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[Illustration: RUTH SECURED A GRIP ON THE BLACK MAN'S SLEEVE.]




                             Ruth Fielding
                             Down In Dixie

                                   OR

                   GREAT TIMES IN THE LAND OF COTTON

                                   BY

                            ALICE B. EMERSON

            Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," "Ruth
                    Fielding and the Gypsies," Etc.

                             _ILLUSTRATED_


                                NEW YORK
                         CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS




                            Books for Girls
                          BY ALICE B. EMERSON

                          RUTH FIELDING SERIES

                       12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

                 RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
                 Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.

                 RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
                 Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.

                 RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
                 Or, Lost in the Backwoods.

                 RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
                 Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.

                 RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
                 Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.

                 RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
                 Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box.

                 RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
                 Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans.

                 RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
                 Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.

                 RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
                 Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund.

                 RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
                 Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton.

               Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York.

                          Copyright, 1916, by
                         Cupples & Leon Company

                      Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound

                          Printed in U. S. A.




                                CONTENTS

            CHAPTER                                        PAGE
                 I. A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing                1
                II. The Worm Turns                           12
               III. The Boy in the Moonlight                 25
                IV. The Capes of Virginia                    33
                 V. The Newspaper Account                    45
                VI. All in the Rain                          56
               VII. Miss Catalpa                             66
              VIII. Under the Umbrella                       73
                IX. Sunshine at the Gatehouse                78
                 X. An Adventure in Norfolk                  86
                XI. At the Merredith Plantation              94
               XII. The Boy at the Warehouse                103
              XIII. Ruth Is Troubled                        111
               XIV. Ruth Finds a Helper                     118
                XV. The Ride to Holloways                   123
               XVI. The "Hop"                               135
              XVII. The Flood Rises                         139
             XVIII. Across the River                        145
               XIX. "If Aunt Rachel Were Only Here"         151
                XX. Curly Plays an Heroic Part              159
               XXI. The Next Morning                        166
              XXII. Something for Curly                     174
             XXIII. "Here's a State of Things!"             182
              XXIV. The Chamber Concert                     189
               XXV. Back Home                               202




RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE




CHAPTER I--A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING


"Isn't that the oddest acting girl you ever saw, Ruth?"

"Goodness! what a gawky thing!" agreed Ruth Fielding, who was just
getting out of the taxicab, following her chum, Helen Cameron.

"And those white-stitched shoes!" gasped Helen. "Much too small for her,
I do believe!"

"How that skirt does hang!" exclaimed Ruth.

"She looks just as though she had slept in all her clothes," said Helen,
giggling. "What do you suppose is the matter with her, Ruth?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Ruth Fielding said. "She's going on this boat
with us, I guess. Maybe we can get acquainted with her," and she
laughed.

"Excuse _me_!" returned Helen. "I don't think I care to. Oh, look!"

The girl in question--who was odd looking, indeed--had been paying the
cabman who had brought her to the head of the dock. The dock was on West
Street, New York City, and the chums from Cheslow and the Red Mill had
never been in the metropolis before. So they were naturally observant of
everything and everybody about them.

The strange girl, after paying her fare, started to thrust her purse
into the shabby handbag she carried. Just then one of the 
porters hurried forward and took up the suitcase that the girl had set
down on the ground at her feet when she stepped from the cab.

"Right dis way, miss," said the porter politely, and started off with
the suitcase.

"Hey! what are you doing?" demanded the girl in a sharp and shrill
voice; and she seized the handle of the bag before the porter had taken
more than a step.

She grabbed it so savagely and gave it such a determined jerk, that the
porter was swung about and almost thrown to the ground before he could
let go of the handle.

"I'll 'tend to my own bag," said this vigorous young person, and strode
away down the dock, leaving the porter amazed and the bystanders much
amused.

"My goodness!" gasped the <DW64>, when he got his breath. "Dat gal is as
strong as a ox--sho' is! I nebber seed her like. _She_ don't need no
he'p, _she_ don't."

"Let him take our bags--poor fellow," said Helen, turning around after
paying their own driver. "Wasn't that girl rude?"

"Here," said Ruth, laughing and extending her light traveling bag to the
disturbed porter, "you may carry _our_ bags to the boat. We're not as
strong as that girl."

"She sho' was a strong one," said the <DW64>, grinning. "I declar' for't,
missy! I ain' nebber seed no lady so strong befo'."

"Isn't he delicious?" whispered Helen, pinching Ruth's arm as they
followed the man down the dock. "_He's_ no Northern <DW64>. Why, he
sounds just as though we were as far as Virginia, at least, already! Oh,
my dear! our fun has begun."

"I feel awfully important," admitted Ruth. "And I guess you do.
Traveling alone all the way from Cheslow to New York."

