Читать книгу The Second Girl Detective Megapack - Julia K. Duncan - Страница 10

THE MYSTERY OF ARNOLD HALL, by Helen M. Persons [Part 1]

CHAPTER I

PAT’S CHANCE

“Will you go, Patricia?” called Mrs. Randall from the living room, one cool evening late in August, as the doorbell rang imperatively. “I’m starting a fire in the grate.”

From the dining room across the hall, where she had been putting away the last of the supper dishes, hurried a tall slender girl, whose short wavy yellow hair and big brown eyes were set off to perfection by a green jersey dress. Expecting to see one of the neighbors when the door was opened, she was startled into an involuntary gasp as a messenger thrust forward a special delivery letter, inquiring curtly—“Miss Patricia Randall?”

“Y—es.”

“Sign here.”

Patricia signed his book, closed the door, and walked slowly into the living room staring down at the unexpected missive in her hand.

“What is it, Pat?” inquired her mother, glancing up from the hearth rug where she knelt trying to coax a blaze from a bed of charcoal and paper.

“A special delivery letter—for me.”

“For you?” repeated Mrs. Randall in surprise. “From whom?”

“I don’t know,” replied her daughter, frowning in a puzzled fashion.

“Well, open it and find out. Don’t stand staring at it like that,” urged her mother briskly.

Patricia sank into a low tapestry chair beside the fireplace and tore open the envelope. As she drew out the single sheet it contained, a slip dropped from it onto her lap. Still holding the folded letter she picked up the slip and exclaimed:

“A cashier’s check for a thousand dollars!”

“Pat!” cried Mrs. Randall, reaching for the yellow paper to read it for herself. “Look at the letter, quick, and see who sent it!”

“It’s only a line. ‘For Patricia Randall to spend on a year at Granard College.’ Oh—why—Mums!”

Patricia flung herself on her mother so suddenly that Mrs. Randall lost her balance, and the two fell in a heap on the rug.

“Mary! Patricia!” ejaculated a horrified masculine voice from the doorway. “What in the world—”

“Oh, Dad!” cried the girl, springing up and giving a helping hand to her mother. With scarcely more effort than that of her daughter Mrs. Randall regained her feet, and they stood facing Mr. Randall’s astonished gaze.

“Just look at this!” Patricia thrust the magic papers into his hand. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

Mr. Randall read the brief message, turned the check over and over as if to discover its sender by inspecting it from all sides, and then looked inquiringly at his wife and daughter.

“Is this a joke of some kind?”

“Joke!” retorted Patricia in disgust. “I should say not! A messenger just brought it, special delivery.”

“Strange, very strange,” commented her father, shaking his head. “Do you know anything about it, Mary?” addressing his wife, with a suspicious look.

“I most certainly do not. Do you?”

“You ought to know that I don’t. Where would I get that much money? Didn’t we send Pat here to Brentwood College last year because we couldn’t afford to send her away?”

“Keep your shirt on, Dad!” laughed Patricia. “Keep your shirt on, and say I may go.”

“I—I don’t know what to say,” replied the puzzled man, sinking heavily into his favorite chair, and pulling his pipe out of his pocket.

“Do you suppose,” began Patricia, perching on the arm of her father’s chair, “that Aunt Betsy could have gotten big-hearted and sent it?”

“Pat!” cried her mother derisively. “Of course not. She has all she can do to keep Ted in college.”

“Be rather nice for me, having Ted at Granard,” mused Patricia, recalling her cousin’s beguiling ways and good looks.

“And having Aunt Betsy there to keep an eye on both of you,” added her mother.

“Some eye! She’ll probably never know I’m there,” laughed Patricia. “Darling Ted takes up all of her time and attention.”

“You two women,” remarked Mr. Randall peevishly, “seem to have this affair all settled.”

“Well, you see, darling, we felt quite sure you would let me go,” laughed Patricia, ruffling up his hair. “You’re going to, aren’t you?” bending down to look pleadingly into his eyes. “You know I’ve longed to go out of town to college where I could live in a dorm. Not that I don’t like living at home, but—”

“We understand,” interrupted her mother; “you need not be apologetic.”

“I wish we knew who sent the money, though,” said Patricia, frowning earnestly. “It must be somebody who knows all about us, but I can’t think of a soul who could or would do it.”

“I shall investigate, of course,” began her father, after some thought; “but if nothing can be found out about the donor of this wonderful gift, it seems to me that since the money has been sent to you for a special purpose, and sent in such a manner, the only course open to us is to use it as stipulated, and not make any further effort to discover its sender.”

“Oh, but, Dad! It’s so tantalizing,” wailed his daughter.

“I know; but, Patricia, when you have a secret, you don’t like to have anyone try to guess it, do you?”

“N—o.”

“This is the same thing. Just do your best to be worthy of such a generous gift and wait for its sender to reveal himself when he chooses.”

“Your father is quite right, Pat,” agreed Mrs. Randall; “and I’d like to add one more suggestion: that you do not discuss the matter with anyone else but us. It’s romantic, and your inclination will be to let your new companions in on the secret, but I think you will be wise if you keep it to yourself; unless, of course, some unusual circumstance arises.”

Patricia thought soberly for a few minutes, then said with a sigh, “I suppose you’re right, Mother.”

“Do you think you’ll have any trouble transferring your credits and getting into the Sophomore class?” asked her father presently, after another long pause, while each was busy with his own thoughts.

“I don’t think so. I’ll go to see the Dean the first thing tomorrow morning, and I’ll have to write for a room—”

“And we’ll have to shop and sew,” added Mrs. Randall, almost as eagerly as her daughter.

After Pat had gone to bed to lie awake anticipating all kinds of unknown adventures, Mr. and Mrs. Randall had a long serious talk over the dying fire.

“Then you feel satisfied to let her go?” inquired Mrs. Randall anxiously as they finally rose to go upstairs.

“I don’t see how we can do any different. And who knows what this opportunity may mean to Pat?”

“If I could only be sure that everything was all right, and that no harm would come to the child,” sighed Mrs. Randall, running her fingers through her hair, a habit when troubled over anything.

“Now, Mary, what harm could come to her? She’ll be living with lots of other students under the direct supervision of the house chaperon and the Dean; and Betsy is right near the college. But of course if you don’t want her to go—”

“Oh, I do—at least I haven’t the heart to deprive her of the fulfillment of one of her dreams.”

Mr. Randall locked the front door, put out the lights, and followed his wife up the long stairway. At the door of their room Mrs. Randall paused, grasped his arm and whispered cautiously, with an eye on Pat’s door, “I’m willing to give Pats her chance, but, just the same, John Randall, I wish she were going back to Brentwood. I have a presentiment that—”

“Oh, you and your presentiments!” ejaculated Mr. Randall, pushing her gently but firmly ahead of him into their room. “Nonsense!”

The weeks that followed were very exciting ones for Patricia. Her days were filled to the brim with shopping, sewing, making last calls on old friends, and finally, packing. So many evenings were taken up with farewell parties that Mr. Randall complained that he never saw his daughter any more; that, as far as her parents were concerned, she might as well have gone to college the night she received the money.

“But, dear,” remonstrated his wife soothingly, “all her friends want to entertain for her, and she can’t very well refuse any of their invitations.”

“Where is she tonight?” grumbled Mr. Randall.

“Carolyn is giving a dinner dance at the Club. Poor Carolyn! She’s quite disturbed over having Pat go away. They have been such pals ever since they were little.”

“Pat might ask Carolyn down for a week end some time this year. She and her mother have been more than good to our girl. Besides, I don’t want Pat to be so taken up with the new life and new friends that she will cast aside all her old ties.”

“I don’t think she will, John. Of course just at first her whole mind will be on Granard, but after the novelty wears off—”

“I’ve been thinking,” interrupted her husband, who evidently had his mind on something else, “that it would be nice for Pats to have a little car—”

“John! How ‘galumptious’ as Pat says. Could we manage it?”

“I think so. We’ll have the money we expected to spend on her year at Brentwood, and Everet Schuyler has a coach he’s very anxious to sell. If I can drive any kind of a bargain with him, I think I’ll do it. Of course don’t say anything to Pat. I thought we might drive down some week end, and surprise her with it; and then come back on the train.”

“How did you ever happen to think of such a thing?” inquired Mrs. Randall, knitting very fast on the green sweater she was making for her daughter.

“Oh, I haven’t been blind to the fact that more than half of the college girls here have some kind of a car, and I often wished I could get Pat one. Never been able to, before, but now I guess we can swing it. It will be a saving, too; for she can drive back and forth whenever she has a vacation, and save carfare. And maybe, once in a while, she could come home for a week end?” he added, hopefully.

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Randall smiled and leaned forward to pat his arm.

“Let’s go down to Schuyler’s now and look at the bus,” proposed Mr. Randall ten minutes later.

“All right,” agreed his wife, laying aside her work and getting briskly out of her easy chair.

If Patricia had not been so absorbed in her own affairs she would certainly have wondered the next day what ailed her parents; for there was such an air of suppressed excitement about them that vented itself in significant glances and knowing smiles. The thrill of buying her ticket, however, made Patricia oblivious to all else.

“Why don’t you take a sleeper,” asked her mother, “and get a good rest on the way down? You’ve been up so late every night.”

“Nothing doing!” retorted Patricia decidedly. “When I travel I want my eyes wide open so I won’t miss a single thing.”

Her positive decision recurred to her three days later as she snuggled deep into her comfortable chair, with a sigh of satisfaction, a sigh which was unceremoniously cut short by a very big yawn. The farewells at the station had been exciting and gratifying, but yet something of a strain. Almost all of her crowd had assembled to see her off, bearing gifts of candy, fruit, books, and magazines; her mother had clung to her till the very last minute, and her father had fussed about time tables, porters, tips, and a dozen other things. It had seemed as if she were being torn into a dozen pieces trying to pay attention to everybody. Now the train was bearing her rapidly away from Dad and Mother and all the dear old friends toward a new life at Granard.

“Perhaps I’d have been wiser to have followed Mother’s suggestion about the sleeper,” she thought, as she tried to stifle another great yawn. “Maybe if I take a little nap now, I’ll feel fresh for the rest of the day.”

Turning her chair toward the window, and leaning back, her hands on the broad arms, she was almost immediately floating in a delicious sea of semi-unconsciousness which became deeper and deeper until she was completely lost to the world about her. After a while, however, a most persistent dream began to disturb her peaceful sleep, a dream about a soft grey kitten whose silky fur she kept stroking, stroking until her hand was tired; but yet she could not stop. After a time she began to realize that she was dreaming, and made a desperate effort to free herself from the world of sleep by closing her fingers sharply on the little animal’s neck and giving it a shove.

Then with a sudden start at some movement close to her she sat bolt upright and opened her eyes just in time to see a pair of long legs, the ankles clad in grey silk socks, hastily removing themselves from the ledge beside her chair.

“Good Heavens!” she thought, horror-stricken. “I do hope those weren’t the kitten!”

CHAPTER II

ANNE

Swinging her chair sharply about to face the aisle, she met the amused gaze of a red-haired girl of about her own age.

“Tell me,” begged Patricia impulsively, leaning forward, “was I—doing anything—unusual while I was asleep?”

“I’ll say you were,” responded the girl, smiling broadly.

“What?”

“You—you were—stroking the ankles of that young man back of you as if your life depended on it,” choked the stranger.

“No!” cried Patricia, in great distress.

“Yes! Then suddenly you pinched the poor fellow, and I thought I’d just die!”

At that moment the man in question rose and hurried down the aisle toward the smoker. With crimson face, Patricia watched the slight boyish figure, with its crown of smooth yellow hair, disappear before she again addressed her neighbor.

“I’m embarrassed to death! What must he think of me? I can’t apologize for something I didn’t know I was doing; and if I try to explain, it will look as if we were trying to scrape up an acquaintance. What would you do?”

“I’d just let it go, and try to forget it,” advised the other girl, raising up in her chair to lower the shade a little; for the sun was shining full upon her.

“Do you suppose the rest of these people saw me?” persisted Patricia, glancing anxiously around the car.

There were not many other passengers; an old lady, apparently absorbed in a weighty-looking volume; a couple of middle-aged men, with their heads close together, evidently discussing some important question; a young mother, absorbed in the baby in her arms; and a scared-looking, awkward girl, who gazed moodily out of the window, occasionally munching a chocolate from a box in her lap.

“I don’t think so,” replied the red-haired girl, settling herself anew in her chair, and smoothing out the skirt of her dark green suit. “I probably shouldn’t have, if I hadn’t been watching you.”

“Watching me?” repeated Patricia, opening her brown eyes very wide in surprise.

“Yes; and wondering if by any chance you were going to Granard College.”

“I am, but what in the world made you think so?”

“Oh, you looked like a college girl, some way, and then being on this train, which, this time of year, is a favorite one for the Granard students. Don’t know where they all are today, though. Are you just entering?”

“Yes, and no,” laughed Patricia. “I did my Freshman work at Brentwood; so I’m entering the Soph class here.”

“Congratulations! Welcome to the class of 19—. I’m one of your classmates-to-be. Anne Ford, at your service.”

“My name is Patricia Randall, and I’m very glad to get acquainted with some one before I get to Granard. I confess I have stage fright at the prospect of meeting so many strangers.”

“Don’t let that bother you. The girls are easy to get on with, and you’ll soon feel as if you’d always been at Granard,” said Anne carelessly.

Patricia realized, however, that it would not be quite so simple to break into a class whose cliques and customs had had a whole year’s start before she came on the scene.

“How did you happen to choose Granard?” inquired Anne curiously. “Do you know anyone there?”

“My cousin,” replied Patricia, breathing a prayer of thanks for the second question which enabled her to disregard the first. “Ted Carter; do you know him?”

“Ted Carter! I should say I do!” exclaimed Anne, adding, quickly and somewhat possessively, “Ted’s my best boy friend.”

“How nice!” commented Patricia so heartily that all the suspicions which had arisen in Anne’s mind as to possible claims on the fascinating Teddy were promptly allayed.

