Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies | Page 4

Ruth Fielding, following the death of her parents and while she was
still a small girl, had left Darrowtown and Miss True Pettis, and all her
other old friends and acquaintances, to live with her mother's uncle, at
the Red Mill. Her coming to the mill and her early adventures in and
about that charming place were related in the first volume of this series,
entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill."
Ruth made many friends in her new home, among them Helen and Tom
Cameron, the twin, motherless children of a wealthy dry-goods
merchant who had a beautiful home, called "the Outlook," near the mill,
and Mercy Curtis, the daughter of the railroad station agent at Cheslow,
the nearest important town to Ruth's new home. Ruth, Helen, and
Mercy all went to Briarwood Hall, a girls' school some distance from
Cheslow, while Master Tom attended a military academy at Seven
Oaks, near the girls' institution of learning. The incidents of their first

term at school are related in the second volume of the series, while in
the mid-winter vacation Ruth and her friends go to Snow Camp in the
Adirondacks.
Later, our friends spent part of a summer vacation at Lighthouse Point
on the Atlantic Coast, after which they visited Silver Ranch in Montana.
The sixth volume tells of another mid-winter camping adventure on
Cliff Island, while the volume previous to our present story--number
seven, in fact--was entitled "Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm."
This story narrated Ruth's particular interest in Sadie Raby, a strange,
wild girl who ran away from cruel people who had taken her "to raise."
Her reunion with her twin brothers, Willie and Dickie, and how they all
three became the special care of Mr. Steele, the wealthy owner of
Sunrise Farm, is told. It is through Ruth's efforts that the Rabys are
settled in life and win friends.
Now Ruth and her schoolmates had returned to the Red Mill and
Cheslow, and but a brief space would elapse before the girls would
begin their third year at Briarwood Hall; they were all looking toward
the beginning of the fall term with great eagerness.
Had Ruth Fielding been able to think at this moment of the boat's
overturn, or of anything but her uncle's peril, she might have
considered that the possibility of her ever seeing Briarwood Hall again
was somewhat doubtful!
The hurrying water tugged at her as though a hundred hands had laid
hold of her person. She was nearly arm-pit deep in the flood, and her
uncle's body was so heavy that she had all she could do to hold his head
above the surface.
She could not get him back into the boat, even, and perhaps that would
not have been a wise move. For the old skiff, shaking and rocking, was
likely to be torn free by the battling current. If it should swing into deep
water, it must sink almost at once, for the water was pouring in through
the hole that had been battered in its side.

The flour was fast becoming saturated with the river-water, and its
increased weight would bear the boat to the bottom, if it slipped from
the reef.
Unable to see any good of boarding the boat again, Ruth tried to work
her way along the reef until she stood upon a higher part of it. Uncle
Jabez was unconscious, blood flowed from a deep cut on his head, and
he lay a dead weight in her arms.
Never had Ruth Fielding been in greater peril. She was frightened, but
mostly for the old man who seemed so seriously hurt.
Tossing her loosened hair out of her eyes, she stared longingly at the
landing near Lakeby's store. It was some distance up-stream, and not a
person was in sight. She feared, too, that it was too far away for her
voice to carry.
Yet she must scream for help. She shouted again and again,
endeavoring to put all the strength of her voice into the cries. Was that
an answer? The girl held her uncle high in her arms and looked all
about.
Nobody was at the store landing. Nobody was behind on the other
shore of the river--and she was glad that Aunt Alvirah and Mercy had
not seen the accident, for neither of them could have helped in this
predicament.
Yes! there was the repeated shout--and nearer. Ruth's eyes turned to the
north shore of the Lumano again. There was somebody running down
the bank--not near the store kept by Timothy Lakeby, but directly
opposite the rock on which the old boat had stranded.
"Oh! oh! Help! help!" shrieked the girl of the Red Mill.
"Hold on! I'm coming!"
The voice came to her more strongly than before. She could not see
who the