Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island by Alice Emerson

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"Ruth Fielding! whatever are you doing?" demanded the girl from the
Montana ranch. "Don't you know it will soon be night? Mrs. Tingley says
for you to come back."

"Do you suppose those horrid men will find Jerry?"

"No, I don't," replied Ann, shortly. "And if they do----"

"Oh! you're not as interested in him as I am," sighed Ruth. "I am sure he
is honest and that Mr. Blent is telling lies about him. I--I want to see
that they don't abuse him if they catch him."

"Abuse him! And he a backwoods boy, with two guns?" snorted Ann. "Why, he
wouldn't even let them arrest him, I don't suppose. _I_ wouldn't if I were
Jerry."

"But that would be dreadful," sighed Ruth. "Let's go a little farther,
Ann."

Dusk was falling, however, and when they got down the far side of the
ridge they came to a swift, open water-course. Blent and the constable
were evidently "stumped." Blent was snarling at their ill-luck.

"He's took to the water--that's all _I_ know," drawled Lem Daggett, the
constable. "Ye see, there ain't a mark in the snow on 'tother side."

"Him wadin' in that ice-cold stream in mid-winter," grunted Blent. "Ain't
he a scoundrel?"

"Can't do nothin' more to-night," announced the constable, who didn't like
the job any too well, it was evident. "And dorgs wouldn't do us no good."

"Ha! ye know what ye gotter do," threatened Blent. "I'm goin' back to town
when the punt goes this evenin'. But you stay here, an' you git the hue
an' cry out after him to-morrer bright and early.

"I don't want him rummagin' around this island at all. You understand? Not
at all! It's up to you to git him, Lem Daggett."

Daggett grunted and followed his master back to the lodge. The girls went
on before and Ruth was delighted that, for a time, at least, Jerry was to
have his freedom.

"If it froze over solid in the night he could get to the mainland from the
other end of the island, and then they'd never find him," she confided to
Tom.

But when morning came the surface of the lake was still a mass of loose
and shifting ice. Lem demanded of Mrs. Tingley the help of all the men at
the camp, and they started right away after breakfast to "comb" the island
in a thorough manner.

There wasn't a trace near the running stream to show in which direction
the fugitive had gone. Had Jerry gone up stream he could have reached the
very heart of the rough end of the island without leaving the water-trail.

A party of the boys, with Ruth, Helen, and Ann Hicks, stole out of the
lodge after the main searching party, and struck off for the high point
where the lone pine tree grew.

"I'd hate to think we'd draw that constable over there and help him to
catch Jerry," said Bobbins.

"We won't," Tom replied. "We are just going to leave the tin box of grub
for him. He probably won't come out of hiding and try to get the food
until this foolish constable has given up the chase. And I put the food in
the tin box so that no prowling animal would get it instead of Jerry."

It was hard traveling in the snow, for the party of young folk had not
thought to obtain snowshoes. "We'll string some when we go back," Tom
promised. "I know there are some frames all ready."

"But no more such tobogganing as we had last winter up at Snow Camp,"
declared Busy Izzy, with deep feeling. "Remember the spill I had with Ruth
and that Heavy girl? Gee! that was some spill."

"The land here Is too rough for good sliding," said Tom. "But I wish the
lake would freeze hard again. Ralph says there are a couple of good
scooters, and we all have our skates."

"And the fishing!" exclaimed Helen, eagerly. "I _do_ so want to fish
through the ice again."

"Oh! we're bound to have a bully good time," declared Bobbins. "But we'll
do this Jerry Sheming a good turn, too, if we can."

CHAPTER XV

OVER THE PRECIPICE

Under the soft snow that had fallen the day before was a hard-packed layer
that had come earlier in the season and made a firm footing for the
explorers. Ruth and her chum, with Ann Hicks, were quite as good walkers
as the boys. At any rate, the three girls determined not to be at the end
of the procession.

The constable and his unwilling helpers (for none of the men about the
Tingley camp cared to see Jerry Sheming in trouble) were hunting the banks
of the stream higher up for traces of the trail the boy had taken when he
ran away from Rufus Blent the previous afternoon.

Therefore the girls and boys who had started for the rendezvous at the
lone pine, were able to put the wooded ridge between them and the
constable's party, and so make their way unobserved toward the western end
of Cliff Island.

"They may come back and follow us," growled Tom. "But they'll be some way
behind, and we'll hurry. I have a note in this tin box warning Jerry what
he must look out for. As long as that Lem Daggett is on the island, I
suppose he will be in danger of arrest."

"It is just as mean as it can be!" gasped Helen, plodding on.