“Come on over here,” suggested Anne, turning a vacant chair to face her; “and we’ll have a cozy chat.”

Patricia gladly accepted the invitation, and as she settled herself with one foot tucked under her, a habit whenever she wished to be especially comfortable, Anne asked:

“Do you know yet where you’re to room?”

“Yes; Arnold Hall.”

“You are?” exclaimed Anne, gazing at Patricia in astonishment. “You certainly must have some pull.”

“Why?” inquired Patricia, in a puzzled tone.

“Because Arnold Hall’s the best dorm at Granard, and there’s always a waiting list for it. You’re a lucky girl to be able to break right into it. My reservation was made while I was still in high school.”

“Oh, then you live there? I’m so glad!” There was no mistaking the note of gratification in Patricia’s tone, nor the admiring gaze of her brown eyes which rested somewhat shyly upon her new acquaintance.

Anne smiled in the manner of one who is so accustomed to being popular that it has long ceased to be exciting. There was something unusual about this new girl, evidently, or old Hattersley would never have let her get into Arnold Hall. It evidently wasn’t money; for though Patricia’s clothes were in good taste, they were not expensive. She had no friends there, except her cousin. Perhaps it was scholarship, or some powerful influence from Brentwood or high school.

Patricia, meanwhile, was wondering what Anne would say if she were to tell her that when Dad had written for a room for Patricia, the registrar, somebody by the name of Hattersley, had promptly replied that one had already been reserved for her in Arnold Hall. They had speculated on the strange fact for days, and had been forced to leave the mystery unsolved, just as they had the arrival of the check.

“Do you know Aunt Betsy?” inquired Patricia, presently.

“Not personally,” replied Anne, smiling broadly; “but I’ve heard of her.”

“I’ll warrant you have,” giggled Patricia. “She’s as good as gold, but most awfully funny. You never know what she’s going to say or do next. We say she has only three interests: Ted, and Ted, and Ted. They used to live near us in Brentwood, but when my cousin won a scholarship at Granard, she rented her house and took an apartment down here so she could give Ted all the comforts of home during his course. She meant well, of course; but I feel sort of sorry for Ted. I fancy he’d rather be a bit freer. One night during his Freshman year he stayed out to dinner and for the evening without telling her; so she ran all over the campus looking for him, quite sure that the terrible Sophs had imprisoned him somewhere.”

“I have heard that story,” laughed Anne. “He was at the Zeta Omega House—that’s right next to Arnold Hall.”

“When Aunt Betsy heard that I was coming down, she wrote Dad that she could take me in just as well as not, and that I’d be far more comfortable with her than in any dorm—”

“But you preferred to be less comfortable,” interrupted Anne.

“I certainly did. I’ve wanted to live in a dorm ever since I knew what college was. Tell me something about Granard so I won’t be quite so ignorant.”

Anne began to talk animatedly of college affairs, and Patricia’s eyes got bigger and bigger and her cheeks redder and redder as she became more and more interested. Neither of the girls noticed that the blond youth had returned to his chair and was watching them intently.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Anne, glancing out of the window a couple of hours later, as the train began to slow down. “I didn’t realize that we were nearly in. We change to the bus here at Plainville. Come on! They make only a two-minute stop here.”

Grabbing their bags, the two girls hurried out of the train onto a long platform splashed with big drops of rain. At the end farthest from the train a bus was waiting for passengers; and just as they reached it, the rain, now driven by a brisk wind, began to fall in torrents. Laughing and breathless, they scrambled up the steps of the bus and sank into seats near the door.

“Here comes a friend of yours,” remarked Anne, peering out of the doorway at other travelers, scurrying across the glistening platform.

Thinking that perhaps Ted had come that far to meet her, Patricia leaned forward just as the young man with the light hair bounded up the steps and collided sharply with her outstretched head.

“Oh, say—I’m awfully sorry,” he cried, flushing brilliantly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Not in the least!” lied Patricia curtly, trying desperately to fight back tears. Ever since she could remember, any sudden blow or fall had made her cry, whether she was really badly hurt or not. It was a most embarrassing habit, now that she was grown up. As she elaborately straightened her little brown hat which was over one ear, and tried to recover her poise, the youth passed on to the other end of the bus.

“Wonder when and where your next encounter will be,” observed Anne, as the driver closed the doors and started the big bus. “Three times—you know.”

“Never, I hope,” replied Patricia emphatically, little dreaming what the future held in store for her. “Does this bus take us right to college?”

“No, only to the foot of the hill about one-half mile from the campus. We’ll be there in an hour.”

“Have you a room mate?” inquired Patricia, a few minutes later.

“No, I have one of the three singles on the first floor. Where are you to be?”

“I don’t know, but I hope that it will be near you, and that I’ll have a room mate.”

“Why?” asked Anne, idly tracing designs on the steamed window beside her.

“Because I’ve always wanted one. It’s a bit lonesome, being an only child.”

“Sometimes you’d wish you were,” laughed Anne, “if your sister tried to boss you as mine frequently does. Joan and I are usually pretty good friends, but once in so often we have a flare-up.”

“Oh, I hope I’ll be able to get along peaceably with a room mate, if I have one,” said Patricia earnestly. “Maybe I wouldn’t though. I guess I must be pretty well spoiled.”

“Don’t look so worried!” ordered Anne. “And, by the way, don’t take to heart everything the girls may say. Living all together, as we do, we are pretty frank at times, but everybody takes it in good part.”

When the bus stopped, it was still raining, and the two girls ran hastily across the muddy road to a small rustic shelter.

“Well!” said Anne, shaking her wet umbrella. “Evidently none of the girls have come down to meet the bus. Don’t blame ’em much on such a ‘nausty’ day. So we’ll have to climb the hill by ourselves and take our own bags.”

“Bags!” exclaimed Patricia, clutching Anne’s arm, as she opened her green umbrella preparatory to starting up the hill.

“Yes, bags; what about them?”

“I—I haven’t mine! I must have left it on the bus.”

“Good night!” ejaculated Anne forcefully.

“What shall I do?”

“You can’t do a thing but wait and see if the driver finds it, and brings it back on his next trip. Is your name on it?”

“Yes.”

Anne closed her umbrella again, set her own bag in a corner, and loosened her jacket. “Might as well sit down, I suppose,” she commented, leading the way to a bench across the back of the shelter. “There won’t be another bus for an hour.”

“Oh, but you needn’t stay,” offered Patricia heroically. “I can wait alone.”

“Yes, if I’ll let you; but I won’t,” replied Anne, pushing back some little red curls which had escaped from under the brim of her smart green hat.

“It’s mighty good of you,” said Patricia gratefully; for she had hated to think of staying here all alone for a full hour.

“I never desert a friend in distress.”

“‘A friend in need,’” quoted Patricia.

“Speaking of friends,” interrupted Anne, “what became of the blond youth? I didn’t see him get off the bus; did you?”

“No, but he might have just the same. I was too excited over my bag to think of anything else.”

“He may have gone on to Mendon, but I doubt it. I’ve never seen him before, but he looked to me like a college fellow.”

“Just as I did,” began Patricia.

“You never looked like a college fellow in your life!” retorted Anne, laughing.

“Well, I mean,” said Patricia, flushing.

“I understand what you mean; but, just the same, I am curious to know what became of the boy.”

The time passed more quickly than they thought it would, and both were surprised when a grey bus loomed up in the distance. As soon as it came to a stop, Patricia ran out in the rain to question the driver.

“Did you find a bag?” she demanded eagerly.

The fat, good-natured driver wrinkled up his forehead thoughtfully and then nodded.

“It’s mine,” she declared, with relief. “Please give it to me.”

“Sorry, Miss; but I can’t.”

“Why not?” inquired Patricia, a bit impatiently.

“Because it’s back at the station. I didn’t know whose it was, and we have to turn everything in. Then it has to be identified by its owner.”

At this point Anne, who had been the center of a group of girls who had gotten off of the bus, left her friends and came to Patricia’s rescue.

“Mike,” she said, smiling sweetly up at the big driver, “couldn’t you bring Miss Randall’s bag down on your next trip? We don’t want to go all the way back to town now.”

CHAPTER III

“HILL TOP”

“I guess perhaps I can manage it, Miss Ford; since it’s you who asks it,” replied the man, smiling admiringly down at the pretty face upturned to his.

“Thanks, a heap! We’ll be waiting right here for it. Now,” turning to Patricia and leading her over to the three girls she had just left, “I want you to meet some of my friends. They’re all Arnold Hall girls. This is Lucile Evans,” stopping in front of a slight, pale-faced girl whose red lips protruded in a pout, which, Patricia later learned, was perpetual. Without a change of expression, she bowed rather indifferently at Patricia.

“I’m Jane Temple,” announced the second girl, advancing cordially as if to make up for Lucile’s rudeness.

As Patricia took Jane’s hand and looked into a pair of honest grey eyes, and at the good-humored smiling lips, she felt that here was a girl to whom one could always tie in any emergency.

“The last of this trio is Hazel Leland,” continued Anne; “our beauty.”

“Now, Anne, don’t embarrass me,” protested the girl, smiling gayly at Patricia.

She was a beauty; big, starry grey eyes; lovely, light brown hair which curled all over her head in little rings, like a baby’s; and a figure as slight and lithe as a boy’s.

“The newcomer in our midst,” concluded Anne, putting her arm around Patricia, “is Patricia Randall, formerly of Brentwood, now a member of the illustrious Sophomore class of Granard; and, what’s more, an inmate of Arnold Hall.”

“Good for you!” ejaculated Hazel, patting Patricia on the back, while the other two girls shot surprised, inquiring glances at Anne, who pretended not to see them.

“Why don’t we go on up?” drawled Lucile, opening her mouth for the first time.

“Going to wait for Patricia’s bag,” replied Anne quickly.

“Oh,” was Lucile’s brief response; but some way there was an unpleasant note in it, which made Patricia flush uncomfortably.

“There’s no need of my detaining you all,” she said. “I can wait by myself.”

“Now, darling,” protested Anne, “we’d never be so unhospitable to a new member of our household as that. You needn’t wait if you prefer not to, Lu.”

Without another word, Lucile picked up her bag and started haughtily up the steep hill.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Anne, watching the blue-coated figure ascending the slope as rapidly as possible.

“Don’t know,” replied Jane. “She’s been out of sorts all day.”

“Oh, she met some youth last night who was coming down here on the two o’clock bus today,” said Hazel quickly; “and when he didn’t, show up, Lu got peeved.”

“She usually isn’t sufficiently interested in men to care whether or not one breaks a date,” said Jane.

“My dear,” replied Hazel, “she probably wants something of him. Lu’s the limit,” she continued, turning to Patricia, “for getting just what she wants without lifting a finger. Everybody waits on her, and she sits back and accepts service like a queen.”

“You mustn’t give Lu a bad reputation,” said Jane reprovingly. “She’s not a bad kid when you get to know her.”

“No, not bad,” agreed Hazel, “but—as selfish as they’re made.”

“Look!” cried Anne, pointing excitedly to the top of the hill.

There against the green background stood the blue-coated object of their discussion, and a grey-clad masculine figure with yellow hair.

“The boy friend at last!” exclaimed Hazel. “He must have been waiting for her at ‘Hill Top.’”

“Well, I only hope that he treats her to something real sweet,” laughed Jane. “‘Hill Top,’” she added, addressing herself to Patricia who was gazing apprehensively at the couple, “is a little tea room up there.”

The youth was the young man who was the object of her caresses on the train, and Patricia flushed hotly to think what a story he’d have to tell Lucile if he chose, and what fun they’d all make of her. She glanced at Anne, but that young lady displayed no signs of ever having seen the man before.

“Let’s go up and have a soda, or something,” proposed Hazel, looking at her watch. “Plenty of time before Mike gets back. Our stuff will be all right in the corner over there.”

Patricia opened her mouth to refuse, although she was hungry; but when the other girls hailed the suggestion with glee, she closed it again without voicing her objections, and followed them silently up the hill. Almost on the edge perched a small grey house with lavender shutters, and on its long, screened porch stood a grey, weather-beaten spinning wheel and a lavender table.

“Let’s eat out here,” proposed Anne, leading the way to the end of the porch.

Patricia could have hugged her; for she didn’t want to go in and meet her fellow traveler. He might even think she was following him up.

“O. K.,” agreed Hazel, slipping into a chair. “You go in and get a waitress, Nanny. I’m starved.”

“So am I,” replied Anne. “There was no diner on the train, and all Patricia and I had was some sweet chocolate.”

“I’m not so hungry—” began Jane.

“You are not hungry! Did I hear aright?” asked Hazel. “That girl can always eat,” she added, to Patricia.

“Well, you see I got pretty well fed up at home during the summer, but just wait until I’ve been here a couple of weeks, and I’ll get back to my old habits.”

“The meals at Horton Hall are the limit,” said Hazel, “as you’ll find to your sorrow, Patricia. We spend all our spare change, and some we can’t well spare, at the various tea rooms around College Hill.”

“What shall we have?” asked Anne, returning at that moment, followed by a waitress, and sitting down opposite Hazel. “This is on me, to celebrate Patricia’s coming.”

“Chicken patty, French pastry, and iced tea,” replied Hazel promptly.

“Waffles, maple syrup, and ice cream,” said Jane.

“How terrible! Think of your ‘figger,’ darling. You’ve put on about ten pounds this summer,” teased Hazel.

“I’ll take shrimp salad, Danish pastry, and pineapple sherbet,” said Patricia, when Anne looked at her.

“Chicken sandwiches, brownies, and ginger ale for me,” said Anne, completing the order. As the waitress disappeared, she leaned both elbows on the table and announced in low tones, “They’re not in the dining room, but Lu’s bag is in the hall.”

“Perhaps they’re out in the coffee room,” suggested Hazel. “I’ll go and see.”

“Don’t,” objected Jane quickly. “We don’t want them to think we’re spying on them.”

“Even if we are,” laughed Anne. “Maybe they’ll come out while we’re still here; and, in the meantime, let’s eat.”

