Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island by Alice Emerson

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The truth was, as Heavy Stone said, Dr. Tellingham had to remove his
collar to brush his hair--there really was so little of it.

"Dear, dear!" sputtered the historian, peering at the two girls over his
reading glasses. "You don't want me, of course?"

"Oh, no, Dr. Tellingham. This is a new girl. We wished to see Mrs.
Tellingham," Ruth assured him.

"Quite so," he said, briskly. "She is--Ah! she comes! My dear! Two of the
young ladies to see you," and instantly he was buried in his books
again--that is, buried all but his shining crown.

Mrs. Tellingham was a graceful, gray-haired lady, with a charming smile.
She trailed her black robe across the carpet and stooped to kiss Ruth
warmly, for she not only respected the junior, but had learned to love
her.

"Welcome, Miss Fielding!" she said, kindly. "I am glad to see you back.
And this is the girl I have been getting letters about--Miss Hicks?"

"Ann Hicks," responded Ruth, firmly. "That is the name she wishes to be
known by, dear Mrs. Tellingham."

"I don't know who could be writing you but Uncle Bill," said Ann Hicks,
blunderingly. "And I expect he's told you a-plenty."

"I think 'Uncle Bill' must be the most recklessly generous man in the
world, my dear," observed Mrs. Tellingham, taking and holding one of Ann's
brown hands, and looking closely at the western girl.

For a moment the new girl blushed and her own eyes shone. "You bet he is!
I--I beg pardon," she stammered. "Uncle Bill is all right."

"And Jennie Stone's Aunt Kate has been writing me about you, too. It seems
she was much interested in you when you visited their place at Lighthouse
Point."

"She's very kind," murmured the new girl.

"And Mrs. Murchiston, Helen's governess, has spoken a good word for you,"
added the preceptress.

"Why--why I didn't know so many people _cared_," stammered Ann.

"You see, you have a way of making friends unconsciously. I can see that,"
Mrs. Tellingham said, kindly. "Now, do not be discouraged. You will make
friends among the girls in just the same way. Don't mind their banter for
a while. The rough edges will soon rub off----"

"But there _are_ rough edges," admitted the western girl, hanging her
head.

"Don't mind. There are such in most girls' characters and they show up
when first they come to school. Keep cheerful. Come to me if you are in
real trouble--and stick close to Miss Fielding, here. I can't give you any
better advice than that," added Mrs. Tellingham, with a laugh.

Then she was ready to listen to Ruth's plea that the room next to The Fox
and her chums be given up to Ruth, Helen, Mercy and the new girl.

"We love our little room; but it was crowded with Mercy last half; and we
could all get along splendidly in a quartette room," said Ruth.

"All right," agreed the principal. "I'll telephone to Miss Scrimp and Miss
Picolet. Now, go and see about getting settled, young ladies. I expect
much of you this half, Ruth Fielding. As for Ann, I shall take her in hand
myself on Monday and see what classes she would best enter."

"She's fine," declared Ann Hicks, when they were outside again. "I can get
along with her. But how about the girls?"

"They'll be nice to you, too--after a bit. Of course, everybody new has to
expect some hazing. Thank your stars that you won't have to be put through
the initiation of the marble harp," and she pointed to a marble figure in
the tiny Italian garden in the middle of the campus.

When Ann wanted to know what _that_ meant, Ruth repeated the legend as all
new girls at Briarwood must learn it. But Ruth and her friends had long
since agreed that no other nervous or high-strung girl was to be hazed, as
she and Helen had been, when they first came to the Hall. So the ceremony
of the marble harp was abolished. It has been described in the former
volume of this series, "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall."

The two went back to the dormitory that had become like home to Ruth. Miss
Picolet, the little French teacher, beckoned them into her study. "I must
be the good friend of your good friend, too, Miss Fielding," she said, and
shook hands warmly with Ann.

The matron of the house had already opened and aired the large room next
to that which had been so long occupied by The Fox and her chums. The
eight girls made the corridor ring with laughter and shouts while they
were getting settled. The trunks had arrived from Lumberton and Helen and
Ruth were busy decorating the big room which they were to share in the
future with the lame girl and Ann Hicks.

There were two wide beds in it; but each girl had her own dressing case
and her locker and closet There were four windows and two study tables.
It was a delightful place, they all agreed.

"Hush! tell it not in Gath; whisper it not in Ascalon!" hissed The Fox,
peering into the room. "You girls have the best there is. It's lots bigger
than our quartette----"

"Oh, I don't think so. Only a 'teeny' bit larger," responded Ruth,
quickly.

