CHAPTER XVIIA DETERMINATION
However the wind might sit and whatever may have been her secret opinion of Ruth Fielding’s interest in Chessleigh Copley, Helen suddenly became mute regarding that young man.
But, after a moment, she was not at all mute upon the subject of the King of the Pipes and what might be going on on the island where they believed the queer old man had his headquarters.
“If it should be smugglers over there—only fancy!” sighed Helen ecstatically. “Diamonds and silks and lots of precious things! My, oh, my!”
“Better than pirates?” laughed Ruth.
“Consider!” cried her chum boldly. “I said that island looked like a pirate’s den from the start.”
“Your fore-sight-hind-sight is wonderful,” declared Ruth, shaking her head and making big eyes at her friend.
“Don’t laugh—Oh! What’s that?”
From over the water, and unmistakably from the rocky island on the summit of which the blasted beech stood—a prominent landmark—came the strange cry, “co-ee! co-ee!” which they had heard before.
“Do you suppose that poor old man is calling for help?” hesitated Ruth.
“Your grandmother’s aunt!” ejaculated Helen, in disgust.
“We-ell that is even a more roundabout relationship than that between Aunt Alvirah Boggs and me. Poor old soul, she is nobody’s relation, as she often says, but everybody’s aunt.”
“There goes the signal again, and here comes that boat!” exclaimed Helen suddenly.
“What boat?” demanded Ruth, looking in the direction of the distant Canadian island, toward which the canoe, with Totantora and Wonota in it, had now disappeared.
“Turn around—do!” exclaimed Helen. “This way. That is the same boat we saw going by some time ago. The boat with the yellow lady in it, as Wonota called her.”
“This is very strange,” murmured Ruth.
“But the yellow lady is not with those men now,” said Helen.
“I do not see any woman aboard,” admitted her friend.
The boat—going not so fast now—crossed their line of vision and finally rounded the end of the island on which the two chums believed the queer old man resided. At least, somebody had uttered the strange, shrill cry from that very spot.
“Oh, dear! If we were not marooned here!” grumbled Helen.
“What would you do?”
“If we had a boat—even a canoe—we could follow that motor-launch and see if those pirates make a landing.”
“Pirates!” repeated Ruth.
“Smugglers, then. Your own Chess Copley says they may be smugglers, you know.”
“I wish you would not speak in that way, Helen,” objected Ruth. “He is not my Chess Copley——or anything else.”
“Well, he certainly isn’t mine,” retorted Helen, with more gaiety. “I can’t say I approve of him—and I long since told you why.”
“I believe you are unfair, Helen,” said Ruth seriously.
“Dear me! if you don’t care anything about him, why are you so anxious to have me change my opinion of ’Lasses?”
“For your own sake,” said her friend shortly.
“I wonder! Formysake?”
“Yes. Because you are not naturally unfair—and Chess feels it.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” snapped Helen. “I hope he does. Let him feel!”
This heartless observation closed Ruth’s lips on the subject. The two girls watched the other island. They did not see the boat again. Nor did they see anybody on the island or hear any other cry from there.
They both began to grow anxious. No boat appeared from the direction of the camp, and it was past the hour now when Willie was to have called for them with theGem. Why didn’t he come?
“Of course, Mr. Hammond doesn’t expect us to swim home,” complained Helen.
“Something must have occurred. Totantora’s being sent off so suddenly really worries me. Perhaps Mr. Hammond himself was obliged to leave the camp and perhaps he went in theGem, and Willie cannot return for us until later.”
“But where is Tom? Surely he must know all about this sudden trouble.”
“What was Tom going to do to-day?” asked Ruth quietly.
“Oh, that’s so! I had forgotten,” said Tom’s sister, in despair. “He was going around to Oak Point with some of the men. That’s down the river, beyond Chippewa Point, and they could scarcely get back in the other motor-boat before dark.”
“That’s the answer, I guess,” sighed Ruth.
“Then we are marooned!” ejaculated Helen. “I do think it is too mean—and my goodness! we ate every crumb of lunch.”
“The two ‘Robinson Crusoesses,’ then, may have to go on short rations,” but Ruth said it with a smile. “I guess we are not in any real danger of starvation, however.”
“Just the same, a joke can easily become serious when one is deserted on a desert island.”
“But you were looking for adventure,” retorted Ruth.
“Well!”
