CHAPTER XXI--THE NEXT MORNING

The fire was now at its height, and many of the men were fighting the flames as they leaped across from the burning cottage. Therefore, not many had been called to the help of the refugees from the wrecked bateau.

"I'll be whip-sawed!" complained Jimson. "Foolin' with their blamed old bonfire, they might ha' let me an' my negroes drown. This yere little Yankee boy is wuth the whole bilin' of 'em."

They carried Curly, who was quite unconscious now, into the house. On a couch in the office Ruth fixed a pillow, and straightened out his injured leg.

"Isn't there a doctor? Somebody who knows something about setting the leg?" she demanded. "If it can only be set now, while he is unconscious, he will be saved just so much extra pain."

"Let me find somebody!" cried Nettie, who knew almost everybody in the hotel party.

She ran out upon the veranda, forgetting her slippers and silk hose for the moment, and soon came back with one of the men who had been helping to throw water against the side of the building.

"This is Dr. Coombs. I know he can help you, Ruth--and he will."

"Boy with broken leg, heh?" said the gentleman, briefly. "Is that all the damage?" and he began to examine the unconscious Curly. "Now, you're a cool-headed young lady," he said to Ruth; "you and Jimson can give me a hand. Send the others out of the room. We're going to be mighty busy here for a few minutes."

He saw that Ruth was calm and quick. He had her get water and bandages. Mr. Jimson whittled out splints as directed. The doctor was really a veterinary surgeon, but when the setting of the broken limb was accomplished, Curly might have thanked Dr. Coombs for a very neat and workmanlike piece of work. But poor Curly remained unconscious for some time thereafter.

The flames were under control and the danger of the hotel's catching fire was past before the boy opened his eyes. He opened them to see Ruth sitting at the foot of the couch on which he lay.

"Old Scratch!" exclaimed Curly, "don't tell Gran, Ruth Fielding. If you do, she'll give me whatever for busting my leg. Ooo! don't it hurt."

He had forgotten for the moment that he had ever left Lumberton, and Ruth soothed him as best she could.

The bustle and confusion around the hotel had somewhat subsided. The regular guests had retired to their rooms, for it was past midnight now. The water was creeping higher and higher, and now began to run in over the floor of the lower story.

By Ruth's advice, Helen and Nettie had gone up to their rooms. They had allowed Mrs. Holloway to put two young ladies in one of the beds there, for the hotel keeper had to house many more than the usual number of people.

Ruth alone stayed with Mr. Jimson to watch Curly. And when the water began to rise she insisted that the couch be lifted upon the shoulders of four powerful negroes, and carried upstairs.

One of the men who transferred the boy to the wide hall above, was the darkey whom Curly had saved from drowning. That negro was so grateful that he camped upon the stairs for the rest of the night, to be within call of Ruth or Mr. Jimson if anything was needed that he could do for "dat li'le w'ite boy."

Mrs. Holloway found a screen to put at the foot of the couch, and thus made a shelter for the boy and his nurse. But Ruth knew that many of the ladies before they went to bed came and peeped at her, and whispered about her together in the open hall.

She wondered what they really thought of her and Helen. The positive Miss Miggs had undoubtedly made an impression on their minds when she accused Ruth and Helen of stealing.

"What they really think of us, we can't tell," Ruth told herself. "It is awful to be so far from home and friends, and have no way of proving that one is of good character. Here is poor Curly. What is going to become of him? His grandmother hasn't answered my letters, and perhaps she won't have anything to do with him after all. What will become of him while he lies helpless? He can't have earned much money in these few days over at the warehouse, for they don't pay much."

Ruth Fielding's sympathetic nature often caused her to bear burdens that were imaginary--to a degree. But it was not her own trouble that worried her now. It was that of the boy with the broken leg.

He was a stranger in a strange land, and with practically nobody to care how he got along. He had played a heroic part in the rescue of Mr. Jimson and the negro workman; but Ruth doubted greatly if either of the rescued men could do much for poor Curly.

Jimson was a poor man with a large family; the negro was, of course, less able to do anything for the white boy than the boss of the warehouse.