"Then it's Heavy that takes up so much space in our room. She dwarfs
everything. However," said the red-haired girl, "you can have lots more
fun in here. Shove back everything against one wall, roll up the rugs, and
then we can dance."

"And have Picolet after us in a hurry," observed Helen, laughing.

"Barefoot dancing is still in vogue," retorted The Fox. "Helen can play
her violin."

"After retiring bell? No, thanks!" exclaimed Ruth's chum. "I am to stand
better in my classes this half than last spring or Monsieur Pa-_pa_ will
have something to say to me. He doesn't often preach; but that
black-haired brother of mine did better last term than I did. Can't have
that."

"They're awfully strict with the boys over at Seven Oaks," sighed Heavy,
who was chewing industriously as she talked, sitting cross-legged on the
floor.

"What are you eating, Heavy?" demanded Belle, suddenly.

"Some of those doughnut holes, I bet!" giggled Lluella. "They must be
awful filling, Heavy."

"Nothing _is_ filling," replied the stout girl. "Just think, almost the
whole universe is filled with just atmosphere--and your head, Lluella."

"That's not pretty, dear," remarked The Fox, pinching Heavy. "Don't be
nasty to your playmates."

"Well, I've got to eat," groaned Heavy. "If you knew how long it seemed
from luncheon to supper time----"

Despite all Ruth Fielding could do, the girl from Silver Ranch felt
herself a good deal out of this nonsense and joviality. Ann could not talk
the way these girls did. She felt serious when she contemplated her future
in the school.

"I'd--I'd run away if it wasn't for Uncle Bill," she whispered to herself,
looking out of the window at the hundreds of girls parading the walks
about the campus.

Almost every two girls seemed chums. They walked with their arms about
each other's waists, and chattered like magpies. Ann Hicks wanted to run
and hide somewhere, for she was more lonely now than she had ever been
when wandering about the far-reaching range on the Montana ranch!

CHAPTER VII

"A HARD ROW TO HOE"

Since Ruth Fielding had organized the S.B.'s, or Sweetbriars, there had
been little hazing at Briarwood Hall. Of course, this was the first real
opening of the school year since that auspicious occasion; but the effect
of the new society and its teachings upon the whole school was marked.

Rivalries had ceased to a degree. The old Upedes, of which The Fox had
been the head, no longer played their tricks. The Fox had grown much older
in appearance, if not in years. She had had her lesson.

Belle and Lluella and Heavy were not so reckless, either. And as the
S.B.'s stood for friendship, kindness, helpfulness, and all its members
wore the pretty badge, it was likely to be much easier for those "infants"
who joined the school now.

Ann Hicks was bound to receive some hard knocks, even as Mrs. Tellingham
had suggested. But "roughing it" a little is sometimes good for girls as
well as boys.

In her own western home Ann could have held her own with anybody. She was
so much out of her usual element here at Briarwood that she was like a
startled hare. She scented danger on all sides.

Her roommates could not always defend her, although even Mercy, the
unmerciful, tried. Ann Hicks was so big, and blundering. She was taller
than most girls of her age, and "raw-boned" like her uncle. Some time she
might really be handsome; but there was little promise of it as yet.

When the principal started her in her studies, it was soon discovered that
Ann, big girl though she was, had to take some of the lessons belonging to
the primary grade. And she made a sorry appearance in recitation, at best.

There were plenty of girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as a
schoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. And unless the victim is blessed
with either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goes
hard with her.

Poor Ann had neither--she was merely confused and miserable.

She saw the other girls of her room--and their close friends in the
neighboring quartette--going cheerfully about the term's work. They had
interests that the girl from the West, with her impoverished mind, could
not even appreciate.

She had to study so hard--even some of the simplest lessons--that she had
little time to learn games. She did not care for gymnasium work, although
there were probably few girls at the school as muscular as herself. Tennis
seemed silly to her. Nobody rode at the Hall, and she longed to bestride a
pony and dash off for a twenty-mile canter.

Nothing that she was used to doing on the ranch would appeal to these
girls here--Ann was quite sure of that. Ruth and the others who had been
with them for that all-too-short month at Silver Ranch seemed to have
forgotten the riding, and the roping, and all.

