Across the line of her vision and through one of these aisles pa.s.sed a figure--whether that of an animal or the stooping body of a human being Ruth Fielding could not at first be sure.
She had no fear of there being any savage creature in this wood. At least there could be nothing here that would attack her in broad daylight. In a lull in the echoing thunder she cried aloud:
"Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! Where are you?"
She was sure her voice drove some distance up the hillside against the wind. She saw the flitting figure again, and with a desire to make sure of its ident.i.ty, Ruth started in pursuit.
Had Tom been present the girl of the Red Mill would have called his attention to the mystery and left it to him to decide whether to investigate or not. But Ruth was quite an independent person when she was alone; and under the circ.u.mstances, with Henri Marchand so busy comforting Jennie, Ruth did not consider for a moment calling the Frenchman to advise with her.
As for Helen and Aunt Kate, they were quite overcome by their fears. Ruth was not really afraid of thunder and lightning, as many people are. She had long since learned that "thunder does not bite, and the bolt of lightning that hits you, you will never see!"
Heavy as the going was, and interfering with her progress through her wet garments did, Ruth ran up the hill underneath the dripping trees. She saw the flitting, shadowy figure once more. Again she called as loudly as she could shout:
"Wait! Wait! I won"t hurt you."
Whoever or whatever it was, the figure did not stay. It flitted on about two hundred yards ahead of the pursuing girl.
At times it disappeared altogether; but Ruth kept on up the hill and her quarry always reappeared. She was quite positive this was the creature that had shrieked, for the mournful cry was not repeated after she caught sight of the figure.
"It is somebody who has been frightened by the storm," she thought. "Or it is a lost child. This is a wild hillside, and one might easily be lost up here."
Then she called again. She thought the strange figure turned and hesitated. Then, of a sudden, it darted into a clump of brush. When Ruth came panting to the spot she could see no trace of the creature, or the path which it had followed.
But directly before Ruth was an opening in the hillside--the mouth of a deep ravine which had not been visible from the road below.
Down this ravine ran a noisy torrent which had cut itself a wider and deeper bed since the cloudburst on the heights. Small trees, brush, and rocks had been uprooted by the force of the stream, but its current was now receding. One might walk along the edge of the brook into this hillside fastness.
Determined to solve the mystery of the strange creature"s disappearance, and quite convinced that it was a lost child or woman, Ruth Fielding ventured through the brush clump and pa.s.sed along the ragged bank of the tumbling brook.
Suddenly, in the muddy ground at her feet, the girl spied a shoe. It was a black oxford of good quality, and it had been, of course, wrenched from the foot of the person she pursued. This girl, or woman, must be running from Ruth in fear.
Ruth picked up the shoe. It was for a small foot, but might belong to either a girl of fourteen or so or to a small woman. She could see the print of the other shoe--yes! and there was the impress of the stockinged foot in the mud.
"Whoever she may be," thought Ruth Fielding, "she is so frightened that she abandoned this shoe. Poor thing! What can be the matter with her?"
Ruth shouted again, and yet again. She went on up the side of the turbulent brook, staring all about for the hiding place of her quarry.
The rain ceased entirely and abruptly. But the whole forest was a-drip.
Far up through the trees she saw a sudden lightening of the sky. The clouds were breaking.
But the smoke of the torrential downpour still rose from the saturated earth. When Ruth jarred a bush in pa.s.sing a perfect deluge fell from the trembling leaves. The girl began to feel that she had come far enough in what appeared to be a wild-goose chase.
Then suddenly, quite amazingly, she was halted. She plunged around a sharp turn in the ravine, trying to step on the dryer places, and found herself confronted by a man standing under the shelter of a wide-armed spruce.
"Oh!" gasped Ruth, starting back.
He was a heavy-set, bewhiskered man with gleaming eyes and rather a grim look. Worst of all, he carried a gun with the lock sheltered under his arm-pit from the rain.
At Ruth"s appearance he seemed startled, too, and he advanced the muzzle of the gun and took a stride forward at the same moment.
"h.e.l.lo!" he growled. "Be you crazy, too? What in all git out be you traipsing through these woods for in the rain?"
CHAPTER XI
MR. PETERBY PAUL AND "WHOSIS"
Ruth Fielding was more than a little startled, for the appearance of this bearded and gruff-spoken man was much against him.
She had become familiar, however, during the past months with all sorts and conditions of men--many of them much more dangerous looking than this stranger.
Her experiences at the battlefront in France had taught her many things.
Among them, that very often the roughest men are the most tender with and considerate of women. Ruth knew that the girls and women working in the Red Cross and the "Y" and the Salvation Army might venture among the roughest _poilus_, Tommies and our own Yanks without fearing insult or injury.
After that first startled "Oh!" Ruth Fielding gave no sign of fearing the bearded man with the gun under his arm. She stood her ground as he approached her.
"How many air there of ye, Sissy?" he wanted to know. "And air ye all loose from some bat factory? That other one"s crazy as all git out."
"Oh, did you see her?"
"If ye mean that Whosis that"s wanderin" around yellin" like a cat-o"-mountain----"
"Oh, dear! It was she that was screaming so!"
"I should say it was. I tried to cotch her----"
"And that scared her more, I suppose."
"Huh! Be I so scareful to look at?" the stranger demanded. "Or, mebbe _you_ ain"t loony, lady?"
"I should hope not," rejoined Ruth, beginning to laugh.
"Then how in tarnation," demanded the bearded man, "do you explain your wanderin" about these woods in this storm?"
"Why," said Ruth, "I was trying to catch that poor creature, too."
"That Whosis?" he exclaimed.
"Whatever and whoever she is. See! Here"s one of her shoes."
"Do tell! She"s lost it, ain"t she? Don"t you reckon she"s loony?"
"It may be that she is out of her mind. But she couldn"t hurt you--a big, strong man like you."
"That"s as may be. I mis...o...b..ed me she was some kind of a Whosis," said the woodsman. "I seen her a couple of times and heard her holler ev"ry time the lightning was real sharp."