"The boys wouldn't leave much o' that constable if they caught him playin'
tag for such a man as Blent, at Bullhide," Ann Hicks declared, with
warmth.

"This Blent," said Bobbins, seriously, "seems to have everybody about
Logwood buffaloed. What do you suppose your father will say to the
constable taking the men with him this morning to hunt Jerry down?"

This question he put to Ralph Tingley and the latter flushed angrily.

"You wait!" he exclaimed. "Father will be angry, I bet. I told mother not
to let the men have anything to do with the hunt, but you know how women
are. She was afraid. She said that if Blent and the constable were within
their legal rights----"

"All bosh!" snapped Isadore Phelps.

"I do not think Mrs. Tingley would have let them go with Daggett if she'd
had the least idea they would be able to find Jerry," observed Helen,
sagely.

"And they won't," put in Ruth, with assurance. "I know he can hide away on
this island like a fox in a burrow."

"But he'll find it mighty cold sleeping out, this weather," remarked
Bobbins.

"He sure will!" agreed Tom.

The party went ahead as rapidly as possible, but even the stronger of the
boys found it hard to climb the steeper ascents through the deep snow.

"Crackey!" exclaimed Isadore. "I know I'm slipping back two steps to every
one I get ahead."

"Nonsense, Izzy," returned Helen. "For if you did _that_, you had better
turn around and travel the other way; then you'd back up the hill!"

They had to wait and rest every few yards. The rocks were so huge that
they often had to go out of the way for some distance to get around them.
Although it could not be more than five miles, as the crow flies, from the
lodge to the lone pine, in two hours they still had the hardest part of
the journey before them.

"I had no idea we should be so long at it," Tom confessed.

"It's lucky Heavy didn't come with us," chuckled Helen.

"Why?"

"She would have been starved to death before this, and the idea of going
the rest of the distance before turning back for home and luncheon would
have destroyed her reason, I am sure."

"Then," said Ruth, amused by this extravagant language, "poor Heavy would
have been first dead and then crazy! Consider an insane corpse!"

They came out at last upon the foot of the last ascent. The eminence
seemed to be a smooth, cone-shaped hill. On it grew a number of trees, but
the enormous old pine, lightning-riven and dead at the top, stood much
taller than any of the other trees.

Here and there they caught glimpses of chasms and steep ravines that
seemed to split the rocky island to the edge of the water. When the snow
did not cover the ground there might be paths to follow, but at this time
the young explorers had to use their judgment in climbing the heights as
best they might.

The boys had to help the girls up the steeper places, with all their
independence, and even Ann admitted that their male comrades were "rather
handy to have about."

The old pine tree sprang out of a little hollow in the hill. Behind it was
the peak of the island, and from this highest spot the party obtained an
unobstructed view of the whole western end of Tallahaska.

"It's one big old lake," sighed Isadore Phelps. "If it would only just
freeze over, boys, and give us a chance to try out the iceboats!"

"If it keeps on being as cold as it was this morning, and the wind dies
down, there'll be all the ice you want to see to-morrow," declared Ralph
Tingley. "Goodness! let's get down from this exposed place. I'm 'most
frozen."

"Shall we stop and make a fire here, girls, and warm up before we return?"
asked Tom Cameron.

"And draw that constable right to this place where you want to leave
Jerry's tin box?" cried his sister. "No, indeed!"

"We'd better keep moving, anyway," Ruth urged. "Less danger of frost-bite.
The wind _is_ keen."

Tom had already placed the box of food in a sheltered spot. "The meat will
be frozen as solid as a rock, I s'pose," he grumbled. "I hope that poor
fellow has some way of making a fire in his hide-out."

They began to retrace their steps. Instead of following exactly the same
path they had used in climbing to the summit, Tom struck off at an angle,
believing he saw an easier way.

His companions followed him in single file. Ruth happened to be the last
of all to come down the smooth slope. The seven ahead of her managed to
tramp quite a smooth track through the snow, and once or twice she slipped
in stepping in their footprints.

"Look out back there, Ruthie!" called Tom, from the lead. "The snow must
have got balled on your boots. Knock it off----"

His speech was halted by a startled cry from Ruth. She felt herself going
and threw out both hands to say her sudden slide.

But there was nothing for her hands to seize save the unstable snow
itself. She fell on her side, and shot out from the narrow track her
companions had trod.

"Ruth!" shrieked Helen, in the wildest kind of dismay.

But the girl of the Red Mill was already out of reach. The drifting snow
had curled out over the brink of the tall rock across the brow of which
Tom had unwisely led the way. They had not realized they were so near the
verge of the precipice.

