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                    Betty Gordon at Boarding School

                                  OR

                     The Treasure of Indian Chasm

                          BY ALICE B. EMERSON

                                 1921

CONTENTS

     I NEW PLANS

    II NORMA'S LETTER

   III SURPRISING BOB

    IV MORE GOOD-BYES

     V A REGULAR CROSS-PATCH

    VI FINE FEATHERS

   VII FUN AT FAIRFIELDS

  VIII TOO MUCH PARTY

    IX ADJUSTER TOMMY

     X SHADYSIDE SCHOOL

    XI FIRST IMPRESSIONS

   XII THE LOST TREASURE

  XIII THE MYSTERIOUS FOUR

   XIV A SATURDAY RACE

    XV NORMA MAKES REPAIRS

   XVI THE NUTTING PARTY

  XVII CAUGHT IN THE STORM

 XVIII LIBBIE'S SECRET

   XIX BOB'S SOLUTION

    XX THE SECOND DEGREE

   XXI DRAMATICS

  XXII ANOTHER MYSTERY

 XXIII JUST DESERTS

  XXIV BETTY GOES COASTING

   XXV THE TREASURE

BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL

CHAPTER I

NEW PLANS

"Me make you velly nice apple tart. Miss Betty." The Chinese cook
flourished his rolling pin with one hand and swung his apron viciously
with the other as he held open the screen door and swept out some
imaginary flies.

Lee Chang, cook for the bunk house in the oil fields, could do several
things at one time, as he had frequently proved.

The girl, who was watching a wiry little bay horse contentedly crop grass
that grew in straggling whisps about the fence posts, looked up and
showed an even row of white teeth as she smiled.

"I don't think we're going to stay for dinner to-day," she said half
regretfully. "I know your apple tarts, Lee Chang--they are delicious."

The fat Chinaman closed the screen door and went on with his pastry
making. From time to time, as he passed from the table to the oven, he
glanced out. Betty Gordon still stood watching the horse.

"That Bob no come?" inquired Lee Chang, poking his head out of the door
again. Fast developing into a good American, his natural trait of
curiosity gave him the advantage of acquiring information blandly and
with ease.

Betty shaded her eyes with her hand. The Oklahoma sun was pitiless. Far
up the road that ran straight away from the bunk house a faint cloud of
dust was rising.

"He's coming now," said the girl confidently.

Lee Chang grunted and returned to his work, satisfied that whatever Betty
was waiting for would soon be at hand.

"Bake tart 'fore that boy goes away," the Chinaman muttered to himself,
waddling hastily to the oven, opening it, and closing the door again with
a satisfied sniff.

The cloud of dust whirled more madly, rose higher. Out from the center of
it finally emerged a raw-boned white horse that galloped with amazing
awkwardness and incredible speed. Astride him sat a slim, tanned youth
with eyes as blue as Betty Gordon's were dark.

"Got something for you!" he called, waving his arm in the motion of
lasso-throwing. "Catch if you can!"

"Oh, don't!" cried Betty eagerly. "What is it, Bob? Be careful or you'll
break it."

Bob Henderson reined in his mount and slipped to the ground. The white
horse contentedly went to munching dry blades of dusty grass.

"Bob, I do believe you've been silly," said Betty, trying to speak
severely and failing completely because her dimple would deepen
distractingly. "You know I told you not to do it."

"How do you know what I've done?" demanded Bob, placing a square
package in the girl's hands. "Don't scold till you know what you're
scolding about."

Betty, busy with the cord and paper, paused.

"Oh, Bob!" she beamed, her vivid face glowing with a new thought.
"What do you think? I had a letter yesterday from Bobby Littell, and
she's going to boarding school. And, Bob, so am I! Uncle Dick says so.
And, Bob--"

"Yes?" smiled Bob, thinking how the girl's face changed as she talked.
"Go on, Betty."

"Well, Louise is going, too, and they think Libbie will come down
from Vermont. Dear old Libbie--I wonder if she is as incurably
romantic as ever!"

Betty's fingers had worked mechanically while she spoke, and now she had
her parcel undone.

"Why, Bob Henderson!" she gasped, as she drew out a handsome white box
tied with pale blue ribbons and encased in waxed paper.

"I hope they're not stale," said Bob diffidently.

Betty slit the waxed paper and took off the box lid, revealing a
perfectly packed box of expensive chocolates.

"They're beautiful," she declared. "But I never dreamed you would send
East for 'em simply because I happened to say I was hungry for good
candy. Um--um--taste one quick, Bob."

Bob took a caramel and pronounced it not "half bad."

"Uncle Dick's gone somewhere with Dave Thorne," announced Betty, biting
into another candy. "He didn't know when he would get back, and I'm
supposed to ride to the Watterby farm for lunch. It must be after
eleven now."

"Miss Betty!" Lee Chang's voice was persuasive. "Miss Betty, that apple
tart he all baked done now."

"Apple tart?" shouted Bob. "Show me, Lee Chang! I'd rather have a corner
of your pie than all the candy in New York."

"Him for Miss Betty," said the Chinaman gravely.

"But you don't care if I give Bob some, do you?" returned Betty
coaxingly. "See, Lee Chang, Bob gave me these. You take some, and we'll
eat the tart on our way home."

Lee Chang's wish was fulfilled when he placed the flaky tart in
Betty's hands, and he took a candy or two (which he privately
considered rather poor stuff) and watched the girl no longer. From now
on till dinner time Lee Chang's whole attention would be concentrated
on the preparation of an excellent dinner for the men who worked that
section of the oil fields.

"I don't believe I can ride and eat this, after all," decided Betty.
"Let's sit down on the grass and finish it; Clover hasn't finished her
lunch, either."

The little bay horse and the tall, shambling white were amiably straying
up and down the narrow borders of the road, never getting very far away.

"You haven't said a single word about my going to boarding school, Bob,"
Betty said, dropping down comfortably on the dusty grass and breaking the
tart across into two nearly even pieces. "There--take your pie. Don't you
think I'll have fun with the Littell girls?"

"You'll have a lark, but I'm not so sure about the teachers," declared
Bob enthusiastically, an odd little smile quivering on his lips. "With
you and Bobby Littell about, I doubt if the school knows a dull moment."

"Bobby is so funny," dimpled Betty. "She writes that if Libbie comes, her
aunt expects Bobby to look after her. Wait a minute and I'll read you
that part--" Betty took a letter from the pocket of her blouse.
"Listen--

"Aunt Elizabeth has written mother that she hopes I will keep an eye on
Libbie. Now Betty, can you honestly see me trailing around after that
girl who sees a romance in every bush and book and who cries when any one
plays violin music? I'll look after her all right--she'll have to study
French instead of poetry if I'm to be her friend and guide."

"But, of course, Bobby does really love Libbie very dearly," said Betty,
folding up the letter and returning it to her pocket. "She wouldn't hurt
her for worlds."

"You'll be a much better guardian for Libbie, if she needs one,"
pronounced Bob, with unexpected shrewdness. "Bobby hasn't much tact,
and she makes Libbie mad. You could probably control her better with
less words."

"Well, I never!" gasped Betty, gazing at Bob with new respect. "I never
knew you thought anything about it."

"Didn't until just now," responded Bob cheerfully. "So Uncle Dick is
willing to let you go, is he? When do you start?"

"You don't mind, do you, Bob?" countered Betty, puzzled. "You sound so
kind of--of funny."

"Don't mean to," said Bob laconically.

Having finished his tart, he lay back and rested his head in his hands in
true masculine contentment.

"I like that blue thing you've got on," he commented lazily. "Did I ever
see it before?"

"Certainly not," Betty informed him. "I've been waiting for you to notice
it. It's wash silk, Bob, and your Aunt Faith said I could have it if I
could do anything with it. She's had it in a trunk for years and years."

"I don't see how you and Aunt Faith could wear the same clothes, she's so
much taller than you are," said Bob, obviously trying to put two and two
together in his mind. "But it looks fine on you, Betty."

Betty smiled at him compassionately.

"Oh, Bob, you're so funny!" she sighed. "I made this blouse all
myself--that is," she corrected, "Mrs. Watterby helped me cut it out and
she sewed the sleeves in after I had basted them in wrong twice, but I
did everything else. There wasn't a scrap of goods left over, either. I
put it on to-day because I wanted you to see me in it."

She was worth seeing, Bob acknowledged to himself. The over-blouse of
blue and white checked silk, slashed at the throat for the crisp black
tie, and the gray corduroy riding skirt and smart tan shoes were at once
suitable and becoming.

"I'll have to have some new clothes for school," declared Betty, who had
a healthy interest in this topic. "We can't wear very fussy things,
though--Bobby sent me the catalogue. Sailor suits for every day, and a
cloth frock for best. And not more than one party dress."

"I asked her when she started," Bob confided to the blank eye of the
white horse now turned dully toward him. "But if she answered me, I
didn't hear."

"I'm going a week from this Friday," announced Betty hastily. "That will
give me a week in Washington, and Mrs. Littell has asked me to stay with
them. I must write to Mrs. Bender to-night and tell her the news; she has
been so anxious for me to go to school again."

"Oh, gee, Betty, that reminds me--" Bob sat up with a jerk and began a
hasty search of his pockets. "When you spoke of Mrs. Bender that reminded
me of Laurel Grove, and Laurel Grove reminded me of Glenside, and that,
of course, made me think of the Guerins--Here 'tis!" and the boy
triumphantly fished out a small letter from an inside pocket of his coat
and tossed it into Betty's lap.

"It's from Norma Guerin!" Betty's expressive voice betrayed her
delight "Why, I haven't heard from her in perfect ages. I wonder what
she has to say."

"Open it and see," advised the practical Bob. "I meant to give you the
letter right away, and first the tart and then the blouse thing-a-bub
drove it out of my mind. I'll lead the horses and you can read as we
walk. Want me to take the plate back to Lee Chang?"

He dashed back to the bunk house, returned the tin, and rejoined Betty,
who was slowly slitting the envelope of her letter with a hairpin. She
had tucked her candy box under her arm, and Bob took the bridles of the
two horses.

"Mercy, what was that?" Betty glanced up startled, as a wild yell sounded
over on their right.

There was a chorus of shouts, the same wild yell repeated, and then,
sudden and without warning, came a dense and heavy rain of blackest oil.

"Oh, Bob, Bob!" There was genuine anguish in Betty's wail of appeal. "My
new blouse--look at it!"

But Bob had no time to look at anything. Action was to be his course.

"It's a premature blast!" he shouted. "Come on, we've got to get out!"

CHAPTER II

NORMA'S LETTER

This was not Betty Gordon's first experience with an oil well set
off prematurely, and while she was naturally excited, she was not at
all afraid.

"Get on Clover!" shouted Bob. "I do wish you'd ever wear a hat--"

Betty laughed a little as she scrambled into her saddle. Bob, mounting
his own horse, wore no hat, but it was a pet grievance of his that Betty
persistently scorned headgear whether riding or walking.

"Gallop!" cried Bob. "Shut your eyes if you want to--Clover will
follow Reuben."

The white horse set off, his awkward lunge carrying him over the ground
swiftly, and the little bay Clover cantered obediently after him. Oil
continued to rain down as they headed toward the north.

Betty closed her eyes, clutching her letter and candy box tightly in both
hands and letting the reins lie idle on her horse's neck. Clover,
galloping now, could be trusted to follow the leading horse.

"Getting better now!" Bob shouted back, turning in his saddle to see that
Betty was safe.

Betty's dark eyes opened and she shook back her hair, making a little
face at the taste of oil in her mouth. She slipped Norma Guerin's letter
into her pocket, glancing down at her blouse as she did so.

"I'm a perfect sight!" she called to Bob dolorously. "I don't believe I
can ever get the oil spots out of this silk."

"Sue the company!" Bob cried, with a grin. "Don't let Clover go to sleep
till we're nearer home, Betty."

The girl urged the little bay forward with a whispered word of
encouragement, and gradually, very gradually, they began to draw out of
the rain of oil.

Betty Gordon was not an Oklahoma girl, though she rode with the
effortless ease of a Westerner. She was an orphan, of New England stock,
and had come from the East to the oil fields to join her one living
relative, a beloved uncle whose interest in oil holdings made an
incessant traveler of him.

This Richard Gordon, "Uncle Dick" to Bob Henderson as well as to Betty,
had found himself unexpectedly made guardian of his little niece at a
time when it was impassible for him to establish a home for her. His time
and skill pledged to the oil company he represented, Mr. Gordon had
solved the problem of what to do with Betty by sending her to spend the
summer with an old childhood friend of his, a Mrs. Peabody who had
married a farmer, reputed well-to-do. Betty's experiences, pleasant and
otherwise, as a member of the Peabody household, have been told in the
first book of this series entitled "Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm; or The
Mystery of a Nobody."

She made some true friends during the months she spent with the Peabodys,
and perhaps the closest, and certainly the most loyal, was Bob Henderson.
A year older than Betty, the fourteen year old Bob, whose life at Bramble
Farm had been harsh and unlovely and preceded by nothing brighter than a
drab existence at the county poor farm, became the champion of the
dark-eyed girl who had smiled at him and suggested that because they were
both orphans they had a common bond of friendship.

How Bob Henderson got track of his mother's people and what steps were
necessary before he could discover a definite clue, have been related in
the second volume of the series, entitled, "Betty Gordon in Washington;
or Strange Adventures in a Great City."

In this book Bob and Betty came together again in the Capitol City, and
Betty acquired a second "Uncle Dick" in the person of Richard Littell,
the father of three lively daughters who innocently kidnapped Betty, only
to have the entire family become her firm friends. While in Washington
Bob and Betty each received good news that sent them trustfully to
Oklahoma, there to meet Uncle Dick Gordon, and later, Bob's own aunts.

The story of the "Saunders' place" and of the unscrupulous sharpers who
tried to cheat the old ladies who were the sisters of Bob's dead mother,
has been told in the third book about Betty Gordon. This book, "Betty
Gordon in the Land of Oil; or The Farm that Was Worth a Fortune," relates
the varied experiences of Bob and Betty in the oil section of Oklahoma
and the long train of events that culminated in the sale of the Saunders
farm for ninety thousand dollars. Uncle Dick had been made guardian of
Bob, at his own and the aunts' request, so Bob was now a ward with Betty.

