CHAPTER XXIII
THE SHADOW
The four Corner House girls planned to start for town one morningearly, and they were going by road instead of by boat.
Agnes ran over to the boys' tents to ask Neale O'Neil to see thattheir fresh fish was put upon the ice in the icebox when the fishmancame; and she found Neale doing duty on the housekeeping staff thatmorning, being busily engaged in shaking up the pillows and beatingmattresses in the sun. The latter exertion was particularly for thedislodgment of the ubiquitous sandflea!
"Hello, Ag! What's the good word?" cried Neale.
Agnes told him what they were going to do and asked the favor.
"I'll see that you get the fish all right," Neale agreed. "But whatabout the iceman? He'll never come near your tent with Tom Jonahthere."
"Tom Jonah is going with us," Agnes said, promptly. "Did you supposewe'd leave him all day alone, poor fellow?"
When they started Tom Jonah showed his delight at being included inthe girls' outing by the most extravagant gyrations. As they went upthe shaded lane toward the auto-stage road, he chased half a dozenimaginary rabbits into the woods in as many minutes.
It was right at the head of the lane that they met the man. He was nota bad looking man at all, and he was driving a nice horse to arubber-tired runabout.
He drew in the horse, that seemed to have already traveled some milesthat morning, and looked hard at Tom Jonah.
"Well," he said, cheerfully, "there's the old tramp himself. How longhave you girls had him?"
The four Corner House girls stood stock-still, and even Ruth wassmitten dumb for the moment.
"Tom Jonah, you rascal!" said the man, not unkindly. "Don't you knowyour old master?"
At first the dog had not seen him; but the moment he heard the man'svoice, he halted and his whole body stiffened. The plume of his tailbegan to wave; his jaws stretched wide in a doggish smile. Then, asthe man playfully snapped the whip at him, Tom Jonah barked loudly.
"Where did you get him!" the man repeated, looking at the Corner Housegirls again.
Tess and Dot were clinging to each other's hands. Agnes stared at theman belligerently. Ruth said--and her voice was not quite steady:
"Do you think you know Tom Jonah, sir?"
"What do you think yourself, Miss?" responded the man, rather gruffly."I guess there's no mistake about whether he knows me and I know him."
"No, sir," said Ruth, bravely. "But lots of people may know him."
"Do you mean to put in a claim for the dog?" interrupted the man,quickly.
"Tom Jonah came to our house in Milton," began Ruth, when again theman interrupted with:
"Of course. He was on his way home to me. I sold him to a man wholives forty miles beyond Milton."
"Then you do _not_ own him?" Ruth said, with a feeling of relief.
The man looked at her steadily for a minute. Ruth had recovered herself-possession. Tess and Dot were now on either side of Tom Jonah,with their arms about the dog's neck. Agnes was very angry, butremained silent.
"I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned his mother. I raised him.I put his name on his collar. He has it there yet, hasn't he?"
"Yes, sir," admitted Ruth.
"He's always been a good dog. He's a gentleman if ever a dog was! Hehad the run of the house. My wife and the girls made a great pet ofhim. But by and by they said he was too big and clumsy for the house.They have a couple of little _fice_--lap-poodles, or the like. TomJonah was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!" and the man laughed."Just as jealous as a human."
"Oh!" gasped Agnes. She _disliked_ that man!
"My name's Reynolds," said the man. "Everybody knows me about Shawmit.I run a lumber-yard there.
"Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to the neighbors. Stayed a whilewith one, then with another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, andhe'd stay longest where there were kids in the family.
"But it got to be a nuisance. I didn't know whether the dog belongedto me or somebody else. So I sold him to a relative of my wife's whocame on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and who lives--asI said--forty miles beyond Milton. So the old fellow was on his wayback home when you took him in, eh?"
"He came to us at Milton," Ruth replied. "He wanted to stay. I broughthim down here to take care of my little sisters. We're living in atent down on the shore yonder----"
"And we're going to keep him!" interrupted Agnes, angrily.
