Each story submitted had been numbered and the number given to its author. The scripts could now be obtained by the presentation of the numbers. He did not tell them which number had proved successful. Nor did he let it be known that he proposed to try to film the hermit's production.

Mr. Hooley was using old John on this day in a character part. For these "types" the director usually paid ten or fifteen dollars a day; but John was so successful in every part he was given that Mr. Hooley always paid him an extra five dollars for his work. Money seemed to make no difference in the hermit's appearance, however. He wore just as shabby clothing and lived just as plainly as he had when the picture company had come on to the lot.

When work was over for the day, Hooley sent the old man to Mr. Hammond's office. The president of the company invited the hermit into his shack and gave him a seat. He scrutinized the man sharply as he thus greeted him. It was quite true that the hermit did not wholly fit the character he assumed as a longshore waif.

In the first place, his skin was not tanned to the proper leathery look. His eyes were not those of a man used to looking off over the sea. His hands were too soft and unscarred for a sailor's. He had never pulled on ropes and handled an oar!

Now that Ruth Fielding had suggested that his character was a disguise, Mr. Hammond saw plainly that she must be right. As he was a good actor of other parts before the camera, so he was a good actor in his part of "hermit."

"How long have you lived over there on the point, John?" asked Mr. Hammond carelessly.

"A good many years, sir, in summer."

"How did you come to live there first?"

"I wandered down this way, found the hut empty, turned to and fixed it up, and stayed on."

He said it quite simply and without the first show of confusion. But this tale of his occupancy of the seaside hut he had repeated frequently, as Mr. Hammond very well knew.

"Where do you go in the winter, John?" the latter asked.

"To where it's a sight warmer. I don't have to ask anybody where I shall go," and now the man's tone was a trifle defiant.

"I would like to know something more about you," Mr. Hammond said, quite frankly. "I may be able to do something with your story. We like to know about the person who submits a scenario——"

"That don't go!" snapped the hermit grimly. "You offered five hundred for a story you could use. If you can use mine, I want the five hundred. And I don't aim to give you the history of my past along with the story. It's nobody's business what or who I am, or where I came from, or where I am going."

"Hoity-toity!" exclaimed Mr. Hammond. "You are quite sudden, aren't you? Now, just calm yourself. I haven't got to take your scenario and pay you five hundred dollars for it——"

"Then somebody else will," said the hermit, getting up.

"Ah! You are quite sure you have a good story here, are you?"

"I know I have."

"And how do you know so much?" sharply demanded the moving picture magnate.

"I've seen enough of this thing you are doing, now—this 'Seaside Idyl' stuff—to know that mine is a hundred per cent. better," sneered the hermit.

"Whew! You've a good opinion of your story, haven't you?" asked Mr. Hammond. "Did you ever write a scenario before?"

"What is that to you?" returned the other. "I don't get you at all, Mr. Hammond. All this cross-examination——"

"That will do now!" snapped the manager. "I am not obliged to take your story. You can try it elsewhere if you like," and he shoved the newspaper-wrapped package toward the end of his desk and nearer the hermit's hand. "I tell you frankly that I won't take any story without knowing all about the author. There are too many comebacks in this game."

"What do you mean?" demanded the other stiffly.

"I don't know that your story is original. Frankly, I have some doubt about that very point."

The old man did not change color at all. His gray eyes blazed and he was not at all pleasant looking. But the accusation did not seem to surprise him.

"Are you trying to get it away from me for less than you offered?" he demanded.

"You are an old man," said Mr. Hammond hotly, "and that lets you get away with such a suggestion as that without punishment. I begin to believe that there is something dead wrong with you, John—or whatever your name is."

He drew back the packet of manuscript, opened a drawer, put it within, and locked the drawer.

"I'll think this over a little longer," he said grimly. "At least, until you are willing to be a little more communicative about yourself. I would be glad to use your story with some fixing up, if I was convinced you really wrote it all. But you have got to show me—or give me proper references."

"Give me back the scenario, then!" exclaimed the old man, his eyes blazing hotly.

"No. Not yet. I can take my time in deciding upon the manuscripts submitted in this contest. You will have to wait until I decide," said Mr. Hammond, waving the man out of his office.



CHAPTER XXI

A HERMIT FOR REVENUE ONLY

The bays and inlets of the coast of Maine have the bluest water dotted by the greenest islands that one can imagine. And such wild and romantic looking spots as some of these islands are!

Just at this time, too, a particular tang of romance was in the air. The Germans had threatened to devastate our Atlantic coast from Eastport to Key West with a flock of submersibles. There actually were a few submarines lurking about the pathways of our coastwise shipping; but, as usual, the Hun's boast came to naught.

The young people on the Stazy scarcely expected to see a German periscope during the run to Reef Harbor. Yet they did not neglect watching out for something of the kind. Skipper Phil Gordon, a young man with one arm but a full and complete knowledge of this coast and how to coax speed out of a gasoline engine, ordered his "crew" of one boy to remain sharply on the lookout, as well.