“Now you have it,” said Ruth, but soberly. “And worrying about it will not help us a particle. Might as well be cheerful.”
“You are as full of old saws as a carpenter’s abandoned tool-chest,” said Helen smartly. “Oh! What is this I hear? The smuggler’s boat again?”
They did hear a motor, but no boat appeared from the other side of the Kingdom of Pipes. The sound drew nearer. The motor-boat was coming down the river, through a passage between the island where the girls were and the American side.
“Come on! I don’t care who it is,” cried Helen, starting to run through the bushes. “We’ll hail them and ask them for rescue.”
But when she came in sight of the craft, to Ruth’s surprise Helen did not at once shout. Ruthonly saw the bow of the boat coming down stream herself; but suddenly she marked the small name-board with its gilt lettering:
Lauriette
Lauriette
“Here’s Chess, I do believe!” she cried.
“Humph!” grumbled Helen.
“Now, Helen Cameron!” gasped Ruth, “are you going to be foolish enough to refuse to be taken off this island by Chessleigh Copley?”
“Didn’t say I was.”
“And don’t be unkind to him!” pleaded Ruth.
“You seem so terribly fond of him that I guess he won’t mind how I treat him.”
“You know better,” Ruth told her admonishingly. “Chess thinks a great deal of you, while you treat him too unkindly for utterance.”
“He’d better not think of me too much,” said Helen scornfully. “His head won’t stand it. Tom says ’Lasses never was strong in the deeper strata of college learning.”
Ruth was not to be drawn into any controversy. She called to the young man when, dressed in flannels and standing at his wheel and engine, he came into view.
“Hurrah! Here’s good luck!” shouted Chess, swerving the bow of theLauriettein toward the island instantly.
“Hurrah! Glad you think it’s good luck,” saidHelen sulkily. “I guess you never were marooned.”
“That’s navy blue you’ve got on—not maroon,” said Chess soberly. “Do you suppose I am color-blind?”
“Smarty!”
“Now, children, this is too serious a matter to quarrel over,” admonished Ruth, but smiling because her chum showed, after all, interest enough in the young man to be “scrappy.” “What do you suppose we have seen, Chess?”
“I’d like to know first of all how you came here without a boat?”
“My goodness, yes!” gasped Helen. “I’d almost forgotten about Wonota and Totantora.”
Ruth shook her head. “I am not likely to forget that,” she said.
She explained to the young man as they got into the launch and he pushed out from the shore about the difficulty that had arisen over the Indians. He was naturally deeply interested in Ruth’s trouble and in the fate of the Indians. But on top of that Helen eagerly told about the speedy launch, the yellow lady, and their suspicions regarding what was going on at the island that they had nicknamed the Kingdom of Pipes.
“I tell you what,” Chess said, quite as eagerly as Helen, “I was coming over to take you all for a sail on the river to-night. Let’s get Tom andjust us four keep watch on that island. I believe there is something going on there that ought to be looked into.”
“I—I don’t know that it is our business to look into it,” suggested Ruth, doubtfully.
But for once Helen agreed with Chess, and against Ruth’s better judgment it was determined to come back to this locality after dinner and lurk about the mysterious island in the Copley launch.
CHAPTER XVIIIBILBY’S TRUMP CARD
Naturally, Ruth went in search of Mr. Hammond the moment she landed on the island where the moving picture company was established. But, as she saw that theGemwas not at the dock, she scarcely expected to find the president of the company at hand—and in that expectation she was not mistaken.
Mr. Hooley, the director, however, told her what he knew about the occurrence that had started Totantora so madly from the island in the canoe. Bilby and whoever it was that backed him in his enterprise were evidently determined to obtain the services of Wonota, the Osage princess, if it could be brought about.
“Looks to me,” said the director, “as though we were going to have some trouble finishing this picture, Miss Fielding.”
“We can’t finish it without Wonota!” cried the girl.
“You don’t think you could rewrite the remainingscenes so that we can keep on to the conclusion?” he asked thoughtfully.
“Why, Mr. Hooley! How about the throne-room scene? Wonota must appear in that. You say yourself that we cannot use anybody in her place.”
“How about cutting out that scene? Finish the play on this side of the water. Don’t go to France at all.”
“Then the picture is spoiled!”
