CHAPTER XXIV
TREASURE HUNTING
The freshmen shell was well around the end of Bliss Island and behindit, before the squall broke. Pulling into the rising gale as they wereand the water being always a little rough here, at first none of RuthFielding's associates in the craft realized that there was the leastdanger.
They were well off shore, for near the island the water was shallow andthere were rocks. These rowing shells are made so lightly that a merescraping of the keel over a sunken boulder would probably completelywreck the craft, and well the girls knew this.
Trix Davenport steered well out from the dangerous shallows. "Pull away,girls!" she shouted through her megaphone. "It's going to blow."
And just then the real squall swept down upon them. Ruth, althoughsetting a good, long stroke, found of a sudden that the shell wasscarcely moving ahead. The wind was so strong that they were onlyholding their own against it.
"Pull!" shouted the coxswain again.
Ruth bent forward, braced her feet firmly and drove the long oar-bladedeep into the jumping little waves. Those waves quickly became largerand "jumpier." A white wreath formed upon their crests. The shell in avery few seconds was in the midst of white water.
Once with Uncle Jabez, and in a heavy punt, the girl of the Red Mill hadbeen caught in the rapids of the Lumano below the mill, and had foughtwith skill and courage to help save the boat. This effort was soon to beas great--and she realized it.
She set a pace that drove the shell on in the teeth of the squall; butthe boat shivered with every stroke. It was as though they were tryingto push the narrow, frail little shell into a solid wall.
In pulling her oar Ruth scarcely ever raised her eyes to a level withthe coxswain's face; but when she chanced to, she saw that Trix waspallid and her eyes were clouded with fear.
Ruth hoped none of the other girls saw that mask of dread which thesituation had forced upon their little coxswain. She wanted to cry outto Trix--to warn her to hide her emotion. But she had no breath to sparefor this.
Every ounce of breath and of muscle she owned, Ruth put into her stroke.She felt the rhythmic spring of the craft, and knew that her mates werekeeping well up with her. They were doing their part bravely, eventhough they might be frightened.
And then, suddenly and fortunately, the freshman craft found a shelteredbit of water. A high shoulder of the hilly island broke the force of thewind.
"Ashore! Put us ashore!" Ruth managed to gasp so that Trix heard her.
"We--we'll wreck the shell!" complained Trix. "It's so shallow."
"We'll not drown in shallow water," ejaculated Ruth, expelling the wordsbetween strokes.
The coxswain shot them shoreward. She caught a glimpse of another boatpulled up on the beach--the skiff they had earlier seen rounding thepoint of the island.
In thirty seconds they were safe. The rain began to pour down upon themin a brisk torrent. But that did not matter.
"Rather be half drowned in the rain than wholly drowned in the lake!"Jennie Stone declared, as they scrambled out into the shallow water,more than ankle deep, and lifted the treacherous shell out of the lake.
"Goodness! what a near one that was!" Helen declared.
Ruth looked at the skiff drawn up on the shore, and then up into thegrove of trees.
"I wonder where the girl is who was in that boat?" she said.
"Was it a girl?" asked Helen, with interest.
"Yes. She must have found shelter somewhere from this rain. Come on! Wemay be able to keep reasonably dry up there in the woods."
The other girls followed Ruth, for she was naturally their leader. Therain continued to beat down upon them; but before they reached theopening in which was situated the Stone Face, Ruth spied an evergreen,the drooping branches of which offered them reasonable shelter.
"Come on into the green tent, girls!" shouted Jennie Stone, plunginginto the dimly lighted circle under the tree. "Oh! Goodness! What'sthat?"
"A dog!"
"A cow! and I'm afraid of co-o-ows!" wailed Sally Blanchard, seizingupon Ruth as the nearest savior.
"Don't be silly, child," vouchsafed Helen, who had followed Jennie. "Howwould a cow come upon this island--a mile from shore?"
"Or a dog?" laughed Ruth. "What _did_ you see, Jennie Stone?"
"She just tried to fool us," Helen declared.