The Stazy did not, however, run far outside. The high and rocky headland that marked the entrance to Reef Harbor came into view before they had more than dropped the hazy outline of Beach Plum Point astern.

But until they rounded the promontory and entered the narrow inlet to Reef Harbor the town and the summer colony was entirely invisible.

"If a German sub should stick its nose in here," sighed Helen, "it would make everybody ashore get up and dust. Don't you think so?"

"Is it the custom to do so when the enemy, he arrive?" asked Colonel Marchand, to whom the idiomatic speech of the Yankee was still a puzzle.

"Sure!" replied Tom, grinning. "Sure, Henri! These New England women would clean house, no matter what catastrophe arrived."

"Oh, don't suggest such horrid possibilities," cried Jennie. "And they are only fooling you, Henri."

"Look yonder!" exclaimed Captain Tom, waving an instructive hand. "Behold! Let the Kaiser's underseas boat come. That little tin lizzie of the sea is ready for it. Depth bombs and all!"

The grim looking drab submarine chaser lay at the nearest dock, the faint spiral of smoke rising from her stack proclaiming that she was ready for immediate work. There was a tower, too, on the highest point on the headland from which a continual watch was kept above the town.

"O-o-oh!" gurgled Jennie, snuggling up to Henri. "Suppose one of those German subs shelled the movie camp back there on Beach Plum Point!"

"They would likely spoil a perfectly good picture, then," said Helen practically. "Think of Ruthie's 'Seaside Idyl!'.

"Oh, say!" Helen went on. "They tell me that old hermit has submitted a story in the contest. What do you suppose it is like, Ruth?"

The girl of the Red Mill was sitting beside Aunt Kate. She flushed when she said:

"Why shouldn't he submit one?"

"But that hermit isn't quite right in his head, is he?" demanded Ruth's chum.

"I don't know that it is his head that is wrong," murmured Ruth, shaking her own head doubtfully.

Here Jennie broke in. "Is auntie letting you read her story, Ruth?" she asked slyly.

"Now, Jennie Stone!" exclaimed their chaperon, blushing.

"Well, you are writing one. You know you are," laughed her niece.

"I—I am just trying to see if I can write such a story," stammered Aunt Kate.

"Well, I am sure you could make up a better scenario than that old grouch of a hermit," Helen declared, warmly.

Ruth did not add anything to this discussion. What she had discovered regarding the hermit's scenario was of too serious a nature to be publicly discussed.

Her interview the evening before with Mr. Hammond regarding the matter had left Ruth in a most uncertain frame of mind. She did not know what to do about the stolen scenario. She shrank from telling even Helen or Tom of her discovery.

To tell the truth, Mr. Hammond's seeming doubt—not of her truthfulness but of her wisdom—had shaken the girl's belief in herself. It was a strange situation, indeed. She thought of the woman she had found wandering about the mountain in the storm who had lost control of both her nerves and her mind, and Ruth wondered if it could be possible that she, too, was on the verge of becoming a nervous wreck.

Had she deceived herself about this hermit's story? Had she allowed her mind to dwell on her loss until she was quite unaccountable for her mental decisions? To tell the truth, this thought frightened the girl of the Red Mill a little.

Practical as Ruth Fielding ordinarily was, she must confess that the shock she had received when the hospital in France was partly wrecked, an account of which is given in "Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound," had shaken the very foundations of her being. She shuddered even now when she thought of what she had been through in France and on the voyage coming back to America.

She realized that even Tom and Helen looked at her sometimes when she spoke of her lost scenario in a most peculiar way. Was it a fact that she had allowed her loss to unbalance—well, her judgment? Suppose she was quite wrong about that scenario the hermit had submitted to Mr. Hammond? The thought frightened her!

At least, she had nothing to say upon the puzzling subject, not even to her best and closest friends. She was sorry indeed two hours later when they were at lunch on the porch of the Reef Harbor House with some of the Camerons' friends that Helen brought the conversation around again to the Beach Plum Point "hermit."

"A real hermit?" cried Cora Grimsby, a gay, blonde, irresponsible little thing, but with a heart of gold. "And is he a hermit for revenue only, too?"

"What do you mean by that?" Helen demanded.

"Why, we have a hermit here, you see. Over on Reef Island itself. If you give us a sail in your motor yacht after lunch I'll introduce our hermit to you. But you must buy something of him, or otherwise 'cross his palm with silver.' He told me one day that he was not playing a nut for summer folks to laugh at just for the good of his health."

"Frank, I must say," laughed Tom Cameron.

"I guess he's been in the hermit business before," said Cora, sparkling at Tom in his uniform. "But this is his first season at the Harbor."

"I wonder if he belongs to the hermit's union and carries a union card," suggested Jennie Stone soberly. "I don't think we should patronize non-union hermits."

"Goody!" cried Cora, clapping her hands. "Let's ask him."

Ruth said nothing. She rather wished she might get out of the trip to Reef Island without offending anybody. But that seemed impossible. She really had seen all the hermits she cared to see!

She could not, however, be morose and absent-minded in a party of which Cora Grimsby and Jennie Stone were the moving spirits. It was a gay crowd that crossed the harbor in the Stazy to land at a roughly built dock under the high bluff of the wooded island.