The possession of money, though it meant the difference between
poverty and debt and great comfort, had, to date, made very little
change in the mode of living of Miss Faith and Miss Charity Saunders,
or of their nephew.

This morning he had been delayed by some extra work on the farm, for the
oil company did not take possession till the first of the month, now a
week away, and Betty had ridden to the oil fields ahead of him. She
divided her time between the Saunders' place and the Watterby farm, where
she and Bob had stayed when they first came to Flame City.

"Whew!" gasped Bob as they finally emerged from the black curtain of oil.
"Of all the messy stuff! Betty, you look as though an oil lamp had
exploded in your face."

"Now I'll have to wash my hair again," mourned Betty. "You'd better come
to Grandma Watterby's and get tidied up, Bob. It's nearer than your
aunts', taking this road; and they always have the stove tank full of
hot water."

Bob took this advice, and the sympathetic Watterby family came to the
oil-spotted pair's assistance with copious supplies of hot water, soap
and towels and liberal handfuls of borax, for the water was very hard.
Fortunately, Betty had a clean blouse and skirt at hand (most of her
wardrobe was in the guest room at the Saunders farm), and Bob borrowed a
clean shirt from Will Watterby, in which the boy, being much smaller than
the man, looked a little absurd.

"I'm clean, anyway, and that makes me feel good, so why should I care how
I look?" was Bob's defense when his appearance was commented on.

"I'm so hungry," announced Betty, coming out of her room, once more trim
and neat, and sniffing the delicious odor of hot waffles. "I wonder if I
could pin my hair up in a towel and dry it after lunch?"

"Of course you may," said Mrs. Will Watterby warmly. "Did you fix a place
for Betty, Grandma?"

"What a silly question, Emma," reproved old Grandma Watterby
severely. "Here, Betty, you sit next to me, and Bob can have Will's
place. He's gone over to Flame City with a bolt he wants the
blacksmith to tinker up."

Ki, the Indian who helped with the farm work, smiled at Betty but said
nothing more than the single "Howdy," which was his stock form of
salutation. Mrs. Watterby's waffles were quite as good as they smelled,
and she apparently had mixed an inexhaustible quantity of batter. Every
one ate rapidly and in comparative silence, a habit to which Bob and
Betty were by now quite accustomed. When Mr. Gordon was present he
insisted on a little conversation, but his presence was lacking to-day.

"You go right out in the sun and dry your hair, Betty," said Mrs.
Watterby, when the meal was over. "No, I don't need any help with
the dishes. Grandma and me, we're going over to town in the car
this afternoon and I don't care whether I do the dishes till I come
back or not."

This, for Mrs. Watterby, was a great step forward. Before the purchase of
the automobile, bought with a legacy inherited by Grandma Watterby,
dishes and housework had been the sum total of Mrs. Will Watterby's
existence. Now that she could drive the car and get away from her kitchen
sink at will, she seemed another woman.

Betty voiced something of this to Bob as she unfastened the towel and let
her heavy dark hair fall over her shoulders. She was sitting on the back
porch where the afternoon sun shone unobstructed.

"Yes, I guess automobiles are a good thing," admitted Bob absently. "I
want Aunt Faith to get one. A runabout would be handy for them--one like
Doctor Guerin's. Remember, Betty?"

"My goodness, I haven't read Norma's letter!" said Betty hastily. "I left
it in my other blouse. Wait a minute, and I'll get it."

She dashed into the house and was back again in a moment, the letter Bob
had handed her just before the shower of oil, in her hand.

Bob, in his favorite attitude of lying on his back and staring at the
sky, was startled by an exclamation before Betty had finished the first
page of the closely written missive.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, sitting up. "Anybody sick?"

"Oh, Bob, such fun!" Betty's eyes danced with pleasure. "What do you
think! Norma and Alice Guerin are going to Shadyside!"

"Well, I'm willing to jump with joy, but could you tell me what
Shadyside is, and where?" said Bob humbly. "Why do the Guerin girls want
to go there?"

"I forgot you didn't know," apologized Betty. "Shadyside is the boarding
school, Bob. That's the name of the station, too. It's five hours' ride
from Washington. Let's see, there's Bobby and Louise Littell and Libbie,
and now Norma and Alice--five girls I know already! I guess I won't be
homesick or lonely."

But as she said it she glanced uncertainly at Bob.

That young man snickered, turned it into a cough, and that failing,
essayed to whistle.

"Bob, you act too funny for anything!" This time Betty's glance was not
one of approval. "What does ail you?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Betsey," Bob assured her. "I'm my usual
charming self. Are Norma and Alice going to Washington first?"

"No. I wish they were," answered Betty, taking up the letter again.
"Bob, I'm afraid they're having a hard time with money matters. You know
Dr. Guerin is so easy-going he never collects one-third of the bills he
sends out, and any one can get his services free if they tell him a hard
luck story. Norma writes that she and Alice have always wanted to go to
Shadyside because their mother graduated from there when it was only a
day school. Mrs. Guerin's people lived around there somewhere. And last
year, you know, Norma went to an awfully ordinary school--good enough, I
suppose, but not very thorough. She couldn't prepare for college there."

"Well, couldn't we fix it some way for them?" asked Bob interestedly.
"I'd do anything in the world for Doctor Guerin. Didn't he row me that
time he found us out in the fields at two o'clock in the morning? You
think up some way to make him accept some money, Betty."

Doctor Hal Guerin and his wife and daughters had been good friends to Bob
and Betty in the Bramble Farm days. The doctor, with a large country
practice that brought him more affection and esteem than ready cash, had
managed to look after the boy and girl more or less effectively, and
Norma, his daughter, had supplied Bob with orders from her school friends
for little carved pendants that he made with no better tools than an old
knife. This money had been the first Bob had ever earned and had given
him his first taste of independence.

"I don't think you could make Doctor Guerin take money, even as a
loan," said Betty slowly, in answer to Bob's proposal. "Norma wouldn't
like it if she thought her letter had suggested such a thing. What
makes it hard for them, I think, is that Mrs. Guerin expected to have
quite a fortune some day. Her mother was really wealthy, and she was an
only child. I don't know where the money went, but I do know the
Guerins never had any of it."

Bob jumped to his feet as she finished the sentence.

"Here's Uncle Dick!" he cried. "Did you see the new well come in, sir?"

SURPRISING BOB

Betty shook back her hair and rose to kiss the gray-haired gentleman who
put an arm affectionately about her.

"I heard about that blast," he said, and smiled good-humoredly. "Lee
Chang was much worried when I went in to dinner. His one consolation was
that you had eaten the tart before the oil began to fall."

"We were all right, only of course it rather daubed us up," said Bob.
"Betty had to wash her hair."

"My hair's nothing," declared Betty scornfully. "But my brand-new blouse
that I worked on for two days--you ought to see it, Uncle Dick! Grandma
Watterby thinks maybe she can get the oil out, but she says the color may
come out, too."

Mr. Gordon sat down on the step and took off his hat.

"You've a clear claim for damages, Betty," he assured his niece gravely.
"To save time, I'm willing to make good; what does a new blouse cost?"

"This wasn't exactly new," explained Betty fairly. "Aunt Faith had the
material in her trunk for years. But it was the first thing I ever made,
and I was so proud of it."

"Well, we'll see that you have something to take its place," promised her
uncle, drawing her down beside him. "I have some news for you, Betsey.
When you go East next week, I'm going, too. That is, as far as Chicago.
From there I take a little run up into Canada."

"But you said you'd spend Christmas with us!" argued Betty.

"Oh, Christmas is months off," returned Mr. Gordon comfortably. "I expect
to be back in the States long before the holidays. And Bob's aunts have
finally made up their minds where they want to spend the winter. Aunt
Faith has commissioned me to buy two tickets for southern California."

"But there's Bob!" Betty gazed anxiously at her uncle. "What's Bob going
to do without any one at all, Uncle Dick?"

Mr. Gordon looked at Bob, and an unwilling grin turned the corners of the
boy's mouth.

"That's the way he's been acting all day," scolded Betty. "What ails
him? I think it's silly to sit there and smile when there's nothing to
smile about."

"I suspect Bob doesn't take kindly to secrets," returned her uncle.
"Suppose you 'fess up, Bob, and when the atmosphere is clear we can have
a little talk."

"All right," said Bob, with manifest relief. "I kept quiet only because I
wanted to be sure I was going, sir. Betty, Mr. Littell wrote me about a
military academy in the East and put me in, touch with several boys who
attend it. Uncle Dick thinks it is just the school for me, and I'm going.
Timothy Derby is one of the boys. He's a son of the man I worked for in
Washington."

"How splendid!" With characteristic enthusiasm Betty forgot her momentary
displeasure at Bob's method of keeping a secret. "When are you going,
Bob? Where is the school?"

"That's the best part," said Bob boyishly. "It's the Salsette Military
Academy, Betty, and it's right across the lake from the Shadyside school.
All five of the boys Mr. Littell told me of are friends of the Littell
girls, so you see it is going to be great fun all around."

"I never knew of anything so nice!" declared Betty. "Never! So you knew
when I told you about Shadyside that you were going to be so near!"

Bob nodded.

"Have to keep an eye on you," he said with mock seriousness, at which
Betty made a little face.

"You haven't much time to get ready," Mr. Gordon warned them. "The aunts
will leave Wednesday and our train pulls out at ten twenty-six on Friday
morning. Of course you will do your shopping in Washington and be guided
by the advice of Mr. and Mrs. Littell. I wish I could go to Washington
with you, but that is impossible now. You must write me faithfully, both
of you, though I suppose we'll have to expect the same delay between
letters that we've experienced before. Most of my time will be spent on a
farm thirty miles from a railroad. If you get into any difficulties, go
to the Littells, and for little troubles, help each other."

Mr. Gordon went on to say that while Bob and Betty were independent to a
greater degree than most boys and girls of their age, the same force of
circumstances that made this possible also gave them a heavier
responsibility. He explained that each was to have an allowance and asked
that each keep a cash account to be submitted to him on his return from
Canada, not, he said, to serve as a check upon extravagant or foolish
expenditures, but that he might be better able to advise them and to
point out avoidable mistakes.

After supper that night he drew the boy aside for further discussion.

"I'm really leaving Betty in your charge," he said, and Bob stood fully
two inches taller. "Not that I think she will get into any serious
trouble, but there's no telling what a bevy of high-spirited girls will
think up. And you know what Betty is when once started, she can not be
stopped. I rely on you to keep her confidence and hold her back if she
seems inclined to act rashly. The Littells are splendid people, but they
will be five hours' distance away, while you will be across the lake. I
put my trust in you, Bob."

Bob silently resolved to be worthy. Betty had been his first friend, and
to her he gave all the pent-up loyalty and starved affection of a lonely
boy nature. When Mr. Gordon came into his life, and especially when he
was made his legal guardian, Bob experienced the novel sensation of
having some one interested in his future. Though the various older men
he had met were more than willing to help him, Mr. Gordon was the only
one to succeed in winning over Bob's almost fanatical pride and the lad
who admired, respected, and loved him, would have done anything in the
world for him.

The next few days were extremely busy ones for Bob, the aunts, and Betty.
Miss Hope and Miss Charity were so excited at the prospect of a journey
that they completely lost their faculty for planning, and most of the
work fell on Bob and Betty. Luckily there was little packing to be done,
for the few bits of old furniture were to be sold for what they would
bring, and the keepsakes that neither Miss Hope nor her sister could
bring themselves to part with were stored in several old trunks to be
housed in the Watterby attic.

"Betty, child," her uncle's voice broke in upon Betty's orderly packing
one afternoon, "I know you're going to be disappointed, but we mustn't
cry over what can't be helped. I've had a wire and must leave for
Chicago Wednesday morning. You and Bob will have to make the Washington
trip alone."

"I knew it was too good to be true," mourned Betty, a tear dropping on
the yellowed silk shawl she was neatly folding. "Oh, dear, Uncle Dick, I
did want you to go with us part of the way!"

"Better luck next time," replied Mr. Gordon. "There's no use grumbling
over what you can't change."

This was his philosophy, and he followed it consistently. Bob and Betty,
though keenly disappointed they were not to have his companionship, tried
to accept the situation as cheerfully as he did.

The packing was hastened, and soon the old farmhouse was stripped and
dismantled, the trunks stored in the Watterby attic, the furniture
carried off to the homes of those who bought it, and the key delivered
to Dave Thorne, the section foreman, who would deliver it to the
superintendent.

The hospitable Watterbys had insisted that the travelers should all stay
with them until the time for their several departures, and Bob and Betty
had a last glorious ride on Clover and the ungainly white horse while
the aunts rested and put the final touches to their preparations for
their journey.

The next morning all was bustle and hurry, for the aunts were to start on
their trip and Mr. Gordon must be off to Chicago. Miss Hope insisted on
being taken to the station an hour before their train was due, and when a
puff of steam up the track announced the actual approach of the train the
two old ladies trembled with nervousness and excitement. Mr. Gordon
guided them up the steps of the car, after a tearful farewell to Bob and
Betty, and saw that they were settled in the right sections. He spoke to
the conductor on the way out, and tipped the porter and maid liberally to
look after the travelers' comfort.

CHAPTER IV

MORE GOOD-BYES

"They'll feel better presently," he remarked, rejoining Bob and Betty on
the platform. "I know the boarding house they've chosen is fine in every
way and they're going to have a delightful winter."

The train started slowly, and the black silk gloves of the aunts waved
dolorously from the window. They were embarked on their adventure.

"Don't look so solemn, Betty," teased her uncle. "If I'm not mistaken
that's the smoke from my train. I don't want any one to weep over my
departure."

"I could, but I won't," Betty assured him bravely. "You won't get sick or
anything, will you, Uncle Dick? And you'll write to me every week?"