“No picture is spoiled until it goes out of our hands, you know,” and Mr. Hooley smiled satirically. “You know how it is in the picture business, Miss Fielding. Some unfortunate producer buys a script or a story. The scenario writer ‘saves’ the story by his work on the script. Then the continuity man ‘saves’ it a second time. Then the director ‘saves’ it after he gets it into his hands. We know that the star performer always ‘saves’ it again. And then the film cutter and the title writer each ‘save’ it.
“Most pictures are ‘saved’ in this way by the omniscience of all who work on it so that, when it is finally produced, the writer seldom recognizes more than a glimmer of his original idea in the final product.
“You are much better treated than most picture writers, you know very well. And here you havea chance to ‘save’ your own work,” and Mr. Hooley finished with a laugh.
“It is no laughing matter,” she told him. “I wanted this to be a really big picture. And I do not want to cut out Wonota. Without that throne-room scene it will fall flat.”
“We should have taken it in New York,” grumbled Mr. Hooley. “I felt it at the time. But Mr. Hammond contracted for so many weeks’ use of this island and the time is running out already.”
“And Wonota and Totantora are gone!”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know where they have gone?”
“Haven’t the least idea. But Mr. Hammond knows.”
“He went to town?” asked Ruth thoughtfully.
“He has gone to confer with the lawyers and see if they can get the court to vacate the injunction issued against our use of Wonota. Bilby and the sheriff came again. They had a warrant this time. It called for the production of Wonota. Luckily you had her off the island at the time. They searched every nook and cranny, and meanwhile Totantora got away. They wanted him too.”
“I think that Bilby is too mean for words!”
“Well, I take it that it was his trump card. He must have some powerful influence behind him. But—”
“But what, Mr. Hooley?” asked Ruth eagerly.
“I can see how we might get over the difficulty if the courts will not listen to reason.”
“Oh! Do tell me!”
“We can move the whole company over the Canadian border, and before Bilby can do anything over there we’ll have finished ‘The Long Lane’s Turning.’ That’s the only way I see out of the mess.”
“But think of the expense!”
“Sure! I’m thinking of that all the time,” grumbled Hooley. “And don’t you forget that the boss never allows me to lose sight of it. Your interest in this picture is greater than mine, Miss Fielding; but my job is sort of tangled up in it, too. Mr. Hammond is a good man; but he is a good business man first of all. I am afraid that you will be obliged to make some changes in the remaining scenes so as to overcome the difficulty of losing Wonota.”
“I will not do it!” cried the girl, this time in anger.
“Better read your contract. If you won’t do it, somebody else will have to. You know, we’ve got a man at the studio who could change Hamlet into a slap-stick comedy over night, if the emergency arose.”
“I will not agree to have my picture ruined,” said Ruth, almost in tears.
“That isn’t the way to look at it,” Hooley observed more kindly. “Just see that you save your story yourself instead of letting some other person do it for you. That’s the answer, I fear.”
Ruth had no appetite for dinner that evening, but she was obliged to meet her friends and the actors and actresses who ate at her table with at least an appearance of cheerfulness.
It was impressed upon her mind more deeply than ever before, however, that her arrangement with the Alectrion Film Corporation was not wholly satisfactory. She had learned so much now about the making of a screen picture that often her advice in the directing of the action was accepted with admiration by Mr. Hooley. Mr. Hammond was not afraid to go away and leave the two to film the most important scenes in a script.
And why should she be tied to certain agreements that cramped her? Especially in a case of this kind. For the sake of saving expense Mr. Hammond was likely to insist that the artistic part of “The Long Lane’s Turning” should be sacrificed.
Ruth felt that on her part she would spend twenty-five thousand dollars more (if she had it to spend) in shipping the whole company over the border and making the remainder of the picture in Canada.
“I am going to be in a position some time where I shall have the say as to every detail of the picture,” she told herself. “I want to be my own manager and my own producer. Otherwise I shall never be happy—nor will I ever be sure of making worth-while pictures.”
For Ruth took this career of hers very seriously indeed. Because she did so, perhaps, the fact that Tom Cameron seemed to consider his work so lightly caused Ruth to criticise the young man harshly. That could only be expected.
Tom did not return for dinner. Nor did Mr. Hammond come back to headquarters. Chess Copley was eager to get the girls out in hisLaurietteagain.
“Pooh! it’s nothing much, I guess,” said Helen, seemingly having lost her first interest in the smugglers and the King of the Pipes. “And, anyway, I shall not go unless Tom is with us.”