Ruth's body was solid, and when she fell in the snow the undercrust broke
like an eggshell. Amid a cloud of snow-dust she shot over the yawning edge
of the chasm and disappeared.

Several square yards of the snow-drift had broken away. At their very feet
fell the unexpected precipice. The boys and girls shrank back from the
peril with terrified cries, clinging to each other.

"She is killed!" moaned Helen, and covered her face with her mittened
hands.

"Ruth! Ruth!" called Tom, charging back toward the broken snow-drift.

But Bobbins caught and held him. "Don't make a fool of yourself, old man!"
commanded the big fellow. "You can't help her by falling over the cliff
yourself."

"Oh! how deep can that place be?" gasped Ralph Tingley.

"What will mother say?" cried his brother.

"Ruth! Ruth!" shouted Ann Hicks, and dropped on her knees to crawl to the
edge.

"You'll be down there yourself, Ann!" exclaimed Helen, sobbing.

"A couple of you useless boys grab me by the ankles," commanded the
western girl. "Come! take a good hold. Now let me see----"

She hung half over the verge of the rock. The fall was sheer for fifty
feet at least. It was a narrow cut in the hill, with apparently unscalable
sides and open only toward the lake.

"I--I don't see a thing," panted the girl.

"Shout again," urged Helen.

"Let's all shout together!" cried Isadore. "Now!"

They raised their voices in a long, lingering yell. Again and again they
repeated it. They thought nothing now of the possibility of attracting the
constable and his companions to the scene.

Meanwhile nothing but the echoes replied to their hail. Down there in the
chasm Ann Hicks saw no sign of the lost girl. The bottom of the place
seemed heaped high with snow.

"She plunged right into the drift, and perhaps she's smothered down
there," gasped Ann. "Oh! what shall we do?"

"If it's a deep drift Ruth may not be hurt at all," cried Tom. "Do let me
look, Ann. That's a good girl."

The western girl was drawn back and the boy took her place. Bobbins and
Ralph Tingley let Tom slide farther over the verge of the precipice than
they had Ann.

"She went down feet first," panted Tom. "There isn't an obstruction she
could have hit. She must have dropped right into the snowbank in the
bottom--Ruth! Ruth Fielding!"

But even his sharp eyes could discover no mark in the snow. Nothing of the
lost girl appeared above the drift at the foot of this sheer cliff. She
might have been smothered under the snow, as Ann suggested. And yet, that
scarcely seemed probable.

Surely the fall into the soft drift could not have injured Ruth fatally.
She must have had strength enough to struggle to the surface of the snow.

Her disappearance was a most mysterious thing. When Tom crept back from
the brink of the precipice and stood on his feet again, they all stared
at one another in growing wonder.

"What could have happened to her down there?" groaned Helen, her own
amazement stifling her sobs.

CHAPTER XVI

HIDE AND SEEK

Ruth had fallen with but a single shriek. From top to bottom of the
precipice had been such a swift descent that she could not cry out a
second time. And the great bank of snow into which she had plunged did--as
Ann suggested--smother her.

The shock of dropping fifty feet through the air, and landing without
experiencing anything more dangerous than a greatly accelerated
heart-action was enough, of itself, to make the girl of the Red Mill dumb
for the moment.

She heard faintly the frightened cries of her companions, and she
struggled to get to the surface of the great, soft heap of snow that had
saved her from instant death.

Then she heard a voice pronounce her name, and a hand was thrust into the
snow bank and seized her shoulder.

"Ruth Fielding! Miss Ruth! That come nigh to being your last jump, that
did!"

"Jerry Sheming!" gasped the girl, as he drew her out of the snow.

"In here--quick! Are they after me?"

Ruth shook the snow from her eyes. She was like a half-drowned person
suddenly coming to the surface.

"Where--where are we?" she whispered.

"All right! This is one of my hide-outs. Is that old Blent up yonder?"

"Oh, Jerry! he's not on the island to-day. He's left the constable----"

"Lem Daggett?"

"Yes. They are searching for you. But I was with Tom and Helen and the
others. We brought you some food----"

He led her along a narrow shelf, which had been swept quite free of snow.
Now a hollow in the rock-wall opened before them, and there a little fire
of sticks burned, an old buffalo robe lay nearby, and there were other
evidences of the fugitive's camp.

Ruth was shaking now, but not from the cold. The shock of her fall had
begun to awaken the nervous terror which is the afterclap of such an
adventure. So near she had been to death!

"You are sick, Miss Ruth?" exclaimed Jerry.

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" repeated the girl of the Red Mill. "But so--so
frightened."

"Nothin' to be frightened over now," he returned, smiling broadly. "But
you _did_ miss it close. If that pile of snow hadn't sifted down there
yesterday----"

"I know!" burst out Ruth. "It was providential."