"Like a clock," he promised her. "There goes the agent with my bags--this
is the local, all right. Good-bye, Bob. Remember what I've asked of you."

Mr. Gordon wrung Bob's hand and smiled down into the blue eyes lifted so
fervently to his.

"You're my boy, too," he said clearly. "Don't forget, lad, if you need
me."

Then he swept Betty into his arms.

"Be a good girl, Sweetheart," he murmured, kissing her.

They watched him climb up the steps of the snorting, smoky local, saw his
bags tossed into the baggage car, and then, with a shrill grinding of
wheels, the training resumed its way. As long as they could see, the tall
figure in the gray suit stood on the platform and waved a white
handkerchief to them.

"Oh, Bob, don't let me cry," begged Betty, in a sudden panic.
"Everybody's watching us. Let's go somewhere, quick."

"All right, we will," promised Bob. "We'll take the car to Doctor
Morrison. Hop in, Betsey, and dry your eyes. You're going traveling
yourself day after to-morrow."

"I wasn't really crying," explained Betty as she settled herself in the
shabby car that had belonged to her uncle; he had sold it to the town
physician. "But doesn't it give you a lonesome feeling to be the one
that's left? I hate to say good-bye, anyway."

Bob's experience with motors was rather limited, and what slight
knowledge he possessed had been gained in a few lessons taken while
riding with Mr. Gordon. However, the boy was sure that he could drive the
car the brief distance to the doctor's house, and Betty shared his
confidence. From the Morrison house it was only a short walk to the
Watterby farm, where they were to stay until they left for the East.

Betty forgot to cry as Bob started the car so suddenly that it shot
forward like a live thing. He jammed on the brake and brought it to a
standstill so abruptly that Betty came very near to pitching through the
windshield.

"Couldn't you do it--er--more gently?" she hinted delicately.

"Hold fast and I'll try," grinned Bob. "As a chauffeur I'd be a
good iceman."

The second time he managed better, and the battered little car moved off
with less disturbing results.

In a very few minutes they had reached Doctor Morrison's garage.

The doctor urged Bob and Betty strongly to stay to supper with him and
promised beaten biscuit and honey, but although they knew the skill of
his old Southern cook very well, they had promised Grandma Watterby to be
there for supper and such a promise could not be disregarded.

"Well, anyway," said Betty soothingly, as they walked on toward the
Watterby farm, "when we ride Clover and Reuben up to the fields we won't
have to worry about how to make them go."

"No, that's so," agreed Bob. "But, Betty, I hate to think of giving up
Reuben. He isn't much to look at, but he has been a mighty good horse."

"I'd feel worse," declared Betty, "if we had to sell them to strangers.
We wouldn't know how they would be treated then. Now we are sure they
will be cared for and petted and they won't miss us."

Reuben and Clover, Mr. Gordon had said, were to be disposed of as Betty
and Bob chose. The horses were theirs to give away or sell as they
preferred. Bob had instantly decided to give his mount to Dave Thorne,
the section foreman, who had shown him many kindnesses and who was
delighted to get a trained saddle horse. Horses were very scarce in that
section of the country, and Mr. Gordon had gone to considerable trouble
to get these.

Betty had elected to give Clover to the new superintendent's daughter,
the girl who was to move with her parents into the old Saunders
farmhouse. Betty had never seen her, but knew she was about fourteen or
fifteen and eager to learn to ride.

The day before they were to start for Washington, Bob and Betty rode the
horses up to the oil fields and gave them into the charge of Dave
Thorne. The superintendent was already on the ground but his family and
furniture were not due for a week.

Clover and Reuben bore the parting better than their young mistress and
master, and Betty was glad when all the good-byes had been said and they
stepped into the Watterby car which Mrs. Watterby had driven up for them.
The fields were about eight miles from her house.

"You'll be happier when once you're on the train, Betty," said good Mrs.
Watterby, glancing swiftly at Betty's clouded face, "This going around
saying good-bye to people and things is enough to break anybody up. Now
to-morrow me and mother won't weep a tear over you--you'll see. We're
glad you're going to school to have a good time with all those young
folks. Now what's that Chinaman want?"

Lee Chang came running from the bunk house, waving something tied in
white paper.

"Apple tart, Miss Betty!" he called imploringly. "Velly nice apple
tart--maybe the cook at that school no make good tarts."

Betty took the package and thanked him warmly and they drove on.

"People are so good to me," choked the girl. "I never knew I had so
many friends."

"Well, that's nothing to cry over," advised Bob philosophically. "You
ought to be glad. Do I get a crumb of the tart, Betsey?"

He spoke with a purpose and was rewarded by seeing Betty's own sunny
smile come out.

"You always do," she told him. "But wait till we get home. I want Ki to
have a piece, too."

Ki, it developed, when they reached the Watterby farm, had been busy with
farewell plans of his own.

"For you," he announced gravely to Bob, handing him an immense hunting
knife as he stepped out of the car.

"For you," he informed Betty with equal gravity, presenting her a little
silver nugget.

They both thanked him repeatedly, and he stalked off, carrying his piece
of the apple tart and apparently assured of their sincerity.

"Though what he expects me to do with a hunting knife is more than I can
guess," laughed Bob.

CHAPTER V

A REGULAR CROSS-PATCH

"Be sure you send me a postal from Washington. I never knew anybody from
there before," said Grandma Watterby earnestly.

"And don't get off the train unless you know how long it's going to
stop," advised Will Watterby.

"Do you think you ate enough breakfast?" his wife asked anxiously.

Bob and Betty were waiting for the Eastern Limited, and the Watterby
family, who had brought them to the station, were waiting, too. The
Limited stopped only on signal, and this was no every day occurrence.

"We'll be all right," said Bob earnestly. "You can look for a postal from
Chicago first, Grandma."

Then came the usual hurried good-byes, the kisses and handshakes and the
repeated promises to "write soon." Then Bob and Betty found themselves in
the sleeper, waving frantically to the little group on the platform as
the Limited slowly got under way.

"And that's the last of Flame City--for some time at least,"
observed Bob.

Betty, who had made excellent use of lessons learned in her few previous
long journeys, took off her hat and gloves and placed them in a paper bag
which Bob put in the rack for her.

"I did want a new hat so much," she sighed, looking rather
enviously at the woman across the aisle who wore a smart Fall hat
that was unmistakably new. "But Flame City depends on mail order
hats and I thought it safer to wait till I could see what people
are really wearing."

"You look all right," said Bob loyally. "What's that around that woman's
neck--fur? Why I'm so hot I can hardly breathe."

"It's mink," Betty informed him with superiority. "Isn't it beautiful? I
wanted a set, but Uncle Dick said mink was too old for me. He did say,
though, that I can have a neckpiece made from that fox skin Ki gave me."

"Don't see why you want to tie yourself up like an Eskimo," grumbled
Bob. "Well, we seem to be headed toward the door marked 'Education,'
don't we, Betsey?"

They exchanged a smile of understanding.

Bob was passionately eager for what he called "regular schooling," that
is the steady discipline of fixed lessons, the companionship of boys of
his own age, and the give and take of the average large, busy school.
Normal life of any kind was out of the question in the poorhouse where he
had spent the first ten years of his life, and after that he had not seen
the inside of a schoolroom. He had read whatever books he could pick up
while at Bramble Farm, and in the knowledge of current events was
remarkably well-posted, thanks to his steady assimilation of newspapers
and magazines since leaving the Peabody roof. But he feared, and with
some foundation, that he might be found deplorably lacking in the most
rudimentary branches.

Betty, of course, had gone to school regularly until her mother's
death. In the year that had elapsed she had thought little of
lessons, and though she did not realize it, she had lost to a great
extent the power of application. Systematic study of any kind might
easily prove a hardship for the active Betty. Still she was eager to
study again, perhaps prepare for college. More than anything else she
craved girl friends.

"Let's go in for lunch at the first call," suggested Betty presently. "I
didn't eat much breakfast, and I don't believe you did either."

"I swallowed a cup of boiling coffee," admitted Bob, "but that's all I
remember. So I'm ready when you are."

Seated at a table well toward the center of the car, Betty's attention
was attracted to a girl who sat facing her. She was not a pretty girl.
She looked discontented and peevish, and the manner in which she
addressed the waiter indicated that she felt under no obligation to
disguise her feelings.

"Take that back," she ordered, pointing a beautifully manicured hand at
a dish just placed before her. "If you can't bring me a poached egg
that isn't raw, don't bother at all. And I hope you don't intend to
call this cream?"

Bob glanced swiftly over at the table. The girl consciously tucked back a
lock of stringy hair, displaying the flash of several diamonds.

"Sweet disposition, hasn't she?" muttered Bob under his breath. "I'd like
to see her board just one week with Mr. Peabody."

"Don't--she'll hear you," protested Betty. "I wonder if she is all alone?
What lovely clothes she has! And did you see her rings?"

"Well, she'll need 'em, if she's going to snap at everybody," said Bob
severely. "Diamonds help out a cross tongue when a poor waiter is
thinking of his tip."

The girl was still finding fault with her food when Betty and Bob rose to
leave the car, and when they passed her table she stared at them with
languid insolence, half closing her narrow hazel eyes.

"Wow, she's bored completely," snickered Bob, when they were out of
earshot. "I don't believe she's a day older than you are, Betty, and she
is dressed up like a little Christmas tree."

"I think her clothes are wonderful," said Betty. "I wish I had a lace
vestee and some long white gloves. Don't you think they're pretty, Bob?"

"No, I think they're silly," retorted Bob. "You wouldn't catch Bobby
Littell going traveling in a party dress and wearing all the family
jewels. Huh, here comes the conductor--wonder what he wants."

The conductor, it developed, was shifting passengers from the car behind
the one in which Bob and Betty had seats. It was to be dropped at the
next junction and the few passengers remaining were to be accommodated in
this coach.

"You're all right, don't have to make any change," said the official
kindly, after examining their tickets. "I'll tell the porter you go
through to Chicago."

The car had been fairly well crowded before, and the extra influx taxed
every available seat. Betty took out her crocheting and Bob decided that
he would go in search of a shoe-shine.

"I'll come back and get you and we'll go out on the observation
platform," he said contentedly.

"Chain six, double crochet--into the ring--" Betty murmured her
directions half aloud.

"Right here, Ma'am?" The porter's voice aroused her.

There in the aisle stood the girl she had noticed in the diner, and with
her was a harassed looking porter carrying three heavy bags.

"Perhaps you would just as lief take the aisle seat?" said the girl,
surveying Betty as a princess might gaze upon an annoying little page. "I
travel better when I can have plenty of fresh air."

"You might have thought I was a bug," Betty confided later to Bob.

The diamonds flashed as the girl loosened the fur collar at her throat.

"Please move over," she commanded calmly.

Betty was bewildered, but her innate courtesy died hard.

"You--you've made a mistake," she faltered. "This seat is taken."

"The conductor said to take any vacant seat," said the newcomer. "You
can't hold seats in a public conveyance--my father says so. Put the bags
in here, porter. Be careful of that enamel leather."

To Betty's dismay, she settled herself, flounces and furs and bags, in
the narrow space that belonged to Bob, and by an adroit pressure of her
elbow made it impossible for Betty to resume her crocheting.

"I think you done made a mistake, lady," ventured the porter. "This seat
belongs to a young man what has a ticket to Chicago."

"Well, I'm going to Chicago," answered the girl composedly. "Do you
expect me to stand up the rest of the way? The agent had no business to
sell me a reservation in a car that only went as far as the Junction."

The porter withdrew, shaking his head, and in a few minutes Bob came back
to his seat. Betty, watching the girl, saw her glance sidewise at him
from her narrow eyes, though she pretended to be absorbed in a magazine.

"I beg your pardon," said Bob politely.

There was no response.

"Pardon me, but you've made a mistake," began Bob again. "You are in the
wrong seat."

The magazine came down with a crash and the girl's face, distorted with
rage, appeared in its place.

"Well, if I am, what are you going to do about it?" she shrilled rudely.

CHAPTER VI

FINE FEATHERS

Betty Gordon had always, foolishly perhaps, associated courtesy and
good-breeding with beautiful clothes. This strange girl, who could speak
so on such slight provocation (none at all, to be exact) wore a handsome
suit, and if her jewelry was too conspicuous it had the merit of being
genuine. Betty herself had a lively temper, but she was altogether free
from snappishness and when she "blew up" the cause was sure to be
unmistakable and significant.

Bob jumped when the girl fired her question at him. There had been
nothing in his limited experience with girls to prepare him for such an
outburst. Betty half expected him to acquiesce and leave the stranger in
possession of his seat, but to her surprise he simply turned on his heel
and walked away. Not, however, before Betty had seen something bordering
on contempt in his eyes.

"I'd hate to have Bob look at me like that," she thought. "It wasn't as
if he didn't like her, or was mad at her--what is it I am trying to
say? Bob looked as if--as if--Oh, bother, I know what I mean, but I
can't say it."

The little spitfire in the seat beside her wriggled uneasily as if she,
too, were not as comfortable as she would pretend. Bob's silent reception
of her discourtesy had infuriated her, and she knew better than Betty
where she stood in the boy's estimation. She had instantly forfeited his
respect and probably his admiration forever.

In a few minutes Bob was back, and with him the conductor.

"Young lady, you're in the wrong seat," that official announced in a tone
that admitted of no trifling. "You were in eighteen in the other car and
I had to move you to twenty-three in here. Just follow me, please."

He reached in and took one of the suitcases, and Bob matter-of-factly
took the other two. The girl opened her mouth, glanced at the conductor,
and thought better of whatever she was going to say. Meekly she followed
him to another section on the other side of the car and found herself
compelled to share a seat with a severe-looking gray-haired woman,
evidently a sufferer from hay fever, as she sneezed incessantly.

Bob dropped down in his old place and shot a quizzical look at Betty.

"Flame City may be tough," he observed, "and I'd be the last one to claim
that it possessed one grain of culture; but at that, I can't remember
having a pitched battle with a girl during my care-free existence there."