"There's the hermit!" Cora cried, as they landed. "See him sitting on the rock before the door of his cabin?"

"Right on the job," suggested Tom.

"No unlucky city fly shall escape that spider's web," cried Jennie.

He was a patriarchal looking man. His beard swept his breast. He wore shabby garments, was barefooted, and carried a staff as though he were lame or rheumatic.

"Dresses the part much better than our hermit does," Helen said, in comment.

The man met the party from the Stazy with a broad smile that displayed a toothless cavity of a mouth. His red-rimmed eyes were moist looking, not to say bleary. Ruth smelled a distinct alcoholic odor on his breath. A complete drouth had evidently not struck this part of the State of Maine.

"Good day to ye!" said the hermit. "Some o' you young folks I ain't never seed before."

"They are my friends," Cora hastened to explain, "and they come from Beach Plum Point."

"Do tell! If you air goin' back to-night, better make a good v'y'ge of it. We're due for a blow, I allow. You folks ain't stoppin' right on the p'int, be ye?"

Ruth, to whom he addressed this last question, answered that they were, and explained that there was a large camp there this season, and why.

"Wal, wal! I want to know! Somebody did say something to me about a gang of movin' picture folks comin' there; but I reckoned they was a-foolin' me."

"There is a good sized party of us," acknowledged Ruth.

"Wal, wal! Mebbe that fella I let my shack to will make out well, then, after all. Warn't no sign of ye on the beach when I left three weeks ago".

"Did you live there on the point?" asked Ruth.

"Allus do winters. But the pickin's is better over here at the Harbor at this time of year."

"And the man you left in your place? Where is your house on the point?"

The hermit "for revenue only" described the hut on the eastern shore in which the other "hermit" lived. Ruth became much interested.

"Tell me," she said, while the others examined the curios the hermit had for sale, "what kind of man is this you left in your house? And who is he?"

"Law bless ye!" said the old man. "I don't know him from Adam's off ox. Never seed him afore. But he was trampin' of it; and he didn't have much money. An' to tell you the truth, Miss, that hutch of mine ain't wuth much money."

She described the man who had been playing the hermit since the Alectrion Film Corporation crowd had come to Beach Plum Point.

"That's the fella," said the old man, nodding.

Ruth stood aside while he waited on his customers and digested these statements regarding the man who claimed the authorship of the scenario of "Plain Mary."

Not that Ruth would have desired to acknowledge the scenario in its present form. She felt angry every time she thought of how her plot had been mangled.

But she was glad to learn all that was known about the Beach Plum Point hermit. And she had learned one most important fact.

He was not a regular hermit. As Jennie Stone suggested, he was not a "union hermit" at all. And he was a stranger to the neighborhood of Herringport. If he had been at the Point only three weeks, as this old man said, "John, the hermit," might easily have come since Ruth's scenario was stolen back there at the Red Mill!

Her thoughts began to mill again about this possibility. She wished she was back at the camp so as to put the strange old man through a cross-examination regarding himself and where he had come from. She had no suspicion as to how Mr. Hammond had so signally failed in this very matter.



CHAPTER XXII

AN ARRIVAL

Mr. Hammond was in no placid state of mind himself after the peculiarly acting individual who called himself "John, the hermit," left his office. The very fact that the man refused to tell anything about his personal affairs—who he really was, or where he came from—induced the moving picture producer to believe there must be something wrong about him.

Mr. Hammond went to the door of the shack and watched the man tramping up the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the old-time tragedian, made famous by the Henry Irving school of actors.

"An ancient 'ham' sure enough, just as the boys say," muttered the manager.

The so-called hermit disappeared. The moving picture people were gathering for dinner. The sun, although still above the horizon, was dimmed by cloud-banks which were rising steadily to meet clouds over the sea.

A wan light played upon the heaving "graybacks" outside the mouth of the harbor. The wind whined among the pines which grew along the ridge of Beach Plum Point.

A storm was imminent. Just as Mr. Hammond took note of this and wished that Ruth Fielding and her party had returned, a snorting automobile rattled along the shell road and halted near the camp.

"Is this the Alectrion Film Company?" asked a shrill voice.

"This is the place, Miss," said the driver of the small car.

The chauffeur ran his jitney from the railroad station and was known to Mr. Hammond. The latter went nearer.

Out of the car stepped a girl—a very young girl to be traveling alone. She was dressed in extreme fashion, but very cheaply. Her hair was bobbed and she wore a Russian blouse of cheap silk. Her skirt was very narrow, her cloth boots very high, and the heels of them were like those of Jananese clogs.

What with the skimpy skirt and the high heels she could scarcely walk. She was laden with two bags—one an ancient carpet-bag that must have been seventy-five years old, and the other a bright tan one of imitation leather with brass clasps. She wore a coal-scuttle hat pulled down over her eyes so that her face was quite extinguished.

Altogether her get-up was rather startling. Mr. Hammond saw Jim Hooley come out of his tent to stare at the new arrival. She certainly was a "type."

