CHAPTER II

HOMEWARD BOUND

For a moment after the startling announcement, Ruth Fielding could not
find words to express her sympathy. It seemed impossible to believe that
anything could have happened to the kind old gentleman who lived at
Cameron Hall near Ruth’s old home, the Red Mill.

Mr. Cameron was a widower, retired from active business, and Tom and
Helen were devoted to him. Ruth often had visited Cameron Hall and in
many ways he had seemed almost as a father to her.

“Sick?” she brought out at last. “What on earth——”

“We don’t know what the matter is,” Helen explained quickly. “The
telegram doesn’t say. It just says come at once.”

“It may be too late before we get there,” Tom said, in very low tones.

“Oh, no, Tommy boy!” Ruth pressed his hand comfortingly. “Don’t take it
that way. Everything will come out all right, I’m sure.”

Ruth spoke with an optimism she did not entirely feel, for she knew that
Mr. Cameron was far from strong.

“We’ll go East at once,” Tom announced, but he spoke as though in a
half-daze. He seemed unable to think clearly.

“I’ll go with you,” Chess declared. “Let’s get a time-table right away
and see how soon we can get out of here.”

Tom gripped his friend’s hand gratefully. All eyes were now turned upon
Ruth. What would she do? There was a brief period of silence, and then
Tom answered the question for her.

“Of course Ruth can’t come. Your work must come first. After all, I
suppose there won’t be anything to do when we get home—except wait.”

“Oh, Tommy, if only I could go along!”

“I wish you could, Ruth,” and Tom managed to smile. “But you have too
much at stake. You’re under contract to finish this picture by a
definite date.”

“Yes, I know you’re right, Tom. But I’ll wind up my work in a week or
two at the latest, if I have to dig night and day! Then I’ll take the
first train home. Perhaps, after all, things will be much better than
you expect.”

“I hope so,” Tom replied, but the worried look did not leave his face.

“Let’s take a taxi,” Chess suggested. “I’ll stop at the station and make
reservations.”

The four friends were soon seated in an automobile, speeding toward the
central part of the city. Very few words were spoken during the ride,
for each person was absorbed in his own thoughts.

Ruth cast a shy glance at Tom. How she wished that she could throw up
her work and go with her friends back to the Red Mill. This was the
time, if ever, that Tom really needed her. She wondered if he felt that
she was deserting him.

“Tom is so discouraged,” she thought, “and I’m afraid he’s almost made
up his mind that my work will always come first—that I’ll never marry
him.”

Ruth found it difficult to keep back the tears as she thought of her
early friendship with Tom Cameron and his twin sister, Helen. She had
met them soon after she came as an orphan to make her home with her
great-uncle, Jabez Potter, and his faithful housekeeper, Aunt Alvirah
Boggs, at the Red Mill, located near Cheslow, in one of the New England
states.

Ruth and Helen had enjoyed boarding school and college together. Even
before Ruth played her part in the World War, she had accepted Tom’s
ring, and Helen, who boasted that she liked to follow her chum’s lead,
had accepted a similar engagement token from Chessleigh Copley.

But Ruth’s heart had always been fixed on a writing career. Even in
college she won some fame as a scenario writer. Later, Mr. Hammond,
president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, had aided her in the
organization of the Fielding Film Company. With Tom as the treasurer,
Ruth’s company had prospered and had established offices in New York as
well as Hollywood, California.

Ruth’s adventures brought her into contact with unprincipled persons and
carried her to strange lands, but always the girl held her own. From the
time the reader first met her in the initial volume of this series,
entitled, “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” she had proved herself an
unusually bright and clear-headed girl. Although Ruth had won fame, she
never forgot her early friends.

Her latest success, recounted in “Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario,”
gained international honors for her. But fame had brought added
responsibilities, and now Ruth asked herself if she could really call
her time her own.

“I don’t care!” she told herself firmly. “As soon as this picture is
over with, I’m going to give Tom more of my time. I owe it to him and to
myself.”

