“I only hope she won’t get into any trouble through that horrid Jack Crab. And it seems so ungrateful for Nita to walk out of the house without saying a word to Heavy and Miss Kate.
“I’d best keep my own mouth shut, however, and let things take their course. Nita wanted to go away, or she would not have done so. She seemed to have no fear of Jack Crab; otherwise she would not have met him at night and gone away with him.
“Ruth Fielding! you mind your own business,” argued the girl of the Red Mill, finally going back toward the silent house. “At least, wait until we see what comes of this before you tell everything you know.”
And so deciding, she crept into the house, locked the door again, got into her room without disturbing any of the other girls, and so to bed and finally to sleep, being little the wiser for her midnight escapade.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GOBLINS’ GAMBOL
Helen awoke Ruth in the morning with the question that was bound to echo and re-echo through the bungalow for that, and subsequent days:
“Where is Nita?”
Ruth could truthfully answer: “I do not know.”
Nor did anybody else know, or suspect, or imagine. What had happened in the night was known only to Ruth and she had determined not to say a word concerning it unless she should be pointedly examined by Miss Kate, or somebody else in authority.