There was a certain kind of prettiness about the girl, and aside from her incongruous garments she was not unattractive—when her face was revealed. Mr. Hammond's interest increased. He approached the spot where the girl had been left by the jitney driver.

"You came to see somebody?" he asked kindly. "Who is it you wish to see?"

"Is this the moving picture camp, Mister?" she returned.

"Yes," said the manager, smiling. "Are you acquainted with somebody who works here?"

"Yes. I am Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice," said the girl, with an air that seemed to show that she expected to be recognized when she had recited her name.

Mr. Hammond refrained from open laughter. He only said:

"Why—that is nice. I am glad to meet you, my dear. Who are you looking for?"

"I want to see my pa, of course. I guess you know who he is?"

"I am not sure that I do, my dear."

"You don't—Say! who are you?" demanded Bella, with some sharpness.

"I am only the manager of the company. Who is your father, child?"

"Well, of all the—— Wouldn't that give you your nevergitovers!" exclaimed Bella, in broad amazement. "Say! I guess my pa is your leading man."

"Mr. Hasbrouck? Impossible!"

"Never heard of him," said Bella, promptly. "Montague Fitzmaurice, I mean."

"And I never heard of him," declared Mr. Hammond, both puzzled and amused.

"What?" gasped the girl, almost stunned by this statement. "Maybe you know him as Mr. Pike. That is our honest-to-goodness name—Pike."

"I am sorry that you are disappointed, my dear," said the manager kindly. "But don't be worried. If you expected to meet your father here, perhaps he will come later. But really, I have no such person as that on my staff at the present time."

"I don't know—— Why!" cried Bella, "he sent me money and said he was working here. I—I didn't tell him I was coming. I just got sick of those Perkinses, and I took the money and went to Boston and got dressed up, and then came on here. I—I just about spent all the money he sent me to get here."

"Well, that was perhaps unwise," said Mr. Hammond. "But don't worry. Come along now to Mother Paisley. She will look out for you—and you can stay with us until your father appears. There is some mistake somewhere."

By this speech he warded off tears. Bella hastily winked them back and squared her thin shoulders.

"All right, sir," she said, picking up the bags again. "Pa will make it all right with you. He wrote in his letter as if he had a good engagement."

Mr. Hammond might have learned something further about this surprising girl at the time, but just as he introduced her to Mother Paisley one of the men came running from the point and hailed him:

"Mr. Hammond! There's a boat in trouble off the point. I think she was making for this harbor. Have you got a pair of glasses?"

Mr. Hammond had a fine pair of opera glasses, and he produced them from his desk while he asked:

"What kind of boat is it, Maxwell?"

"Looks like that blue motor that Miss Fielding and her friends went off in this morning. We saw it coming along at top speed. And suddenly it stopped. They can't seem to manage it——"

The manager hurried with Maxwell along the sands. The sky was completely overcast now, and the wind whipped the spray from the wave tops into their faces. The weather looked dubious indeed, and the manager of the film corporation was worried before even he focused his glasses upon the distant motor-boat.



CHAPTER XXIII

TROUBLE—PLENTY

Even Ruth Fielding had paid no attention to the warning of the Reef Island hermit regarding a change in the weather, in spite of the fact that she was anxious to return to the camp near Herringport. It was not until the Stazy was outside the inlet late in the afternoon that Skipper Phil Gordon noted the threatening signs in sea and sky.

"That's how it goes," the one-armed mariner said. "When we aren't dependent on the wind to fill our canvas, we neglect watching every little weather change. She's going to blow by and by."

"Do you think it will be a real storm?" asked Ruth, who sat beside him at the steering wheel and engine, watching how he managed the mechanism.

"Maybe. But with good luck we will make Beach Plum Point long before it amounts to anything."

The long graybacks were rather pleasant to ride over at first. Even Aunt Kate was not troubled by the prospect. It was so short a run to the anchorage behind the Point that nobody expressed fear.

When the spray began to fly over the bows the girls merely squealed a bit, although they hastily found extra wraps. If the Stazy plunged and shipped half a sea now and then, nobody was made anxious. And soon the Point was in plain view.

To make the run easier, however, Skipper Gordon had sailed the motor-yacht well out to sea. When he shifted the helm to run for the entrance to the bay, the waves began to slap against the Stazy's side. She rolled terrifically and the aspect of affairs was instantly changed.

"Oh, dear me!" moaned Jennie Stone. "How do you feel, Henri? I did not bargain for this rough stuff, did you? Oh!"

"'Mister Captain, stop the ship, I want to get off and walk!'" sang Helen gaily. "Don't lose all hope, Heavy. You'll never sink if you do go overboard."

"Isn't she mean?" sniffed the plump girl. "And I am only afraid for Henri's sake."

"I don't like this for my own sake," murmured Aunt Kate.

"Are you cold, dear?" her niece asked, with quick sympathy. "Here! I don't really need this cape with my heavy sweater."

She removed the heavy cloth garment from her own shoulders and with a flirt sought to place it around Aunt Kate. The wind swooped down just then with sudden force. The Stazy rolled to leeward.