"Hush! Be still, Aggie!" begged Ruth, in a low tone.
"You don't claim you bought him, I suppose?" said the man who calledhimself Reynolds.
"But we _will_!" cried Ruth, instantly. "We will gladly pay for him."
"Oh, he's not for sale again," laughed the man. "I sold him once andhe wouldn't stay sold, you see."
"Then he doesn't belong to you now, any more than he does to us,really," Ruth hastened to say.
"Well----that's so, I suppose," admitted the man.
"We won't give Tom Jonah up to anybody," said Agnes again.
Dot was crying and Tess could scarcely keep from following her lead.Tom Jonah stood solemnly, his eyes very bright, his tail wavingslowly. He looked from the girls to the man in the runabout, and backagain. He knew they were discussing him; but he did not know just whatit was all about.
"If we have to," said Ruth, with much more confidence in her voicethan she felt in her heart, "we will give Tom Jonah up to the personwho really owns him. We do not know you, sir. We do not know if whatyou say is true. You must prove it."
"Well! I like that!" said the man in a tone that showed he did notlike it at all. "You are a pretty pert young lady, you are. I guessI'll take my own dog home. I heard he was over here to the beach and Idrove over particularly to get him."
"Take him, then!" exclaimed Ruth, desperately. "If Tom Jonah will gowith you, all right. You call him."
"Come here, boy!" commanded the man.
Tom Jonah did not move. Ruth took a hand of each of the smaller girlsand led them away from the big dog.
"Come, children," she said. "We'll go on. If Tom Jonah really lovesus, he'll come, too."
The dog whined. He looked from the red-faced, angry man to the fourgirls who loved him so well.
"Come here, Tom Jonah!" commanded the man again. He had turned hishorse and was evidently headed for home. "Come, sir!"
The Corner House girls were moving sadly away. Agnes glanced back andactually made a face at the man in the runabout. Fortunately he didnot see it.
"Come on, Tom Jonah!" said the man for the third time.
The dog was perplexed. He showed it plainly. He started after the man;he started back for the girls. He whined and he barked. He was torn bythe conflicting emotions in his doggish soul.
"What's the matter with him?" exclaimed the man, and snapped hiswhiplash at Tom Jonah.
At that, Dot uttered a shriek of anguish. Tess burst into tears. Agnesstarted back as though to protect the dog. Even Ruth could not forbearto utter a cry.
"Here, Tom Jonah! here, sir!" Agnes shouted. "Come on, you dear oldfellow."
The dog barked, circled the moving carriage once, and then raced downthe road toward the Corner House girls. The man shouted and snappedhis whip. Tom Jonah did not even look back at him when he caught upwith the girls.
The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;started back for the girls. He whined and he barked.]
"Hurry up! let's run with him, Ruthie," begged Agnes.
But there was no need of that. The man did not turn his horse andfollow. He was quickly out of sight and Tom Jonah gave no sign ofwishing to follow his old master.
The incident troubled the Corner House girls vastly. Even Ruth wasdevoted to the good old dog by this time. If he were taken away bythis Mr. Reynolds, it would be like losing one of the Corner Housefamily.
Ruth feared that Mr. Reynolds would find some legal way of gettingpossession of Tom Jonah. She wished Mr. Howbridge were here to advisethem what to do. She even wished now that she
had not brought TomJonah to Pleasant Cove to act as their "chaperon."
The smaller girls dried their eyes after a time. Agnes, "breathingthreatenings," as Ruth said, promised Tess and Dot that the man nevershould take Tom Jonah away. But Ruth wondered what they would do aboutit if Mr. Reynolds came to Willowbend Camp with a police constable anda warrant for the dog?
And, too, who had sent Mr. Reynolds word that Tom Jonah was at thebeach? He particularly said that he had been informed of the fact. Itseemed to Ruth that the informer must be their enemy.
Then, out of a dust cloud that had been drawing near the Corner Housegirls for some few moments, appeared the forefront of a big touringcar. In it were Trix Severn and some of her friends from the OverlookHouse.