“Why, Helen!” cried Ruth, “I thought you were so eager.”
“Well, perhaps. If Tom went.”
“But we promised Chess.”
“You promised him. He wants to do it because you are going.”
“Now, Helen, you know—”
“I know just what I am saying. I have no interest in ’Lasses Copley. You have.”
“You are the most exasperating girl!” exclaimed Ruth, in some warmth.
They were in their room freshening their toilets for the evening.
“I don’t seem to suit you any more than Tom does,” said her chum coolly.
“I declare, Helen! you go too far.”
“I shan’t go too far this time—without Tom.” Helen laughed in a provoking way. “You can run along with your Chessleigh if you like. Not me!”
“That is just what I will do,” said Ruth quietly, but with flashing eyes. “I would not insult him by refusing—now. I will tell him you have a headache and cannot come.”
“Do as you like,” was the ungracious reply. “You are crazy about Chess, I guess.”
“I believe you are jealous, Helen Cameron!” cried Ruth, in wonder.
“I don’t know why I should be,” returned Helen lightly. “I’ve no interest in Chess Copley. And I haven’t had since—”
“Since when, I’d like to know?”
“Since I found him out. So now! That’s enough. I am not going. Unless, of course, Tom returns and wants me to go along with you and Chess.”
What more was there to say? Ruth did not wish to disappoint Chessleigh. She felt thatHelen Cameron had no reason for treating the young man as she did.
So, as she had done before, and without much interest in the evening sailing party, Ruth left the bungalow to join the waiting Chessleigh at the dock.
CHAPTER XIXSUSPENSE
Tom and his party in the other motor-boat had not appeared, nor had theGemcome back from the town of Chippewa Bay with Mr. Hammond. Why should not Ruth and Chessleigh spy about among the islands for a time?
It was not now moonlight; and there was some haze which gave a smouldering effect to the stars peering through it. But these soft, hazy nights had their own charm and Ruth had come to love them.
Especially on the water. Amid the tamarack-clothed islets the motor-boats crept in and out in a delightful way. To lie on the cushions in the cockpit of theLaurietteand bask in the pearly starlight was an experience the girl from Cheslow was not likely to forget.
To-night, when theLauriettegot away from the moving picture camp, there were no other boats in sight. Chess dimmed his lights and thecraft crept through the narrow passages between the islands, heading up stream.
“My idea,” he said, “is to land at the back of that island—”
“The Kingdom of Pipes?” interrupted Ruth in surprise.
“Yes. Where you say you landed before—twice.”
“Oh!”
“That is, if we see nothing or nobody about.”
“I don’t think we’d better take any great risk—only two of us,” observed Ruth, with her usual caution.
“Of course, we won’t walk right into danger.”
“I should hope not! And just what are we going for, anyway?” and she suddenly laughed.
“Why, I’m curious about those fellows,” said the young man. “And I thought you were.”
“I’m curious about the King of the Pipes. Charley-Horse Pond, Willie calls him.”
“Queer old boy, I guess,” admitted Chess. “But I want to know more about those chaps who unloaded the boxes.”
“What could have been in the boxes? Surely there is no camping party on that island. At least, no pleasure party.”
“I fancy not. If you ask me about the boxes, I am puzzled. Yet, I’ve a glimmer of anidea—Are you sure that was a woman with them to-day in their boat?”
“Wonota called her the yellow lady. And Wonota has good eyes.”
“With a yellow face, yes? And we saw a Chinaman in the boat that other time on the river,” said Chess quickly.
“Surely she wasn’t a Chinese woman? Yet, she might have been.”
“Chinese women aren’t usually smuggled over the border, I guess,” muttered the young fellow. “But Chinese men are.”
“Perhaps we should have reported it to the authorities,” Ruth suggested.
“Not until we are sure there is really something wrong. I don’t want to be laughed at, you know.”
But Ruth just then had considered another phase of the matter.
“Oh!” she cried. “There’s Bilby! He was in it!”
“In what?”
“In that boat when we first saw it. When we saw the Chinaman, you know, out on the Canadian side of the river. If there is anything wrong about these men—and the King of the Pipes—Bilby is mixed up with them.”
“I guess you are right, Ruth. Maybe that fellow is into more queer games than just trying to grab your Osage princess.”