"She's used to having her own way," said Betty, with a laudable ambition
to be charitable, an intention which she inadvertently destroyed by
adding vigorously: "She'd get that knocked out of her if she lived West a
little while."

"Guess the East can be trusted to smooth her down," commented Bob grimly.
"Unless she's planning to live in seclusion, she won't get far in peace
or happiness unless she behaves a bit more like a human being."

The girl was more or less in evidence during the rest of the trip and
incurred the cordial enmity of every woman in the car by the coolness
with which she appropriated the dressing room in the morning and curled
her hair and made an elaborate toilet in perfect indifference to the
other feminine travelers who were shut out till she had the last hairpin
adjusted to her satisfaction.

She was met at the Chicago terminal by a party of gay friends who whisked
her off in a palatial car, and Bob and Betty who, acting on Mr. Gordon's
advice, spent their two-hour wait between trains driving along the Lake
Shore Drive, forgot her completely.

But first Betty fell victim to the charms of a hat displayed in a smart
little millinery shop, and had an argument with Bob in which she came
off victor.

"Oh, Bob, what a darling hat!" she had exclaimed, drawing him over to the
window as they turned down the first street from the station. "I must
have it; I want to look nice when I meet the girls in Washington."

"You look nice now," declared Bob sturdily. "But if you want to buy it,
go ahead," he encouraged her. "Ask 'em how much it is, though," he added,
with a sudden recollection of the fabulous prices said to be charged for
a yard of ribbon and a bit of lace.

The hat in question was a soft brown beaver that rolled slightly away
from the face and boasted as trimming a single scarlet quill. It was
undeniably becoming, and Bob gave it his unqualified approval.

"And you will want a veil?" insinuated the clever young French
saleswoman. "See--it is charming!"

She threw over the hat a cobwebby pattern of brown silk net embroidered
heavily with chenille dots and deftly draped it back from Betty's
glowing face.

"You don't want a veil!" said Bob bluntly.

Now the mirror told Betty that the veil looked very well indeed, and made
her, she was sure of it, prettier. Betty was a good traveler and the
journey had not tired her. The excitement and pleasure of choosing a new
hat had brought a flush to her cheeks, and the shining brown eyes that
gazed back at her from the glass assured her that a veil was something
greatly to be desired.

"You don't want it," repeated Bob. "You're only thirteen and you'll look
silly. Do you want to dress like that girl on the train?"

If Bob had stopped to think he would have realized that his remarks were
not exactly tactful. Especially the reference to Betty's age, just when
she fancied that she looked very grown up indeed. She was fond of
braiding her heavy thick hair and wrapping it around her head so that
there were no hair-ribbons to betray her. In Betty's experience the
border line between a young lady and a little girl was determined by the
absence or presence of hair-ribbons.

"How much is it?" she asked the saleswoman.

"Oh, but six dollars," answered that young person with a wave of one
jeweled hand as though six dollars were a mere nothing.

"I'll take it," said Betty decisively. "And I'll wear it and the hat,
too, please; you can wrap up my old one."

Bob was silent until the transaction had been completed and they were out
of the shop.

"You wait here and I'll see about getting a car to take us along the
Drive," he said then.

"You're--you're not mad at me, are you Bob?" faltered Betty, putting an
appealing hand on his arm. "I haven't had any fun with clothes all
summer long."

"No, I'm not mad. But I think you're an awful chump," replied Bob with
his characteristic frankness.

Before the drive was over, Betty was inclined to agree with him.

The car was an open one, and while the day was warm and sunny, there was
a lively breeze blowing straight off the lake. The veil persisted in
blowing first into Betty's eyes, then into Bob's, and interfered to an
amazing degree with their enjoyment of the scenery. Finally, as they
rounded a curve and caught the full breath of the breeze, the veil blew
away entirely.

"Let it go," said Betty resignedly. "It's cost me six dollars to learn I
don't want to wear a veil."

Bob privately decided he liked her much better without the flimsy net
affair, but he wisely determined not to air his opinion. There was no
use, he told himself, in "rubbing it in."

They had lunch in a cozy little tea-room and went back to the train like
seasoned travelers. Bob was an ideal companion for such journeys, for he
never lost his head and never missed connections, while nervous haste was
unknown to him.

"Won't I be glad to see the Littells!" exclaimed Betty, watching the
porter make up their berths.

"So shall I," agreed Bob. "Did you ever know such hospitable people,
asking a whole raft of us to spend the week at Fairfields? How many did
Bobby write would be there?"

"Let's see," said Betty, checking off on her fingers. "There'll be Bobby
and Louise, of course; and Esther who is too young to go away to school,
but who will want to do everything we do; Libbie Littell and another
Vermont girl we don't know--Frances Martin; you and I; and the five boys
Mr. Littell wrote you about--the Tucker twins, Timothy Derby, Sydney
Cooke and Winifred Marion Brown. Twelve of us! Won't it be fun! I do wish
the Guerin girls could be there, but we'll see them at the school."

"I'd like to see that Winifred Marion chap," declared Bob. "A boy with a
girl's name has his troubles cut out for him, I should say."

"Lots of 'em have girls' names--in history," contributed Betty absently.
"What time do we get into Washington, Bob?"

"Around five, probably six p.m., for we're likely to be a bit late,"
replied Bob. "Let's go to bed now, Betty, and get an early start in
the morning."

The day spent on the train was uneventful, and, contrary to Bob's
expectations, they were on time at every station. Betty's heart beat
faster as the hands of her little wrist watch pointed to 5:45 and the
passengers began to gather up their wraps. The porter came through and
brushed them thoroughly and Betty adjusted her new hat carefully.

The long train slid into the Union Station. With what different
emotions both Bob and Betty had seen the beautiful, brilliantly lighted
building on the occasion of their first trip to Washington! Then each
had been without a friend in the great city, and now they were to be
welcomed by a host.

Betty's cheeks flushed rose-red, but her lovely eyes filled with a sudden
rush of tears.

"I'm so happy!" she whispered to the bewildered Bob.

"Want my handkerchief?" he asked anxiously, at which Betty tried
not to laugh.

CHAPTER VII

FUN AT FAIRFIELDS

The long platform was crowded. Betty followed Bob, who carried their
bags. She tried to peer ahead, but the moving forms blocked her view.
Just after they passed through the gate, some one caught her.

"Betty, you lamb! I never was so glad to see any one in my life!"
cried a gay voice, and Bobby Littell hugged her close in one of her
rare caresses.

Bob Henderson held out his hand as soon as Bobby released Betty. He liked
this straightforward, brusque girl who so evidently adored Betty.

"Why, Bob, you've grown a foot!" was Bobby Littell's greeting to him.

Bob modestly disclaimed any such record, and then Louise and Esther, who
had swooped upon Betty, turned to shake hands with him.

"The rest of the crowd is out in the car," said Bobby carelessly.

Outside the station, in the open plaza, a handsome closed car awaited
them. The gray-haired chauffeur, cap in hand, stood back as a procession
of boys and girls advanced upon Bob and Betty and their escort.

"Oh, Betty, dear!" Short, plump Libbie Littell, who had relinquished
her claim to the name of "Betty" in Betty Gordon's favor some time
ago, hurled herself upon her friend. "To think we're going to the
same school!"

"Well, Frances is going, too," said Bobby practically. "She might like to
be introduced, you know. Betty, this is Frances Martin, a Vermont girl
who is out after all the Latin prizes."

Frances smiled a slow, sweet smile, and, behind thick glasses, her dark
near-sighted eyes said that she was very glad to know Betty Gordon.

"Now the boys!" announced the irrepressible Bobby, apparently taking
Bob's introduction to Frances for granted. "The boys will please line up
and I'll indicate them."

The five lads obediently came forward and ranged themselves in a row.

"From left to right," chanted Bobby, "we have the Tucker twins, Tommy and
Teddy, W. M. Brown, who asks his friends to use his initials and punches
those who refuse, Timothy Derby who reads poetry and Sydney Cooke who
ought to--" and Bobby completed her speech with a wicked grin, for she
had managed to hit several weaknesses.

"As an introducer," she announced calmly to Carter, the personification
of propriety's horror, "I think I do rather well."

They stowed themselves into the limousine somehow, the girls settled more
or less comfortably on the seats, the boys squeezed in between, hanging
on the running board, and spilling over into Carter's domain.

Bob liked the five boys at once, and they seemed to accept him as one of
them. If he had had a little fear that he would feel diffident and
unboyish among lads of his own age, it vanished at the first contact.

"Betty, you sweet child, how we have missed you!" cried Mrs. Littell,
standing on the lowest step under the porte-cochère as the car swept up
the drive of Fairfields, as the Littell's home was called.

Behind her waited Mr. Littell, fully recovered from the injury to his
foot which had made him an invalid during Betty's previous visit.

From Carter, who had beamingly greeted her at the station, to the pretty
parlor maid who smiled as Betty entered her room to find her turning down
the bed covers, there was not a servant who did not remember Betty and
seem glad to see her.

"It is so good to have you two here again," Mr. Littell had said.

"I never knew such people," Betty repeated to herself twenty times that
evening. "How lovely they are to Bob and me!"

Mrs. Littell, who was happiest when entertaining young people, had put
the six boys on the third floor in three connecting rooms. The girls were
on the second floor, and Esther, the youngest, who had strenuously fought
to be allowed to go to Shadyside with her two sisters, was almost beside
herself with the effort to be in all the rooms at once and hear what
every one was saying.

"I'm so glad your uncle let you come," said Bobby, as they waited for
Betty to change into a light house frock for dinner. "I don't know much
about this school, except that mother went to school with the principal."

That was a characteristic Bobby Littell remark, and the other
girls laughed.

"I had a letter from a girl who lives in Glenside," confided Betty,
re-braiding her hair. "She and her sister are going--Norma and Alice
Guerin. I know you'll like them. Norma wrote her mother went to Shadyside
when it was a day school."

"Yes, I believe it was, years and years ago," returned Louise Littell.
"The aristocratic families who lived on large estates used to send
their daughters to Mrs. Warde. Her daughter, Mrs. Eustice, is the
principal now."

Betty wondered if Norma Guerin's mother had belonged to one of the
families who owned large estates, but they went down to dinner presently
and she forgot the Guerins for the time being.

That was a busy week for the school boys and girls.

The beautiful house and grounds of Fairfields were at their disposal, and
the gallant host and gentle hostess gave themselves up to the whims and
wishes of the houseful of young people.

"Racket while you may, for school-room discipline is coming," laughed Mr.
Littell, when he went upstairs unexpectedly early one night and caught
the abashed Tucker twins sliding down the banisters.

Both Bob and Betty had wired Mr. Gordon of their safe arrival in
Washington, and Bob had also telegraphed his aunts. While they were at
Fairfields a letter reached them from Miss Hope and Miss Charity,
describing in glowing terms the boarding house in which they were
living and the California climate which, the writers declared, made
them feel "twenty years younger." So Bob was assured that the elderly
ladies were neither homesick nor unhappy and that added appreciably to
his peace of mind.

He and Betty found time, too, to slip away from their gay companions and
go to the old second-hand bookshop where Lockwood Hale browsed among his
dusty volumes. He had set Bob upon the trail that led him West and
brought him finally to his surviving kin, and the boy felt warm gratitude
to the absent-minded old man.

Mr. and Mrs. Littell rigidly insisted that the last night before the
young folks started for Shadyside must be reserved for final packing and
early retirement so that the gay band might begin their journey
auspiciously. The Tuesday evening before the Thursday they were to leave
for school, the host and hostess gave a dance for their young people.

"I'm glad to have at least one chance to wear this dress," observed
Bobby, smoothing down the folds of her rose-colored frock with
satisfaction. "The only thing I don't like about Shadyside, so far, is
that restriction about party clothes."

"I imagine it is a wise rule in many ways," said Betty sagely, thinking
particularly of the Guerin girls, who would probably be hard-pressed to
get even the one evening frock allowed. "You know how some girls are,
Bobby; they'd come with a dozen crêpe de chine and georgette dresses and
about three clean blouses for school-room wear."

"Like Ruth Gladys Royal," giggled Bobby. "I remember her at Miss
Graham's last year. Goodness, the clothes that girl would wear! The rest
of us didn't even try to compete. And, by the way, girls, Ruth Gladys is
going to Shadyside. Her aunt telephoned mother last night while we were
at the movies."

"That's the girl we went to call on that day we saw Mr. Peabody tackle
Bob in the hotel," Louise explained in an aside to Betty. "I wonder why
every one seems bent and determined to go to Shadyside this year."

"Because it is a fine school with a half-century reputation," Bobby, who
had studied the catalogue, informed her sister primly.

"I'm not going," objected Esther. "I think it's mean."

"Mother and dad need one girl at home, dearest," her mother reminded her,
as she came in looking very handsome and kindly in a black spangled net
gown. "All ready, girls? Then suppose we go down."

It was a simple and informal dance, as befitted the ages of the guests,
but Mr. and Mrs. Littell knew to perfection the secret of making each one
enjoy himself. There were a handful of outside friends invited, and
Betty, to whom a party was a never-failing source of delight, felt, as
she confided to Bob, as though she were "walking on air."

"You look awfully nice in that white stuff," he said frankly, and Betty
liked the comment on her pretty ruffled white frock which she had
dubiously decided a moment before was too plain.

Betty was what country folk call a "natural-born dancer," and she
quickly learned the new steps she had had no opportunity to practice
since going West. All the girls and most of the boys were excellent
dancers, too, and Bob was not allowed to beg off. Frances Martin, the
last girl one would have named, had taught a dancing class in her home
town with great success and she volunteered to lead Bob. To his surprise,
the boy found he liked the music and movement and before the evening was
over he was in a fair way to become a good dancer.

The party broke up promptly at eleven o'clock, and a few minutes later
the whir of the last motor bearing home the departing guests died away.
There was a natural lingering to "talk things over," but by twelve the
house was silent and dark.

Betty had just fairly dozed off when some one woke her by shaking
her gently.

"Betty! Betty, please wake up!" whispered a frightened little voice.

