was the fact with so many of our college boys and girls, the World Warinterfered most abruptly and terribly with Ruth's peaceful current oflife. America went into the war and Ruth into Red Cross work almostsimultaneously.
In "Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross; Or, Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam," theGirl of the Red Mill gained a very practical experience in the work of thegreat peace organization which does so much to smooth the ravages of war.Then, in "Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt for the LostSoldier," the Red Cross worker was thrown into the very heart of thetremendous struggle, and in northern France achieved a name for couragethat her college mates greatly envied.
Wounded and nerve-racked because of her experiences, Ruth was sent home,only to meet, as related in the fifteenth volume of the series, "RuthFielding Homeward Bound; Or, A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils," anexperience which seemed at first to be disastrous. In the end, however,the girl reached the Red Mill in a physical and mental state which madeany undue excitement almost a tragedy for her.
The mysterious disappearance of the moving picture scenario, which hadbeen on her heart and mind for months and which she had finally brought,she believed, to a successful termination, actually shocked Ruth Fielding.She could not control herself for the moment.
Against Tom Cameron's uniformed shoulder she sobbed frankly. His arm stolearound her.
"Don't take on so, Ruthie," he urged. "Of course we'll find it all. Waittill this rain stops----"
"It never blew away, Tom," she said.
"Why, of course it did!"
"No. The sheets of typewritten manuscript were fastened together with abig brass clip. Had they been lose and the wind taken them, we should haveseen at least some of them flying about. And the notebooks!"
"And the pen?" murmured Tom, seeing the catastrophe now as she did. "Why,Ruthie! Could somebody have taken them all?"
"Somebody must!"
"But who?" demanded the young fellow. "You have no enemies."
"Not here, I hope," she sighed. "I left them all behind."
He chuckled, although he was by no means unappreciative of the seriousnessof her loss. "Surely that German aviator who dropped the bomb on youhasn't followed you here."
"Don't talk foolishly, Tom!" exclaimed the girl, getting back some of herusual good sense. "Of course, I have no enemy. But a thief is every honestperson's enemy."
"Granted. But where is the thief around the Red Mill?"
"I do not know."
"Can it be possible that your uncle or Ben saw the things here and rescuedthem just before the storm burst?"
"We will ask," she said, with a sigh. "But I can imagine no reason foreither Uncle Jabez or Ben to come down here to the shore of the river.Oh, Tom! it is letting up."
"Good! I'll look around first of all. If there has been a skulkernear----"
"Now, don't be rash," she cried.
"We're not behind the German lines now, Fraulein Mina von Brenner," and helaughed as he went out of the summer-house.
He did not smile when he was searching under the house and beating thebrush clumps near by. He realized that this loss was a very serious matterfor Ruth.
She was now independent of Uncle Jabez, but her income was partly derivedfrom her moving picture royalties. During her war activities she had beenunable to do much work, and Tom knew that Ruth had spent of her own meansa great deal in the Red Cross work.
Ruth had refused to tell her friends the first thing about this new storyfor the screen. She believed it to be the very best thing she had everoriginated, and she said she wished to surprise them all.
He even knew that all her notes and "before-the-finish" writing was in thenotebooks that had now gone with the completed manuscript. It looked morethan mysterious. It was suspicious.
Tom looked all around the summer-house. Of course, after this harddownpour it was impossible to mark any footsteps. Nor, indeed, did theraider need to leave such a trail in getting to and departing from thelittle vine-covered pavilion. The sward was heavy all about it save on theriver side.
The young man found not a trace. Nor did he see a piece of paper anywhere.He was confident that Ruth's papers and notebooks and pen had been removedby some human agency. And it could not have been a friend who had donethis thing.