"Oh! Stop it!"

Bulging under pressure of the wind, the cape flew over the rail. Jennie tried to clutch it again; Henri plunged after it, too. Colliding, the two managed between them to miss the garment altogether. It dropped into the water just under the rail.

"Of all the clumsy fingers!" ejaculated Helen. But she could not seize the wrap, although she darted for it. Nor could Ruth help, she being still farther forward.

"Now, you've done it!" complained Aunt Kate.

The boat began to rise on another roller. The cape was sucked out of sight under the rail. The next moment the whirling propeller was stopped—so abruptly that the Stazy shook all over.

"Oh! what has happened?" shrieked Helen.

Ruth started up, and Tom seized her arm to steady her. But the girl of the Red Mill did not express any fear. The shock did not seem to affect her so much as it did the other girls. Here was a real danger, and Ruth did not lose her self-possession.

Phil Gordon had shut off the power, and the motor-boat began to swing broadside to the rising seas.

"The propeller is broken!" cried Tom.

"She's jammed. That cape!" gasped the one-armed skipper. "Here! Tend to this till I see what can be done. Jack!" he shouted to his crew. "This way—lively, now!"

But Ruth slipped into his place before Tom could do so.

"I know how to steer, Tommy," she declared. "And I understand the engine. Give him a hand if he needs you."

"Oh, we'll turn turtle!" shrieked Jennie, as the boat rolled again.

"You'll never become a turtle, Jen," declared Tom, plunging aft. "Turtles are dumb!"

The Stazy was slapped by a big wave, "just abaft the starboard bow," to be real nautical, and half a ton of sea-water washed over the forward deck and spilled into the standing-room of the craft.

Henri had wisely closed the door of the cabin. The water foamed about their feet. Ruth found herself knee deep for a moment in this flood. She whirled the wheel over, trying to bring up the head of the craft to meet the next wave.

"Oh, my dear!" groaned Jennie Stone. "We are going to be drowned."

"Drowned, your granny!" snapped Helen angrily. "Don't be such a silly, Jennie."

Ruth stood at the wheel with more apparent calmness than any of them. Her hair had whipped out of its fastenings and streamed over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks aglow.

Helen, staring at her, suddenly realized that this was the old Ruth Fielding. Her chum had not looked so much alive, so thoroughly competent and ready for anything, before for weeks.

"Why—why, Ruthie!" Helen murmured, "I believe you like this."

Her chum did not hear the words, but she suddenly flashed Helen a brilliant smile. "Keep up your pluck, child!" she shouted. "We'll come out all right."

Again the Stazy staggered under the side swipe of a big wave.

"Ye-ow!" yelped Tom in the stern, almost diving overboard.

"Steady!" shouted Skipper Gordon, excitedly.

"Steady she is, Captain!" rejoined Ruth Fielding, and actually laughed.

"How can you, Ruth?" complained Jennie, clinging to Henri Marchand. "And when we are about to drown."

"Weeping will not save us," flung back Ruth.

Her strong hands held the wheel-spokes with a grip unbreakable. She could force the Stazy's head to the seas.

"Can you start the engine on the reverse, Miss?" bawled Gordon.

"I can try!" flashed Ruth. "Say when."

In a moment the cry came: "Ready!"

"Aye, aye!" responded Ruth, spinning the flywheel.

The spark caught almost instantly. The exhaust sputtered.

"Now!" yelled the skipper.

Ruth threw the lever. The boat trembled like an automobile under the propulsion of the engine. The propeller shaft groaned.

"Ye-ow!" shouted the excited Tom again.

This time he sprawled back into the bottom of the boat, tearing away a good half of Jennie's cape in his grip. The rest of the garment floated to the surface. It was loose from the propeller.

"Full speed ahead!" shouted the one-armed captain of the motor-boat.

Ruth obeyed the command. The Stazy staggered into the next wave. The water that came in over her bow almost drowned them, but Ruth, hanging to the steering wheel, brought the craft through the roller without swamping her.

"Good for our Ruth!" shouted Helen, as soon as she could get her breath.

"Oh, Ruth! you always come to our rescue," declared Jennie gratefully.

"Hi! I thought you were a nervous wreck, young lady," Tom sputtered, scrambling forward to relieve her. "Get you into a tight corner, and you show what you are made of, all right."

The girl of the Red Mill smiled at them. She had done something! Nor did she feel at all overcome by the effort. The danger through which they had passed had inspired rather than frightened her.

"Why, I'm all right," she told Tom when he reached her. "This is great! We'll be behind the shelter of the Point in a few minutes. There's nothing to worry about."

"You're all right, Ruth," Tom repeated, admiringly. "I thought you'd lost your grip, but I see you haven't. You are the same old Ruthie Fielding, after all."



CHAPTER XXIV

ABOUT "PLAIN MARY"

Mr. Hammond and the actors with him had no idea of the nature of the accident that had happened to the Stazy. From the extreme end of Beach Plum Point they could merely watch proceedings aboard the craft, and wonder what it was all about.