These thoughts troubled Ruth's mind, sleeping and waking, all night. She refused to leave Curly; but she dozed a good deal of the time in the comfortable chair that the negro had brought her from the parlor downstairs.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Holloway came to speak to her, or to see how Curly was, all night long. Yet Ruth knew that both were working hard, with the negroes in their employ, to make all their guests comfortable.

Back of the hotel on slightly higher ground were the kitchens and quarters. To these rooms the stores were removed and breakfast was begun for all before six o'clock.

By that time the clouds had broken and the sun shone. But the river roared past the hotel at express speed. Jimson said he had never seen it so high, or so furious.

"There's a big reservoir above yere, up the creek; I reckon it's done busted its banks, or has overflowed, or something," the boss of the warehouse said. "Never was so much water in this yere river at one time since Adam was a boy, I tell yo'."

The girls came for Ruth before breakfast, and made her lie down for a nap. The two strange girls who had been put in their rooms were still in bed, and Ruth was not disturbed until the negroes began coming upstairs with trays of breakfast for the different rooms.

There was great hilarity then. There was no use in trying to serve the guests downstairs, for the dining room had a foot of water washing through one end of it, and the rear was several inches deep in a muddy overflow.

The two girls who had slept with them awoke when Ruth did, and all five of the girls, with Norma to wait upon them, made a merry breakfast. Ruth ran back then to see how Curly was being served. She found the boy alone, and nobody had thought to bring him any food save the grateful negro laborer.

"That coon's all right," said Curly, with satisfaction. "He got me half a fried chicken and some corn pone and sweet potatoes, and I'm feeling fine. All but my leg. Old Scratch! but that hurts like a good feller, Ruth Fielding."

"Dear me!" said Ruth. "Don't speak of the poor man as a 'coon.' That's an animal with four legs--and they eat them down here."

"And he wouldn't be good eating, I know," chuckled Curly. "But he's a good feller. Say, Ruthie! how did you and Helen Cameron come 'way down here?"

"How did _you_ come here?" returned Ruth, smiling at him.

"Why--on the boat and on a train--several trains, until I got to Pee Dee. And then a flatboat. Old Scratch! but I've had an awful time, Ruth."

"You ran away, of course," said the girl, just as though she knew nothing about the trouble Curly had had in Lumberton.

"Yep. I did. So would you."

"Why would I?"

"'Cause of what they said about me. Why, Ruth Fielding!" and he started to sit up in bed, but lay down quickly with a groan. "Oh! how that leg aches."

"Keep still then, Curly," she said. "And tell me the truth. _Why_ did you run away?"

"Because they said I helped rob the railroad station."

"But if you didn't do it, couldn't you risk being exonerated in court?"

"Say! they never called you, 'that Smith boy'; did they?"

"Of course not," admitted Ruth.

"Then you don't know what you're talking about. I had no more chance of being exonerated in any court around Lumberton than I had of flying to the moon! Everybody was down on me--including Gran."

"Well, hadn't they some reason?" asked Ruth, gravely.

"Mebbe they had. Mebbe they had," cried Henry Smith. "But they ought to've known I wouldn't _steal_."

"You didn't help those tramps, then?"

"There you go!" sniffed the boy. "You're just as bad as the rest of 'em."

"I'm asking you for information," said Ruth, coolly. "I want to hear you say whether you did or not. I read about it in the paper."

"Old Scratch! did they have it in the paper?" queried Curly, with wonder.

"Yes. And your grandmother is dreadfully disgraced----"

"No she isn't," snapped Curly. "She only thinks she is. I never done it."

"Well," said Ruth, with a sigh, "I'm glad to hear you say that, although it's very bad grammar."

"Hang grammar!" cried the excited Curly. "I never stole a cent's worth in my life. And they all know it. But if they'd got me up before Judge Necker I'd got a hundred years in jail, I guess. He hates me."

"Why?"

Curly looked away. "Well, I played a trick on him. More'n one, I guess. He gets so mad, it's fun."

"Your idea of fun has brought you to a pretty hard bed, I guess, Curly," was Ruth Fielding's comment.