CHAPTER VIII

TOO MUCH PARTY

Betty shared a room with Bobby. The single beds were separated by a
table on which an electric drop light and the water pitcher and glasses
were placed.

Betty's first impulse was to snap on the light, but as she put out her
hand, Esther grasped her wrist.

"It's only me," she whispered, her teeth chattering with fright. "Don't
wake Bobby up."

"Are you cold?" asked Betty, sitting up anxiously. "Perhaps you were too
warm dancing. Do you want to get into bed with me?"

It was a warm night for October, and Betty was at a loss to understand
Esther's shivering.

"I can't find Libbie!" Esther cried. "Oh, Betty, I never thought she
would do it, never."

Betty reached for her dressing gown and slippers.

"Don't cry, or you'll wake up Bobby," she advised the sobbing Esther.
"Come on, I'll go back with you. Don't make a noise."

The girls occupied three connecting rooms, and Esther and Libbie had
slept in the end of the suite. To reach it now, the two girls had to go
through the room where Louise and Frances lay slumbering peacefully.
Betty breathed a sigh of relief when they gained Esther's room and she
closed the door carefully and turned on the light.

Esther's bed, madly tumbled, and Libbie's, evidently occupied that night,
but now empty, were revealed.

Esther dropped down on the floor, wrapping her kimono about her, and
regarded Betty trustfully. She was sure her friend would straighten
things out.

"Where is Libbie?" demanded Betty. "What is she doing?"

"I don't know," admitted Esther unhappily. "But I tell you what I
think--I think she's eloped!"

Esther was only eleven, and as she sat on the floor and stared at Betty
from great wet blue eyes, she seemed very young indeed.

"Eloped!" gasped Betty. "Why, I never heard of such a thing!"

"She's always talking about it," the younger girl wailed, beginning to
cry again. "She says it's the most romantic way to be married, and she
means to throw her hope chest out of the window first and slide down a
rope made of bedsheets."

"Well, I think it's very silly to talk like that," scolded Betty. "And,
what's more, Esther, however much Libbie may talk of eloping, she hasn't
done it this time. All her clothes are here, and her shoes and her hat.
Here's her purse on the dresser, too."

"I never thought of looking to see if her clothes were here," confessed
Esther. "But then, where is she, Betty?"

"That's what I mean to find out," announced Betty, with more confidence
than she felt. "Come on, Esther. And don't trip on your kimono or walk
into anything."

They tiptoed out into the wide hall and had reached the head of the
beautiful carved staircase when they saw a dim form coming toward them.

Esther nearly shrieked aloud, but Betty put a hand over her mouth in
time.

"Who--who, who-o-o are you?" stammered Betty, her heart beating so fast
it was painful.

"Betty!" Bob stifled a gasp. "For the love of Mike! what are you doing at
this time of night?"

"Esther's here--we're hunting for Libbie," whispered Betty. "She isn't in
her room."

"So that's it!" For some reason unknown to the girls Bob seemed to be
vastly relieved. "I was just going after Mr. Littell," he added.

"But Libbie is lost! Maybe she is sick," urged Betty.

"She's all right," declared Bob confidently. "You see, I couldn't go to
sleep, and after I'd been in bed about an hour I got up and sat by the
window. I was staring down into the garden, and all of a sudden I saw
something white begin to move and creep about. I watched it a few moments
and I got the idea it was a burglar or a sneak thief, it kept so close to
the house. I came down to call Mr. Littell and bumped into you."

"Do you suppose it is Libbie?" chattered Esther. "Why would she go into
the garden in the middle of the night?"

"Walking in her sleep," explained Bob. "I've heard it is dangerous to
waken a sleep-walker suddenly. Perhaps you'd better call Mrs. Littell,
Betty, and I'll sit here on the window seat and see that she doesn't walk
out into the road."

The two girls hurried off and tapped lightly on Mrs. Littell's door. That
lady hurriedly admitted them, her motherly mind instantly picturing
something wrong.

"It's Libbie," said Betty softly. "Bob saw her from his window in the
garden and he thinks she's walking in her sleep. We don't want to
frighten her. What can we do?"

"I'll be right out," said Mrs. Littell reassuringly. "Libbie's mother
used to walk in her sleep, too. I think I can get the child into bed
without waking her at all."

In a few moments she came out, a heavy corduroy robe and slippers
protecting her against the night air.

"Esther, lamb, you stay here in the hall with Bob," she directed her
youngest daughter. "You won't be afraid with Bob, will you, dear? I don't
want too many to go down or we may startle Libbie."

Betty crept downstairs after Mrs. Littell, the soft, thick rugs making
their progress absolutely noiseless. Not a step in the well-built
staircase creaked.

They found the chain and bolt drawn from the heavy front door. Libbie had
evidently let herself out with no difficulty. From the wide hall window
Bob and Esther watched breathlessly.

"Just go up to her quietly and take one of her hands," Mrs. Littell
whispered to Betty. "I'll take the other, and, if I'm not mistaken, we
can lead her into the house."

Libbie stood motionless beside a rosebush as they approached her. Her
eyes were wide open, and her dark hair floated over her shoulders. In her
white nightdress, the moonlight full upon her, she looked very pretty and
yet so weird that Betty could not repress a shiver.

Mrs. Littell did not speak, but took one of the limp hands in hers, and
Betty took the other. Libbie made no resistance, and allowed them to
draw her toward the house. They crossed the threshold, led her upstairs,
past the quivering Esther and Bob huddled on the windowseat, and into the
bedroom she had so unceremoniously left.

Then Mrs. Littell lifted her in strong arms, put her gently down on the
bed, and Libbie rolled up like a little kitten, tucked one hand under her
cheek and continued to sleep.

"Now go to bed, children, do," commanded Mrs. Littell. "Bob, I'm so
thankful you saw that child--she might have wandered off or caught a
severe cold. As it is, I don't believe she has been out very long. What's
the matter, Esther?"

"Can I come and sleep with you?" pleaded Esther. "I'm afraid to sleep
with Libbie. She might do it again."

"I don't think so--not to-night," said her mother, smiling. "However,
chicken, come and sleep with me if you'll rest better."

Betty awoke and went in later that night to see if Libbie had vanished
again, but found her sleeping normally. In the morning the girl was much
surprised to find she had been wandering in the garden and betrayed
considerable interest in the details. Betty decided that it would be
better to omit Esther's belief that she had eloped, and Libbie was
allowed to remain in blissful ignorance of the action her youthful cousin
attributed to her.

The last day sped by all too soon, and what the Tucker twins persisted
in pessimistically designating the "fateful Thursday" was upon them.

"I don't know why you sigh so frequently," dimpled Betty, who sat next to
Tommy Tucker at the breakfast table. "I'm very anxious to go to school.
Don't you really like to go back?"

"It's like this," said Tommy, the "dark Tucker twin," solemnly. "From
four to ten p.m. (except on drill nights) I like it well enough, and from
ten, lights out, till six, reveille, I'm fairly contented. But from nine
to four, when we're cooped up in classrooms, I simply detest school!"

Teddy, the "light Tucker twin," nodded in confirmation.

"I suppose we have to be educated," he admitted, with the air of one
making a generous concession to public opinion, "but I don't see why they
find it necessary to prolong the agony. Any one who can read and write
can make a living."

"Perhaps your father hopes you'll do a bit more than that," suggested Mr.
Littell slyly.

This effectually silenced the twins, for their wealthy father was a
splendid scientist who had made several explorations that had contributed
materially to the knowledge of the scientific world, and he had lost the
sight of one eye in a laboratory experiment undertaken to advance the
cause for which he labored.

The Littell car carried the twelve to the station soon after
breakfast, and though Shadyside and Salsette, unlike many of the large
northern schools, ran no "special," the few passengers who were not
school bound found themselves decidedly in the minority on the "9:36
local" that morning.

"Remember, Betty, you and Bob are to spend the holidays with us," said
Mrs. Littell, as she kissed her good-bye. "If your uncle comes down from
Canada, he must come, too."

"All aboard!" shouted the conductor, who foresaw a lively trip. "No'm,
you can't go through the gate--nobody can."

The crowd of fathers and mothers and younger brothers and sisters
pressed close to the iron grating as the train got under way. On the
back platform the Tucker twins raised their voices in a school yell that
would have horrified the dignified heads of the Academy had they been
there to hear it.

CHAPTER IX

ADJUSTER TOMMY

"I'm Salsette born!" trilled Tommy Tucker soulfully.

"And Salsette bred!" chimed in his brother

"And when I die--" caroled Tommy.

"I'll be Salsette dead!" they finished together.

Then, highly satisfied with this intelligible ditty, they burst into the
car where the others were waiting for them.

The boys had appropriated the seats at the forward end of the car, and
unfortunately their selection included a seat in which an elderly, or so
she seemed to them, woman sat. She fidgeted incessantly, folding and
unfolding her long traveling coat, opening and closing a fitted lunch
basket, and arranging and re-arranging several small unwieldy parcels and
heavy books that slid persistently to the floor with the jarring of the
train. When the conductor came through for tickets, she discovered that
she had mislaid hers and it was necessary to flutter the pages of every
book before the missing bit of pasteboard finally dropped from between
the leaves of the last one opened.

Bob, with instinctive courtesy, had offered to help her search, but she
had rebuffed him sharply.

"I don't want any boy pawing over my belongings," she informed him
tartly.

Bob flushed a little, it was impossible not to help it, but he said
nothing. Meeting Betty's indignant eyes, he smiled good-humoredly.

"Sweet pickles!" ejaculated Tommy Tucker indignantly. "Here, you Timothy,
hand me that suitcase at your feet--it belongs to the little dark girl."

Libbie, "the little dark girl," smiled dreamily as Timothy passed her
suitcase to Tommy. She and Timothy Derby, ignoring the jeers of their
friends, were deep in two white and gold volumes of poetry. Timothy,
Libbie had discovered, had a leaning toward the romantic in fiction,
though he preferred his served in rhyme.

The wicked Tommy had a motive in asking for Libbie's suitcase. It was
much smaller and lighter than any of the others, and he swung it deftly
into the rack over the vinegary lady's unsuspecting head. With a
deftness, born it must be confessed of previous practice, he balanced
the case on the rim so that the first lurch of the train catapulted the
thing down squarely on the woman's hat, snapping a shiny, hard black
quill in two.

"I must say!" she sputtered, rising angrily. "Who put that up there? If
anything goes in that rack, it will be some of my things. I paid for
this seat."

She set the suitcase out into the aisle with a decided bang, and lifted
up the wicker lunch basket. To the glee of the watching young people, as
she lifted it to the rack, two china cups, several teaspoons and a silver
cream jug sifted down. The cups broke on the floor and the other articles
rolled under the seats.

"Get 'em, quick!" cried the owner. "My two best cups broken, and I
thought I had them packed so well! Pick up those teaspoons, some of
you--they're solid silver!"

"If you don't mind boys pawing them--" began Teddy Tucker, but Betty
intervened.

"Oh, don't!" she protested softly. "Don't be so mean. Pick them up,
please do."

So down on their hands and knees went the six lads, and if, in their
earnestness, they bumped into the elderly woman's hat box, and knocked
down her books, that really should not be held against them.

"Now for mercy's sake, don't let me hear from you again," was her
speech of thanks to them when the teaspoons had been recovered and
restored to her.

She might have been severely left alone after this, if Sydney Cooke had
not discovered a remarkable peculiarity she possessed. Sydney was a great
lover of games, and he had brought his pocket checkerboard and men with
him. He persuaded Winifred Marion Brown to play a game with him, and the
rest of the party crowded around to watch.

"I'll trouble you to let me pass," said the owner of the teaspoons, when
Sydney had just made his first play.

The group parted to let her through, closed in again, and opened again
for her when she came back. No one paid any attention to this until she
had made the request four times.

"What ails that woman?" demanded Sydney irritably.

Each time she had passed him she had brushed his elbow, scattering his
checkers about. Ordinarily sweet-tempered, Sydney was beginning to weary
of this performance.

"What do you think?" snickered Bobby Littell. "She takes a white tablet
every five minutes. Honest! I've been watching her. She sits there with
her watch in her hand, and exactly five minutes apart--I've timed
her--she starts for the water cooler. She puts something on her tongue,
swallows a glass of water, and comes back."

"Well, somebody carry her a gallon jug," muttered Sydney impatiently. "I
can't get anywhere if she is going to parade up and down the aisle
incessantly."

"Don't worry," said Tommy Tucker soothingly. "I'll adjust this little
matter for you."

If Sydney had been less interested in his game, he might have felt
slightly apprehensive. The Tucker twins were famous for their
"adjustments."

Tommy went down the aisle and slipped into the seat directly back of the
woman who did not approve of boys. She turned and regarded him hostilely,
but he gazed out at the flying landscape. The moment she turned around,
he ducked to the floor.

"What do you suppose he is doing?" whispered Bobby to Betty. "Tommy can
think up tricks faster than any boy I ever knew."

Whatever Tommy was doing, he finished in a very few moments and sauntered
back to the checker game, his eyes dancing.

Sydney and Winifred were absorbed in their game, and the others, with the
exception of Bobby and Betty, had not noticed Tommy's brief absence.

"Oh, look!" Betty clutched Bobby's arm excitedly. "What has
happened to her?"

The woman, who had sat with her watch in her hand, snapped it shut,
prepared to make another journey to the water cooler. She half rose, an
alarmed expression flitted over her face, and she sank into her seat
again. Tommy's eyes were studiously on the checkerboard.

With one convulsive effort, the woman struggled to her feet, grasped the
bell-cord and jerked it twice, then dropped into her seat and began to
weep hysterically.

The brakes jarred down, and the train came to a sudden stop that sent
many of the passengers m a mad scramble forward.

In a few moments the conductor flung open the car door angrily. Behind
him two anxious young brakesmen peered curiously.

"Anybody in here jerk that bellcord?" demanded the conductor, scowling.

"Certainly. It was I," said the elderly woman loftily.

"Oh, you did, eh?" he bristled, apparently unworried by her opinion.
"What did you do that for? Here you've stopped a whole train."