"You girls and boys want to be careful climbing around these rocks," said
Jerry Sheming, gravely.

At that moment the chorus of shouts from above reached their ears. Ruth
turned about and her lips opened. She would have replied, but the
backwoods boy leaped across the fire and seized her arm.

"Don't make a sound!" he exclaimed.

"Oh! Jerry----"

"If that constable hears----"

"He isn't with us, I tell you," said Ruth.

"But wait. He might hear. I don't want him to find this place," spoke the
boy, eagerly. "He may be within hearing."

"No. I think not," Ruth explained. Then she told Jerry of the morning's
hunt for him and the course followed by both parties. He shook his head
for a moment, and then ran to a shelf at the other side of the little
cavern.

"I'll communicate with your friends. I'll make them understand. But we
mustn't shout. Lem Daggett may be within hearing."

"But I can't stay with you here, Jerry," objected the girl.

"Of course you can't, Miss. I will get you out--another way. You'll see.
But we'll explain to your friends above and they will stop yelling then.
If they keep on that way they'll draw Lem Daggett here, if he isn't
already snooping around."

Meanwhile Jerry had found a scrap of paper and a pencil. He hurriedly
wrote a few lines upon the paper. Then he produced a heavy bow and a long
arrow. The message he tied around the shank of the arrow.

"Oh! can you shoot with that?" cried Ruth, much interested.

"Reckon so," grinned Jerry. "Uncle Pete wouldn't give me much powder and
shot when I was a kid. And finally I could bring home a bigger bag of wild
turkeys than he could, and all I had to get 'em with was this
bow'n'arrer."

He strung the bow, and Ruth saw that it took all his strength to do it.
The boys and girls were still shouting for her in a desultory fashion.
Jerry laid his finger on his lips, nodded at his visitor, and stepped
swiftly out of sight along the cleared shelf of rock.

Ruth left the fire to peer after him. She saw him bend the bow and saw the
swift flight of the arrow as it shot out of the chasm and curved out of
sight beyond the broken edge of the snow-wreath which masked the summit of
the cliff.

She heard the clamor of her friends' voices as they saw the arrow shoot
over their heads. Then they were silent.

Jerry ran back to her and unstrung the bow, putting it away in its niche.
But from the same place he produced a blue-barrelled rifle.

"I know you won't tell Blent, or any of them, how to reach me, Miss Ruth,"
he said, looking at her with a smile.

"I guess not!" exclaimed the girl.

"I am going to show you the way out--to the other end. I wish you were
wearing rubber boots like me."

"Why?"

"So you could wade in the stream when we come to it. That's how I threw
them off the track," explained Jerry, laughing. "Why, I know this old
island better than Uncle Pete himself knowed it."

"And yet you haven't found the box you say your uncle hid?" asked Ruth,
curiously.

"No. I never knowed anything about it until Blent came to drive us off and
swore that Uncle Pete had never had nothin' but 'squatter rights.' But I'm
not sure that I couldn't find that place where Uncle Pete hid his treasure
box--if I had time to hunt for it," added Jerry, gravely.

"That's what Mr. Blent is afraid of," declared Ruth, with conviction.
"That's why he is afraid of your being here on the island."

"You bet it is, Miss."

"And we boys and girls will do everything we can to help you, Jerry,"
Ruth assured him, warmly. "If you think you can find the place where your
uncle hid his papers----"

"But suppose I find them and the papers show that this Mr. Tingley hasn't
a clear title to the island?" demanded the backwoods boy, looking at the
girl of the Red Mill sharply.

"Why should _that_ make a difference?" asked Ruth, coolly.

"Well--you know how some of these rich folks be," returned the boy,
dropping his gaze. "When it comes to hittin' their pocketbooks----"

"That has nothing to do with it. Right is right."

"Uh-huh!" grunted Jerry. "But sometimes they don't want to lose money any
quicker than a poor man. If he's paid for the island----"

"I don't see how he can lose," declared Ruth, quickly. "If Blent has
claimed a title that cannot be proved, Blent will have to lose."

"I bet Mr. Tingley didn't buy without having the title searched," observed
Jerry. "Blent's covered his tracks. He'll declare he was within his
rights, probably having bought Uncle Pete's share of the island through
some dummy. You know, when deeds aren't recorded, it's mighty hard to
establish them as valid. I know. I axed our town clerk. And he is one man
that ain't under Blent's thumb."

"I don't believe Mr. Tingley is a man who would stand idle and see you
cheated even if he lost money through defending you," said Ruth, firmly.

"Do you know him?"