Then, Helen had her violin--and loved it. Ruth was practicing singing all
the time she could spare, for she was already a prominent member of the
Glee Club. When the girl of the Red Mill sang, Ann Hicks felt her heart
throb and the tears rise in her eyes. She loved Ruth's kind of music; yet
she, herself, could not carry a tune.

Mercy was strictly attentive to her own books. Mercy was a bookworm--nor
did she like being asked questions about her studies. Those first few
weeks Ann Hicks's recitations did not receive very high marks.

Often some of the girls who did not know her very well laughed because she
carried books belonging to the primary grade. Ann Hicks had many studies
to make up that her mates had been drilled in while they were in the
lower classes.

One day at mail time (and in a boarding school that is a most important
hour) Ann received a very tempting-looking box by parcel post. She had
been initiated into the meaning of "boxes from home." Even Aunt Alvirah
had sent a box to Ruth, filled with choicest homemade dainties.

Ann expected nothing like that. Uncle Bill would never think of it--and he
wouldn't know what to buy, anyway. The box fairly startled the girl from
Silver Ranch.

"What is it? Something good to eat, I bet," cried Heavy, who was on hand,
of course. "Open it, Ann--do."

"Come on! Let's see what the goodies are," urged another girl, but who
smiled behind her hand.

"I don't know who would send _me_ anything," said Ann, slowly.

"Never mind the address. Open it!" cried a third speaker, and had Ann
noted it, she would have realized that some of the most trying girls in
the school had suddenly surrounded her.

With trembling fingers she tore off the outside wrapper without seeing
that the box had been mailed at the local post office--Lumberton!

A very decorative box was enclosed.

"H-m-m!" gasped Heavy. "Nothing less than fancy nougatines in _that_."

She was aiding the heartless throng, but did not know it. It would have
never entered Heavy's mind to do a really mean thing.

Ann untied the narrow red ribbon. She raised the cover. Tissue paper
covered something very choice----?

_A dunce cap._

For a moment Ann was stricken motionless. The girls about her shouted. One
coarse, thoughtless girl seized the cap, pulled it from the box, and
clapped it on Ann Hicks's black hair.

The delighted crowd shouted more shrilly. Heavy was thunderstruck. Then
she sputtered:

"Well! I never would have believed there was anybody so mean as that in
the whole of Briarwood School."

But Ann, who had held in her temper as she governed a half-wild pony on
the range, until this point, suddenly "let go all holts," as Bill Hicks
would have expressed it.

She tore the cap from her head and stamped upon it and the fancy box it
had come in. She struck right and left at the laughing, scornful faces of
the girls who had so baited her.

Had it not been disgraceful, one might have been delighted with the change
in the expression of those faces--and in the rapidity with which the
change came about.

More than one blow landed fairly. The print of Ann's fingers was
impressed in red upon the cheeks of those nearest to her. They ran
screaming--some laughing, some angry.

Heavy's weight (for the fleshy girl had seized Ann about the waist) was
all that made the enraged girl give over her pursuit of her tormentors.
Fortunately, Ruth herself came running to the spot. She got Ann away and
sat by her all the afternoon in their room, making up her own delinquent
lessons afterward.

But the affair could not be passed over without comment. Some of the girls
had reported Ann's actions. Of course, such a disgraceful thing as a girl
slapping another was seldom heard of in Briarwood. Mrs. Tellingham, who
knew very well where the blame lay, dared not let the matter go without
punishing Ann, however.

"I am grieved that one of our girls--a young lady in the junior
grade--should so forget herself," said the principal. "Whatever may have
been the temptation, such an exhibition of temper cannot be allowed. I am
sure she will not yield to it again; nor shall I pass leniently over the
person who may again be the cause of Ann Hicks losing her temper."

This seemed to Ann to be "the last straw." "She might have better put me
in the primary grade in the beginning," the ranch girl said, spitefully.
"Then I wouldn't have been among those who despise me. I hate them all!
I'll just get away from here----"

But the thought of running away a second time rather troubled her. She had
worried her uncle greatly the first time she had done so. Now he was sure
she was in such good hands that she wouldn't wish to run away.

Ann knew that she could not blame Ruth Fielding, and the other girls who
were always kind to her. She merely shrank from being with them, when they
knew so much more than she did.

It was her pride that was hurt. Had she taken the teasing of the meaner
girls in a wiser spirit, she knew they would not have sent her the dunce
cap. They continued to tease her because they knew they could hurt her.

"I--I wish I could show them I could do things that they never dreamed of
doing!" muttered Ann, angrily, yet wistfully, too. "I'd like to fling a
rope, or manage a bad bronc', or something they never saw a girl do
before.