"I considered it necessary," was the icy reply. "Perhaps you will be good
enough to call a doctor?"

"Are you ill?" the conductor's voice changed perceptibly. "I doubt if
there is a doctor on the train, but I'll see."

"Tell him to hurry," said the woman commandingly. "I think I'm
paralyzed."

"Paralyzed!" Tommy Tucker gave a loud snort and fell over backward into
the arms of his twin.

The conductor shot a suspicious glance toward him. He had traveled on
school trains before.

"You seem to be all right, Madam," he said to the stricken one
courteously. "There's a doctor at the Junction, I'm sure. What makes you
think you're paralyzed?"

"My good man," said the woman majestically, "when a person in good health
and accustomed to normal activity suddenly loses the power to use
her--er--feet, isn't that an indication of some physical trouble?"

Her unfortunate and un-American phrase, "my good man," had nettled the
conductor, and besides his train was losing time.

"We'll miss connections at the Junction if we fool away much more time,"
he said testily. "I wonder--Why look here! No wonder you can't use
your feet!"

To the elderly woman's horror he had swooped down and laid a not
ungentle hand on her ankle in its neat and smart-looking shoe. Now he
took out his knife, slashed twice, and held up the pieces of a stout
length of twine.

"You were tied to the seat-base by the heels of your shoes," he informed
the patient grimly. "One foot tied to the other, too. Well, Jim, take in
your signals--guess we can mosey along."

"And who would have expected her to wear high-heeled boots!" exclaimed
Bobby, with real amazement showing in voice and look.

The few passengers in the car, aside from the school contingent, were
openly laughing. The victim of this practical joke turned a dull red and
the glare she turned on the back of the luckless Tommy's head was proof
enough that she knew exactly where to lay the blame.

However, she said nothing, nor did she make another trip down the aisle
and as Tommy philosophically whispered, this was worth all he had dared
and suffered. Sydney and Winifred finished their game before the Junction
was reached and that brought a wild charge to get on the train that would
carry them to Shadyside station.

To their relief, there was no sign of the elderly woman in the new car,
and as they were all a bit tired from the journey and excitement the
hour's ride to Shadyside from the Junction was comparatively quiet.

Betty looked eagerly from the window as the brakesman shouted,
"Shadyside! Shadyside!"

CHAPTER X

SHADYSIDE SCHOOL

"Isn't it a pretty station!" said Louise Littell.

Betty agreed with her.

The lawn was still green about the gray stone building and the tiles on
the low-hanging roof were moss green, too. The long platform was roofed
over and seemed swarming with girls and boys. Evidently a train had come
in from the other direction a few minutes before the Junction train, for
bags and suitcases and trunks were heaped up outside the baggage room
door and the busses backed up to the edge of the gravel driveway were
partially filled with passengers.

The blue and silver uniforms of the Salsette cadets were much in
evidence, and Betty's first thought was of how nice Bob Henderson would
look in uniform.

"There's our friend!" whispered Tommy Tucker, directing Betty's
attention to the severe-looking elderly woman whom he had so bothered on
the train. "Gee, do you suppose she goes to Shadyside? I thought it was
a girls' School!"

"Oh, do be quiet!" scolded Bobby Littell "Tommy, you've got us in a peck
of trouble--she's one of the teachers!"

"How do you know?" demanded Tommy. "Who told you?"

"Well, if you'd keep still a minute, you'd hear," said the
exasperated Bobby.

Sure enough, a pleasant, fresh-faced woman, hardly more than a girl, was
escorting the gray-haired woman to a waiting touring car.

"You're the last of the staff to come," she said clearly. Mrs. Eustice
was beginning to worry about you. Will you tell her that I'm coming up in
the bus with the girls?"

"All right, you win," admitted Tommy. "Why couldn't she say she was a
teacher instead of acting so blamed exclusive? Anyway, she probably won't
connect you girls with me--all boys look alike to her."

"She has a wonderful memory--like a camera," surmised Bobby gloomily.
"You wait and see."

"Girls, are all of you for Shadyside?" The young woman had come up to
them and now she smiled at the giggling, chattering group with engaging
friendliness. "I thought you were. We take this auto-stage over here.
Give your baggage checks to this porter. I'm Miss Anderson, the physical
instructor."

"Salsette boys this way!" boomed a stentorian voice.

"Good-bye, Betty. See you soon," whispered Bob, giving Betty's hand a
hurried squeeze. "We're only across the lake, you know."

"You chaps, _move_!" directed the voice snappily.

With one accord the group dissolved, the boys hastening to the stage
marked "Salsette" and the girls following Miss Anderson.

There were two stages for the Academy and two for Shadyside, and a
smaller bus which, they afterward learned, followed the route to the
town, which was not on the railroad.

"Betty, darling!"

A pretty girl tumbled down the stage steps and nearly choked Betty with
the fervency of her embrace.

It was Norma Guerin, and Alice was waiting, smiling. Betty was delighted
to meet these old friends, and she introduced them to the Littell girls
and Libbie and Frances in the happy, tangled fashion that such
introductions usually are performed. Names and faces get straightened out
more gradually.

The stage in which they found themselves, for the seven girls insisted on
sitting near each other, was well-filled. They had started and were
lurching along the rather uneven road when Betty found herself staring at
a girl on the other side of the bus.

"Where have I seen her before?" she puzzled. "I wonder--does she look
like some one I know? Oh, I remember! She's the girl we saw on the
train--the one that took Bob's seat!"

Just then a girl sitting up near the driver's seat leaned forward.

"Ada!" she called. "Ada Nansen! Are you the girl they say brought five
trunks and three hat boxes?"

"Well, they're little ones!" said the girl sitting opposite Betty. "I
wanted to bring three wardrobe trunks, but mother thought Mrs. Eustice
might make a fuss."

So the girl's name was Ada Nansen. Betty was sure she remembered their
encounter on the train, if for no other reason than that Ada studiously
refused to meet her eye. Betty was too inexperienced to know that a
certain type of girl never takes a step toward making a new friend
unless she has the worldly standing of that friend first clearly fixed
in her mind.

"What gorgeous furs she has!" whispered Norma Guerin. "Do you know
her, Betty?"

Betty shook her head. Strictly speaking, she did not know Ada. What she
did know of her was not pleasant, and it was part of Betty's personal
creed never to repeat anything unkind if nothing good was to come of it.

"I can tell Bob, 'cause he knows about her," she said to herself. "Won't
he be surprised! I do hope she hasn't brought a huge wardrobe to school
to make Norma and Alice feel bad."

Though both the Guerin girls wore the neatest blouses and suits, any
girl could immediately have told you that their clothes were not new
that season and that the little bag each carried had been oiled and
polished at home.

That Ada Nansen's trunks were worrying Norma, too, her next remark
showed.

"Alice and I have only one trunk between us," she confided to Betty.
"Mother said Mrs. Eustice never allowed the girls to dress much. I made
Alice's party frock and mine, too. They're plain white."

"So's mine," said Betty quickly. "Mrs. Littell wouldn't let her daughters
have elaborate clothes, and the Littells have oceans of money. I don't
believe Ada can wear her fine feathers now she has 'em."

Twenty minutes' ride brought them in sight of the school, and as the bus
turned down the road that led to the lake, many exclamations of pleasure
were heard.

A double row of weeping willows, now bare, of course, bordered the lake,
and the sloping lawns of the school led down to these. The red brick
buildings of the Salsette Academy could be glimpsed on the other shore.
Shadyside consisted of a large brick and limestone building that the
last term pupils in the busses obligingly explained was the
"administration," where classes were taught. The gymnasium was also in
this building. In addition were three gray stone buildings, connected
with bridges, in which were the dormitories, the teachers' rooms, the
dining room, the infirmary, and the kitchens. The administration building
was also connected with the other buildings by a covered passageway
which, they were to discover, was opened only in bad weather. Mrs.
Eustice, the principal, had a theory that girls did not get out into the
fresh air often enough.

The main building possessed a handsome doorway, and here the busses
stopped and discharged their passengers.

"Ada, my dear love!" cried a girl from the bus behind the one in which
Betty and her friends had ridden.

An over-dressed, stout girl advanced upon Ada Nansen and kissed her
affectionately.

"Look quick! That's Ruth Gladys Royal!" whispered Bobby. "I hope they
room together--they'll be a pair. Ada, my dear love!" she mimicked
wickedly. "Libbie, let that be a warning to you--Ruth Gladys Royal is
terribly romantic, too!"

Miss Anderson, smiling and unhurried, marshaled her charges into the
large foyer and announced that they would be assigned to rooms
before luncheon.

"Mrs. Eustice will speak to you in the assembly hall this afternoon,"
said Miss Anderson. "And you will meet her and the teachers for a little
social hour."

Two busy young clerks were at work in the office adjoining the foyer, and
for those who were already provided with a room-mate the task of securing
a room was a matter of only a few moments.

Our girls, with the exception of Louise, had paired off when they had
registered for the term. Bobby Littell and Betty Gordon were, of course,
inseparable. Libbie and Frances, great friends in their home town,
naturally gravitated together, though Betty would have chosen a less
studious room-mate for the dreamy Libbie--she needed a girl who would
know more accurately what she was doing. Norma and Alice Guerin were to
share a room, and Louise felt forlornly out of things when Miss Anderson
came up to her bringing a red-haired, freckle-faced girl with wide gray
eyes and a boyish grin.

"Louise Littell--you are Louise, aren't you?" asked the teacher. "Well,
here's a girl who's come to us from a Western army post. Her name is
Constance Howard, and she doesn't know a single girl. Don't you think
you two might be happy together?"

Constance smiled again, and Louise warmed perceptibly. Louise was the
least friendly of the three Littell girls.

"I'll let you play my ukulele," offered Constance eagerly.

"Let me. She doesn't know a ukulele from a music box," said Bobby, with
sisterly frankness. "Come on, girls, let's go up and see our rooms."

They tramped up the broad staircase and crossed one of the bridges to
find themselves in a delightful, sunny building with corridors carpeted
in softest green. The rooms apparently were all connecting, and the
teacher who met them said the eight friends might have adjoining rooms as
long as "they gave no trouble."

"I'm your corridor teacher, Miss Lacey," she explained.

"Let's be glad she isn't the one we saw on the train," whispered the
irrepressible Bobby, as they all trooped into the first room.

CHAPTER XI

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It was soon settled that Betty and Bobby were to have the center room in
a suite of three and Libbie and Frances should be on one side of them,
and Louise and Constance Howard on the other. There was a perfectly
appointed bathroom opening off the center room which the six were to
share. Norma and Alice Guerin were given a room that adjoined that
occupied by Libbie and Frances, but nominally, Miss Lacey explained, they
would be considered as a unit in the next suite of three connecting
rooms. Fortunately two very friendly, quiet girls drew the room
immediately next to the Guerin girls.

"But, Betty, listen," whispered Norma Guerin, drawing Betty aside as a
great bumping and banging announced the arrival of the trunks. "Who do
you suppose has the room next to the Bennett sisters? Ada Nansen and Ruth
Gladys Royal!"

"You are in hard luck!" commented Bobby, who had overheard, as she danced
off to open the door to the grinning expressman.

"All the porters are busy!" the man explained.

"So I just told 'em Tim McCarthy wasn't one to stand by and let work go
undone. Where would ye be wantin' these little bags put now?"

He had a trunk on his back that, as Bobby afterward remarked to Betty,
"would have done for an elephant."

"Girls, whose trunk is this?" demanded Bobby.

"Not mine!" came like a well-drilled chorus.

"'Miss Ada Nansen,'" read Betty, examining the card. "Bobby, that's one
of the five!"

They directed the perspiring expressman to the right door and, it is to
be regretted, shamelessly peeped while he toiled up and down bringing the
five trunks and three hat boxes. Then he began on the baggage consigned
to Ruth Gladys Royal, and the watchers counted three trunks.

Betty looked at the Guerin girls and laughed.

"Eight trunks!" she gasped. "They can't get that number in one room.
Not and have any room for the furniture. Norma, do go and see what
you can see."

Norma sped away, and returned as speedily, her eyes blazing.

"What do you think?" she demanded furiously. "They've had some of 'em put
in our room, three I counted, and two in the Bennett girls' room. They're
as mad as hops!"

"The Bennett girls are my friends," declared Bobby Littell sententiously.
"I only hope they're mad enough to hop right down to the office and
explain the state of things."

But the luncheon gong sounded just then, and a laughing, colorful throng
of femininity swept down the broad stairs to the dining room.

"How lovely!" said Betty involuntarily.

There were no long tables in the large, airy room. Instead, round tables
that seated from six to eight, each daintily set and with a slender vase
of flowers in the center of each. Betty and Bobby had the same thought at
the same moment.

"If we could only sit together, all of us!" their eyes telegraphed.

"They're all taking the tables they want and standing by the chairs,"
whispered Betty. "Let's do that."

A table set for eight was close to the door. Betty, Bobby, Louise,
Frances, Libbie, Constance, Norma and Alice gently surrounded this and
stood quietly behind the chairs.

Some one, somewhere, gave a signal, and the roomful was seated as
if by magic.

"I see--those four tables over by the window are for the teachers,"
whispered Betty. "I see Miss Anderson and Miss Lacey, and that
white-haired woman must be the principal. Yes, and girls, there's that
woman whom the boys tormented so on the train!"

Sure enough, there she was, looking even more severe now that her hat
was removed and her sharp features were unrelieved.

"If this isn't fun! I'm sorry for poor Esther at Miss Graham's,"
said Bobby, looking about her with delight. "Mercy, what do you
suppose this is?"

One of the young clerks from the office approached the table, a large
cardboard sheet in her hand.

"I'm filling in the diagram," she explained. "You mustn't change your
seats without permission. Tell me your names, and I'll put you down in
the right spaces."

Betty looked over her shoulder as she wrote down their names. Like the
diagram of the seating space of a theatre, the tables and chairs were
plainly marked. Betty swiftly calculated that between one hundred and
twenty-five and one hundred and fifty girls must be seated in the room.
Later she learned that the total enrollment was one hundred and sixty.