Tom and Chess, who were frequently called from the city on business, had
taken rooms at a hotel. During Ruth’s siege on the great picture, she
and Helen had taken an apartment a short distance from the studio and
not far from the hotel. Ruth found that she could work more effectively
where it was quiet, and by avoiding the hotel she escaped the attention
which her fame had brought.

“We’ll drop you girls at your apartment,” Chess offered. “Tom and I can
attend to the reservations. We’ll telephone as soon as we find out about
trains.”

Once inside the apartment, Ruth flew about like mad helping Helen pack
her traveling bags. Ruth assumed the entire responsibility, for Helen
seemed almost helpless. The dependency of her chum, the need for action,
kept Ruth busy and prevented her from thinking of the unpleasant
situation. The telephone rang and Ruth hurried to answer it.

“It’s Chess,” she informed Helen an instant later. “They’ve booked
reservations on the Limited that leaves in less than an hour. If you
don’t take that, you can’t get another through train until to-morrow.”

“I’ll never make it,” Helen half-sobbed.

“Yes, you will, honey.” Instantly Ruth had her arms about her chum.
“I’ll get everything packed for you.”

“But my trunk!”

“Never mind your trunk. I’ll send it on later.”

“Oh, Ruth, how can we ever repay you——”

“Nonsense.” Ruth spoke almost brusquely to hide her own emotion. She was
throwing odds and ends into the traveling bag at break-neck speed.

“You’ve locked that bag, and my stocking is hanging out,” Helen pointed
out hysterically. She sank down into a chair and dropped her head on her
arms.

“Now, Helen, cheer up! It can’t be as bad as you think.” Ruth ran to the
window. “Tom and Chess are outside with a cab now. They must have packed
like lightning. Come on!”

Ruth fairly pushed Helen out of the door. They were met by Tom and
Chess, who relieved them of the two bags.

“We have ten minutes to catch the Limited,” Chess said, glancing at his
watch.

“To the Union Station, and step on it,” Tom directed the cab driver.

Chess had already purchased the tickets and had reserved their berths in
the Pullman. At the station, they quickly paid the driver and hurried to
the gate. Helen and Chess said good-by to Ruth and passed through the
gate to track Number 3 where their train was already waiting. Ruth, who
had no ticket, could not pass the gateman, and Tom paused an instant
before he followed Chess and his sister.

“We’ll send a telegram as soon as we reach home,” he promised. “You’ll
probably leave Hollywood before it could reach you, so perhaps you’d
better call for it at the Chicago station.”

“I will, Tommy,” Ruth managed.

There was so much that she wanted to tell him, but somehow the words
failed to come.

“Ruth”—Tom had taken her hand—there was an expression in his eyes that
she had never seen before and one that she could not entirely
understand—“I wanted to tell you before I left——”

“Say, young man, if that’s your train on track three, she’s pulling out
now!”

Tom and Ruth wheeled, and saw that, as the gateman had warned, the
Limited was slowly leaving the station. Chess and Helen, on the
observation platform, were waving their arms frantically.

“Quick, Tom! You can make it if you run!” Ruth gave Tom a tiny push
toward the gate.

Instantly alert, Tom rushed through the gate and down the platform. He
was not encumbered by baggage, for Chess had relieved him of it at the
station.

Tom’s college track practice now served him well. The train was moving
slowly, and before it gained headway, the young man caught up with the
rear car. Helen and Chess helped him scramble aboard. From the platform,
he waved to Ruth, who was anxiously watching through the iron fence.

“I wonder what it was Tom started to tell me,” she thought as she walked
slowly from the station to the taxicab.

An overpowering loneliness came over her. Tom’s face haunted her. It had
been so white and haggard. Now that she recalled the fact, he had
appeared worried about something even before the telegram arrived. Tom
seldom discussed money matters with Ruth, and as treasurer of her film
company she trusted him to finance her pictures. Could it be that money
matters were bothering him?

“If he were in difficulties, it would be just like him never to let me
know,” she told herself. “Tom always tries to take the worry on his own
shoulders.”