"Oh! there's Trix!" murmured Agnes to her older sister.
The hotel-keeper's daughter would not look at the Corner House girls.She, certainly, had proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if Trixhad had anything to do with bringing Mr. Reynolds to Pleasant Cove,searching for his dog.
Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper's daughter often rode over to Shawmit;she was probably on her way there now with her party. And after theway Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift bungalow was burned, onemight expect anything mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed hersuspicions to color her thoughts.
"She has awfully good times, just the same," murmured Agnes.
"Who does?" demanded Ruth, tartly.
"Trix."
"I declare!" exclaimed Ruth, with more vexation than she usuallydisplayed. "I'd be ashamed that I ever knew her after the way she'sacted. And I believe, Agnes, that we can thank her for setting thatman after Tom Jonah."
"Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?"
"I do," said the older Corner House girl, and she explained why shethought so.
Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix wasforever running over there in the car. It did not strain one'simagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds' dogand recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severnshad been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix mighteasily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Agnes. "It does seem too bad that one's very_best_ friends sometimes turn out to be one's enemies. Who'd havethought Trix Severn would do such a thing?"
"Of course, we don't _know_," admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. "Butwho else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?"
Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such thingsand bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collarand made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.
Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; theywanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, forthey thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody couldtake him away from them.
"I didn't like that man at all, anyway," Tess declared. "He had redwhiskers."
"Is--is that a sign that a man's real mean if he has red whiskers,Tess?" asked Dot, wonderingly.
"It's a sign Tess doesn't like him," laughed Agnes. "But I don't likethat Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?"
"We're all agreed on that point I should hope," said Ruth. "But wewon't run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I'llfind some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if hedoes to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. Sonow!"
The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about TomJonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met.They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondriftbungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.
Neale O'Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper to escort the CornerHouse girls back to Willowbend Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a napduring the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession, goinghome.
They went around by the home of the little old woman who lived in theshoe. Ruth and Agnes had been talking with the boys about the mysteryof the strange girl who had shared in the adventures of Tess and Doton Wild Goose Island. They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruthhad kept to herself the knowledge of the girl's identity as the Gypsy"queen."
"I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach to-day," Joe Eldredsaid. "That snaky, scarred-faced fellow was one of them."
"He's the ring-leader, I believe," Ruth hastened to say.
"Can't just see what they are after, hanging about here," Nealeobserved. "There isn't much to steal. Everybody's brought just theoldest things they own down here to the beach."
"And there are no hens to steal," chuckled Agnes.
"I bet none of them will come near the tents while Tom Jonah is onguard," Neale added, snapping his fingers for the dog who was runningahead in the moonlit path.
Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled. They had arrived in sight ofthe queer little cottage where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster.The young folk could even see the drawn shade of the sitting-roomwindow.
"There's that man again!" exclaimed Agnes.
"What man?" Joe Eldred asked.
"Mrs. Bobster's mysterious friend," giggled Agnes. "See his shadow onthe curtain?"
"And he's sitting there with his hat on," murmured Neale.
But it was Ruth who saw the other--and more important--shadow. Thiswas the figure of a tall man slipping along the outer side of Mrs.Bobster's picket fence. It was _this_ shadow at which Tom Jonah wasgrowling.
The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and stole in. His furtivemovements gave the big dog his cue. He leaped forward, barkingvociferously, leaped the fence, and followed the running figure aroundthe corner of the house.
Mrs. Bobster shrieked--the young folk outside could hear her. But her"company" did not move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.
The boys started after the dog. The girls stood, clinging to oneanother's hands, at the corner of the fence.
From around the house appeared another running figure; but this was agirl. She flung herself headlong over the fence, and her skirt caughton a picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.
"Oh, my dear!" she gasped. "Where did you come from?"
It was the girl she had first noticed in the train with the Gypsywoman--the very girl who had been on Wild Goose Island with Tess andDot. It was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the Gypsy queen.
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