“I suppose your friend, the half-Indian, is a critic of deportment,” said The Fox, with a laugh.
“Well, Jib wouldn’t say anything mean about a cripple,” said Nita, in her slow way, and The Fox seemed to have no reply.
But this little by-play drew Ruth Fielding closer to the queer girl who had selected her “hifaluting” name because it was the name of a girl in a paper-covered novel.
Nita had lived out of doors, that was plain. Ruth believed, from what the runaway had said, that she came from the plains of the great West. She had lived on a ranch. Perhaps her folks owned a ranch, and they might even now be searching the land over for their daughter. The thought made the girl from the Red Mill very serious, and she determined to try and gain Nita’s confidence and influence her, if she could, to tell the truth about herself and to go back to her home. She knew that she could get Mr. Cameron to advance Nita’s fare to the West, if the girl would return.
But up on the gallery in front of the shining lantern of the lighthouse there was no chance to talk seriously to the runaway. Heavy had to sit down when she reached this place, and she declared that she puffed like a steam engine. Then, when she had recovered her breath, she pointed out the places of interest to be seen from the tower–the smoke of Westhampton to the north; Fuller’s Island, with its white sands and gleaming green lawns and clumps of wind-blown trees; the long strip of winding coast southward, like a ribbon laid down for the sea to wash, and far, far to the east, over the tumbling waves, still boisterous with the swell of last night’s storm, the white riding sail of the lightship on No Man’s Shoal.
They came down after an hour, wind-blown, the taste of salt on their lips, and delighted with the view. They found the ugly, hairy man sitting on the doorstep, listening with a scowl and a grin to Mercy’s sharp speeches.
“I don’t know what brought you back here to the light, Jack Crab, at this time of day,” said Mother Purling. “You ain’t wanted.”
“I likes to see comp’ny, too, I do,” growled the man.
“Well, these girls ain’t your company,” returned the old woman. “Now! get up and be off. Get out of the way.”
Crab rose, surlily enough, but his sharp eyes sought Nita. He looked her all over, as though she were some strange object that he had never seen before.