Lunch took much longer than they had anticipated, and when Patricia, suddenly remembering her bag, glanced at her watch, she was surprised to find that the hands pointed at 3:30.

“Girls!” she cried, pushing back her chair and getting up so quickly that Hazel jumped. “It’s half past three.”

“Go on,” said Anne. “I’ll settle the bill and catch up to you.”

The other three hurried down the hill, and when Anne caught up to them at the foot, Patricia was pointing in speechless dismay at a grey bus rounding the curve toward Mendon. “It’s gone!” she wailed.

“Maybe Mike left your bag in the shelter,” suggested Jane comfortingly. “Let’s go and see.”

A thorough search revealed no trace of the missing bag, either inside of the shelter or out; and Patricia bemoaned the carelessness which had, a second time that day, betrayed her.

“Just wait until I see Mike!” stormed Anne. “He should have had sense enough to leave it, even if we were not right on the spot.”

“Especially when ours are here,” agreed Hazel.

“What we do with our own is entirely up to us,” said Jane slowly. “If Mike had orders to put the bag in its owner’s hands, he couldn’t very well do otherwise. Suppose we go on up and telephone the terminal to see what can be done about it.”

“Good idea! All right with you, Pat?” asked Hazel. Then, as Patricia nodded, “Let’s get going!”

“Don’t worry,” advised Anne. “You’ll get it some way; and if not tonight, we can manage between us all to fit you out. We’re used to that; aren’t we?”

“I’ll say so,” replied Jane. “Why, Hazel, here, went to a dance last winter in a dress Mrs. Vincent lent her. That’s our chaperon; and as far as borrowing and lending go, she’s surely one of us.”

Just as they reached the top of the hill again, Lucile sauntered down the tea-room steps alone.

“Where’s the boy friend, Lu?” called Hazel.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Lucile haughtily, as she joined them.

“Don’t try to bluff,” ordered Hazel; “we all saw him meet you.”

“That’s one on you,” scoffed Lucile. “He stopped to ask me the way to Arnold Hall.”

“Arnold Hall!” chorused the others. “What in the name of fortune does he want there?”

“Don’t you wish you knew?” jeered Lucile.

“Is she putting something over on us? Where do you suppose he went?” whispered Hazel to Jane, but the latter only shrugged her shoulders.

“Shall I telephone the terminal?” inquired Anne, when they came to the little building which served as post office for the college.

“I wish you would,” replied Patricia gratefully; “you’ll know better what to say.”

“I’m going on,” announced Lucile, as they paused to wait for Anne.

“Go to it!” retorted Hazel. “Look, Pat, that red brick building on the corner is Horton Hall, the dorm for the music students. In the basement is the college dining room, where each dorm has a certain section. Over there, across the street, that grey building with all the steps is the auditorium, where the entertainments and meetings are held.”

“What did they say, Anne?” interrupted Jane, as Anne rejoined them.

“I talked to Mike himself. His sub was on the earlier bus, and he was afraid to leave the bag, since there was no one to take it. Mike will bring it out on his next run. I told him to give it to anybody who was coming up to the college; then we won’t have to go down for it. There’ll be heaps of students on the last bus, and Mike knows most of them. All right, Pat?” as the girl looked a bit doubtful.

“Surely,” she replied; but way down deep in her heart she felt that she would be much happier when her property was once more safe in her own hands. “But it serves me right for being so careless,” she thought, with characteristic honesty.

“Come on,” urged Hazel. “I’m crazy to get to the Hall.”

Much to Patricia’s surprise they turned away from the college buildings and down a side street. “Where are we going?” she finally asked.

“To Arnold Hall, of course,” replied Jane. “Oh, I forgot that you didn’t know where it was. You see, all the dorms, frat and sorority houses are on streets fairly near the college, but not right on the campus.”

“I should think you’d all be dead, climbing these hills,” commented Patricia, as they started up Wentworth Street.

“The whole town is built on hills, and the college is on the highest one; but you’ll get used to them.”

When they went up a brick walk leading to a big three-story house near the end of the street, Patricia felt a queer thrill of excitement and apprehension as she gazed up at the house which was to be her home for a whole year. What joys and sorrows would come to her there? Could she make good? Would her unknown benefactor reveal his or her identity before the year was out? Would she be coming back here this time next fall? Even now, the very idea of Anne and Jane returning next September without her brought a queer lump into her throat.

“I’m just nervous,” she reflected. “I must not think of the future at all.”

Determinedly she shook off her apprehensions, and followed the other girls into the house.

CHAPTER IV

THE ALLEY GANG

As Anne opened the door and started down a long hall, from which rooms opened on either side, a short, dark little girl, whose round brown face instantly reminded one of a pleasant hazel nut, appeared from a room at the very end of the corridor.

“Anne, darling!” she shrieked, dashing along the passage and throwing herself upon Anne so violently that Anne staggered and fell back against Jane, who had to grasp one of the pillars quickly to save herself from falling.

“Don’t be so rough, Fran!” gasped Anne, but as she spoke, Frances transferred her embraces to the other two girls in turn, while Patricia stood beside the door watching, until Anne led her forward and began introductions.

“This roughneck is Frances Quinne, who lives at the end of the alley. You see, this corridor is so long and narrow we call it ‘The Alley’ and the eleven girls who live here are known as The Alley Gang. Kath come yet?” she inquired, as Frances shook hands with Patricia.

“Yes, she’s upstairs. You might tell me your friend’s name; that’s only common politeness.”

“Your welcome literally knocked me out,” laughed Anne. “She’s Patricia Randall, and is going to be in our class, and live here.”

“Here?” demanded Frances in surprise.

“Yes; and, what’s more, right in the alley!” cried Jane, triumphantly holding up a card which she had picked out of a pile on the hall table. While the others were talking, Jane had been busily rummaging among the cards of room assignments.

“Let’s see,” said Anne, taking the bit of pasteboard from Jane. “No. 5. Right, next to me!”

“And across from us,” added Jane. “Has Ruth come yet?”

A slight little girl with big shy black eyes and a boyish bob ran down the stairs and approached the group.

“What do you mean by being up there when I come?” demanded Jane, shaking her room mate affectionately.

The girl’s pale face flushed slightly as she replied in a soft little voice: “I went up to see if Clarice had all of her things out of No. 14.”

“No excuse at all,” declared Jane. “This is my room mate, Ruth Maynard; Patricia Randall, a new member of our Gang.”

“What about Clarice, Ruthie?” asked Anne curiously, after Ruth had silently shaken hands with Patricia.

“She’s moving down here to No. 4,” replied Ruth quietly.

“Good night!” ejaculated Hazel, sitting down violently upon one of the trunks which lined the hall.

“Oh, boy! Oh, boy!” exclaimed Jane dramatically.

“Down here!” repeated Anne. “How come? Don’t know whether or not I fancy her for an opposite neighbor.”

“Nobody knows why she’s been moved,” contributed Frances excitedly. “She went to her old room as a matter of course when she came this morning, and then we found her card had No. 4 on it.”

“I think that’s just fierce!” cried Hazel. “She’s so noisy and notorious—”

“Now, Hazel,” protested Jane, “there’s nothing really bad about Clarice. She got herself talked about last year, it is true, but—”

“Maybe the Powers-that-Be think we’ll reform her,” suggested a gentle voice behind the group.

Everybody turned to face a fair, plump girl with braids of honey-colored hair wound around her shapely head, despite the prevailing fashion of short locks.

“Mary Taylor!” cried Hazel, joyfully kissing her room mate.

“Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here!” chanted a brisk voice, as its owner, a tall, finely developed girl with red cheeks and brown skin, which bespoke a love for out-of-doors life, jumped from the third last step to the hall below and encircled with her long arms as many of the girls as she could.

“Katharine, you hoyden!” exclaimed Anne. “Let me present Patricia Randall.”

“This noisy creature is my room mate,” added Hazel, as Katharine gave Patricia a regular man’s grasp of the hand.

“One of the Gang is missing,” commented Anne. “Where’s Betty?”

“‘Boy Friend’ is bringing her down by auto after dinner,” said Katharine.

“She must be going to be Patricia’s room mate,” offered Anne.

“She is,” announced Jane. “I saw her card.”

“What room did she have last year?” whispered Patricia to Anne.

“No. 4; but she felt quite abused at not having a room mate, so I imagine she’ll be delighted to move in with you. Here comes Dolly,” she added in an undertone, as the front door opened and a medium sized woman of about twenty-eight entered, followed by a short rather heavy girl whose restless black eyes missed no detail of the group before her.

“Well, girls,” said Mrs. Vincent, smiling patronizingly upon them, “how are you all? Glad to get back?” Without waiting for a reply, she went on: “You’ll find some changes here this fall. Clarice,” laying her hand on the girl’s arm, “is to be down here with us in No. 4. We also have a new member of our household, Miss Patricia Randall,” crossing the hall to shake hands with Patricia. “I do hope you’ll like us all, and be happy here.” Then she continued, without stopping for Patricia’s reply, “We’re to have a new maid—”

“Oh, where is Lizzie?” asked Jane.

“She got married this summer,” replied Mrs. Vincent; “and, my dears, you should have seen the beautiful presents she received! Our new maid’s name is Rhoda Hurd, and the Dean says she comes highly recommended. She’ll be here some time tonight. You had better all unpack now, and get ready for dinner. Arnold Hall girls will take the southwest end of the dining room, as usual. Come, Miss Randall, I’ll show you your room. Of course it looks rather bare now,” she added, when they stood on the threshold, “but you’ll soon change all that. My room is No. 1, right back of the reception room. If you want anything, don’t hesitate to come to me.”

When Patricia found herself alone, her glance traveled from the day beds on either side of the room to the two dressers flanking the doorway and to the writing tables in the big bay window. In spite of its bare floor and curtainless windows, the room had distinct possibilities; for the furniture was Early American, and the woodwork was good.

“Why,” she demanded of Anne, who came in at that moment, “do they have that heavy barred wire outside of the windows? It reminds me of a prison, or makes me feel as if I were in a cage.”

“It is, a sort of a prison,” laughed Anne. “You see, some of the girls like to stay out later than 10:30, and if it were possible to climb in the windows, nobody knows what time they would come in. The Black Book wouldn’t be of any use then.”

Patricia looked puzzled. “The ‘Black Book?’” she repeated.

“Yes; beside the telephone booth in the front hall, near Dolly’s room, is a table upon which rests a big, black blank book. Whenever you go out or come in after dinner, you must register in it your name and the hour. The girls take turns looking after it, and at bed time, Dolly inspects it before she makes the round of the rooms. And, by the way, whenever the outside door at the back of the hall is opened, it rings a bell in Dolly’s room, right under the bed. So you see how good your chances are of staying out nights.”

“Tell me something about Clarice,” begged Patricia, sitting down on one of the beds. “Why do all the girls dislike her so very much?”

“They don’t really dislike her,” replied Anne, plumping down beside Patricia. “She’s lots of fun, and generous to a fault; but she has such a loud laugh, and doesn’t care what she does or says. A good time appeals to her a whole lot more than does study, and last year she played around too much with a boy upon whom the authorities frowned. The girls on this floor have always been so congenial, and have had no demerits for conduct; so naturally they rather resent the introduction of Clarice. I think, though, that there is really a lot of good in the girl, if one could only develop it. Let’s go down the hall and see if Kath has a dress you could wear to dinner. Mine would be too large for you.”

Just as they stepped out into the hall, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll bet that’s Dolly’s boy friend,” whispered Anne, pausing to peer around one of the pillars, and catching sight of the top of a man’s hat showing in the door pane. “Wait a minute, I want you to get a look at him. He’s a special student here, and years younger than Doll.”

The door leading to the cellar opened suddenly, and a black-gowned maid appeared and hurried down the hall to answer the bell.

“Apparently Rhoda has arrived. Isn’t she pretty?” breathed Anne softly.

When the door was opened, a low-toned conversation ensued, of which the eavesdroppers could hear nothing. Then Rhoda admitted the blond youth, who stood waiting while the maid came down the hall toward the two girls.

“Some one to see Miss Randall,” she announced.

Patricia clutched Anne’s arm in a frenzy. “You’ve got to come with me,” she whispered.

“Are you expecting a bag?” inquired the boy gravely, fixing his great grey eyes upon Patricia when she reached the door.

“Yes,” she faltered; “I left it on the bus.”

“The driver was going to bring it down on the six,” volunteered Anne irrelevantly.

“He did,” said the youth, “and asked me to deliver it. I have it in the vestibule.” Opening the door, he secured the bag and handed it to Patricia.

“I am very grateful to you,” said Patricia a bit stiffly. “It was good of you to bring it.”

“No trouble at all. I was down at the shelter waiting for some one—” he broke off suddenly, as if fearing he had said too much, and bowed himself solemnly out.

“Well!” exclaimed Anne. “Of all things! You seem fated to get mixed up with that young man.”

“Don’t I? I suppose Mike remembered that he was on the bus with us, and just naturally gave the bag to him on that account.”

“Probably. Anyhow, now you won’t have to borrow a dress. You’d better hurry, though; it’s after six, and we dine—mark, I said dine—at six-thirty.”

Dinner was quite an experience for Patricia, who had never before seen a college dining room. The big low room was bare and unattractive in itself, but the long tables, each surrounded by twenty girls in pretty dinner gowns, the bright lights, and the orange-clad waitresses made up for lack of decorations elsewhere.

“My ears will grow at least a yard long here,” she observed to Anne, who sat next to her.

“What on earth do you mean?” inquired that young lady, reaching for the olives.

“Why, there are so many interesting conversations going on all around me, that I want to hear them all.”

Anne laughed. “This is nothing; just wait until classes are in full swing. Then child psychology, music theory, library cataloguing, art appreciation, domestic science, and half a dozen other subjects are all being discussed simultaneously.”

That evening most of the girls had unpacking and settling to finish, but a few members of the Alley Gang gathered in Anne’s attractive room to visit. Betty Grant had just arrived, and she and Patricia had approved of each other at the first glance.

“Tell me, Betty,” Anne was saying, “is the Boy Friend coming down week ends, as he did last year?”