“But more than that,” said Ruth much worried now, “he may have so many friends on the Canadian side that he can trace Wonota and her father over there on Grenadier Island.”
“Better warn Mr. Hammond when he comes back from town,” suggested her friend. “That Bilby seems to be universally troublesome. I’ll say he is!”
They kept quiet after that, for the outline of the rocky island, with the blasted beech visible at its summit, came into view. Nothing stirred upon the island, nor was there any other boat in sight.
“Had we better venture ashore?” breathed Ruth, again in doubt.
“Come on. Let’s try it. I’ve got an electric torch in my pocket. We can find our way all over the island with that.”
It was true that the girl of the Red Mill felt some trepidation, but she had confidence in her companion’s muscle and courage if not in his caution. Besides, she was very curious about the queer old man and the doings on his island.
Chess shut off the engine of theLauriettesome distance from the island; but first he had gone above the rocky landing, so that the sluggish current between the islands drifted the motor-boat back upon that strand.
He went forward and, with a line in his hand, leaped ashore the moment he could do so, anddrew theLauriettein to the rock. Then he passed the line around the very sapling to which Ruth had once fastened the canoe.
“Come on!” he whispered, offering his hand to the girl.
She leaped ashore. They were both wearing canvas, rubber-soled, low shoes which made no noise on the stones. Chess drew forth the electric torch and tried it, turning the spot of light on the ground at their feet. It worked perfectly.
In his right-hand jacket pocket he carried an entirely different article, but he did not mention that fact to Ruth. She would not have gone with him had she known of the presence of the pistol. The possession of firearms would have, to her mind, at once taken the matter out of the realm of mere adventure into that of peril, and Ruth was not seeking such an experience.
She only half believed in the smugglers. She had seen some men in a boat at the island, but she doubted if it meant anything more than a fishing party. Those boxes taken ashore meant nothing much to her, if they did suggest some particularly interesting situation to Chess.
In fact, Copley had not fully taken Ruth into his confidence. He had reason to suspect that whoever might be on this island were law-breakers, and he really had no right to bring Ruth here. Tom Cameron would not have done it.
Copley was serious, however, in his intention of finding out if possible who was on the island; and when they had passed up the rough path to the round table-stone, Ruth had got over her little shivery feeling and was as eager as Chess himself.
They passed carefully through the fringe of brush and reached the open space where the blasted beech tree stood. The faint starlight illumined the space, so that Chess did not need to use the torch in his left hand. There was no tent set up here nor any other mark of human habitation.
Ruth knew that there was scarcely any other place on the island where a camp could be established. Had the people they had seen landing from the speedy launch gone away for good and taken their camp equipment with them?
Suddenly Copley seized her wrist. His touch was cold and betrayed the fact that he was nervous himself.
“Listen!” he whispered, his lips close to Ruth’s ear.
Helen would have immediately been “in a fidget,” and said so. But Ruth could restrain herself pretty well. She nodded so that Copley saw she heard him and was listening. They waited several moments.
“There!” breathed the young fellow again.
“What is it?” Ruth ventured.
“Somebody talking. Listen!”
There was a human voice near by. It sounded close to them, and yet its direction Ruth could not decide upon. There was a hollow, reverberating quality to the sounds that baffled determination as to their origin. But it was a human voice without doubt.
Ruth could not, however, understand a word that was spoken. The tones were first high, then low, never guttural, and possessed a certain sibilant quality. Whether the words spoken were English or not, was likewise a mystery.
Ruth and Chessleigh stood first in one place, then in another, in that circle about the big beech tree. The young man had gone all around the tattered trunk and found no opening. If it was hollow, there was no way of getting into it near the ground, nor was there any ladder by which one might scale the huge trunk to the top.
“That’s no hide-away,” mouthed Chess, his lips close at Ruth’s ear again. “And it seems to me the sound doesn’t come from overhead.”
“More as though it came up from the ground,” returned Ruth, in the same low voice. “Do you suppose we are standing on the roof of a cavern, Chess Copley?”
“It might be,” agreed the young fellow. “But if it is a cavern, where under the sun is the mouthof it? How do they get in or out? It beats my time!”
Ruth quickly acknowledged that the mystery was beyond her comprehension. The sing-song sounds—for such they seemed to be—went on and on, meaningless for the two listeners, who could not distinguish a single word.