The manager could, however, see through his glasses that Ruth Fielding was at the wheel. Her face came out clear as a cameo when he focused the opera glasses upon her. And at the change in the girl's expression he marveled.

Those ashore could do nothing to aid the party on the motor-yacht; and until it got under way again Mr. Hammond was acutely anxious. It rolled so that he expected it to turn keel up at almost any moment.

Before the blasts of rain began to sweep across the sea, however, the Stazy was once more under control. At that most of the spectators made for the camp and shelter. But the manager of the film corporation waited to see the motor-yacht inside the shelter of Beach Plum Point.

The rain was falling heavily, and not merely in gusts, when Ruth and her friends came ashore in the small boat. The lamps were lit and dinner was over at the main camp. Therefore the automobile touring party failed to see Bella Pike or hear about her arrival. By this time the girl had gone off to the main dormitory with Mother Paisley, and even Mr. Hammond did not think of her.

Nor did the manager speak that evening to Ruth about the hermit's scenario or his interview with the old man regarding it.

The three girls and Aunt Kate changed their clothing in the little shack and then joined the young men in the dining room for a late supper. Aunt Kate was to stay this night at the camp. There was a feeling of much thankfulness in all their hearts over their escape from what might have been a serious accident.

"Providence was good to us," said Aunt Kate. "I hope we are all properly grateful."

"And properly proud of Ruthie!" exclaimed Helen, squeezing her chum's hand.

"Don't throw too many bouquets," laughed Ruth. "It was not I that tore Jennie's cape out of the propeller. I merely obeyed the skipper's orders."

"She is a regular Cheerful Grig again, isn't she?" demanded Jennie, beaming on Ruth.

"I have been a wet blanket on this party long enough. I just begin to realize how very unpleasant I have been——"

"Not that, Mademoiselle!" objected Henri.

"But yes! Hereafter I will be cheerful. Life is worth living after all!"

Tom, who sat next to her at table (he usually managed to do that) smiled at Ruth approvingly.

"Bravo!" he whispered. "There are other scenarios to write."

"Tom!" she whispered sharply, "I want to tell you something about that."

"About what?"

"My scenario."

"You don't mean——"

"I mean I know what has become of it."

"Never!" gasped Tom. "Are you—are—you——"

"I am not 'non compos,' and-so-forth," laughed Ruth. "Oh, there is nothing foolish about this, Tom. Let me tell you."

She spoke in so low a tone that the others could not have heard had they desired to. She and Tom put their heads together and within the next few minutes Ruth had told him all about the hermit's scenario and her conviction that he had stolen his idea and a large part of his story from Ruth's lost manuscript.

"It seems almost impossible, Ruth," gasped her friend.

"No. Not impossible or improbable. Listen to what that man on Reef Island told me about this hermit, so-called." And she repeated it all to the excited Tom. "I am convinced," pursued Ruth, "that this hermit could easily have been in the vicinity of the Red Mill on the day my manuscript disappeared."

"But to prove it!" cried Tom.

"We'll see about that," said Ruth confidently. "You know, Ben told us he had seen and spoken to a tramp-actor that day. Uncle Jabez saw him, too. And you, Tom, followed his trail to the Cheslow railroad yards."

"So I did," admitted her friend.

"I believe," went on Ruth earnestly, "that this man who came here to live on Beach Plum Point only three weeks ago, is that very vagrant. It is plain that this fellow is playing the part of a hermit, just as he plays the parts Mr. Hooley casts him for."

"Whew!" whistled Tom. "Almost do you convince me, Ruth Fielding. But to prove it is another thing."

"We will prove it. If this man was at the Red Mill on that particular day, we can make sure of the fact."

"How will you do it, Ruth?"

"By getting one of the camera men to take a 'still' of the hermit, develop it for us, and send the negative to Ben. He and Uncle Jabez must remember how that traveling actor looked——"

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Tom, jumping up to the amazement of the rest of the party. "That's a bully idea."

"What is it?" demanded Helen. "Let us in on it, too."

But Ruth shook her head and Tom calmed down.

"Can't tell the secret yet," Helen's twin declared. "That would spoil it."

"Oh! A surprise! I love surprises," said Jennie Stone.

"I don't. Not when my chum and my brother have a secret from me and won't let me in on it," and Helen turned her back upon them in apparent indignation.

After that Ruth and Tom discussed the matter with more secrecy. Ruth said in conclusion:

"If he was there at the mill the day my story was stolen, and now submits this scenario to Mr. Hammond—and it is merely a re-hash of mine, Tom, I assure you——"

"Of course I believe you, Ruth," rejoined the young fellow.

"Mr. Hammond should be convinced, too," said the girl.

But there was a point that Tom saw very clearly and which Ruth Fielding did not seem to appreciate. She still had no evidence to corroborate her claim that the hermit's story of "Plain Mary" was plagiarized from her manuscript.

For, after all, nobody but Ruth herself knew what her scenario had been like!