"Book learning isn't everything. Oh! I have half a mind to give up and go
back to the ranch. Nobody made fun of me out there--they didn't dare! And
our folks are too kind to tease that way, anyhow," thought the western
girl.

"Uncle Bill is just paying out his good money for nothing. He said Ruth
was a little lady--and Helen, too. I knew he wanted me to be the same,
after he got acquainted with them and saw how fine they were.

"But you sure 'can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' That's as
certain as shootin'! If I stay here I've got a mighty hard row to
hoe--and--and I don't believe I've got the pluck to hoe it." Ann groaned,
and shook her tousled black head.

CHAPTER VIII

JERRY SHEMING AGAIN

Ruth, with all the fun and study of the opening of the fall term at
Briarwood, could not entirely forget Jerry Sheming. More particularly did
she think of him because of the invitation Belle Tingley had extended to
her the day of their arrival.

It was a coincidence that none of the other girls appreciated, for none of
them had talked much with the young fellow who had saved Ann Hicks from
the wrecked car at Applegate Crossing. Even Ann herself had not become as
friendly with the boy as had Ruth.

The fact that he had lived a good share of his life on the very island
Belle said her father had bought for a hunting camp, served to spur Ruth's
interest in both the youth and the island itself. Then, what Jerry had
told her about his uncle's lost treasure box added to the zest of the
affair.

Somewhere on the island Peter Tilton had lost a box containing money and
private papers. Jerry believed it to have been buried by a landslide that
had occurred months before.

There must be something in this story, or why should "Uncle Pete," as
Jerry called him, have lost his mind over the catastrophe? Uncle Pete must
be really mad or they would not have shut him up in the county asylum.

The loss of the papers supposed to be in the box made it possible for some
man named Blent to cheat the old hunter out of his holdings on Cliff
Island.

Not for a moment did Ruth suppose that Mr. Tingley, Belle's father, was a
party to any scheme for cheating the old hunter. It was the work of the
man Blent--if true.

Ruth was very curious--and very much interested. Few letters ever passed
between her and the Red Mill. Aunt Alvirah's gnarled and twisted fingers
did not take kindly to the pen; and Uncle Jabez loved better to add up his
earnings than to spend an evening retailing the gossip of the Mill for his
grandniece to peruse.

Ruth knew that Jerry had soon recovered from his accident and that for
several weeks, at least, had worked for Uncle Jabez. The latter grudgingly
admitted that Jerry was the best man he had ever hired in the cornfield,
both in cutting fodder and shucking corn.

Just before Thanksgiving there came a letter saying that Jerry had gone
on. Of course, Ruth knew that her uncle would not keep the young fellow
longer than he could make use of him; but she was sorry he had gone before
she had communicated with him.

The girl of the Red Mill felt that she wished to know Jerry better. She
had been deeply interested in his story. She had hoped to learn more about
him.

"If you are really going to Cliff Island for the holidays, Belle," she
told the latter, "I hope I can go."

"Bully!" exclaimed Belle, joyfully. "We'll have a dandy time there--better
than we had at Helen's father's camp, last winter. I refuse to be lost in
the snow again."

"Same here," drawled Heavy. "But I wish that lake you talk about, Belle,
wouldn't freeze over. I don't like ice," with a shiver.

"Who ever heard of water that wouldn't freeze?" demanded Belle,
scornfully.

"I have," said Heavy, promptly.

"What kind of water, I'd like to know, Miss?"

"Hot water," responded Heavy, chuckling.

Helen, and most of the other girls who were invited to Cliff Island for
Christmas, had already accepted the invitation. Ruth wrote to her uncle
with some little doubt. She did not know how he would take the suggestion.
She had been at the mill so little since first she began attending
boarding school.

This Thanksgiving she did not expect to go home. Few of the girls did so,
for the recess was only over the week-end and lessons began again on
Monday. Only those girls who lived very near to Briarwood made a real
vacation of the first winter holiday. A good many used the time to make up
lessons and work off "conditions."

Thanksgiving Day itself was made somewhat special by a trip to Buchane
Falls, where there was a large dam. Dinner was to be served at five in the
evening, and more than half the school went off to the falls (which was
ten miles away) in several big party wagons, before ten o'clock in the
morning.

"Bring your appetites back with you, girls," Mrs. Tellingham told them at
chapel, and Heavy, at least, had promised to do so and meant to keep her
word. Yet even Heavy did justice to the cold luncheon that was served to
all of them at the falls.