"No. I have never met him," Ruth admitted. "But his wife is a very nice
lady. And Belle and the boys----"

"Business is business," interrupted Jerry, shaking his head. "I don't want
Tingley to know where I be--yet awhile, anyway."

"But may I talk with him about you?"

"Why--if you care enough to, Miss Ruth."

"Of course I do," cried the girl. "Didn't I tell you we all want to help
you?" and she stamped her foot upon the warm rock. "We'll bring you food,
too. We'll see that the constable doesn't get you."

"Well, it's mighty nice of you," admitted the suspicious young woodsman.
"Now, come on. I'll take you through my hide-out to the creek. I told your
friends you'd meet 'em there, and we want to get there by the time they
arrive."

"Oh, Jerry! that's a long way off," cried Ruth.

"Not so very long by the way we'll travel," he returned, with a laugh.

And this proved to be true. Jerry lighted a battered oil lantern and with
his rifle in the other hand led the way.

A narrow passage opened out of the back of this almost circular cave.
Part of the time they traveled through a veritable tunnel. At other times
Ruth saw the clear sky far above them as they passed along deep cuts in
the hills.

The descent was continuous, but gradual. Such a path wild animals might
have traveled in times past. Originally it was probably a water-course.
The action of the water had eaten out the softer rock until almost a
direct passage had been made from the bottom of the cliff where Ruth had
fallen to the edge of the swift stream that ran through the middle of the
island.

They came out behind a screen of thick brush through which Ruth could see
the far bank of the brook, but through which nobody outside could see.
Jerry set down the lantern, and later leaned the rifle against the wall
when he had made sure that nobody was in sight.

"I am going to carry you a ways, Miss Ruth," he said, "if you don't mind.
You see, I must walk in the stream or they will find this entrance to my
hide-out."

"But--can you carry me?"

"I bet you! If you only wore rubber boots I'd let you walk. Come on,
please."

"Oh! I am not afraid," she told him, quietly, and allowed him to take her
into his arms after he had stepped down into the shallow, swiftly lowing
current.

"This water-trail confuses men and dogs completely," said Jerry, with a
laugh. "That is--such men as Lem Daggett. If _I_ was hunting a fellow who
took to the stream, with the water so shallow, I'd find which way he went
in a jiffy."

"How would you?" demanded Ruth, feeling perfectly secure in the strong
arms of the young fellow.

"That's telling," chuckled Jerry. "Mebbe--some time--I'll tell you. I
hoped I'd get the chance of showing you and your friends around this
island. But I guess I won't."

"Perhaps you will. And if there is anything we can do to help you----"

"Just one thing you might do," remarked Jerry, finally setting her upright
upon a flat rock on the side of the stream nearest the hunting camp, and
some distance away from the secret entrance to his hide-out.

"Oh! what is that?" cried Ruth, eagerly.

"Find me a pickax, or a mattock, and put it right here on this rock. Do it
at night, so no one will see you. Good bye, Miss!" he exclaimed, and
hurried away.

In another minute he had disappeared behind the screen of bushes, and Ruth
heard the glad shouts of her friends as they came over the ridge and saw
her standing safe and sound beside the stream.

CHAPTER XVII

CHRISTMAS MORNING

"How under the sun did you get here, Ruth?" Helen shouted the moment she
saw her chum.

"Did that Jerry Sheming bring you?" demanded Ann.

The other members of the party were quite as anxious to learn the
particulars of her adventure, and when they had crossed on the stepping
stones, they gathered about her eagerly.

Ruth would tell just so much and no more. She explained how she had fallen
into the snow-drift at the foot of the cliff, how Jerry had heard her
scream and pulled her out. But beyond that she only said he had left her
here to wait their coming.

"You needn't be so mysterious, Miss!" ejaculated Helen, rather piqued.

"I guess she doesn't want to say anything about his hide-out that might
lead to his being hunted out by Lem Daggett," observed the wise Tom. "But
Jerry signed his name to the note he tied on the arrow."

"And we sure were surprised when we saw that arrow shoot up from the
depths," said Isadore.

"What do you suppose mother will say?" cried one of the Tingley boys.

"Don't let's tell her," suggested Ruth, quickly. "There's no need. It will
only add to her worries and she will be troubled enough by us as it is."

"But----"

"You see, I'm not a bit hurt," insisted Ruth. "And the less we talk about
the matter the less likely we shall be to drop something that may lead to
the discovery of Jerry Sheming's hiding place."

"Oh, well, if you put it that way," agreed Ralph. "I suppose mother will
have all the trouble she wants. And maybe if she knew, she'd keep you
girls away from this end of the island."

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