CHAPTER XXV

LIFTING THE CURTAIN

Ruth slept peacefully and awoke the next morning in a perfectly serene frame of mind. She was quite as convinced as ever that she had been robbed of her scenario; and she was, as well, sure that "John, the hermit," had produced his picture play from her manuscript. But Ruth no longer felt anxious and excited about it.

She clearly saw her way to a conclusion of the matter. If the old actor was identified by Ben and Uncle Jabez as the tramp they had seen and conversed with, the girl of the Red Mill was pretty sure she would get the best of the thief.

In the first place she considered her idea and her scenario worth much more than five hundred dollars. If by no other means, she would buy the hermit's story at the price Mr. Hammond was willing to pay for it—and a little more if necessary. And if possible she would force the old actor to hand over to her the script that she had lost.

Thus was her mind made up, and she approached the matter in all cheerfulness. She had said nothing to anybody but Tom, and she did not see him early in the morning. One of the stewards brought the girls' breakfast to the shack; so they knew little of what went on about the camp at that time.

The rain had ceased. The storm had passed on completely. Soon after breakfast Ruth saw the man who called himself "John, the hermit," making straight for Mr. Hammond's office.

That was where Ruth wished to be. She wanted to confront the man before the president of the film corporation. She started over that way and ran into the most surprising incident!

Coming out of the cook tent with a huge apron enveloping her queer, tight dress and tilting forward upon her high heels, appeared Bella Pike! Ruth Fielding might have met somebody whose presence here would have surprised her more, but at the moment she could not imagine who it could be.

"Ara-bella!" gasped Ruth.

The child turned to stare her own amazement. She changed color, too, for she knew she had done wrong to run away; but she smiled with both eyes and lips, for she was glad to see Ruth.

"My mercy!" she ejaculated. "If it ain't Miss Fielding! How-do, Miss Fielding? Ain't it enough to give one their nevergitovers to see you here?"

"And how do you suppose I feel to find you here at Beach Plum Point," demanded Ruth, "when we all thought you were so nicely fixed with Mr. and Mrs. Perkins? And Mrs. Holmes wrote to me only the other day that you seemed contented."

"That's right, Miss Fielding," sighed the actor's child. "I was. And Miz Perkins was always nice to me. Nothing at all like Aunt Suse Timmins. But, you see, they ain't like pa."

"Did your father bring you here?"

"No'm."

"Nor send for you?"

"Not exactly," confessed Bella.

"Well!"

"You see, he sent me money. Only on Tuesday. Forty dollars."

"Forty dollars! And to a child like you?"

"Well, Miss Fielding, if he had sent it to Aunt Suse I'd never have seen a penny of it. And pa didn't know what you'd done for me and how you'd put me with Miz Perkins."

"I suppose that is so," admitted the surprised Ruth. "But why did you come here?"

"'Cause pa wrote he had an engagement here. I came through Boston, an' got me a dress, and some shoes, and a hat—all up to date—and I thought I'd surprise pa——"

"But, Bella! I haven't seen your father here, have I?"

"No. There's a mistake somehow. But this nice Miz Paisley says for me not to worry. That like enough pa will come here yet."

"I never!" ejaculated Ruth. "Come right along with me, Bella, and see Mr. Hammond. Something must be done. Of course, Mrs. Perkins and the doctor's wife have no idea where you have gone?"

"Oh, yes'm. I left a note telling 'em I'd gone to meet pa."

"But we must send them a message that you are all right. Come on, Bella!" and with her arm about the child's thin shoulders, Ruth urged her to Mr. Hammond's office—and directly into her father's arms!

This was how Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike came to meet her father—in a most amazing fashion!

"Pa! I never did!" half shrieked the queer child.

"Arabella! Here? How strange!" observed the man who had been acting the part of the Beach Plum Point hermit. "My child!"

Mr. Pike could do nothing save in a dramatic way. He seized Bella and hugged her to his bosom in a most stagy manner. But Ruth saw that the man's gray eyes were moist, that his hands when he seized the girl really trembled, and he kissed Bella with warmth.

"I declare!" exclaimed Mr. Hammond. "So your name is something-or-other-Fitzmaurice Pike?"

"John Pike, if it please you. The other is for professional purposes only," said Bella's father. "If you do not mind, sir," he added, "we will postpone our discussion until a later time. I—I would take my daughter to my poor abode and learn of her experience in getting here to Beach Plum Point."

"Go as far as you like, Mr. Pike. But remember there has got to be a settlement later of this matter we were discussing," said the manager sternly.

The actor and his daughter departed, the former giving Ruth a very curious look indeed. Mr. Hammond turned a broad smile upon the girl of the Red Mill.

"What do you know about that?" Mr. Hammond demanded. "Why, Miss Ruth, yours seems to have been a very good guess. That fellow is an old-timer and no mistake."

"My guess was good in more ways than one," said Ruth. "I believe I can prove that this Pike was at the Red Mill on the day my scenario was stolen."

She told the manager briefly of the discovery she had made through the patriarchal old fellow on Reef Island the day before, and of her intention of sending a photograph of Pike back home for identification.