It was crisp autumn weather. Early in the morning there had been a skim of
ice along the edge of the water; but there had not yet been frost enough
to chain the current of the Buchane Creek. Indeed, it would not freeze
over in the middle until mid-winter, if then.

The picnic ground was above the falls and on the verge of the big
millpond. There were swings, and a bowling alley, and boats, and other
amusements.

Ruth had fairly dragged Ann Hicks into the party. The girls who had been
meanest to the westerner were present. Ann would have had a woefully bad
time of it had not some of the smaller girls needed somebody to look out
for them.

Ann hated the little girls at Briarwood less than she did the big ones. In
fact, the "primes," as they were called, rather took to the big girl from
the West.

One of the swings was not secure, and Ann started to fix it. She could
climb like any boy, and there did not happen to be a teacher near to
forbid her. Therefore, up she went, unfastened the rope from the beam, and
proceeded to splice the place where it had become frayed.

It was not a new rope, but was strong save in that one spot. Ann coiled
it, and although it did not have the "feel" of the fine hemp, or the good
hair rope that is part of the cowman's equipment, her hands and arm
tingled to lassoo some active, running object.

She coiled it once more and then flung the rope at a bush. The little
girls shouted their appreciation. Ann did not mind, for there seemed to be
no juniors or seniors there to see. Most of the older girls were down by
the water.

Indeed, some of the seniors were trying to interest the bigger girls in
rowing. Briarwood owned a small lake, and they might have canoes and
racing shells upon it, if the girls as a whole would become interested.

But many of the big girls did not even know how to row. There was one big
punt into which almost a dozen of them crowded. Heavy sat in the stern and
declared that she had to have a big crowd in the bow of the boat, to
balance it and keep her end from going down.

Therefore one girl after another jumped in, and when it was really too
full for safety it was pushed out from the landing. Just about the time
the current which set toward the middle of the pond seized the punt, it
was discovered that nobody had thought of oars.

"How under the sun did you suppose a thing like this was going to be
propelled?" Heavy demanded. "I never did see such a fellow as you are,
Mandy Mitchell!"

"You needn't scold me," declared the Mitchell girl. "You invited me into
the boat."

"Did I? Why! I must have been crazy, then!" declared Heavy. "And didn't
any of you think how we were going to get back to shore?"

"Nor we don't know now," cried another girl.

"Oh-o!" gasped one of the others, darting a frightened look ahead. "We're
aiming right for the dam."

"You wouldn't expect the boat to drift against the current, would you?"
snapped Heavy.

"Let's scream!" cried another--and they could all do that to perfection.
In a very few minutes it was apparent to everybody within the circle of
half a mile or more that a bunch of girls was in trouble--or thought so!

"Sit down!" gasped Heavy. "Don't rock the boat. If that yelling doesn't
bring anybody, we're due to reach a watery grave, sure enough."

"Oh, don't, Heavy!" wailed one of the weaker ones. "How can you?"

Heavy was privately as frightened as any of them, but she tried to keep
the others cheerful, and would have kept on joking till the end. But
several small boats came racing down the pond after them, and along the
bank came a man--or a boy--running and shouting. How either the girls in
the boats or the youth on the shore could help them, was a mystery; but
both comforted the imperiled party immensely.

The current swung the heavy punt in toward the shore. Right at that end of
the dam the water was running a foot deep--or more--over the flash-board.

If the punt struck, it would turn broadside, and probably tip all hands
over the dam. This was a serious predicament, indeed, and the spectators
realized it even more keenly than did the girls in the punt.

The youth who had been called to the spot by their screams threw off his
coat and cap, and they saw him stoop to unlace his shoes. A plunge into
this cold water was not attractive, and it was doubtful if he could help
them much if he reached the punt.

Down the hill from the picnic grounds came a group of girls, Ann Hicks in
the lead. Most of her companions were too small to do any good in any
event. The girl from the ranch carried a neat coil of rope in one hand and
she shouted to Heavy to "Hold on!"

"You tell me what to hold on to, and you'll see me do it!" replied the
plump girl. "All I can take hold of just now is thin air."

"Hold on!" said Ann again, and stopped, having reached the right spot.
Then she swung the rope in the air, let it uncoil suddenly, and the loose
end dropped fairly across Jennie Stone's lap.

"Hold on!" yelled everybody, then, and Heavy obeyed.

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