“No; this year, I’m going to work—hard.”

Everybody laughed.

“Well, I am. I told Ed he could come only twice during this term—”

“And a few times in between,” finished Hazel.

“By the way,” began Betty, in a different tone. “I saw the queerest thing, just as Ed and I drove up. There was a fellow standing in front of the laundry window, right under your room, Hazel, evidently talking to some one inside.”

“Come now, Betty,” protested Katharine, “you’re making that up to change the subject.”

“Honest to goodness, I’m not! I saw him plain as daylight. I didn’t say anything to Ed, because he would have wanted to investigate, and I’ve no fancy for having him get into an argument with strange men. He might have had a gun, for all I know.”

“Heavens, Betty! We’ll all be afraid to go to sleep tonight,” shuddered Mary. “Hazel, you’ll have to push your bed up close to mine so you can protect me.”

“What did the man look like?” asked Jane.

“I couldn’t see his face, but he was slight, of medium height and wore a grey suit and hat.”

“The blond youth!” whispered Anne to Patricia.

“But what would he be doing prowling around here?” asked Patricia, frowning.

“Search me! Oh, hello, Lu, where have you been all the evening?”

“In the laundry part of the time. I came on here right from a house party, and my clothes are in a fine state.”

Jane, Anne, Hazel, and Patricia glanced significantly at one another.

“Sure you were pressing, Lu?” asked Hazel mischievously.

Before Lucile had a chance to reply, Betty leaned forward and inquired, “Did you see the man, Lu?”

“What man?”

“The man who was looking in the laundry window.”

Lucile laughed, a bit loudly for her. “Nobody around the place while I was there,” she replied, with marked carelessness, “only Rhoda.”

“What was she doing?” asked Anne.

“Pressing her uniforms.”

A discussion of the new maid and her predecessor followed, and the subject of the mysterious man was dropped.

CHAPTER V

MOSS

One morning a couple of weeks later, Patricia was wakened suddenly by a marshmallow landing on her nose and scattering its fine, powdered sugar all over her face. Sitting up quickly, she saw through her open door Ruth and Jane in their room across the hall, sitting on their beds, doubled up with laughter.

“You fiends!” she cried softly. “Just you wait!”

“What’s the matter?” inquired Betty sleepily, from the other bed, without even opening her eyes.

“Those Goths across the hall threw a marshmallow in my face!” replied Patricia, seizing the unfortunate bit of confectionery and returning it with such good aim that it struck Jane’s hand and bounded off onto the rug, where it deposited the rest of its sugar.

“Get up, Lazy Bones!” ordered Jane. “We’ve got to go out for moss before breakfast.”

“I forgot all about it,” groaned Patricia. “I wish that botany class was in Hades.”

“I wish you’d all shut up,” complained Betty. “I want to sleep; and, thank Heaven, I don’t take botany.”

Patricia was soon ready, and the three girls stole softly down the hall and tried the front door.

“Who’s that?” called Mrs. Vincent, who slept, not only with her door open, but also, so the girls said, with her eyes and ears wide as well.

“Patricia, Ruth, and Jane going out for moss for botany class,” answered Jane. “We’ll be back before breakfast time.”

“Don’t go far away.”

“Does she think we can find moss on the fire escape?” demanded Jane scornfully.

“Just where are we going?” asked Patricia.

“I think we’ll cut through the back yard here into Foth Road and head out toward the country.”

They went around the side of the dormitory, and, to their surprise, saw Rhoda coming toward them across the back yard.

“Aren’t you up pretty early, Rhoda?” asked Jane casually, as the girl flushed and looked embarrassed.

“Not so very,” was the low reply. “I often run out here for a breath of fresh air before starting my work.”

“How fussed she acted,” commented Ruth, “just as if she’d been caught doing something she didn’t want anybody to know about.”

“Yes, I noticed that too,” said Patricia, carefully following her companions down the treacherous, broken stone ledges into the yard behind Arnold Hall.

“Why, Ruth,” cried Jane, “‘Big House’ is occupied! I didn’t know that; did you?” The girl regarded in surprise the three-story brick house across a narrow stretch of green lawn.

“No, I didn’t”—adding softly, “Come on; somebody is watching us from that bay window on the second floor.”

“How do you know?” demanded Jane, hurrying after her room mate.

“I saw a woman’s hand pull the curtain aside a little while we were waiting for Pat to come down the steps.”

“It’s a shame to spoil our short cut to Foth Road; for I suppose we can’t go through there any more. That house was empty all last year,” explained Jane, turning to Patricia, “which made it rather nice for us because, besides using the yard as a thoroughfare, we sometimes had little parties there or met our boy friends when we didn’t want to go out the front way with them. Oh, I assure you it was useful in lots of ways.”

They were out on the road by then, and walking briskly toward the country.

“We’ll never find any moss if we keep to the road,” objected Ruth, after they had walked a mile in vain. “I should think we’d have to go into the woods, see, over there.”

“Not I!” replied Jane. “I’m too afraid of snakes.”

Patricia laughed. “There aren’t any snakes in a pine woods. They’re mostly where there are lots of rocks.”

“Well, anyway we’ll go a little farther and then I, for one, take to the woods,” decided Ruth. “We’ve got to find some moss soon, and go home; and I won’t face Yates again with no specimens.”

“Isn’t he the old pill, though?” said Jane to Patricia. “Did you ever see anybody so cold and stone-like? Even when he says unpleasant things—and, oh, boy! can’t he be disagreeable when he likes!—his face never changes from that set, gloomy expression.”

“He certainly is most peculiar,” agreed Patricia, “and I don’t like him even any! For that matter, no love at all is lost between us; something in the way he looks at me tells me that.”

“Ah, here we are!” exclaimed Jane, pointing to an old shed a few feet from the road. On its roof, near the ridge pole, was a luxuriant growth of bright green moss.

“How can we get at it?” asked Ruth, as they scrambled across a wire fence and crossed a stretch of rough, coarse grass. “I’m no good at climbing.”

“Nor I,” said Ruth. “How about you, Pat?”

“I think I could get up far enough to reach it, if you girls will boost a bit,” replied Patricia.

“It’s O. K. with us, but for Heaven’s sake be as quiet as possible. We don’t want the dog set on us.”

“Oh, nobody’s around so early as this; there’s no window on this side of the shed, and the door is on the other. The farm house is back of that clump of trees.”

“Easy telling you don’t know anything about the country,” said Jane scornfully; “these farmers get up early.”

Stepping up on a log, which happened to lie conveniently close to the building, Patricia, with the aid of the girls, got a firm grip on the edge of the roof and drew herself up to a point where she could lie flat on its weather-worn boards and stretch her long arms up toward the coveted plants. With much effort, she succeeded in reaching the moss and in tearing up two big handfuls. Resting on her elbows for a moment to ease the strain on her arms, she was horrified to feel the boards underneath them begin to sag; and, with a dull splintering of ancient wood, her hands and lower arms disappeared into a yawning cavity. Simultaneously, the moss dropped from her fingers into the depths below.

A snort, a gasp, and a forceful exclamation from within the shed mingled with Patricia’s startled cry of “Girls, I’m falling in.”

“What shall we do? What shall we do?” demanded Ruth excitedly as Patricia, speechless with horror, gazed down through the hole over which she hung, and met the cold, grey eyes of Professor Yates! His immaculate shoulders and smooth black hair were covered with bits of moss.

“Pull me down, quick!” cried the horrified Patricia, finally recovering the power of speech.

“It will spoil your dress,” warned Jane.

“I don’t care! Get me down, for Pete’s sake!” retorted Patricia wildly.

With their united efforts, the two girls succeeded in dragging Patricia safely to the ground, minus the moss, and with several long scratches on her arms.

“Where’s the moss?” demanded Ruth in surprise.

“All over Professor Yates!” gasped Patricia, hysterically.

“What?” cried Ruth, while Jane looked as if she feared Patricia had lost her mind.

“He’s in that shed!”

“You’re crazy!” retorted Jane, feeling her pulse.

“Honest to goodness! Cross my heart!”

At that moment, the object of their discussion strolled around the corner of the shed. He had brushed himself off, and now looked as calm and neat as if he were in his classroom. His gaze traveled coldly from one to another, then, looking directly at Patricia, he drawled: “To what am I indebted for this most unconventional call?”

“To your demand for specimens of moss today ‘without fail,’” quoted Jane glibly.

“A most novel situation, stealing it from my own roof, and ruining the roof in the bargain.”

“We had no idea it was your roof,” retorted Patricia hotly, “and I had no intention of breaking through it. It was anything but a pleasant experience, I assure you.”

“Of course we expect to assume any expense involved,” put in Jane soothingly, as they turned to go.

Professor Yates made no reply, but stood watching them scramble over the fence and start down the road toward college.

“Wasn’t that just terrible?” gasped Patricia “I’m certainly done for with him now. Next time I do any climbing for specimens, you’ll know it.”

“Whatever do you suppose he was doing out there?” demanded Ruth.

“You heard him say it was his roof, didn’t you?” retorted Jane. “Clarice said once that he had an old place where he raises all kinds of truck for the lab, but I didn’t pay much attention to her. She talks so much that half the time I don’t listen very attentively; and I haven’t given it a thought since.”

“Just wait until the girls hear about it!”

“We’re going to have a spread tonight; did you know it?” asked Jane. “Doll’s going out with one of her boy friends.”

“The dark youth who’s a ‘special’ in some year or other?” asked Patricia.

“Yes.”

“She’ll have to keep better tabs on him,” commented Ruth; “he’s a born flirt. I was at the Black Book the other night when he came in, and he tried to make a date with me.”

“Did he succeed?” asked Jane mischievously.

“He did not! I can’t bear him.”

“Do you realize, girls,” inquired Ruth, “that we are still moss-less?”

“Yes, and we’ll continue to be, so far as I am concerned,” retorted Patricia.

“Oh, somebody in the lab will be sure to have some,” said Jane easily, “and we’ll just borrow a little of it. I don’t feel equal to hunting any longer.”

The spread was about to get under way at eight-thirty that evening. Mrs. Vincent and her youthful escort, Ivan Zahn, had departed for a concert which the college was giving to entertain the Freshman Class. Rhoda was looking after the Black Book and the telephone; so the girls were quite free to enjoy themselves, without responsibility. The new maid had quickly become as much of a favorite as her predecessor; for she was accommodating and good-tempered, and the inhabitants of Arnold Hall, especially those on the first floor, treated her almost as one of themselves.

“Did anybody telephone the Varsity Coffee Shoppe for the eats?” demanded Hazel, coming out into the hall in a suit of bright red lounging pajamas.

“Yes,” answered Jane from her room, where she was putting frantic last minute lines on a poster which was due the next morning.

“Who took the order?” asked Frances, rushing in to borrow some thread to run up a rip in her coolie coat.

“Al, and he said he’d send them right down,” contributed Ruth from her bed, where she lay on her back trying to fix an important bit of psychology in her mind.

“Oh, cut the study!” ordered Anne, entering with Lucile, Betty, and Patricia.

“Got to get this tonight,” cried Ruth, hanging onto the book which Anne tried to take out of her hands.

“No, you haven’t; get up early in the morning and do it. Then it will be all the fresher in your mind.”

“Yes, you like early rising,” laughed Betty.

Anne continued to pull, and finally got Ruth off the bed. Katharine, who came in at that moment, attracted by the noise, slipped past Ruth and Anne, flopped into the recently vacated bed, and pulled up the covers.

“Of all things!” exclaimed Ruth indignantly, jerking away from Anne. “Get out of my bed!”

Katharine extended a long, strong arm and pulled Betty in beside her, while Frances piled in on the other side.

“Safety in numbers,” laughed Katharine impishly. “Get us out if you can!”

“I’ll help you, Ruth!” shouted Clarice, dashing in with a glass of water which she sprinkled freely on the three girls in the bed. With a cry of protest they sprang up and chased Clarice the length of the hall where she barricaded herself with a heavy chair in the corner beside the telephone booth. At the other end of the hall, on a couple of well-stuffed white laundry bags which were ready for the collector in the morning, perched Hazel, swinging her red-clad legs and singing: “I want a drink! Kathy wants a drink! Francy wants a drink!”

“Here’s Al, girls!” called Clarice from her vantage point, where she could see out onto the street.

The feud was forgotten, as they all trooped forward to relieve Rhoda of the basket which the boy had brought. Sitting down on the runner which extended the length of the hall, the girls quickly disposed of orangeade, sandwiches, cakes, and ice cream, not forgetting to give Rhoda a share. A songfest followed, and a general romp the length of the alley was in full swing when the front door opened suddenly and Mrs. Vincent walked in, alone.

“Girls!” she cried sharply. “Stop that noise at once! You sound like a lot of hyenas! I could hear you up to the corner!”

“What brought her home so early?” muttered Betty to Patricia.

“Must have had a scrap with Ivan,” whispered Anne. “She’s so cross.”

Just then the telephone rang, and Mrs. Vincent paused to gaze hopefully at Rhoda who answered it.

“Yes,” said Rhoda, in a low tone. “Yes, I’ll call her.”

With an oddly excited expression on her usually calm face, Rhoda turned to Mrs. Vincent, saying, “Someone wants to speak with you.”

CHAPTER VI

A MEDDLER

“Yes, this is Mrs. Vincent talking. What? I’m very sorry. The girls were having a little party, and didn’t realize, I’m afraid, how much noise they were making. What did you say, please? Oh, we—ll, I’ll see what they think about it. Of course, you realize that they are not children to be ordered about.”

“She didn’t think so a minute ago,” giggled Anne under her breath to Patricia.

“All right. Goodbye.”

Mrs. Vincent hung up the receiver and turned to face the girls.

“We’re in a nice fix now!” she snapped. “Mrs. Brock, who lives back of us, has been greatly disturbed by the noise you have been making all the evening, and feels that an apology is due her—”

“What utter nonsense!” cried Anne.

“She must be cuckoo!” exclaimed Clarice hotly.

