Mary Cox was certainly a very strange sort of a girl; but her present attitude did not surprise Ruth. Mary had, soon after Ruth entered Briarwood Hall, taken a dislike to the younger girl. Ruth’s new club–the Sweetbriars–had drawn almost all the new girls in the school, as well as many of Mary’s particular friends; while the Up and Doing Club, of which Mary was the leading spirit, was not alone frowned upon by Mrs. Tellingham and her assistants, but lost members until–as Helen Cameron had said–the last meeting of the Upedes consisted of The Fox and Helen herself.
The former laid all this at Ruth Fielding’s door. She saw Ruth’s influence and her club increase, while her own friends fell away from her. Twice Ruth had helped to save Mary from drowning, and on neither occasion did the older girl seem in the least grateful. Now Ruth was saving her from the scorn of the other girls and–perhaps–a request from Heavy’s Aunt Kate that Mary pack her bag and return home.
Ruth hoped that Mary would find some opportunity of speaking to her alone before the day was over. But, even when the boys returned from the outer rocks with a splendid string of bass, and the bow of the Miraflame was turned homeward, The Fox said never a word to her. Ruth crept away into the bows by herself, her mind much troubled. She feared that the fortnight at Lighthouse Point might become very unpleasant, if Mary continued to be so very disagreeable.
Suddenly somebody tapped her on the arm. The motor boat was pushing toward the mouth of Sokennet Harbor and the sun was well down toward the horizon. The girls were in the cabin, singing, and Madge was trying to make her brother sing, too; but Bob’s voice was changing and what he did to the notes of the familiar tunes was a caution.
But it was Tom Cameron who had come to Ruth. “See here,” said the boy, eagerly. “See what I picked up on the rocks over there.”
“Over where?” asked Ruth, looking curiously at the folded paper in Tom’s hand.
“Across from where you fell in, Ruth. Nita and that Crab fellow were standing there when I went down the rocks and dived in for you. And I saw them looking at this sheet of newspaper,” and Tom began to slowly unfold it as he spoke.
CHAPTER XVII
WHAT WAS IN THE NEWSPAPER
“Whatever have you got there, Tom?” asked Ruth, curiously.