Just outside the dining room was a large bulletin board, impossible to
ignore or overlook. When they came out from luncheon a notice was posted
that Mrs. Eustice would address the school at two o'clock in the assembly
hall in the main building. It was now one-thirty.

"Let's go look at the gym," suggested Bobby. "We have time. Oh, how do
you do?"--this last was apparently jerked out of her.

"I didn't know you were coming to Shadyside, Bobby," said Ruth Gladys
Royal effusively. "Do you know my chum, Ada Nansen? She's from San
Francisco."

"Constance Howard is from the West, too--the Presidio," said Bobby.

Gracefully she introduced the others to Ada and Ruth who surveyed them
indifferently. The Littell girls they knew were wealthy and had a place
in Washington society, but the rest were not yet classified.

"Haven't I seen you before?" Ada languidly questioned Betty. "You're not
the little waitress--Oh, how stupid of me! I was thinking of a girl who
looked enough like you to be your sister."

Bobby bristled indignantly, but Betty struggled with laughter.

"I remember you," she said clearly. "You had the wrong seat on the train
from Oklahoma."

Ada Nansen glanced at her with positive dislike.

"I don't recall," she said icily. "However, I've traveled so much I
daresay many incidents slip my mind. Well, Gladys, let's go in and get
good seats. I want to hear Mrs. Eustice; they say she is a direct
descendant of Richard Carvel."

"We might as well go in, too," said Bobby disconsolately. "She's used up
so much time we couldn't do the gym justice."

Promptly at two o'clock, white-haired Mrs. Eustice mounted the platform
and tapped a little bell for silence.

The principal was a gracious woman of perhaps fifty. Her snow-white hair
was piled high on her head and her dark eyes were bright and keen.
Wonderful eyes they were, seeming to gaze straight into the youthful eyes
that stared back affectionately or curiously as the case might be. Mrs.
Eustice's gown was of black or very dark blue silk, made simply and
fitting exquisitely. Straight, soft collar and cuffs of dotted net
outlined the neck and wrists, and her single ornament was a tiny watch
worn on a black ribbon.

"I wish Ada Nansen would take a good look at her," muttered Bobby.

"I am so glad to welcome you, my girls," began Mrs. Eustice.

Betty thrilled to the magic of that modulated voice, low and yet clear
enough to be heard in every corner of the large room. Surely this lovely
woman could teach them the secret of cultivated, dignified and happy
young womanhood.

The principal spoke to them briefly of her ideals for them, explained the
few rigid rules of the school, and asked that all exercise tact and
patience for the first week during which the rough edges of new
schedules might reasonably be expected to wear off.

"I want to have a little personal talk with each one of you," she
concluded. "Your corridor teachers will consult with me and will tell you
when you are to come to me. And I hope you are to be very, very happy
here with us at Shadyside."

A soft clapping of hands followed this speech, and Mrs. Eustice stepped
down from the platform to be instantly surrounded by the girls who had
spent other terms at the school.

After the older girls had spoken to the principal, the newcomers began to
move forward. They were presented by their corridor teachers, who seemed
to possess a special faculty to remember names, and here and there Mrs.
Eustice recognized a girl through the association of ideas.

As Miss Lacey swept her girls forward, Ada Nansen and Ruth Gladys Royal
happened to head the ranks. Mrs. Eustice put out her hand to Ada, then
gazed down at her in evident astonishment.

CHAPTER XII

THE LOST TREASURE

"Diamonds," whispered Betty to Norma Guerin, who seemed depressed. "She
wears three diamond rings and one sapphire and a square-cut emerald. And
her wrist-watch is platinum set with diamonds."

Mrs. Eustice gazed at the soft little hand she held for a few moments,
then released it. She said nothing.

"Ah, your mother wrote me of you," was the principal's greeting to the
Littell girls. "You look like her, Louise. And Bobby is much like her
father as I remember him."

"This is Betty Gordon," said the loyal Bobby, indicating her chum.
"Mother wrote about her, too, didn't she?"

"Indeed she did," assented Mrs. Eustice warmly. "I must have a special
talk with Betty soon, for she has an ambitious program before her. And
here are Libbie and Frances from the state I remember so affectionately
from girlhood visits there."

But it was Norma and Alice Guerin, sensitive Norma and shy Alice, who
were welcomed most cordially after all.

"So you are Elsie Guerin's daughters!" said the principal, putting an
arm around Norma and holding her hand out to Alice. "My own dear mother
taught your mother when she was a little girl with braids like yours.
And your dear grandmother used to give the most wonderful parties.
People talk about them to this day. It was at her Rose Ball I first met
my husband. You must go up the north road some day and see the old
Macklin house."

Norma and Alice fairly glowed as they went back to their rooms with the
other girls. Ada Nansen had heard, and she was regarding them with
evident respect.

Norma and Alice might have been uneasy had they heard Ada's comment when
she and Ruth were once more in their own rooms.

"They must have money," argued Ada, "though I never saw such ordinary
clothes. Giving balls and parties in the lavish Southern style costs,
let me tell you. Probably they have some fine family jewels in that
shabby trunk."

"I'll tell you what I think," said Ruth Gladys wisely. "I think the money
is all used up. Probably they're here as charity pupils for old
friendship's sake."

This speculation was duly stored up in Ada Nansen's mind to be brought
out when needed.

After dinner Miss Anderson played for them to dance in the broad hall,
but every one was tired from train journeys, and at nine o'clock they
voluntarily sought their rooms.

"Get into a kimono and brush your hair in here," hospitably suggested
Betty, and Bobby seconded her by flinging the suitcases under the beds.
All of the rooms were fitted with pretty day-beds so that a cover quickly
transformed them into couches and the bedrooms into sitting rooms.

Four gay-colored kimono-wrapped figures came pattering in presently and
curled up comfortably on the beds. Norma and Alice were the last to
arrive, and when they did come they mystified their friends by prancing
in silently and waltzing gaily about the room.

"Oh, girls!" they chortled when they had tired of this performance, "what
do you think?"

"We couldn't help hearing," said Norma deprecatingly.

"Laura Bennett called us in," declared Alice.

"Don't sing a duet," commanded Bobby sternly. "What are you talking
about? One at a time. You tell, Norma."

"Laura Bennett called us into her room," obediently recited Norma. "Miss
Lacey was talking to Ada and Ruth. You could hear every word without
listening--that is without eavesdropping--you know what I mean. Mrs.
Eustice must have spoken to Miss Lacey, because she told the girls they
would have to send all the trunks home except one apiece. Ada must put
all her jewelry in the school safe and at the Christmas holidays she is
to take it home and leave it there. Both of them have to wear their hair
down or in a knot--you know they have it waved now and done up just like
my mother's. And Miss Lacey is to go over their clothes to-morrow and
tell 'em what they can keep!"

"I'm glad some one has some sense!" was Bobby's terse comment.

Something in Norma's face told Betty that she would like to speak to her
alone, so half an hour later when the girls had dispersed for the night,
she made a bent nail file an excuse to go to the Guerins' room.

"I was hoping you'd come, Betty," said Norma gratefully. "We have to put
out the lights at ten, don't we? I'll try to talk fast. You see, Alice
and I want to tell you something."

A fleecy old-fashioned shawl lay across the bed and Norma flung this
about Betty's shoulders.

"Alice's kimono is flannel and so is mine," she explained in answer to
the protest. "You never met Grandma Macklin, did you, Betty?"

"No-o, I'm sure I never did," responded Betty thoughtfully. "Does she
live with you?"

"Yes. But while you were at the Peabodys she was visiting her half-sister
in Georgia," explained Norma. "She is mother's mother, you know."

"What was it Mrs. Eustice said about her?" questioned Betty with
interest. "Did she live near here? Was that when your mother went to
this school?"

"It was a day school then, you know," put in the laconic Alice.

"Yes, and grandma lived in a perfectly wonderful big house," said Norma.
"It must be fully five miles from here. Uncle Goliath, an old colored
man, used to drive her over every day and call for her in the afternoon.
Mother has always been determined Alice and I should graduate from
Shadyside."

"Well then, it's lovely she is to have her wish," commented Betty
brightly.

"Oh, goodness, I don't see that we're ever going to have four years,"
confessed Norma. "If you knew what they've given up at home to send us
for this term! And though we wouldn't say anything, mother and grandma
worked so hard to get us ready, Alice and I are positively ashamed of our
clothes. You see, Betty, I think when you're poor, you ought to go where
you'll meet other poor girls. Alice and I ought to have entered the
Glenside high school, I think. But when I said something like that to dad
he said it would break mother's heart. But if she knew how hard it was to
be poor and to have to rub elbows with girls who have everything--"

"I don't think you ought to feel that way," urged Betty. "You have
something that no amount of money could buy for you, and no lack can take
away--birth and breeding. And the training your mother wants you to have
is worth sacrificing other things for. Ever since I heard Mrs. Eustice
talk I feel that I know what makes her school really successful."

A soft tap fell on the door.

"Lights go off in ten minutes, girls," said Miss Lacey pleasantly.

"Do you know, Betty," confessed Norma hurriedly, "dad has lost quite a
lot of money lately. He's such a dear he never can bear to press
payment of a bill and half the county owes him. And a friend got him to
invest what he did have in some silly stock that never amounted to a
hill of beans, as the farmers say. So it's no wonder the Macklin
fortune worries mother whenever she thinks of it; a family like ours
could use money so easily."

"Most families are like that," said Betty, with a flash of Uncle Dick's
humor. "I didn't like to ask, Norma, but your grandmother must have
been wealthy."

"She was," confirmed Norma. "Not fabulously so, of course. But even in
those days when lavish hospitality was common Grandma Macklin was famous
for the way she ran the estate. She was left a widow when a very young
woman, and mother was her only child. Her husband didn't believe women
knew very much about money, and he left his fortune mostly in bonds and
jewels--the most magnificent diamonds in three counties, grandma says
hers were. And she had a rope of emeralds and two strings of exquisitely
matched pearls. Besides, there were rose topazes and lovely cameos and
oh, goodness, I couldn't repeat the list; Alice and I have been brought
up on the story.

"Well, about the time mother had finished school, Grandma Macklin came to
the end of her bank account. Several mortgages had been paid her in gold,
and she kept this money with the jewelry and a lot of solid silver in a
little safe in her room. Foolish, of course, but she says others did it
in those days, too. She meant to take the gold and some of the diamonds
to her lawyer and get a check which would take her and mother around the
world on a luxurious cruise. And the day before she had the appointment
with Mr. Davies--"

A soft blackness settled down over the girls like a blanket. The
electric lights had gone out!

"Move closer, and I'll finish," whispered Norma.

Betty snuggled up between the two, and shivered a little with excitement.

"The day before she was to drive to Edentown," repeated Norma, "a band of
Indians from the reservation in the next state came through on their
annual tramping trip and walked in on poor little grandma as she sat at
her mahogany secretary turning over her jewels and counting her beautiful
shining gold. Every darkey on the place fled in terror, and those
rascally Indians simply scooped up everything in sight and locked grandma
and mother in the room!"

"Couldn't any one stop them?" demanded Betty eagerly. "Surely a band of
Indians could have been easily traced. Didn't any one try?"

"Oh, they tried," admitted Norma. "That's the maddening part. Suppose I
told you, Betty, that I know where grandma's inheritance is this minute?"

CHAPTER XIII

THE MYSTERIOUS FOUR

"Well, for mercy's sake!" said Betty in exasperation, "if you know
where the property is, why don't you claim it? Why doesn't your mother?
Where is it?"

"At the bottom of Indian Chasm," declared Norma calmly.

"Where's that?"

"I don't know exactly," admitted Norma. "It's around here somewhere. You
see the Indians streaked for the woods, and mother got out by way of a
window and ran to the next estate. The men and boys there armed
themselves and took horses and chased the Redskins, and when they were
almost up with them the robbers tossed everything down this great canyon
in the earth. There was no way to get into it, and though they tried
lowering men with ropes, they couldn't find a solitary gold piece. As far
as any one knows it is all at the bottom of the chasm now."

"And grandma had to mortgage the house and they couldn't pay the interest
and it was sold and all the lovely mahogany furniture," mourned Alice.
"And grandma and mother moved to New York and mother taught school and
met dad, who was a medical student. And they were married when he
graduated, and grandma came to live with 'em."

Betty crept away to her own bed when the story was finished. Bobby was
asleep, for which her chum was thankful. Betty wanted to think. Surely
there must be a way to recover the Macklin fortune, if it was still down
in the big chasm.

"I'll tell Bob and we'll go and find that place. Perhaps he can think of
a plan," was Betty's last thought before she went to sleep.

The next few days were very busy ones for every pupil. Ada and Ruth, in
tears, submitted to having their wardrobes censored, and thereafter
appeared in clothes that were not too striking.

The appointments with Mrs. Eustice materialized, and Betty, after her
interview, was conscious of a sincere affection for the woman who seemed
to understand girls so thoroughly.

Bobby was "crazy," to quote her own expression, about the gymnasium
classes, and Miss Anderson beamed approvingly upon her. Betty, too, was
often to be found in the gymnasium after school hours, but Libbie had to
be driven to regular exercise. She liked to dance, but unless some one
was made responsible for her, she was prone to cut her regular gymnasium
period and devote the time to some thrilling novel. When the other girls
discovered this they good-naturedly made up a schedule for the week,
assigning a different day to every girl whose duty it should be to "seal,
sign and deliver" the reluctant Libbie at the gymnasium door at the
appointed time.

Mrs. Eustice, rather peculiarly some people thought--Ada Nansen's mother
among them--held the theory that school girls should spend a fair
proportion of their time in study. She had small patience with the
faddist type of school that abhorred "night work" and whose students
specialized on "manners" to the neglect of spelling.

"I dislike the term 'finishing school,'" she had once said. "I try
to teach my girls that what they learn in school fits them for
beginning life."