The rest of the girls stood looking at one another in astonishment, while Rhoda turned her back quickly and bent her head low over the open Black Book.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” continued Mrs. Vincent.

“Just nothing at all,” replied Jane; “her demand is absurd.”

“Of course it is unreasonable; but the trouble is,” pursued Mrs. Vincent, flushing, “she says unless a couple of you go over and present an apology for the crowd, she will lodge a complaint at the office.”

“Now I know she is crazy,” snapped Lucile.

“Naturally,” went on Mrs. Vincent, “a question of my incompetence, or of my inability to manage you properly, will arise if such a complaint is lodged. Of course, you must do as you wish. I’m simply laying the whole matter frankly before you.”

Mrs. Vincent turned abruptly and disappeared into her own room.

“This is a pretty mess!” scolded Katharine.

“It’s mostly your fault!” cried Hazel, looking angrily at Clarice.

“How is it, I’d like to know!” demanded the girl, flushing a dull red, but gazing defiantly at her accuser.

“You did most of the yelling and rough-housing,” retorted Frances promptly.

“I didn’t pile into Ruth’s bed; I didn’t sit beside the back door, singing; I—”

“No,” interrupted Jane soothingly, “I think we all did our share; but—”

“What’s the use of trying to place the blame now?” asked Patricia suddenly. “The question is how to fix things up.”

“We can’t let Dolly down, I suppose,” said Mary slowly. “She is incompetent, and awfully silly at times; but, after all, she is our chaperon and we owe loyalty to her. She might lose her position as the result of the complaint, and we’d hate to be party to taking a job from anyone.”

“Since you all feel that I’m mostly to blame,” broke in Clarice, “I’ll go over to Big House and apologize.”

Almost before she had time to think, Patricia heard herself saying: “And I’ll go with you.”

“You’re a couple of good sports!” cried Jane heartily.

“Is it too late to go now?” asked Patricia, looking at the clock.

“Nearly ten. Better ask Dolly,” advised Anne.

Patricia went to the chaperon’s door, knocked, and when Mrs. Vincent opened it, stated quietly: “Clarice and I are going over to apologize to Mrs. Brock. Shall we go now, or wait until morning?”

“It really doesn’t matter, I suppose; whichever time you prefer,” replied Mrs. Vincent slowly, looking past Patricia to Clarice, who stood leaning against the Black Book table. The girl’s black eyes met hers, and a long, meaning look passed between them.

“We’ll go now, then, and get it over with,” decided Patricia. “Come on, Clarice.”

The two went out of the front door and the rest of the girls gathered in Jane’s room to await results.

“What a day!” sighed Ruth. “I’ll never get up so early again. It brings bad luck. What with the moss adventure this morning, and now this.”

“How did Professor Yates act in class?” asked Hazel, as the rest smiled over the story of the moss, which they had heard earlier in the day.

“Just as usual, except perhaps a little more sarcastic,” began Jane.

“And more generous with puzzling questions, especially to Pats,” broke in Anne.

“Funny they can’t get along together,” mused Mary. “Pat is such a peach of a girl.”

“There’s no rhyme or reason in anything Yates does,” declared Hazel bluntly.

“Pat is a peach,” agreed Anne fervently, “and I think we’re mighty lucky to get her in our Gang.”

“So say we all of us!” chanted Frances softly.

“It seems awfully queer to me, though,” put in Lucile, “for a girl to leave a college voluntarily after a year there, and come away up here where she knows no one, to finish her course.”

“Her aunt and cousin are here,” spoke up Anne, loyally.

“Don’t see them making much fuss over her!” retorted Lucile. “Ted’s been here only two or three times to see her.”

“Ted is a very busy boy.” Anne spoke up promptly. “He’s in Forestry, and that takes him out a lot this year.”

“Come to think of it,” commented Ruth, “I haven’t seen him much at the Frat House.”

“You should know what goes on there,” laughed Katharine, teasingly. “Such luck as you and Jane have—a room right next to—”

“Clarice’s room is even better—or worse,” said Jane; “for hers is opposite the men’s living room.”

“Why worse?” demanded Frances.

“I’ll change rooms with you some night, and let you listen to their blamed radio until the wee small hours, and then again early in the morning, before anybody is up.”

“Speaking of Clarice,” broke in Lucile, “I think there’s something between her and Dolly.”

“What do you mean?” asked Betty quickly.

“Some secret, or understanding, or favoritism, or something,” replied Lucile. “Did none of you see the look they exchanged when Pats told Dolly they’d go?”

“I did,” answered Anne thoughtfully; “it all but talked.”

“There’s some reason why Clarice was moved down here this year, and I’ll bet Dolly was at the root of it,” declared Lucile, emphasizing her words by pounding on the foot of the bed beside which she sat.

“By the way, Lu,” broke in Hazel shyly, “how’s your blond friend? Seen him lately?”

“My blond friend is good!” jeered Lucile.

“Who is he? Who is he?” demanded Mary and Betty in unison. “Why haven’t we ever seen him?”

“My darlings,” said Lucile mockingly, “just because on the day we came back, a good-looking, yellow-haired youth stopped me at the top of the hill to ask where Arnold Hall was, these silly girls imagined I had a date with him.”

“Why should a fellow want Arnold Hall?” demanded Katharine in surprised tones.

“Maybe he has a sweetie here,” proposed Hazel mischievously, looking at Lucile.

“That’s an idea,” replied Lucile, flatly ignoring Hazel’s insinuations; “maybe it’s—Patricia!”

“Oh, no,” contradicted Anne; “she never saw him before the day we came down.” Too late she realized what she had admitted.

“Came down! Oh, then he was on your train. Ah, ha! Now we’re getting at something!” exulted Lucile.

Poor Anne’s fair complexion changed to a bright pink, as she struggled to make her words sound casual.

“He sat across from us, and we happened to notice him because he was so good-looking. We haven’t seen him for a long time.”

“I have,” spoke up Jane; “and you’d never guess where.”

“Then tell us,” said Frances.

“Last night, I was coming from the library, and because it was rather late, I took a chance on cutting through the yard back of here. As I got to the step up into this yard, I heard the sound of a typewriter in Big House. It surprised me; for I understand Mrs. Brock is quite elderly. I glanced carelessly up at the lighted windows, and there in a second floor room facing this way, sat our unknown blond friend.”

“Maybe he’s her son,” proposed Katharine.

“Son, nothing! Grandson more likely,” contradicted Hazel. “Maybe the girls will meet him. Why didn’t more of us go?”

Jane laughed. “You all had a chance, but you didn’t make the most of it.”

At this moment the front door opened quietly, closed again, footsteps were heard coming along the hall, and Patricia and Clarice entered.

“Tell us just everything,” ordered Anne, making places on Jane’s bed for the newcomers.

“Well,” began Patricia slowly, “a maid led us into the living room, which is that room in front where the big bay window is; and there, before the fire, sat a tiny, white-haired old lady with the keenest brown eyes I have ever seen.”

“They bored right through one,” contributed Clarice.

“She never said a word to us, only looked up, and then tried to quiet her white Spitz which began to bark his head off at us.”

“I should think she’d be used to noise, if she has one of those,” observed Hazel; “they sho’ do bark.”

Just then Mrs. Vincent slipped into the room, and, sitting down beside Clarice, slid an arm around her, while the girls exchanged significant glances.

“When Mrs. Brock got the dog quieted down,” continued Patricia, “I said that we had come to represent the girls on our floor, and apologize for the excessive noise tonight; that we had not intended to annoy anyone, and had not even thought of it as a possibility; we were only having a little party among ourselves.”

“‘Drinking party, I suppose!’ she snapped, looking us over from head to foot, for she hadn’t asked us to sit down.”

“I’ll bet she knows how many buttons are on my blouse, and even where one buttonhole is torn,” observed Clarice.

“‘We had only orangeade,’ I replied, as good-naturedly as I could; for it certainly was annoying to be addressed in the tones she used,” went on Patricia.

“‘Are you sure of that?’ she demanded, fixing her brown eyes on me, like crabs. ‘I distinctly heard some one singing a song about wanting a drink.’”

A burst of laughter from the girls interrupted Patricia’s story, while Jane ruffled Hazel’s curls.

“Then I took a hand,” announced Clarice.

“‘You did,’ I told her, ‘and we had several; but they were all made of oranges, just as Patricia has told you. We may be noisy, but we’re not liars!’”

“What did she say?” asked Jane eagerly.

“Nothing; she just glared at me, and turned back to Pat,” replied Clarice.

“‘Aside from the personal annoyance,’ she went on,” continued Patricia, “‘I consider it highly detrimental to the reputation of college women to have such yelling and noise emanating from a supposedly respectable dormitory.’ Before we could answer, fortunately, perhaps, for I didn’t know what to say next,” went on Patricia, “she pressed a bell near her chair, and almost immediately we heard footsteps on the stairs, the heavy portieres between the living room and the hall were pushed aside, and there stood—”

“The good-looking young blond!” finished Hazel, excitedly clasping and unclasping her hands.

“Why, how did you know?” demanded Patricia in surprise.

“I saw him over there in the window last night, and the girls were just saying that perhaps you would meet him,” replied Jane. “But please go on.”

“‘Norman Young, my secretary,’ said the old lady, looking inquiringly at us. Clarice supplied our names, and the youth bowed gravely. ‘Norman,’ she asked, ‘did you type the letter I dictated earlier this evening?’

“‘Not yet, Mrs. Brock,’ he said.

“‘You need not write it. That’s all,’ she added curtly, as the young man lingered a moment, eyeing Clarice. As soon as he had disappeared, she turned to us again. ‘You may go too,’ she announced abruptly; ‘and don’t let me hear such a rumpus over there again.’ Then Clarice spoke up. ‘Mrs. Brock, we told you we were sorry, and we are; but we can’t promise never to make another sound, when we have parties, or at any other time. There are forty-five girls in the house, and it’s unreasonable to expect us to be as quiet as deaf-mutes.’ Before she could get her breath to annihilate Clarice, which I thought she would do, I broke in and said that perhaps she’d like us and understand college life better if she came over to Arnold Hall some time and got acquainted with the girls and see how we live.

“‘Maybe I should,’ she replied slowly, and really her face changed so that I thought she was going to smile.”

“Now you have done it, Pats,” groaned Anne.

“Whatever possessed you to say that?” complained Betty.

“Who in creation is she, that she thinks she can take such a hand in our affairs?” demanded Katharine hotly.

“Well, I felt sorry for her,” contended Patricia stoutly. “She’s old, and all alone in that big house—”

“Oh, no, Pats, not alone; think of that attractive youth,” protested Hazel.

“And I think she’s longing for human contacts,” continued Patricia.

“She seems to be,” remarked Lucile sarcastically.

“And that’s why she is annoyed by our fun, kind of an outsider envying those who are on the inside; like a kid who’s not invited to a party, and so wants to break it up,” concluded Patricia.

“Sentimental Pat!” scoffed Lucile.

“I’m sorry you are all annoyed about it,” said Patricia, flushing, “but I suddenly felt so sorry for her that I spoke before I thought. I never dreamed you’d object to her. Probably she won’t come, anyhow.”

“I think,” said Jane emphatically, “that you handled the matter in the best possible way. What would we gain by fighting with her? Putting aside of any question of kindness, it’s much wiser for us to be friendly with her, if she will let us.”

“I agree with you, Jane,” said Mrs. Vincent, speaking for the first time, and getting up to go back to her own room. “Now get to bed as quickly as possible,” she added, as the clock struck eleven.

There were three people in the college colony who were wakeful that night: Patricia tossed from side to side, as she kept going over in her mind the inexorable circumstances which continued to involve her in strange situations with Norman Young. Directly above her, on the third floor, Rhoda the maid was shedding tears as she worried over the affairs of one near and dear to her. In his room across the two back yards, Norman Young alternately pondered over Clarice’s pretty face and the solving of a problem which involved some cleverness on his part.

CHAPTER VII

A FALL

“Who’s going to the Greystone game?” asked Hazel, as part of the Alley Gang was walking back to the Hall after lunch one crisp sunny day in October.

“I am,” replied Anne.

“Ted?” queried Patricia, curiously.

Anne nodded, adding with a broad grin, “Katharine and Professor Boyd are going with us.”

Oliver Boyd was a young instructor, who had been engaged for the History Department that fall, a slim, attractive youth, whose big brown eyes looked shyly out from behind octagon glasses, and whose dark skin made the girls, when they wanted to tease Katharine, say he must have Indian blood in his veins. A melodious voice with a southern accent completed an ensemble that had proved most intriguing to the women of Granard. All the girls smiled upon him, and the registration in History V was unusually heavy that term. That he was girl-shy had been the consensus of opinion until one day Katharine happened to run across him in the Varsity Book Shoppe; and a discussion, begun from the talkative Katharine over the respective merits of note book covers No. 1 and No. 3, had been the beginning of the most talked-of of college romances.

“Now just wouldn’t a retiring daisy like Professor Boyd pick a roughneck like Katharine?” commented Lucile disgustedly. “I should think she’d scare him to death.”

“You’re just jealous!” retorted Hazel, quick to come to the support of her room mate.

“Indeed I’m not,” contradicted Lucile promptly; “but you can’t deny that they’re no more suited to each other than—”

“Oh, but opposites attract,” interrupted Betty; “remember your psychology, or was it physics?”

“Who else is going to the game?” inquired Jane, returning to the original topic of conversation in an attempt to check the friction.

“Francie and I are driving down,” replied Patricia, smiling down at the round-faced little girl beside her. For several weeks now, Patricia had been the proud possessor of the car which her father had bought for her.

“Where’s the Boy Friend?” asked Hazel curiously, turning to look at Frances.

“On the outs,” was the quick reply.

“How come?” inquired Lucile.

“Well, Joe said he wished Tut Miller would get a chance to play in the Greystone game—”

“Oh—oh!” protested her companions in chorus.

“Yes, that’s just the way I felt,” asserted Frances; “so we promptly had a row.”

“But why,” protested Jane, “should he want Jack Dunn to be taken out of the lineup. He’s a far better player than Tut.”

