ne began to tell on the bass, he carefully wound
in some of it. The fish turned and finally ran toward the rocks once
more. Then Tom wound up as fast as he could, trying to keep the line taut.

"He'll tangle you all up, Tommy," declared Bob, unable, like Isadore,
to keep entirely still.

Tom was flushed and excited, but said never a word. He played the big
bass with coolness after all, and finally tired it out, keeping it clear
of the tangles of weed down under the rock, and drew it forth--a plump,
flopping, gasping victim.

Bob and Isadore were then eager to do as well and began whipping the
water about the rocks with more energy than skill. Tom, delighted with
his first kill, ran over the rocks with the fish to show it to the girls.
As he surmounted the ridge of the rocky cape he suddenly saw Nita, the
runaway, and Jack Crab, in a little cove right below him. The girl and
the fisherman had come around to this side of the inlet, away from
Phineas and the other girls.

They did not see Tom behind and above them. Nita was not fishing, and
Crab had unfolded a paper and was showing it to her. At this distance
the paper seemed like a page torn from some newspaper, and there were
illustrations as well as reading text upon the sheet which Crab held
before the strange girl's eyes.

"There it is!" Tom heard the lighthouse keeper's assistant say, in an
exultant tone. "You know what I could get if I wanted to show this to
the right parties. _Now_, what d'ye think of it, Sissy?"

What Nita thought, or what she said, Tom did not hear. Indeed, scarcely
had the two come into his line of vision, and he heard these words,
when something much farther away--across the inlet, in fact--caught
the boy's attention.

He could see his sister and some of the other girls fishing from the
rocky path; but directly opposite where he stood was Ruth. He saw Mary
Cox meet and speak with her, the slight struggle of the two girls for
position on the narrow ledge, and Ruth's plunge into the water.

"Oh, by George!" shouted Tom, as Ruth went under, and he dropped the
flopping bass and went down the rocks at a pace which endangered both
life and limb. His shout startled Nita and Jack Crab. But they had not
seen Ruth fall, nor did they understand Tom's great excitement.

The inlet was scarcely more than a hundred yards across; but it was a
long way around to the spot where Ruth had fallen, or been pushed, from
the rock. Tom never thought of going