"Good idea!" declared Mr. Hammond. "I will speak to Mr. Hooley. There are 'stills' on file of all the people he is using here on the lot at the present time. If you are really sure this man's story is a plagiarism on your own——"

She smiled at him. "I can prove that, too, I think, to your satisfaction. I feel now that I can sit down and roughly sketch my whole scenario again. I must confess that in two places in this 'Plain Mary' this man Pike has really improved on my idea. But as a whole his manuscript does not flatter my story. You'll see!"

"Truly, you are a different young woman this morning, Miss Ruth!" exclaimed her friend. "I hope this matter will be settled in a way satisfactory to you. I really think there is the germ of a splendid picture in this 'Plain Mary.'"

"And believe me!" laughed Ruth, "the germ is mine. You'll see," she repeated.

She proved her point, and Mr. Hammond did see; but the outcome was through quite unexpected channels. Ruth did not have to threaten the man who had made her all the trouble. John M. F. Pike made his confession of his own volition when they discussed the matter that very day.

"I feel, Miss Fielding, after all that you did for my child, that I cannot go on with this subterfuge that, for Bella's sake, I was tempted to engage in. I did seize upon your manuscript in that summer-house near the mill where they say you live, and I was prepared to make the best use of it possible for Bella's sake.

"We have had such bad luck! Poverty for one's self is bad enough. I have withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for years. But my child is growing up——"

"Would you want her to grow up to know that her father is a thief?" Ruth demanded hotly.

"Hunger under the belt gnaws more potently than conscience," said Pike, with a grandiloquent gesture. "I had sought alms and been refused at that mill. Lurking about I saw you leave the summer-house and spied the gold pen. I can give you a pawn ticket for that," said Mr. Pike sadly. "But I saw, too, the value of your scenario and notes. Desperately I had determined to try to enter this field of moving pictures. It is a terrible come down, Miss Fielding, for an artist—this mugging before the camera."

He went on in his roundabout way to tell her that he had no idea of the ownership of the scenario. Her name was not on it, and he had not observed her face that day at the Red Mill. And in his mind all the time had been his own and his child's misery.

"It was a bold attempt to forge success through dishonesty," he concluded with humility.

Whether Ruth was altogether sure that Pike was quite honest in his confession or not, for Bella's sake she could not be harsh with the old actor. Nor could he, Ruth believed, be wholly bad when he loved his child so much.

As he turned over to Ruth every scrap of manuscript, as well as the notebooks she had lost, she need not worry about establishing her ownership of the script.

When Mr. Hammond had examined her material he agreed with Ruth that in two quite important places Bella's father had considerably improved the original idea of the story.

This gave Ruth the lead she had been looking for. Mr. Hammond admitted that the story was much too fine and too important to be filmed here at this summer camp. He decided to make a great spectacular production of it at the company's main studio later in the fall.

So Ruth proceeded to force Bella's father to accept two hundred dollars in payment for what he had done on the story. As her contract with Mr. Hammond called for a generous royalty, she would make much more out of the scenario than the sum John Pike had hoped to get by selling the stolen idea to Mr. Hammond.

The prospects of Bella and her father were vastly improved, too. His work as a "type" for picture makers would gain him a much better livelihood than he had been able to earn in the legitimate field. And when Ruth and her party left Beach Plum Point camp for home in their automobiles, Bella herself was working in a two-reel comedy that Mr. Hooley was directing.

"Well, thank goodness!" sighed Helen, "Ruth has settled affairs for two more of her 'waifs and strays.' Now don't, I beg, find anybody else to become interested in during our trip back to the Red Mill, Ruthie."

Ruth was sitting beside Tom on the front seat of the big touring car. He looked at her sideways with a whimsical little smile.

"I wish you would turn over a new leaf, Ruthie," he whispered.

"And what is to be on that new leaf?" she asked brightly.

"Just me. Pay a little attention to yours truly. Remember that in a week I shall go aboard the transport again, and then——"

"Oh, Tom!" she murmured, clasping her hands, "I don't want to think of it. If this awful war would only end!"

"It's the only war so far that hasn't ended," he said. "And I have a feeling, anyway, that it may not last long. Henri and I have got to hurry back to finish it up. Leave it to us, Ruth," and he smiled.

But Ruth sighed. "I suppose I shall have to, Tommy-boy," she said. "And do finish it quickly! I do not feel as though I could return to college, or write another scenario, or do a single, solitary thing until peace is declared."

"And then?" asked Tom, significantly.

Ruth gave him an understanding smile.

THE END



* * * * *



THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES By ALICE B. EMERSON 12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid

Ruth Fielding will live in juvenile Fiction.

RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL or Jasper Parloe's Secret

RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL or Solving the Campus Mystery

RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP or Lost in the Backwoods

RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT or Nita, the Girl Castaway

RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys

RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box

RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM or What Became of the Raby Orphans

RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES or The Missing Pearl Necklace

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES or Helping the Dormitory Fund

RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE or Great Days in the Land of Cotton

RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE or The Missing Examination Papers

RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE or College Girls in the Land of Gold

RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam

RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier

RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND or A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils

RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point

RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies

RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands

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