“Think that’s your King of the Pipes?” asked Chessleigh finally.
“I don’t know. If it is, there must be something more the matter with him than Willie says there is. He sounds crazy—that is the way it sounds to me.”
CHAPTER XXA FAILURE IN CALCULATION
“What shall we do now?” asked Ruth finally, and in a whisper.
“Let’s go down to that place where we saw the boat land the other morning,” returned her companion. “I’d like to look about there a bit.”
“Do you think it is wise?”
“I don’t know about the wisdom of it,” chuckled Chessleigh. “But I do know that I’m not at all satisfied. Some people are here on the island, and I’d like to know where they are.”
“I am afraid we will get into trouble.”
“If it is only that old man——”
“We don’t know that it is. He must be talking to somebody—if that is his voice we hear.”
“Maybe he is only talking to himself. I don’t hear anybody else,” replied the young fellow. “Come on. Let’s see the thing through, now we have started.”
Indeed Ruth wanted to see it through. She was quite as curious as her companion. So she made no further objection.
Pushing through the brush, they climbed carefully down the slope on the outer side of the island. The landing where they had fastened their own boat was on the inner side of the island, while this side fronted the broad expanse of the river.
They could see the hurrying current, glinted here and there by the soft starlight. Everything looked ghostly about them. The dim silvery light made it possible for them to pick their way without stumbling. They made little noise in reaching the shore.
There was a little indention here—a tiny cove. The shore was shelving, and of sand and gravel. Chess pointed silently to the unmistakable marks of a boat’s bow in several places.
“That boat has been here more than once,” he whispered.
Ruth breathed “Yes,” but said no more.
Up-stream of the cove was a great mass of rock—not one rock, but several huddled together and the cracks between overgrown with brush and vines. Chess brought into use the electric torch again.
He shot the spotlight into the crannies. Was there a path there between two of the big boulders? He drew Ruth’s attention to it with a touch on her arm. She saw that some of the bushes were broken—the vines torn away and dead.
“Somebody has been here,” she murmured.
“Of course. That is what we came to find,” said the young man. “We are on the verge of a discovery, Ruth.”
“I hope we are not on the verge of trouble,” she returned, in the same low tone.
“Don’t have a bit of fear,” he told her, in a louder voice.
He was about to mention the loaded pistol in his pocket; then thought better of it. But he went ahead, venturing into the narrow passage between the two boulders.
The ray of the torch showed the way. It played on the ground at their feet and upon the rocky sides of the passage. Was that an abrupt end to the passage ahead of them, or a sharp turn in it? Chess pressed on, Ruth trying to peer over his shoulder, although to do this she had to stand on tiptoe.
“By jove!” uttered the young man in surprise, “I believe it is a cavern. It’s the entrance to a cave.”
“Then those voices did come from a cavern. Be careful, Chess—do!”
He had reached the turn in the passage. A jutting shelf of rock roofed them over. The young man shut off the lamp and they were in darkness. He thrust forward his head to peer around the corner.
As he did so, without the least warning, something swished through the air and Ruth heard the sound of a dull blow. Chess pitched forward, with a groan of pain, falling to his knees.
Ruth uttered a scream. She did not try to retreat, but seized the young man by the shoulders and dragged him back.
Her brave act saved the young fellow from receiving a second and heavier blow. A club was being wielded in the hands of a powerful man who had met them in the passage!
Chess was speechless and apparently in a confused state of mind. The electric torch had fallen from his hand. He seemed struggling to get something out of his jacket pocket, but before he could accomplish this a light flashed up in the tunnel ahead.
The same sing-song, chattering voice they had heard so faintly on the summit of the island broke out close at hand. In the red, flickering light of a burning pine torch the frightened girl saw a man in a broad-brimmed hat and loose, flapping upper garment bending over Chess with a club again raised to strike.
“Don’t hurt him! Don’t hit him again!” she cried.
Other voices—all speaking in that strange, sing-song tongue—broke out, and Ruth suddenlyrealized that these enemies that confronted them were Chinese.
In the red light she saw clearly now, under the round, broad-brimmed hat, the yellow face and slanting eyes of the man. Ruth did not understand it—she could not imagine why these Orientals should be here on the island. But she realized fully that the calculations of Copley and herself had gone astray. They were in peril—serious peril.
