Part 25 (2/2)
If he would attempt to steal the Indian girl, why would he not join hands with opium smugglers and Chinese runners, if he saw a possibility of gain in those industries?
She wished she might talk to Chess and learn just what was working in his mind at that moment. She was quite sure that he was by no means as stunned as he appeared to be.
She approved of his feigning, for as long as these men did not seek to injure her, why should he incur their further notice? He lay on the rug, quite as though he was helpless; but she knew he was alert and was ready, if occasion arose, to show much more agility than the Chinamen or the old King of the Pipes dreamed.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TWINS' ALARM
It was fully an hour after the _Lauriette_ had chugged away from the dock at the island where the moving picture company was established that the motor-boat which had been to Oak Point returned with Tom Cameron aboard.
Tom, with the other men who had been exploring and fis.h.i.+ng all day, was ravenously hungry, but he went around to the veranda of the chief bungalow where his twin sister and Ruth stayed to see how they were before even going to wash and to see if he could bribe one of the cooks to set out ”a cold snack.”
Tom found Helen on the porch, alone. At a glance, too, he saw that she was not in a pleasant mood.
”What's gone wrong?” demanded Tom. And with a brother's privilege of being plain-spoken, he added: ”You look cross. Go in search of your temper.”
”Who says I've lost it?” demanded Helen sharply.
”I Cagliostro--Merlin--wizard that I am,” chuckled Tom. ”I am still little Brighteyes, and I can see just as far into a spruce plank as the next one.”
”Well, I am mad, if you want to know,” sniffed Helen.
”Where's Ruth?”
”She's whom I am mad at,” declared the girl, nodding.
”I don't believe it,” said Tom soothingly. ”We could not really be mad at Ruth Fielding.”
”Don't you feel that way yourself--the way she acts with Chess Copley?”
”I wouldn't mind punching 'La.s.ses' head,” returned Tom. ”But that's different.”
”Is that so? What do you know about their being out on the river together right now? Humph!”
”Where have they gone?” asked her brother. ”Why aren't you with them? Are they alone?”
This brought out the full particulars of the affair, and Tom listened to the end of a rather excited account of what had happened that afternoon--both on the island where Helen and Ruth had been ”marooned”
and here at the camp--together with the suspicions and curiosity about the island which had been dubbed the Kingdom of Pipes. Nor did it lack interest in Tom's ears in spite of his sister's rather excited way of telling it.
”But look here,” he asked. ”Why didn't you go with Ruth and 'La.s.ses?”
”Humph! They didn't want me,” sniffed Helen.
”Now, Helen, you know better. Ruth never slighted you in the world. I know her better than that.”
”Well, she makes too much of Chess Copley. She is always praising him up to me. And I don't like it. I'll treat him just as I want to--so there!”
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