“I know, but I figured it out this way: Joe and Tut were at Huron Prep together, and Joe’s got an awful case on Tut. When football practice started, Tut went over big until Jack began to show what he was made of.”

“And naturally Joe sizzled when Jack got on the regulars and Tut was his sub,” finished Jane.

“Jack’s the better of the two, of course,” agreed Anne; “but I don’t fall for him the way the rest of you do. He seems to me to be rather too sure of himself.”

“Who has a better right?” asked Lucile sharply. “He’s been the absolute idol of this college and town ever since he made the team.”

Before this challenge could be taken up, there was a sound of running footsteps behind them, and Clarice violently pushed in between Jane and Anne.

“What do you think?” she cried, noisily.

“We don’t think,” retorted Lucile crisply. “We leave that for you.”

“What is the excitement, Clarice?” inquired Jane quickly, trying to cover Lucile’s unkind thrust at Clarice’s poor scholarship.

“You’d never guess with whom I am going to the Greystone game.”

“Then tell us quickly,” said Frances, “before we all die of suspense.”

“Norman Young! He asked me in Physics Lab this morning, and—”

“Physics Lab,” repeated Betty in puzzled tones. “How did he happen to be there?”

“Didn’t you know that he registered late, and is a special student here!” asked Jane in surprise.

“No; I—”

“Where have you been all this term?” demanded Hazel in disgust.

“Betty is more interested in certain people from home than she is in Granard students,” explained Lucile in significant tones.

“I am not!” contradicted Betty promptly.

“Don’t bother; she’s only trying to tease you,” said Jane soothingly, flinging an arm across Betty’s shoulder. “If I had a devoted boy friend who wrote me letters every other day, and came down to spend week ends here, I shouldn’t know all the college gossip either.”

Meanwhile Anne was whispering to Patricia: “Wonder how Lucile likes Clarice’s walking off with Norman.”

“Why?” said Pat. “I didn’t know that she considered him her special property. She’s been going around with Tut.”

“I’m not sure that she does, only I feel it in my bones, someway, that the meeting at ‘Hill Top’ on the day we arrived was not all chance. I do know that she pricks up her ears whenever he is mentioned.”

They had reached the library, and Pat reluctantly left her companions.

“I’m due here, kids,” she called from the third step, as Jane demanded why she was deserting them. “Something I’ve got to look up. See you later.” Waving her hand gaily, she ran up the long flight of steps and entered the old grey building.

Some of the rooms were used for graduate work, or small classes of men students; and Patricia could hear Professor Donnell’s voice quite distinctly as she passed down the corridor to the reference department. Three-quarters of an hour later, having secured the necessary information, she was just approaching the outside doorway when Professor Donnell’s class came out of its room, right behind her. Patricia was rather shy with strangers, and hurried a bit to keep well ahead of the men going down the steps. In her haste, she failed to notice, on a step part way down the flight, some matted, damp leaves. Her heel slipped on one of them, and she rolled to the bottom of the flight. Eighteen men promptly sprang to her assistance, but the long legs of a thin dark boy brought him first upon the scene.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, raising Patricia to her feet.

Patricia looked up into solicitous blue eyes, bent anxiously upon her, and shakily replied that she didn’t think so.

“That was a nasty fall,” continued the boy, still carefully holding her by the arm as if he feared she might collapse any minute.

The other men had gathered about her in a semi-circle, and Patricia’s color came back with a rush, and flushed her face to a scarlet which matched the little hat which had fallen off during her descent and which one of the men now presented to her.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Lucile would say, if she could see me now, that I fell purposely,” thought Patricia, adjusting the gay little hat with shaking fingers. Then an awful thought occurred to her. Maybe these men thought the same thing! People resorted to all kinds of tricks to meet celebrities, and Jack Dunn’s acquaintanceship was much sought after.

“I don’t know how I happened to fall,” she said, trying to laugh. “I’m not usually so careless.”

“There were some wet leaves on one of the steps,” explained her rescuer, bending his head protectively over her.

It was a fine shaped head, topped by wavy brown hair flung back from a broad, very white forehead. The hands on her arm were shapely, and the fingers long and slender. A thoroughbred, thought Patricia.

“If you’ll tell me where you were going,” he continued, motioning his companions peremptorily away, “I’ll walk along with you.”

“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you further,” protested Patricia. “I’m quite all right now.”

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” contradicted her escort gently, falling into step beside her, as they started across the campus. “Let’s sit down over there a while,” he added, as they approached a stone bench under a tree near the Fine Arts Building; “or have you a class now?”

“No, not until three-thirty.”

“What year are you?” he began, as soon as they were seated. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“I’m a Sophomore, and my name, by the way, is Patricia Randall.”

“Mine is Jack Dunn,” said the boy, as simply as if his name were not known the length and breadth of the campus.

“I’m afraid you are not very observing,” remarked Patricia.

“Why?”

“Because we are in the same Shakespeare class, and have been all this term.”

“Oh, well, we’re seated alphabetically. I’m down in the front of the room, and you must be in the back. So that lets me out.”

Three-thirty arrived long before they finished exchanging personal bits of information, and Jack left Patricia at the door of her classroom with a promise to see her again very soon.

“How in the world did you get hold of him?” whispered Jane excitedly, as Patricia took her seat.

“Tell you later,” promised Patricia, as Professor Yates glanced in their direction.

After the class was over, the girls managed to get away from the rest of the crowd; so, as they walked slowly across the campus, Patricia told the story of the fall and its consequences.

“You’re a lucky girl!” sighed Jane, as she finished.

“To have broken no bones?” inquired Patricia innocently.

“Yes, just that,” replied her companion, with exaggerated emphasis. “Broken hearts not taken into account.”

“I suppose the girls will razz the life out of me,” commented Patricia, after a short pause.

“Don’t tell them anything about it, then. I shan’t mention it.”

“But suppose some of them saw us together?”

“That’s all right. If they don’t know how you met him, it will give them something to think about.”

That evening Patricia was keenly aware of curious eyes fixed upon her as she stood in front of Arnold Hall talking to Jack Dunn. He had stepped up to her just as she was following Jane and Anne to the post office after dinner. The girls obligingly hurried on and left the two together, but Patricia’s cheeks were red with the knowledge that they were talking about her as they went back to the dorm.

“I was wondering if you’d go to see Arliss with me,” began Jack. “He’s on at the Plaza, and we’d be just in time for the early performance.”

“I should like to see it,” replied Patricia slowly; “but—yes, I’ll go. I’m pretty sure Jane will sign the Black Book for me if I don’t go in.”

“The Black Book?” repeated Jack in puzzled tones.

As they started downtown, Patricia told him all about the Arnold Hall customs and rules, and answered his questions regarding the identity of several of the Alley Gang.

“You see,” he said, “I don’t know many of the girls here; for I came only this year, transferred from Floynton University—”

“And I from Brentwood,” interrupted Patricia. “Isn’t that funny?”

“We ought to be friends, then, both strangers in a strange land. Shall we?”

“I don’t mind.”

After leaving the movie, they strolled slowly back to College Hill, chatting as if they had known each other always.

“Will you come in?” asked Patricia, as they reached Arnold Hall.

“Like to, but you see I’m in training and not supposed to be out too late; besides I have some boning to do yet.”

“I don’t see when you ever get any studying done; you’re in classes all morning as well as part of the afternoon, and on the athletic field until dark.”

“It doesn’t leave me much time, and I’ve just got to make good here.”

“You mean in order to keep on the team?”

“Of course; but there’s another reason too. You see, my dad isn’t well enough off to send me to Granard himself; and, well, when you’re indebted to somebody else for a big chance, why, you’ve just got to make good.”

“I know just how that is; for I’m in the same position myself,” replied Patricia impulsively.

“You are?” questioned Jack. “Then you would understand.”

“Good evening,” said a smooth, low voice behind them, and they turned to face Norman Young.

“How are you?” replied Jack briefly, while Patricia murmured a response to the newcomer’s greeting.

“Clarice in?” queried Norman as he turned and went up the walk toward the house.

“I don’t know,” replied Patricia.

“I don’t like that fellow,” observed Jack, as the door closed upon Young.

“You don’t? Why?”

“Queer acting guy. Never caught him in anything; in fact I don’t know him very well, but I don’t trust him. Comes out and sits on the side lines to watch practice quite often, and he gives me the jitters. You know him well?”

“No, I don’t. I was introduced to him at Mrs. Brock’s house. He’s her secretary.”

“Who’s Mrs. Brock?”

Briefly Patricia told him of their contact with the eccentric inhabitant of Big House.

“She must be crazy!” declared Jack, as she finished her story. “You’d better not have anything to do with her. Say, what does she look like?” as a sudden idea occurred to him.

Patricia described her as well as she could.

“The very same!” ejaculated the boy, when Patricia paused.

“The same—what do you mean?” inquired the girl, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

“I was walking along Craig Street, right back of the campus, you know, one day about two weeks ago, when I noticed a little woman ahead of me drop a small bag. Apparently, she didn’t notice her loss; for she kept right on. I picked up the pocketbook, hurried on, and gave it to her. She looked at me sharply with the most piercing brown eyes I have ever seen—”

“That’s she!” interrupted Patricia. “Those eyes fasten themselves on you just like tiny crabs.”

“I presented the bag and told her where I found it. She said curtly: ‘So you’re really honest. I didn’t think anybody was, any more.’ It made me mad, so I merely said: ‘That is one of the things upon which I pride myself,’ bowed and hurried on. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I heard her laugh. Must be cuckoo.”

“She’s certainly queer, to say the least,” agreed Patricia. “I think I’d better go in, now. Thanks for the movie; I enjoyed it.”

“Wait a minute,” urged the boy, laying a hand on her arm. “You’re going to see the Greystone game; aren’t you?”

“Yes; Frances and I are going to drive down together.”

“I’ll get your tickets, then. I’d like you to be where you can get a good view, since you’ve never been to a real big game before.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Patricia gratefully, as she started up the steps. “Good night.”

“Bring them to you in Shakespeare class Friday,” called Jack, just as Norman and Clarice came out onto the porch.

Shortly after the street was again deserted, a masculine figure slipped out of a thick clump of shrubbery near the dormitory, and, keeping well in the heavy shadows which edged Arnold Hall on one side, slunk off into the darkness.

CHAPTER VIII

JACK OR TUT?

“Will somebody stop that bell!” called Patricia frantically one afternoon a week later.

She and Anne were in their room, trying to cram for a test in French.

“No!” shouted Clarice and Hazel simultaneously. “We want to wear out the battery before tonight; and the coast is clear now.”

Patricia gave her door a shove which made it close with a bang, and stuffed her fingers into her ears, while Anne did likewise. Presently the door flew open again to admit Mary.

“What’s the idea?” she exclaimed, viewing the two girls with alarm.

“That awful bell!” replied Anne briefly, withdrawing her fingers from ears. “What do you suppose Clarice and Hazel are up to?”

“I’m not sure, but I think they’re planning to step out tonight.”

“Rose Troy?” queried Anne.

“I suppose so,” said Mary anxiously.

Rose Troy was not a student at Granard, but at one of the college affairs to which outsiders were admitted, she had met Hazel and Clarice, taken a fancy to them, and subsequently invited them to her home several times. She entertained lavishly, and some of the girls were frankly envious of the favored two; others strongly disapproved of the growing intimacy.

“But what’s the bell got to do with it?” inquired Patricia.

“You poor innocent!” retorted Mary. “If the bell won’t ring when the back door is opened—and they find some way to have said back door opened for them—Doll can never tell what time the girls come home.”

“I wish Hazel hadn’t gotten so intimate with Clarice all of a sudden,” mused Anne. “I wonder how it happened.”

“Birds of a feather,” began Mary.

“Don’t say that. Hazel is just like Clarice!” protested Anne vehemently.

“Wait till I finish,” countered Mary calmly. “I was going to say that they both love a good time, and both let their studying go until the eleventh hour; furthermore, Hazel is terribly restless this year. I can’t make out just what is the matter with her, and Clarice is a kind of outlet.”

“Rose Troy’s attentions are very bad for both of them, I think; and perhaps partly explains their intimacy,” said Anne.

“How?” inquired Mary bluntly.

“Well, they have a common interest in which the rest of us have no part, and Rose’s parties are somewhat stimulating, I imagine; more sophisticated than ours. Rose has lots of boy friends, you know.”

“Ought we to do anything, about tonight, I wonder,” mused Anne.

“No!” replied Mary promptly. “What right have we to object if those two silly kids want to run the risk of getting into trouble?”

Suddenly the bell stopped ringing, and quiet settled down upon the house, just as Mrs. Vincent entered the front door, with her shadow, Ivan Zahn.

“But,” persisted Patricia, still puzzled, “how will they manage to get in without Dolly’s knowledge?”

“Oh, Clarice, on some pretext or other—she’ll know how—will ask for permission for both of them to stay out an hour later than usual. Doll will give it, and go to bed at the regular time. Then, with the back door key, which I suppose they will secure during the early evening, they will be able to get in and go to bed without anyone being the wiser.”

“Clarice certainly has some stand-in with Dolly,” observed Anne.

“She works hard enough for it,” retorted Mary.

“What do you mean?” inquired Patricia.

“Oh, Clarice is always sending Doll flowers, or candy, and naturally it makes an ‘imprint’; as of course it’s intended to.”