The leading Chinaman glared into Ruth’s frightened face and his thin lips curled back from his yellow teeth in a snarl like that of a rabid dog. His very look was enough to turn the girl cold. She trembled, still striving to drag the half-senseless Chessleigh back.
The Chinaman uttered a long, jabbering howl, turning his face over his shoulder as though speaking to those who crowded behind him in the passage. Ruth might still have escaped, but she would not desert her injured companion.
Suddenly there was a stir in the passage and the big Chinaman was thrust aside. Another figure pushed forward—a ragged, bushy-haired figure. It was the King of the Pipes!
“Hush!” he commanded in his old way.
He waved the Chinaman back. He seemed to have some authority, for the burly Chinaman obeyed. The old man thrust his face forwardand peered with his wild eyes into Ruth’s countenance.
“Hush!” he whispered. “What did I tell you? I know you, of course. I told you that I could not divide my kingdom with any one. It was quite useless for you to come here again.
“And see what has come of it,” he added. “The Pipes have seen you. They know your intentions. They will never in this world stand for a divided kingdom. I shall have to cut off your head. Too bad! Too bad!”
He seized Ruth’s wrist. She tried to draw away from him, but he was much more powerful than she had supposed. One quick jerk and she was fairly dragged over the crouching figure of Copley and around the corner of the narrow passage.
The head Chinaman darted forward and seized Chess. He likewise was dragged into the place. Amid the chattering of several high, sing-song voices, and only half seeing what was being done because of the flickering torchlight, Ruth knew that she was being hurried into a tunnel of some size that ran back into the island.
It was rocky all about her—on both sides as well as under foot and overhead. It was a natural tunnel, not one made by man. The figures flitting before her were gnomelike. She saw clearly only the old man who led her, holding her tightly by the arm. She knew that the Chinamanwas dragging Chess behind them, as though that unfortunate young man was a sack of potatoes.
This outcome of their innocent adventure was entirely different from anything Ruth had dreamed of. If she did not exactly fear the queer old man who called himself the King of the Pipes, she certainly did fear the men who were with him in this cavern.
CHAPTER XXIIN THE CHINESE DEN
It was several minutes before Ruth could accustom her sight to the uncertain, flickering flame of the torches with which the cavern was illuminated. There was, too, a small fire on a stone hearth and above it a stone and cement chimney that portrayed ingenuity in its building.
The cavern was a natural one, but man had made of it a not impossible habitation. She felt rugs under her feet as she was drawn along by the King of the Pipes, and when her eyes became accustomed to the half-gloom of the place she saw that there were several low tables and a couch or two, the latter likewise covered with rugs.
Not only had some ingenuity been expended in fitting up the cave, but the furnishings must have occasioned the expenditure of considerable money. It was not at all the sort of place that she would have expected the queer old man to occupy on the lonely island.
She was so much interested in Chessleigh’sstate, however, that she gave small attention to these other things. When she could break away from the King of the Pipes she flung herself down upon her knees beside the recumbent young man and raised his head in her arms.
Chess had received a hard blow from the Chinaman’s club. And he had not uttered a word. The latter fact caused Ruth more alarm than anything else. She feared that he was very badly injured, although he was not insensible.
But there was no blood on his head and face. She passed her hand swiftly over his crown and found an unmistakable lump there, a lump raised by the blow. But, looking more closely into his half open eyes she saw more intelligence in their expression than she expected.
Indeed, as she peered closely at him she distinctly saw him wink his left eye, and this act, with the bright look in his eyes, warned her that Copley was playing possum.
Having been felled by the blow, and feeling himself out-matched by the Chinamen who had come jabbering to the scene, Chess had displayed much more helplessness than he need have shown. But Ruth decided that he was very wise to do this, and she was much relieved to discover this to be the fact. She did nothing to attract the attention of their captors to his real condition. She moaned over him, and made little pityingsounds as though she thought he had been very seriously hurt by the blow he had received.
The King of the Pipes put his clawlike hand upon her shoulder again.
“Let him alone. He will have to have his head off, of course. No hope for it. But I will try to postpone your decapitation until the thirty-first day of June, which comes when there are two Sundays in the same week. Eh? Isn’t that shrewd? As King of the Pipes I have to show great astuteness. Oh, great astuteness!”
“I am sure you will help us, sire,” murmured Ruth, standing up once more and looking appealingly at the queer old man.