"And this city _is_ so big," sighed Helen. "I hope we can stop and see
it when we come back from the Land of Cotton."

They were going aboard the boat that would take them down the coast of
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to the Capes of Virginia and
Old Point Comfort. There they were to meet their Briarwood Hall
schoolmate, Nettie Parsons, and her aunt, Mrs. Rachel Parsons.

The girls and their guide passed a gang of stevedores rushing the last
of the freight aboard the boat, their trucks making a prodigious
rumbling.

They came to the passenger gangway along which the porter led them
aboard and to the purser's office. There he waited, clinging to the
bags, until the ship's officer had looked at their tickets and stateroom
reservation, and handed them the key.

"Lemme see dat, missy," said the porter to Ruth. "I done know dis boat
like a book, I sho' does."

"And, poor fellow, I don't suppose he ever looked inside a book,"
whispered Helen. "Isn't he comical?"

Ruth was afraid the porter would hear them talking about him, so she
fell back until the man with the bags was some distance ahead. He was
leading them to the upper saloon deck. Their reservation, which Tom
Cameron, Helen's twin brother, had telegraphed for, called for an
outside stateroom, forward, on this upper deck--a pleasantly situated
room.

Tom could not come with his sister and her chum, for he was going into
the woods with some of his school friends; but he was determined that
the girls should have good accommodations on the steamboat to Old Point
Comfort and Norfolk.

"And he's just the best boy!" Ruth declared, fumbling in her handbag as
they viewed the cozy stateroom. "Oh! here's Mrs. Sadoc Smith's letter."

Helen had tipped the grinning darkey royally and he had shuffled out.
She sat down now on the edge of the lower berth. This was the first time
the chums had ever been aboard a boat for over night, and the "close
comforts" of a stateroom were quite new to Helen and Ruth.

"What a dinky little washstand," Helen said. "Oh, my! Ruth, see the
ice-water pitcher and tumblers in the rack. Guess they expect the boat
to pitch a good deal. Do you suppose it will be rough?"

"Don't know. Listen to this," Ruth said shortly, reading the letter
which she had opened. "I only had a chance to glance at Mrs. Smith's
letter before we started. Just listen here: She says Curly has got into
trouble."

"Curly?" cried Helen, suddenly interested. "Never! What's he done now?"

"I guess this isn't any fun," said Ruth, seriously. "His grandmother is
greatly disturbed. The constable has been to the house looking for Curly
and threatens to arrest him."

"The poor boy!" exclaimed Helen. "I knew he was an awful cut-up----"

"But there never was an ounce of meanness in Henry Smith!" Ruth
declared, quite excited. "I don't believe it can be as bad as she
thinks."

"His grandmother has always been so strict with him," said Helen. "You
know how she treated him while we were lodging with her when the new
West Dormitory at Briarwood was being built."

"I remember very clearly," agreed Ruth. "And, after all, Curly wasn't
such a bad fellow. Mrs. Smith says he threatens to run away. _That_
would be awful."

"Goodness! I believe I'd run away myself," said Helen, "if I had anybody
who nagged me as Mrs. Sadoc Smith does Henry."

"And she doesn't mean to. Only she doesn't like boys--nor understand
them," Ruth said, as she folded the letter with a sigh. "Poor Curly!"

"Come on! let's get out on deck and see them start. I do just long to
see the wonderful New York skyline that everybody talks about."

"And the tall buildings that we couldn't see from the taxicab window,"
added Ruth.

"Who's going to keep the key?" demanded Helen, as Ruth locked the
stateroom door.

"_I_ am. You're not to be trusted, young lady," laughed Ruth. "Where's
your handbag?"

"Why--I left it inside."

"With all that money in it? Smart girl! And the window blind is not
locked. The rules say never to leave the room without locking the window
or the blind."

"I'll fix _that_," declared Helen, and reached in to slide the blind
shut. They heard the catch snap and were satisfied.

As they went through the passage from the outer deck to the saloon they
saw a figure stalking ahead of them which made Helen all but cry out.

"I see her," Ruth whispered. "It's the same girl."

"And she's going into that stateroom," added Helen, as the person
unlocked the door of an inside room.

"I'd like to see her face," Ruth said, smiling. "I see she has curly
hair, and I believe it's short."

"We'll look her up after the steamboat gets off. Her room is number
forty-eight," Helen said. "Come on, dear! Feel the jar of the engines?
They must be casting off the hawsers."

The girls went up another flight of broad, polished stairs and came out
upon the hurricane deck. They were above the roof of the dock and could
look down upon it and see the people bidding their friends on the boat
good-bye while the vessel backed out into the stream. The starting was
conducted with such precision that they heard few orders given, and only
once did the engine-room gong clang excitedly.