"Didn't either," the stout girl said warmly. "Something ran out at thefar side as I came in."
"An animal?" gasped Trix Davenport.
"Well," returned Jennie Stone, "it certainly wasn't a vegetable. Atleast, I never saw a vegetable run as fast as that thing did."
"You needn't try to scare us to death, Heavy," complained Helen. "Ofcourse it must have been the girl Ruth said came ashore in that skiff."
"Well, I didn't think of her," admitted Jennie. "But she ran like aferret. I'd like to know who she is."
"Remember the girl we found over here that night in the snowstorm?"whispered Helen to Ruth. "The girl who looked like that Maggie?"
"Oh, don't I!" exclaimed Ruth, shaking her head.
"What do you suppose _she_ was after--and what is this one over here onthe island for?" pursued Helen, languidly.
Ruth made no reply, but her cheeks flushed and her eyes grew brighter.She stooped and peered out at the decreasing rainfall. There was a pathleading straight toward the Stone Face. Had this girl whom Jennie hadseen gone in that direction?
The other members of the freshman crew were so inordinately busychattering and laughing and telling jokes and stories that nobody forthe moment noticed Ruth Fielding, who stole out from the covert throughthe fast slackening rainfall without saying a word. Lightly running overthe crest of the hill, she came in sight of the huge boulder at whichshe and Helen had experienced their never-to-be-forgotten adventure thewinter before.
She saw nobody at the foot of the boulder, but she pressed on to theedge of the grove to make sure. And then she saw that somebody hadcertainly and very recently been at work near the boulder.
There was a pickaxe--perhaps the very one she had seen there in thewinter--and a shovel. Some attempt had been made to dig over thegravelly soil for some yards from the foot of the boulder.
"Goodness me! what can this mean?" thought the girl of the Red Mill."Something must be buried here! Treasure hunters! Fancy!" and shelaughed a little uncertainly. "Can somebody believe that this is one ofthe hiding places of Captain Kidd's gold? Who ever heard the like?"
The rain ceased falling. There was a tooting of a horn down behind theisland. The launch had come in sight of the shell and Miss Mallory wastrying to signal the girls to return to the shore.
But Ruth did not go back. She heard the girls shout for her, but insteadof complying she went straight across to the Stone Face and picked upthe heavy pickaxe.
"I don't believe whoever has been digging has found anything yet," shetold herself. "No. She's been here before--for, of course, it is thatgirl. She couldn't have dug all this over in a few minutes. No. She hasbeen here and dug unsuccessfully. Then she has come back to-day foranother attempt at--at the treasure, shall we call it? Well!"
There was already an excavation more than a foot in depth and severalyards in circumference. Whatever it was the strange girl had been aftershe was not quite sure of its burial place.
In the winter when she had essayed to dig for the hidden thing there hadbeen too much frost in the ground. Besides, doubtless Ruth and Helen'sinquisitiveness had frightened the strange girl away. Now she was backagain--somewhere now on Bliss Island. She had not accomplished herpurpose as yet. Ruth smote the hard ground at her feet with all herstrength. The pick sunk to its helve in the earth, now softened by thespring rain.
"Oh! I hit something!" she gasped.
In all probability she would not have continued to dig had this successnot met her at the beginning. Really, her swinging of the pickaxe hadbeen idly done. But the steel rang sharply on something. She raised thepick and used it thereafter more cautio
usly. There certainly wassomething below the surface--not very far down----
Dropping the pickaxe, Ruth gained possession of the shovel and threwaside the loose earth. Yes! there was some object hidden there--some"treasure" which she desired to see.
In a few moments, becoming impatient of the shovel, she cast it asideand stooping, with her feet planted firmly in the muddy earth, shegroped in the hole with both hands.
Before she dragged the object into sight Ruth Fielding was positive byits shape and the feel of it, of the nature of the object. As she roseup at last, firmly grasping the object, a sharp voice said behind her:
"Well, now that you've interfered and found it, suppose you hand it overto me. You haven't any business with that vase, you know!"