“Well, I will do what I can. But, remember, we kings can’t do what we once could. Seems to me I told you that before. The war did the business for us. And I would not dare suggest taking a consort. The Pipes would never stand for it.”
“Whom do you call ‘the Pipes’?” Ruth asked wonderingly.
“Look about you. See them? Already they are beginning to smoke up again. And it is a dirty smell. I have to go out and roam about the island to get away from it. Dreadful! To give up my throne room to nasty little brass pipes. Ugh!”
While he was speaking the girl stared abouther, now better able to see the place and the people in it. There were at least half a dozen men. And all were Chinamen, as far as she could see, although not all were dressed in blouse and loose trousers and wadded slippers—the usual costume of the un-westernized Chinaman.
Two of the men were lying down, and there were tiny lamps sputtering on the low stools, or tables, set close to their heads. They held long-stemmed pipes with small brass bowls, and had begun to smoke something that had a very pungent and disagreeable odor.
Ruth’s mind had begun to clear. She remembered the heavy boxes she and Chess had seen brought ashore, and the Chinaman in the speed launch, and then the yellow-faced woman being taken on this very day toward the American shore. The whole puzzle began to fit together like a piece of patchwork.
Chinamen; a high-powered boat going back and forth across the St. Lawrence; a hidden cave on this supposedly uninhabited island; the heavy boxes; the smoking of this vile paste which she now saw a third Chinaman dip out of a tiny bowl, on a stick, and drop into his pipe in the form of a “pill.”
Opium!
If these men—and the white men of the speed launch—did any smuggling it was not diamondsthey smuggled. It was opium. And they were probably running Chinese across the border as well. Ruth knew that she was in a very serious predicament when she had swiftly thought this out, if she had not realized it before.
What would these evil-looking yellow men do to her—and to poor Chess? The latter, she was relieved to feel, was biding his time. But what chance was likely to arise which would lead to their escape from this cavern?
She looked about the place. Two of the yellow men were between her and the passage through which she and her companion had been dragged. If she wanted to, she could not make a dash for liberty.
She turned again to the bedraggled and ragged-haired old man, curiosity about whom had led to this predicament. The King of the Pipes was watching her with eyes that glittered like a bird’s.
“Hush!” he whispered, moving nearer again. “You cannot escape. The Pipes are very strong and very agile. They would not let you. To tell the truth, they fear so much for my safety that I haven’t the freedom myself that I would sometimes like.”
“Can’t you leave this place?” Ruth asked softly.
“Hush!” he warned her in his usual stealthy way. “Don’t speak of it. Of course a king can do no wrong, and naturally a king can do as hepleases. Otherwise, what is kingship? But it is always well to bow to the peculiarities and the prejudices of one’s subjects. They do not like me to leave the throne-room at certain times. So I do not attempt to do so. When you met me before, my dear, there was nobody on the island but myself. But to-night you see how many are here, and more yet to come.”
“More Chinamen?” she whispered.
“No. Perhaps no more of the Pipes,” and she thought he showed involuntary disgust of the opium-smokers. “But other subjects of mine who must be catered to. Oh, dear, yes! Being a king is not all it is cracked up to be, I assure you.”
For some reason Ruth felt more alarm because of this last statement of the poor old man than of anything that had gone before. She realized that he, of course, really had no influence with the opium smugglers. But she began to understand that there were other men coming here who might be more savage than the Chinamen.
She remembered that there had been several white men in the launch when she had observed it, and that on one occasion Horatio Bilby had been one of them. Now, Ruth felt not only a great distaste for Bilby, but she feared him exceedingly.
It might be that the red-faced fat man who had so fretted Mr. Hammond and her about Wonota,had only crossed the river in the launch as a passenger. He might have no close connection with the opium smugglers.
But knowing Bilby as she did, Ruth could imagine that he might be mixed up in almost any illegal business that promised large returns in money. If he would attempt to steal the Indian girl, why would he not join hands with opium smugglers and Chinese runners, if he saw a possibility of gain in those industries?
She wished she might talk to Chess and learn just what was working in his mind at that moment. She was quite sure that he was by no means as stunned as he appeared to be.
She approved of his feigning, for as long as these men did not seek to injure her, why should he incur their further notice? He lay on the rug, quite as though he was helpless; but she knew he was alert and was ready, if occasion arose, to show much more agility than the Chinamen or the old King of the Pipes dreamed.