The steamer soon swung its stern upstream, and the bow came around,
clearing the end of the pier next below, and so heading down the North
River. Certain tugboats and wide ferries tooted their defiance at the
ocean-going craft, for the vessel on which Ruth and Helen were traveling
was one of the largest coast-wise steamers sailing out of the port.

It was a lovely afternoon toward the close of June. The city had been as
hot as a roasting pan, Helen said; but on the high deck the breeze,
breathed from the Jersey hills, lifted the damp locks from the girls'
brows. A soft mist crowned the Palisades. The sun, already descending,
drew another veil before his face as he dropped behind the Orange
Mountains, his red rays glistening splendidly upon the towers and domes
of lower Broadway.

They passed the Battery in a few minutes, with the round, pot-bellied
aquarium and the immigration offices. The upper bay was crowded with
craft of all kind. The Staten Island ferries drummed back and forth, the
perky little ferryboat to Ellis Island and the tugboat to the Statue of
Liberty crossed their path. In their wake the small craft dipped in the
swell of the propeller's turmoil.

The Statue of Liberty herself stood tall and stately in the afternoon
sunlight, holding her green, bronze torch aloft. The girls could not
look at this monument without being impressed by its stateliness and
noble features.

"And we've read about it, and thought so much about this present of Miss
Picolet's nation to ours! It is very wonderful," Ruth said.

"And that fort! See it?" cried Helen, pointing to Governor's Island on
the other bow. "Oh, and see, Ruth! that great, rusty, iron steamship
anchored out yonder. She must be a great, sea-going tramp."

Every half minute there was something new for the chums to exclaim over.

In fifteen minutes they were passing through the Narrows. The two girls
were staring back at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, when a petty
officer above on the lookout post hailed the bridge amidships.

"Launch coming up, sir. Port, astern."

There was a sudden rush of those passengers in the bows who heard to the
port side. "Oh, come on. Let's see!" cried Helen, and away the two girls
went with the crowd.

The perky little launch shoved up close to the side of the tall steamer.
It flew a pennant which the girls did not understand; but some gentleman
near them said laughingly:

"That is a police launch. I guess we're all arrested. See! they're
coming aboard."

The steamer did not slow down at all; but one of the men in the bow of
the pitching launch threw a line with a hook on the end of it, and this
fastened itself over the rail of the lower deck. By leaning over the
rail above Ruth and Helen could see all that went on below.

In a moment deckhands caught the line and hauled up with it a rope
ladder. This swung perilously--so the girls thought--over the
green-and-white leaping waves.

A man started up the swinging ladder. The steamer dipped ever so little
and he scrambled faster to keep out of the water's reach.

"The waves act just like hungry wolves, or like dogs, leaping after
their prey," said Ruth reflectively. "See them! They almost caught his
legs that time."

Another man started up the ladder the moment the first one had swarmed
over the rail. Then another came, and a fourth. Four men in all boarded
the still fast-moving steamer. Everybody was talking eagerly about it,
and nobody knew what it meant.

These men were surely not passengers who had been belated, for the
launch still remained attached to the steamer.

Ruth and Helen went back into the saloon. There they saw their smiling
porter, now in the neat black dress of a waiter, bustling about. "Any
little t'ing I kin do fo' yo', missy?" he asked.

"No, thank you," Ruth replied, smiling. But Helen burst out with: "Do
tell us what those men have come aboard for?"

"Dem men from de _po_-lice launch?" inquired the black man.

"Yes. What are they after? Are they police?"

"Ya-as'm. Dem's _po_-lice," said the darkey, rolling his eyes. "Dey tell
me dey is wantin' a boy wot's been stealin'--an' he's done got girl's
clo'es on, missy."

"A boy in girl's clothing?" gasped Ruth.

"'A wolf in sheep's clothing!'" laughed her chum.

"Ya-as indeedy, missy. Das wot dey say."

"Are they _sure_ he came aboard this boat?" asked Ruth anxiously.

"Sho is, missy. Dey done trailed him right to de dock. Das wot de head
steward heard 'em say. De taxicab man remembered him--he acted so funny
in dem girl's clo'es--he, he, he! Das one silly trick, das wot _dat_ is,"
chuckled the darkey. "No boy gwine t' look like his sister in her
clo'es--no, indeedy."

But Ruth and Helen were now staring at each other with the same thought
in their minds. "Oh, Helen!" murmured Ruth. And, "Oh, Ruth!" responded
Helen.

"Ought we to tell?" pursued Helen, putting all the burden of deciding
the question on her chum as usual. "It's that very strange looking girl
we saw going into number forty-eight; isn't it?"

"It is most certainly that person," agreed Ruth positively.




CHAPTER II--THE WORM TURNS


Ruth Fielding was plentifully supplied with good sense. Under ordinary
circumstances she would not have tried to shield any person who was a
fugitive from justice.

But in this case there seemed to her no reason for Helen and her