About two o’clock next morning, Patricia was suddenly wakened by a flash of light. Wide awake in an instant, she waited tensely for the peal of thunder which she expected would accompany it—forgetting that the season for such storms was over. Electric storms were Patricia’s chief phobia; but no sound disturbed the stillness. Then the flash was repeated; again she waited, but again perfect quiet reigned. Just as she decided that one of the street lights must be blinking, a third time the light played on the wall, this time more slowly. With a fast-beating heart, she sat up, reached for her bathrobe, and stole softly to the window. On the path below, in the faint light from the street lamp, she could distinguish Clarice and Hazel. Evidently they could not get in, and had used a flash light to attract her attention. How to let them know that she saw them, without making any noise, was a problem which she solved by passing a handkerchief back and forth near the screen, hoping that its whiteness would be visible against the dark background of the room. Frantic gestures toward the back door answered her efforts. They must have forgotten the key. Creeping noiselessly toward her door, Patricia succeeded in opening it quietly and stealing down the hall without arousing anyone. Fortunately, the door into the narrow passage leading to the back entrance was open, and Patricia drew it carefully to behind her, in order to keep any sounds from the front of the house. With her heart in her throat, she turned the key, bit by bit, until the lock was released. With the same care, she opened the door wide enough to admit the two girls who were pressed close to its frame. As she was about to close it again, she noticed a bright light in Big House—in the room occupied by Norman Young. There was a slight jar as the door settled into place again, and the three girls stood silent, shaking with nervous chills, until they felt quite sure that no one had been wakened. Then, without a word, they all crept to their rooms.

“Come on up to the Coffee Shoppe with me for lunch, Pat,” begged Hazel the following noon, as they left the house with the rest of the crowd for Horton Hall. “I want to talk with you.”

In one of the cozy stalls at the back of the restaurant, after their order was filled, Hazel began bluntly:

“You’re a good sport, Pat. It was darned white of you to let us in last night, and never say a word about it.”

“Was the party worth the trouble?” asked Patricia, playing with the salt cellar nervously, and not knowing exactly what to say.

“To be frank, it was not. I never had such a fright in my life. Rose’s party was all right. We had fun, out, after the eats, one of the boys proposed driving out to Kleg’s—”

“The road house?” exclaimed Patricia.

Hazel nodded.

“Everybody seemed keen to go, so I wasn’t going to be a spoilsport. When we got there, we found a big crowd, and had trouble getting tables together. Luckily Clarice and I, and a couple of fellows you don’t know, got places in a back corner near a side door, like this.”

Hazel placed a piece of roll and a match on the table to show the exact relative location.

“We hadn’t been there half an hour when there was a raid—”

“Hazel!” gasped Patricia, with horror in her eyes and voice.

“While the first excitement was going on in the front room the two fellows who were with us hustled us quietly out of the side door, into Pete’s car, and brought us home. And were we lucky!”

“You don’t know how lucky,” said Patricia gravely. “Did you see this morning’s paper?”

“No, don’t tell me it was reported!”

“It certainly was—”

“Were our names in?” demanded Hazel breathlessly.

“Not yours or Clarice’s, but several of the men’s, as well as Rose’s and her sister’s. Only for a kind Providence, you and Clarice might have been included,” said Patricia severely, gazing sternly at the white-faced girl opposite her.

“I’m through!” declared Hazel finally. “This is the last time I’ll break the college rules; and—”

“And what about Rose?” added Patricia. “She’s not good for you, Hazel. You haven’t the time or money to go with anyone like that; and her ideals and standards are different from ours.”

Hazel looked at her plate and was silent so long, that Patricia began to feel as if she had been too frank.

“You’re right, I guess,” she said finally. “I’ll give her up, even though I suppose she’ll think I am an awful quitter.”

“Good for you!” commended Patricia heartily, beginning again on her lunch.

“Do you suppose, Pat,” asked Hazel, after a short pause, “that the college authorities will hear that Clarice and I were mixed up in the affair?”

“I don’t imagine so; the others were all outsiders, weren’t they?”

“Yes, but, Pats; at Kleg’s I saw Norman Young.”

“Did he see you?” inquired Patricia sharply, recalling Jack’s impression of the blond youth.

“I don’t think so; but you never can tell. He was at a table half way down the room; and Pat, who do you suppose was with him?”

“Couldn’t guess.”

“Rhoda!”

“Our Rhoda?” repeated Patricia, unbelievingly.

Hazel nodded.

“Don’t let’s say anything about it to anybody,” proposed Patricia after a minute’s thought. “It’s awfully queer, but since we can’t understand it, there’s no object in creating talk and making things unpleasant for Rhoda.”

“No, of course not. I like Rhoda.”

“We all do, and I guess she needs her job. She said something one day about some one being dependent on her.”

“Do you suppose Norman goes with her?” continued Hazel, scraping up the last of her chocolate pudding.

“I haven’t any idea. He’s been out with Clarice quite often of late. I hope she doesn’t hear about Rhoda.”

“I don’t think she saw them last night, and I didn’t mention it. But Clarice wouldn’t care, as long as she had somebody to step out with. It’s a case of some boy with her, not any particular one,” replied Hazel, getting up and dropping her purse just outside the stall.

At the same moment a youth, leaving the next stall, picked up the purse and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” murmured Hazel, glancing up at the man.

To her amazement and distress, she looked full into the pale grey eyes of Norman Young.

“Going back to college?” he asked, looking first at Hazel and then at Patricia, who had just slipped out of her seat.

“Yes,” replied Patricia briefly, when Hazel did not respond.

“So am I. Guess I’ll walk along with you, if you don’t mind,” continued the boy, following them out of the shop.

Once on the street, he began to talk about the Greystone game.

“There’s a lot of money up on that game,” he remarked. “Not only among the students, but also among the townsfolk. Greystone has a player almost as famous as our Dunn, and the betting between the two factions is heavy. If Dunn were to be out of the game for any reason—”

“What would be likely to keep him out?” inquired Hazel sharply, while Patricia listened breathlessly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed Norman; “probably nothing at all. I was only mentioning an improbable chance of such a thing. But, if he were, the Greystone supporters would be in line to win a heap of dough.”

“What kind of a place is Greystone?” asked Hazel.

“About the size of Granard. People of the town are just as loyal to their college as we are here. Maybe a little rougher crowd than ours.”

“Do you think Tut Miller has any chance of being put in for part of the game?” asked Patricia anxiously, the conversation of the morning recurring to her.

“How should I know?” questioned the boy, looking straight into Patricia’s eyes with a peculiar, twisted smile.

“You must know all the gridiron gossip,” asserted Hazel.

“Why should I? I’m neither coach nor manager.”

“No, but you watch practice a lot,” said Patricia before Hazel could reply.

“How do you know?” he inquired curtly.

Patricia laughed. “Did you ever know anything to be kept quiet in a college community?”

Norman looked searchingly at her for a moment, then replied gravely: “Yes, a few things.”

They had reached Clinton Hall by that time, and the girls left Norman at the steps with a hasty “We’re going in here. Goodbye.”

“Pat!” gasped Hazel, clasping the other girl’s arm in a frenzied grasp as they hurried along the hall toward their classroom. “Do you suppose he heard what we were talking about at lunch? He was evidently in the stall next to us, all the time.”

“I hardly think so. We were talking very low,” replied Patricia kindly, pressing Hazel’s cold fingers.

“He acted very funny, I thought,” chattered Hazel, trying to control the nervous chills which shook her.

“Pull yourself together,” ordered Patricia sternly. “If he did, we can’t change it by getting wrought up over it; but I think we’ll just take it for granted that he didn’t. Don’t worry,” she added, as they entered Professor Donnell’s classroom.

Patricia gave good advice to others, but during the class which followed, her mind dwelt persistently and anxiously on Norman’s reference to Jack’s possibly being out of the game. Had Joe some secret influence which might, at the last minute, result in Tut getting his chance? Did Norman have some inside information? Or was his supposition as casual as he tried to make it sound. Ought she to tell Jack, or would that tend to make things worse?

“Mademoiselle Randall,” Professor Donnell’s smooth voice broke into her reveries, “de quoi avons nous lu?”

“De foot balle,” replied Patricia promptly; then realized, too late, what an absurd reply she had made.

Everybody laughed and turned around to look at her. Crimson with embarrassment, Patricia slid as low in her seat as she could, without landing on the floor.

“Ce n’est pas etrange,” Professor Donnell smiled his oily smile as he passed a long white hand over his star-like hair. “Tout le monde parle, et pense, et entende ne que de footballe.”

CHAPTER IX

A TOUGH PROPOSITION

“Now, boys,” said Coach Tyler on Friday afternoon, at the close of a meeting of the football team, “take the rest of the day off.”

Tyler did not believe in working a team up to the very last minute, and never had his men on the field the day before a big game.

“Take things easy,” he went on. “Drop football out of your minds and conversation. Stay out of doors as much as possible. Don’t do anything exciting, and get to bed early. The train leaves South Street Station at 8:30, and I want you here in the gym at eight sharp!”

“Let’s go for a little spin,” suggested Tut Miller to Jack Dunn as they strolled out onto the campus. “It’s only half past one. Tyler is certainly getting big-hearted.”

“I’ve got a paper to write for—” began Jack.

“Oh, come on!” urged Tut, dragging him toward a yellow roadster parked on the drive. “You’ll have plenty of time to do that later. Some friends of mine want to meet you.”

Reluctantly Jack got into the car, wondering a little at the unusual request. Tut settled himself in the driver’s seat, quickly swung the machine out onto Grover Road, and headed for the country. Jack had never been very chummy with this big blond Soph with the protruding jaw and narrowed eyes which looked at you speculatively, as if you were a bug under a microscope. He was always friendly, almost too friendly; one sometimes wondered if he were laughing scornfully, away down inside of him.

Neither boy spoke until they had turned onto Route 8, one very little traveled at that hour of the day; then Tut began smoothly: “These friends of mine live about ten miles out on this road; some fellows I knew in prep school. They’re awfully keen on football, and like to be able to say they’ve met this or that celebrity. Been at me for some time to bring you out. They run a big roadside stand; have several cabins, and I guess they’re making a pretty good thing of it; always have plenty of dough to spend.”

Jack, for all his popularity, was a modest fellow and hated being shown off. If he had known where they were going, he would have managed to evade the trip; but Tut had trapped him, fairly and squarely. Nothing for it now but to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible.

Tut drove rapidly, and before long drew up at a tourist camp in a grove some feet back from the road. Three fellows a little older than the Granard boys came out to greet them. They were husky, finely built individuals, all with bright red hair, blue eyes, and a strong family resemblance.

“The Holm brothers,” said Tut, with a wave of his hand. “I don’t need to tell you boys who this is!” slapping Jack on the back. “Everybody knows him, at least by sight.”

“Mighty glad to meet you,” said each in turn, as he grasped Jack’s hand in a vise-like grip.

The five stood for a few minutes talking of various unimportant matters; then Seldon, the oldest Holm, proposed showing Jack around the place.

“Some of our cabins are pretty nice,” he said; “and farther back in the grove there is a stream beside which we have built ovens and tables.”

Bernard, the second brother, promptly moved to their side as Jack murmured a polite assent to the proposal.

“I’ll stay here with Vin,” said Tut, “and help keep store.”

After Seldon and Bernard had proudly displayed their property, of which Jack was able to approve quite honestly, they stopped for a moment at a rustic bridge which led back from the picnic grounds to a deep woods.

“We’ve a proposition to make to you, Dunn,” began Seldon abruptly, “somewhat of a surprise to you, and probably not a very agreeable one; but just keep cool and think it over a bit before you decide. Briefly, it’s this: we Huron Prep fellows always hang together, and let nothing stand in the way of promoting the welfare and reputation of our school. We want Tut to have his big chance in the Greystone game. Now, what will you take to stay out of it?”

For a fleeting second, Jack’s impulse was to knock the fellow over into the stream below; but some more cautious instinct immediately urged upon him the wisdom of proceeding carefully.

“Well,” began Jack, as slowly as his fast-beating heart would allow, “naturally, since I’ve never given a thought to such a question, I’m not prepared to answer it on the spur of the moment.”

“Take your time,” urged Bernard, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

Jack’s brain fairly raced. If he refused, since they strongly outnumbered him, they could readily keep him a prisoner until after the game. Yet to accept was definitely out of the question; he’d be just a plain cur to take a bribe. How could he get away from them without either definitely accepting or refusing? That seemed to be his only chance. What an easy mark he had been!

“How long am I to have to decide?” he asked, finally.

“Until Tut’s ready to go back,” replied Seldon, who, leaning against a big oak tree, was watching Jack closely.

“Let’s go back to where the others are,” suggested Jack; “I’d like to talk to Tut before I decide.”

“No objection to that, I guess,” replied Bernard, looking at his brother. Not a chance of this fellow getting away when there were four of them to prevent such a contingency. Much better for Dunn to accept the bribe (for that meant Tut would have his place for the next two years, as well as at the Greystone game) than it would be to have to keep him prisoner until after Saturday. Why had the fellows urged Tut’s being helped with his course at Granard except so that Huron could have a representative on the big team? Tut had played mighty good football at prep school, but this upstart kept him from his rightful place here. Pity they hadn’t gotten rid of him before. It took the Greystone game to wake them all up. The Greystone supporters would be glad to see Dunn out of the game; they didn’t know how good Tut was.

“Now let’s get down to business,” said Seldon briskly, when they joined the others who were standing at the edge of the grove. “Tut, Dunn wants to talk over the proposition with you before he decides.”

Jack managed to get on the outside of the group, from which point he had a straight and unobstructed path to the yellow car which was parked at the farthest point of the Holm property and headed toward Granard. Tut must have turned it around so as to be ready for a quick get-away if necessary. The Holms probably had a car; but it was not in sight. Wherever they kept it, it would take at least a few minutes to get it started and out. True, Tut could have him arrested for going off with his car, but he’d have to run the risk.

“Well,” Tut was saying, “spill it!”

“If I should decide to take the money, how would you explain my absence?”

“We thought you’d play up sick, and just stay at home,” put in Seldon.

“That would be sheer foolishness,” retorted Jack. “Tyler would send Doc to examine me, and he’d find me perfectly O. K. How would it do for me to go to Greystone, just as if nothing had happened, and start the game; then get hurt and have you put in in my place?”

“That would seem more natural,” answered Tut, looking at Seldon for approval; but that sturdy individual frowned.

“How could you fake that any better than being sick before you went?” he growled.

“Just this way. I’d make a run, stumble, fall, and lie still on the field. When they picked me up, I’d go limp and not be able to stand at all. I could fool anybody who’d never seen me do it before. Let me show you what I mean, and then see if you don’t think it would work out perfectly. When I fall, you come and try to stand me up, Tut.”

