THE AUTO TOUR
"Hi, Ruth!"
"Hey, Ruth!"
"Straw, Ruth!—why don't you say?" cried the owner of the name, running to the porch and smiling out upon the Cameron twins, who had stopped their automobile at the Red Mill gate on a morning soon following that day on which Uncle Jabez and Ruth had undergone their involuntary ducking in the Lumano.
"Aren't you ready, Ruthie?" cried Helen from the back seat of the car.
"Do hurry up, Ruth—the horses don't want to stand," laughed Tom, who was slim and black haired and black eyed, like his twin. Indeed, the two were so much alike that, dressed in each other's clothing, it is doubtful if they could have been suspected in such disguise.
"But my bag isn't packed yet," cried Ruth. "I didn't know you'd be here so soon."
"Take your toothbrush and powder puff—that's all you girls really need," declared the irrepressible Tom.
"I like that! And on a two days' trip into the hills," said his sister, beating him soundly with an energetic fist.
"Give him one or two good ones for me, Helen," said Ruth, and ran in to finish her preparations for the journey she was to take with her friends.
"Pshaw!" grumbled the impatient Tom, "going to Uncle Ike's isn't like going to a fancy hotel. And we'll stop over to-night with Fred Larkin's folks—the girls there would lend you and Ruth all you need."
"Hold on!" exclaimed his sister. "Just what have you in your bag? I know it's heavy. You have all you want——"
"Sure. Pair of socks, two collars, fishing tackle, some books I borrowed of Fred last year, my bicycle wrench—you never know when you are going to need it,—a string of wampum I promised to take to Nealy Larkin—she's a Campfire girl, you know—and an Indian tomahawk for Fred——"
"But, clothes! clothes!" gasped Helen. "Where are your shirts?"
"Oh, I'll borrow a shirt, if I need one," declared Master Tom, grinning. "Uncle Ike's Benjy is about my size, you know. What's the use of carting around so much stuff?"
"I notice you have your bag full of trash," sniffed Helen. "It can plainly be seen that Mrs. Murchiston was called away so suddenly that she could not oversee our packing."
"Come on, Ruth!" shouted Tom again, turning toward the farmhouse.
"Now, don't get her in a flurry," admonished Helen. "She hasn't had but two hours' notice to get ready for this two days' trip. It's a wonder Uncle Jabez would let her go with us at all."
"Oh, Uncle Jabe isn't such a bad old fellow after all," said Tom.
"He's been just as cross and cranky as he can be, ever since he lost his boat in the river the other evening—you know that. And they say he would have been drowned, too, if it hadn't been for Ruthie. What a brave girl she is, Tom!"
"Bravest in seven states!" acknowledged Master Tom, promptly. He had always thought there was nobody just like Ruth, and his sister smiled upon him approvingly.
"I guess she is!" she agreed. "There isn't a girl at Briarwood Hall that will be her match in anything—now that Madge Steele has gotten through. Ruth is going to be head of the senior class before we graduate—you see."
"She'll have to hustle some to beat little Mercy Curtis," grinned Tom. "There's a sharp suffragette for you!"
Helen laughed. "That's right. But, unfortunately for Mercy, Mrs. Tellingham considers other work beside our books in grading us. Oh, Tommy! we're going to have a dandy time this coming year at school."
"You have my best wishes," returned her brother, with a slightly clouded face. "Bobbins and Busy Izzy and I expect to be drilled like everything, when we get back to Seven Oaks. Professor Darly is a terror."
Ruth came out with her bag then, and in the doorway behind her appeared the little, stooped figure of Aunt Alvirah. The Camerons waved their hands and shouted greetings to her.
"Take good keer of my pretty, Master Tom," shrilled the old lady, hobbling out into the yard. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
"We'll handle her as if she were made of glass," declared Tom, laughing. "Hop in, Ruthie!"
"Good-bye, Aunt Alvirah!" cried the girl of the Red Mill, clasping the little old lady around the neck and kissing her. Then she waved her hand to Uncle Jabez, who appeared in the mill doorway, and he nodded grimly, as the car started.
Ben appeared at a window and bashfully nodded to the departing pleasure party. The car quickly passed the end of the Cheslow road and sped up the riverside. These lowlands beyond the Red Mill had once been covered by a great flood, and the three friends would never forget their race with the freshet from Culm Falls, at the time the Minturn Dam burst.
"But we're bound far, far above the dam this time," said Tom. "Fred Larkin lives farther than that—beyond the gorge between the hills, and at the foot of the first pond. We'll get there long before dark unless something happens to this old mill I'm driving."
"There! Tommy's harping on his pet trouble," laughed Helen. "Father won't let us use the new car to go scooting about the country alone in, and Tommy thinks he is abused."
"Well! that 'six' is just eating its head off in the garage," grumbled the boy.
"Just as though it were a horse!" chuckled Ruth.
"You wait! I bet something happens on this trip, because of this old heap of scrap iron that pa calls a car."
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Helen, with some exasperation. "Don't you dare have a breakdown in the hills, Tom! I should be frightened. It's so wild up there beyond Loon Lake."
"You needn't blame me," returned her twin. "I shall do my best."
"And so will the auto—I have no doubt," added Ruth, laughingly. "Cheer up, Helen, dear——"
"I know the rest of it!" interrupted her chum. "'The worst is yet to come!' I—hope—not!"
Ruth Fielding would allow no worrying or criticism in this event. They were out for a good time, and she at once proceeded to cheer up the twins, and laugh at their fears, and interest them in other things.
They crossed the river at Culm Falls—a beautiful spot—and it was beyond the bridge, as the car was mounting the first long rise, that the party of adventurers found their first incident of moment.
Here and there were clearings in the forest upon the right side of the road (on the other side the hill fell abruptly to the river), and little farms. As the party came in sight of one of these farms, a great cry arose from the dooryard. The poultry was soundly disturbed—squawking, cackling, shrieking their protests noisily—while the deep baying of a dog rose savagely above the general turmoil.
"Something doing there!" quoth Tom Cameron, slowing down.
"A chicken hawk, perhaps?" suggested Ruth.
A woman was screaming admonition or advice; occasionally the gruffer voice of a man added to the turmoil. But the dog's barking was the loudest sound.
Suddenly, from around the corner of the barn, appeared a figure wildly running. It was neither the farmer, nor his wife—that was sure.
"Tramp!" exclaimed Tom, reaching for the starting lever again.
At that moment Helen shrieked. After the running man appeared a hound. He had broken his leash, and a more savage brute it would be difficult to imagine. He was following the runner with great leaps, and when the fugitive vaulted the roadside fence, the dog crashed through the rails, tearing down a length of them, and scrambling in the dusty road in an endeavor to get on the trail of the man again.
Only, it was not a man; it was a boy! He was big and strong looking, but his face was boyish. Ruth Fielding stood up suddenly in the car and shrieked to him:
"Come here! This way! Roberto!"
"My goodness! is he a friend of yours, Ruthie?" gasped Tom Cameron.
"He's the Gypsy boy that saved Uncle Jabez," returned Ruth, in a breath.
"Take him aboard—do!" urged Helen. "That awful dog——"
Roberto had heard and leaped for the running-board of the car. Tom switched on the power. Just as the huge hound leaped, and his fore-paws touched the step, the car darted away and the brute was left sprawling.
The car was a left-hand drive, and Tom motioned the panting youth to get in beside him. The dark-faced fellow did so. At first he was too breathless to speak, but his black eyes snapped like beads, and his lips smiled. He seemed to have enjoyed the race with the savage dog, instead of having been frightened by it.
"You save me, Missy, like I save your old man—eh?" he panted, at last, turning his brilliant smile upon Ruth. "Me! that dog mos' have me, eh?"
"What was the matter? How came you to start all that riot?" demanded Tom, looking at the Gypsy youth askance.
Roberto's grin became expansive. The little gold rings in his ears twinkled as well as his eyes.
"I did them no wrong. I slept in the man's haymow. He found me a little while ago. He say I haf to pay for my sleep—eh? How poor Gypsy pay?" and he opened his hands and shrugged his shoulders to show that his pockets were empty.
"Me, no money have got. Can I work? Of course I work—only the farmers do not trust me. They call all Gypsies thieves. Isn't it so, Missy?" and he flashed a glance at Ruth.
"I know, Mr. Joe Bascom drove you out of his orchard," agreed the girl of the Red Mill. "But you should have come across the river to us. Uncle Jabez is really grateful to you."
"Oh, that?" and the boy shrugged his shoulders again. "I do not want pay for what I do—no. I want no money. I would not work a day for all my grandmother's wealth—and she is a miser," and Roberto laughed again, showing all his white, strong teeth.
"But these people back here—this man and his woman—they want me to churn. It is a dog's work—no? I see where the dog haf to churn, but that dog die and they get this new, savage one—and it will not. Me, I think this dog very wise!" and Roberto's merriment broke out again, and he shook with it.
"So I tell them I will not do dog's work, and then he, the man, chases me with his pitchfork, and the woman unloose the dog. Oh, yes! I make a great noise in the henyard. That dog chase me hard. So—I got away as you see," he concluded.
"Say! you're a cool one," declared Tom, with growing admiration.
"But you ought not to be loafing about, sleeping anywhere, and without employment," said Helen, primly.
Roberto's black eyes sparkled. "Why does the little missy say I should work?" he demanded. "There is no need. I return to my people, perhaps. There I curry horses and fill the water pails for the women, and go with my uncle to the horse-fairs where he trades, or be under my grandmother's beck and call—the grandmother whom I tell you is a miser. But I never have money with them, and why should I work for it elsewhere?"
"To get good clothes, and good food, and pay your way everywhere," suggested Tom.
Roberto laughed again. He spread out his strong hands. "These keep me from day to day," he said. "But money burns a hole in my pocket. Or, would you have me like my grandmother? She hoards every penny-piece, and then gloats over her money-box, by the firelight, when the rest of the camp is asleep. Oh, I see her!"