Jack looked questioningly at the Holms for permission to stage his act.

“Go ahead,” replied Seldon curtly.

Instead of making directly for the yellow roadster, as he had intended, Jack cleverly ran about a bit, close enough to the others for them to have been able to seize him any moment they chose.

“This is just warming up a bit,” he said, smiling, as he passed the group for the second time. “In a minute or two I’ll put on my act.”

Jack sensed, rather than saw, that the tenseness with which they had watched his start relaxed somewhat as he continued to warm up. Then like a catapult he hurled himself forward and sprinted to the car. With a bound he was in the driver’s seat, the ignition was on, the clutch was thrown in, the car shot out onto the road. Wild shouts from those left behind.

Jack realized that it would be foolhardy to stay on Route 8; so at the first crossroad he turned off into a road which he thought would bring him out at Portersville, a suburb of Granard. The road was a winding one, but he made good time and met no other cars. He kept close watch in the mirror for his pursuers, but the road behind him basked quietly in the afternoon sunshine.

Just as he turned into the road leading into Portersville, a stretch of heavily wooded highway, he saw a big blue car coming toward him. In it were four big fellows wearing blue and green ribbons in their buttonholes—Greystone colors. All this, Jack took in at a glance as he sped onward. The blue car slowed down, turned around, stopped for a moment, then came on with a burst of speed, passed him and swung sharply across the road, directly in his path. It was so unexpected that Jack had to jam on the brakes suddenly to avoid crashing into the larger car.

“What—” he began angrily, when he noticed that the three individuals who had tumbled out of the car and were coming toward him had handkerchiefs tied over the lower part of their faces.

“A hold-up!” thought Jack. “Foolhardy to try to resist them.”

Without a word they seized him, dragged him out of the yellow roadster, then two of them hurried him over to the blue car while the third moved the smaller car over onto the shoulder. A blindfold was tied tightly over Jack’s eyes, he was tumbled into the tonneau, and the big car started off for—somewhere.

CHAPTER X

JACK IN DANGER

At first Jack was too stunned by the suddenness of the transfer to talk, but after a few dizzy miles, he began:

“Where are you taking me?”

“Shut up!” ordered a harsh voice, accompanied by a dig in the ribs; and he shut up.

Not a word did any of his captors exchange, and mile after mile whirled by in utter silence. Where he might be, he had no idea whatever. After endless eons, so it seemed to Jack, the car began to move more slowly and wind about, then came to a sudden stop.

He was hustled out, run across some gravel, up a few steps. A door slammed, footsteps on stone, then up stairs, and stairs, and more stairs. A key turned protestingly. A door creaked; there was a blast of cool air; he was pushed into some place. Then the door closed, and the key grated a second time. The sound of footsteps on stairs sounded more and more faintly; then silence, broken only by a peculiar grating sound from somewhere above him.

Where could he be?

Pulling the bandage from his eyes he discovered that he was in a small square room with slatted walls. It looked like a belfry. Yes, there was a great bell just above his head, almost touching it. If that mass of metal ever moved, it would put him out of business in short order all right. What tower was this anyhow? He tried to peer out between the slats. The only object within his narrow range of vision was the framework of some new building. What big structure was going up now in town, or nearby? He tried hard to think, but he still felt a little dazed. How stupid! Who knew where he was now? They had been riding for a long time; he might be miles and miles from Granard. Still, there was something annoyingly familiar about that naked, orange-colored framework out there, with the big 0032 in black on the top girder. Again he peered at it. It must be—it was! The new forestry building at the University! Then this was the tower of the old chapel. His captors had evidently entered the campus from the alley gate at the back, where no one would be likely to see them. That accounted for the gravel they had crossed. They had driven for miles, first, to throw him off. But how strange of the gang to have brought him here! Who were they, and what was their game anyhow?

Game? Ah, that must be it! He remembered now; there was a lot of money up on the Greystone struggle, not only on the campus but even in the town; and if he were out of the contest, Granard stood to lose—so it was said. Evidently those fellows were Greystone supporters. He remembered now they had worn Greystone colors. Darned clever of them to put him where he would have no evidence, when he got out, and where no one would ever think to look for him.

But how to get out; that was the question.

“Good thing it’s not Sunday, for that big fellow to knock me out!” he thought, looking up at the bell. A horrible thought came to him. The boys were going to have a rouser that night; everybody out in front of the gym before dinner for songs and speeches. They’d ring that bell to call the students together; and the janitor pulled the rope from a little room at the foot of the stairs! What time was it now? Glancing at his wrist he was shocked to find it bare. Where was his watch? Must have come unfastened in the car.

One, two, three, sounded the bell of a clock in the distance. The clock on the college library. Breathlessly, Jack listened. Four. One hour—one little hour of sixty minutes to devise a means of escape. Frantically he shook the door. Only the flutter of wings, as some startled pigeons arose from the roof, answered his plea.

Panting for breath, he paused; then began to batter the slats of one panel with his fists. They were stout, and withstood the blows of even a husky football player.

He must keep his head and work rationally. There were only two means of exit: the door and the four slatted windows. Again he shook the door, not wildly, but listening critically. Perhaps he could pick the lock.

Eagerly he felt in his pockets for his knife and buttonhook. Only a crumpled handkerchief, a pencil, a soft package of butterscotch, and a ball of twine rewarded his efforts. The door was now out of the question. What in heck had become of his knife? Had those fellows purposely stripped him of everything so he couldn’t possibly get out? To do them justice, however, he supposed they didn’t know about the ringing of the bell for the rouser, and probably intended him to be secure until after the game.

One, two; one, two, chimed the library clock. Four-fifteen! Nothing accomplished yet.

“If I could get the slats broken, and then lean out of the window and yell for help,” he said, half aloud.

A squeak on the stairs outside of the door caught his ear. “Wonder if they left a guard around,” he thought. “If I yelled, they would only come in and gag me; and that would make things worse than they are now. My only hope, a forlorn one at that, is to attract the attention of someone in order to let the fellows know where I am, and come to rescue me.”

But how?

Covering his face with his hands, he crouched on the floor, in deep thought.

One, chimed the library clock, marking the half hour. Anxiously Jack glanced up at the heavy bell above him. Perhaps he could unfasten the clapper, and flatten himself on the floor so that the bell would only graze him as it swung to and fro. Then, when no sound came from the belfry, somebody might investigate. But no; old Jake, who attended to the bell ringing, was too lazy to climb all those stairs to repair the bell for a mere rally. He’d just let it go until some time tomorrow. By that time, the team would have left without him!

The tickets he had promised Patricia were lying home on his desk. Wonder what she thought when he failed to keep his promise to give them to her in Shakespeare class.

Tut’s friends would probably pass around the word that Jack had taken the bribe and disappeared. That would be his finish in athletics. Jack groaned aloud, and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the cold perspiration which dampened his face. Tut had always been jealous of him; and since he had refused, a few weeks ago, to work for Jim’s election as Chairman of the Soph Hop, Tut had positively disliked him. Jack did not approve of the bargaining for honors, which went on at the college, but doggedly supported whatever man he thought best fitted for the job, politics notwithstanding—a practice which had not made him any too popular with certain ambitious ringleaders.

The sight of his handkerchief gave him a sudden inspiration. Quickly tearing it in half, he scrawled on one part of it, in large letters, “HELP! QUICK!” Knotting one end of the ball of twine to it, he painstakingly worked the bit of linen between the slats of the window which faced the observatory, and played out the cord as far as it would go. Fastening the end of it securely to one of the shutters, he took the other half of the handkerchief, slipped it through between the slats, and tied it about in the center of the window.

“Now I’ve done all I can,” he muttered. “It’s on the laps of the gods, for better or worse.”

The part of the campus on which the chapel stood was deserted during the week. In a rather out-of-the-way place, beyond the other buildings, it was in the least frequented corner of the campus. Jack’s captors planned all too well when they chose the belfry for his prison.

One, two, one, two, chimed the library clock. A quarter to five! Would nobody find his message or see his poor little flag? If he could only have stood up and tramped around a bit, it would have relieved Jack’s feelings somewhat; but the belfry was large enough only for the moving of the single bell. Would he be safer flat on the floor, directly under the bell, or as far to one side as he could get, when it began to swing?

One, two, three, four, chimed the clock. A door slammed somewhere downstairs; the bell rope trembled; the bell quivered; Jack stretched out on the floor as flat as he could, and waited for the first blow of the iron mass.

Swift steps on the stairs, the turning of a key, hands dragging him quickly out of the way, just as the first clang of the big bell sounded deafeningly through the little room. Jack found himself in the hall with Pat and Ted bending over him.

“Just in the nick of time, old man!” cried Ted, grinning cheerfully.

“Don’t stop to talk!” ordered Patricia frantically. “Let’s get out of here right away!”

Down the stairs they rushed, while the bell clanged and clanged overhead. Pat’s car, with all shades drawn, was waiting close to the doorway.

“Get in back,” directed Ted; “crawl behind those cartons and don’t breathe.”

For a second time that day, Jack was driven off, he knew not where.

“Hi there, Ted,” called Joe Leonard, as they stopped for lights at the corner of College Avenue and Elizabeth Street. “Come on to the meeting!”

“See you later,” replied Ted; “got to deliver these fruit jars for my mother first.”

“Wonder if he’s onto us,” whispered Patricia, as they started forward with a jerk.

Ted only shrugged his shoulders and drove as rapidly as possible to the apartment he and his mother shared on Winton Street. At the side entrance, where Mrs. Carter was waiting to admit them, Ted hustled Jack into the house and up a back stairway to his own room; meanwhile, Patricia drove her car farther back into the yard.

“Going to keep you here tonight, old fellow,” said Ted, slapping Jack on the back. “Nobody’ll ever think of looking for you here; and we’ll see you safe on the train in the morning. No college people in this house, and we have a back apartment. We’ll keep the shades drawn as an extra precaution. Right across the hall from this room is the door to the attic. If anybody comes tonight to call, just beat it for the loft and slip in behind the big dresser which is near the chimney.”

“But—” began Jack.

“Pat will tell you all about it later; for Mother asked her to stay to dinner. Wash a bit if you want to, and then go out to the living room. I’ll have to show up at the meeting for a while, I suppose, in case Jim takes a notion to look for me. Don’t want to arouse any suspicions.”

Still in somewhat of a daze, Jack made himself tidy and then went out to the living room. Aunt Betsy was busy in the kitchen, and Patricia sat alone by the bay window which overhung the side door by which they had entered. The girl smiled a bit shyly as Jack came in and crossed the room to her side.

“Have I you to thank for my rescue?” he asked, taking her hands in both of his.

“Well, partly,” she admitted. “But Ted helped a lot. He’s always been my stand-by in moments of difficulty.

“When you didn’t show up in Shakespeare class,” she continued, as Jack dropped down at the other end of the davenport, “I knew right away something must have happened. You see,” her head dropped a bit, “I heard something this morning about the possibility of your being out of the game; and, oh, it seemed only a joking reference, but I was too stupid, I guess, to have attached enough importance to it. I did wonder if I should say anything to you about it, put you on your guard; and now, oh, how I wish I had!”

“Don’t get all steamed up over it,” urged Jack; “it came out all right.”

“But it mightn’t have. If I hadn’t happened to go to the observatory perhaps nobody would have seen your flag; and—and then, if you’d been struck by that old bell, it would have been all my fault!”

“Nonsense!” cried Jack, laying his arm gently around her shoulders. He was distressed beyond measure by the girl’s self-accusation. “I was lying so flat that the bell probably would only have grazed me.”

Determinedly Pat pulled herself together and sat up very straight, winking hard and fast to keep back the tears which, much to her embarrassment, had welled up in her eyes.

“After Shakespeare class,” she continued, “I got away from the rest of the girls—I always want to be alone if I have anything to work out in my mind—and wandered about the most deserted parts of the campus trying to decide what to do. I don’t know all the ins and outs of college affairs yet, and I was afraid of telling my suspicions to the wrong person. As I passed the observatory, I remembered having left my fountain pen in the lecture room; so I ran up to get it. Nobody was in there, and I sat down by the window thinking that was a good place to be quiet. The sun shone full on the side of the chapel, and it was no time at all before I caught sight of the white flag waving in the breeze.

“I nearly broke all records running down the stairs and along the path toward the chapel. Not far from the building, I found your appeal for help. I felt sure it was your appeal. I tore off the cloth, so nobody else would find it, and ran for Ted. I knew he was in the library. I hadn’t thought about the meeting; but Ted did, right away, and realized what danger you were in. Ted grabbed up a couple of empty cartons that stood in the hall, ready to be thrown out, dumped them and ourselves into my car (which, fortunately, was standing in front of the library) and we just rushed to your rescue. Luckily, all the students were swarming over the front campus, waiting for the meeting; so no one, so far as we know, saw us.”

“But how did you get the key?” inquired Jack, still somewhat in the dark as to details.

“Oh, Ted has a master key. He has to get into Forestry Hall at all sorts of odd times. He was sure his key could be used on the belfry door, and he was right. If it hadn’t fitted, he would have had to let Jake in on the rescue, but it was better not; the fewer people knew about it, the safer we were.”

“I wonder how I can get hold of those tickets for you. I might telephone—”

“Oh, no! No!” protested Patricia.

“What the deuce does he want you to do, Pat?” inquired Ted, strolling in just in time to hear his cousin’s vigorous refusal.

“Why, I could go over to your room in the morning and get them,” offered Ted, when Patricia had excitedly explained the subject of their discussion; “after the train goes, that is, for I’m not letting you out of my sight before that.”

“Dinner’s ready,” announced Mrs. Carter, appearing in the dining room doorway.

“And we’re ready for it, Auntie,” replied Patricia, jumping up.

“It’s no end good of you all to take me in like this,” began Jack, as they seated themselves at the little round table.

“For dear old Granard, I’ll live and die!” carolled Ted. “Now tell us all about the great abduction.”

Jack was in the middle of the story of his capture, when the telephone rang sharply.