So from seven to half-past eight every night, except Friday, the pupils
at Shadyside were busy with their books. They might study in their rooms,
provided their marks for the preceding week were satisfactory, but those
who fell below a certain percentage were sentenced to prepare their
lessons in the study hall under the eye of a teacher.

The second Friday night of the term the new students were warned by
little pink cocked notes to remain in their rooms after dinner until they
had been inspected by the "Mysterious Four."

"It's a secret society," Bobby announced the moment she had read her
note. "Well, let's go upstairs and prepare to be inspected."

The eight gathered in Betty and Bobby's room, and though they were
expecting it, the knock, when it finally did come, made them all jump.

"Come--come in," stammered Betty and Bobby together.

Four veiled figures entered, each carrying something in her hand. They
spoke in disguised voices, though as they were upper classmen they were
fairly safe from recognition; the new girls were hardly acquainted among
themselves and knew few of the older students by name.

"Freshmen," said the tallest figure, "when we enter, rise."

The eight leaped to their feet at a bound.

"Do you wish to become members of the Mysterious Four?" demanded the
second figure.

"Oh, yes," chorused the willing victims.

"It is well," chanted the third figure.

"It is well," echoed the fourth.

"I don't," said Libbie calmly.

"Don't what?" questioned the tallest figure, evidently appointed chief
spokesman.

"Want to be a member of the Mysterious Four," announced Libbie, who had
an obstinate streak in her make-up.

"Unfortunately," the spokesman informed her, "you haven't any choice in
the matter; you're elected one already."

While Libbie was thinking up an answer, which considering the finality
of that statement, was not an easy matter, the tall draped figure went
on to explain to the interested girls that there were two degrees to
be undergone before one could be a full fledged member of the
Mysterious Four.

"You must take the first degree to-night," they were told. "The second
will be several weeks later."

"Are we allowed to ask a question?" asked Betty respectfully.

"Oh, yes. But we may not answer it," was the cheering response.

"Why is the society called the 'Mysterious Four'?" asked Betty "All the
freshman class received notes, so the membership must be large; where
does the four enter?"

"You'll learn that at the close of your first degree," said the spokesman
with firm kindness. "Now you're to remain here for five minutes, and then
go down to the study hall. Five minutes, remember."

They departed majestically, and the girls were left to spend their five
minutes in discussion of the visit.

"I don't see why I have to belong," grumbled Libbie.

"It will do you good," said Bobby severely. "When I promised Aunt
Elizabeth to look after you, I didn't know that meant I would have to
risk my head by sleeping under 'Lady Gwendolyn' in two volumes--and fat
ones at that"

Libbie had the grace to blush. Bobby, who was fond of books but whose
taste ran to "Rules for Basketball" and "How to Gain Health Through
Exercise," had put up a small shelf directly over her bed to hold her
literary treasures. Libbie, exhausting the space in her tiny corner
bookcase had thoughtlessly placed the two heavy volumes of the story
Bobby mentioned on top of her cousin's books with the awful result that
the shelf broke in the night and spilled the books on the wrathful Bobby.

"Let's go down to the study hall," suggested peace-loving Louise. "The
five minutes are up."

Down they trooped, to find a number of girls already there, for the most
part looking rather frightened.

At five minute intervals other groups entered, until all the freshman
class was assembled.

"I don't care anything about this society," whispered Ada Nansen to
Ruth Royal. "I wouldn't give fifty cents for an organization where no
discrimination is shown in choosing the members. However, this is
Mrs. Eustice's pet scheme, they tell me, and I want to stand well
with her. Next year I'm going to get elected to the White Scroll,
you see if I don't."

The Mysterious Four came in as the last group of girls were seated and
slowly mounted the platform.

"Candidates," announced the leader, "you are summoned here to take your
first degree. It is simple, but no shirking is to be permitted. You are
to do the one thing that you do best. As your names are called, you will
mount the platform and comply. Four minutes is allowed for decision--on
the platform."

There was a gasp from the audience, and one could almost see the mental
cog wheels of sixty girls going furiously to work.

"Betty," whispered the desperate Bobby, "what can you do best?"

"Ride, I guess," said Betty, recollections of Clover coming to mind.

There was a crashing chord from the piano. One of the veiled figures had
seated herself at the instrument and now proceeded to play "appropriate
selections" as the candidates performed their turns.

As the clever leader had foreseen, no one relished spending her allotted
four minutes for reflection on the platform in full view of the audience,
and the majority of the victims made up their minds with a rush.

After they had entered into the spirit of the thing, it was fun, and
their shrieks of laughter aroused sympathetic smiles in other rooms. No
teachers and no member of the other classes were permitted to enter, but
Aunt Nancy, the fat cook, and half a dozen young waitresses peeped in at
the door and enjoyed the spectacle hugely.

Betty Gordon obligingly cantered across the platform on a chair and won
applause by her realistic interpretation of western riding. Bobby
convulsed the room with her imaginary efforts to cut and fit a dress, her
mistakes being glaring ones, for Bobby never touched a needle if she
could help it. Clever Constance Howard had gone for her ukulele and
played it charmingly. Libbie insisted on giving the "balcony scene" from
Romeo and Juliet, in which she was supported by the unwilling Frances,
who was certainly the stiffest Romeo who ever walked the stage.

"Ada Nansen," called the leader, when the eight chums had made their
individual contributions to the program.

CHAPTER XIV

A SATURDAY RACE

Ada had been watching the others with a contempt she made little attempt
to conceal. When her name was called she walked to the platform and faced
the leader defiantly.

"What can you do best, Ada?" came the familiar question.

Ada smiled patronizingly.

"Spend money," she said briefly.

"Do that," said the young leader calmly.

"How can I spend money here?" demanded Ada angrily. "There's nothing to
buy. I call that silly."

"Then you admit you can't spend money?"

"No such thing!" Ada stamped her foot, furious at such stupidity. "I say
I can't spend it here where there is nothing to buy. You let me go to
Edentown, and I'll show you whether I can spend money or not."

"The order of the first degree of the Mysterious Four is that the
candidate must do what she can do best," repeated the veiled figure
insistently. "What can you do best?"

"Sing," said Ada sullenly.

"Then do that."

And now the watching girls had what Bobby later admitted was "the
surprise of their lives."

The girl at the piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a
popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music
by a composer with a spark of genius.

"I picked a rose in my garden fair--" sang Ada.

She sang without affectation. Her voice was a charming contralto,
evidently partially trained, and promising with coming years to be worth
consideration.

"But it withered in a day--" went on the lovely voice.

The girls were absolutely mute. When she had finished the song, and she
gave it all, they burst into a spontaneous storm of applause.

Ada barely acknowledged the hand-clapping. Her face had instantly slipped
back into the old sullen lines.

"When she can sing like that, shouldn't you think she would be perfectly
happy?" sighed Betty. "I'd give anything if I had a voice!"

As a matter of fact Betty had a clear little contralto of her own and she
sang as naturally as a bird. But there was no denying that Ada's voice
was exceptional.

After the last girl had had her turn the veiled leader mounted the
platform and threw back her swathing net.

"She's the president of the senior class, Mabel Waters," whispered a girl
near Betty.

"I have the honor to welcome you all as members in good standing of the
novice class, first-degree, Mysterious For," announced Miss Waters.
"That's all there is to the name, girls--when we decided to form a new
society here in school some one asked 'What's it for?' So our
organization became the Mysterious F-O-R, and you'll find out as time
goes on what the answer is. I might say, though, that happiness and good
fellowship and a little spice of sisterliness are what we try to
incorporate in the unwritten bylaws. And now I think Aunt Nancy has some
cake and ice-cream for us."

Saturday was a busy day for the one hundred and sixty odd girls who were
enrolled at Shadyside. Penance and pleasure had a way of marking off the
hours. Those who were good were allowed to go twice a month to Edentown,
chaperoned by a teacher, for shopping, moving picture treats, and such
other simple pleasures as the small city afforded. There were always a
number of girls sentenced to "within bounds," which were the spacious
school grounds, for minor sins of omission and commission. Bobby Littell
was usually among these. She was impulsive and heedless, and got herself
into hot water with amazing regularity.

"Bobby," announced Betty, one Saturday morning not long after the
initiation into the Mysterious For, "don't you think you could manage to
have a good record this coming week? We want to go nutting a week from
to-day, and if you have to stay in bounds it will spoil all the fun."

"I'll try my best," promised Bobby solemnly. "I never mean to do a
thing, Betty. Trouble is, I think afterward. I did want to go to
Edentown to-day, too, but Libbie and Frances have promised to get the
wool for my sweater. Want to come down to the gym? I'm going to drill my
squad this morning."

In the gymnasium they found Ada Nansen, also in charge of a squad.

"She flunked twice in French and was impudent to Madame," whispered
Bobby, who knew all the school gossip. "Mrs. Eustice canceled her
Edentown permit."

Ada frankly scowled at the newcomers. She had found the Littell girls
slow to overtures of friendship, and they persisted in displaying an
annoying fancy for the society of Betty and the Guerin girls, who, for
all Ada knew, might be what she described to her mother as "perfect
nobodies." So Ada and Ruth Royal gradually formed a circle of their own
to which gravitated the more snobbish girls, those who fought, openly or
covertly, the rule for simple dressing, and those who found in Ada's
characteristics of petty meanness, worship of money, and social
aspirations a response to similar urgings of their own natures.

"Well, Bobby, I'm glad to see you and your 'men,'" said Miss Anderson
briskly. "I was just saying to Ada that to-day is too beautiful to waste
indoors. I want you all to come out on the campus and we'll have a race."

Bobby's squad included Betty--who had refused to leave her chum--the
Guerin girls (who refused to go to Edentown because it was almost
impossible to avoid spending money for little luxuries and for
treats), Constance Howard and Dora Estabrooke, a fat girl who was
good-nature itself.

"We'll have to use elimination," said the teacher when she had her pupils
out on the green level that was back of the gymnasium and walled in by
tall Lombardy poplars planted closely. "Let's see, twelve of you" (for
Ada's squad numbered the same). "I think we'll number off first."

The odd numbers in each squad fell out and were matched, and the even
numbers were paired similarly. Betty's rival was a near-sighted girl who
delayed the next step because Miss Anderson discovered that she was
wearing high-heeled shoes.

"I don't care for those flat things," volunteered Violet Canby, as she
departed lockerward at Miss Anderson's stern insistence. "I have a very
high instep, and they hurt me."

Nevertheless, she had to wear them, and the physical instructor put the
others through a rigid inspection, but bloomers and sneakers were all
properly donned.

"Now," said Miss Anderson when Violet had returned minus her pumps, "try
to remember that it's just like a spelling match, girls; gradually we'll
narrow down to the two best runners."

The trial "heats" resulted in leaving Betty, Bobby and Norma of the one
squad, and Ada, Ruth and a girl named Edith Harrison, of the other.

Norma was paired with Ruth Royal, and at the signal they got away nicely.
Norma was an excellent runner, and she reached the tape fully three yards
ahead of Ruth. Something in her glowing, happy face, prompted Ruth to
resentment.

"Oh, well," she remarked disdainfully, taking care that her words should
carry clearly, "I suppose a farmer's daughter does a good deal of running
after cows--they ought to be in training."

Norma flushed scarlet.

"My father is a doctor," she said hotly. "I'm not a farmer's daughter,
but I know splendid girls who are--girls too well-bred to say a thing
like that."

Ruth walked away--she was out of the finals now--and Norma went back to
the starting place. She had not recovered her poise when the time came
for her to race Bobby, and that young person won easily only to be
outdistanced by Betty.

Rather to the latter's regret, she found herself the opponent of Ada for
the deciding race.

"Go it, Betty--beat her!" whispered Bobby, proud of her chum. "She and
Ruth Royal have dispositions like vinegar barrels!"

Betty had often raced with Bob, and she ran like a boy herself--head
down, elbows held in. She was running that way, against Ada, when
something suddenly shunted her off sideways. She fell, landing in a
little heap. High and sharp rose the shrill whistle of the starter.

"Are you hurt, Betty?" demanded Miss Anderson, running up to the dazed
girl and lifting her to her feet. "Ada Nansen that was absolutely the
most unsportsmanlike trick I ever saw. You've lost the race on a foul.
Betty was clearly winning when you tripped her."

"I didn't," muttered Ada, but she refused to meet her teacher's eyes.

"I don't want a race on a foul," argued Betty pluckily, for her skinned
elbow was smarting madly. "Let's begin over."

She had her way, too, and this time won without interference, though Ada
was so furious that Bobby was seriously concerned.

"She looks mad enough to put something in your soup," she told Betty, as
they went in to dress and have Betty's elbow attended to. "What is it,
Caroline?"

"Two young gentlemen to see you, Miss Bobby and Miss Betty," announced
the maid importantly. "They is waiting in the parlor. Mrs. Eustice says
you all should go right up."

In the parlor the girls found two slim, uniformed young figures who rose
like well-set-up ramrods at their entrance.

"Bob!" ejaculated Betty, her voice betraying her pleasure. "Bob, you look
splendid!"

Tommy Tucker glanced hopefully at Bobby.

"Don't I look splendid, too?" he asked.

"You're overshadowed by Bob," said Bobby mischievously. "However, when
not compared with him, I dare say you look rather well."

CHAPTER XV

NORMA MAKES REPAIRS

This had to content the Tucker twin who took Bobby's chaffing
good-humoredly.

Bob Henderson did indeed look very well. The uniform was most becoming,
and though he was studying hard to make up for lack of preparation, his
clear eyes and skin and firm muscles told of a wise schedule that
included plenty of outdoor exercise.

"We want you girls to come over to a practice game," announced Tommy
Tucker presently. "We've got rather jolly rooms, and we thought if you
brought Miss Thingumbob along we could have you in for tea and show you
the sights. Do you think the powers that be will say yes?"

"Well, I don't know," answered Betty thoughtfully. "I didn't know you
Salsette boys had much to do with girls. Of course the whole school goes
to the big football games, but asking us to see a practice game is
something new. Of course it will be difficult to get an afternoon when
every one is free--"

"Every one!" exploded Bob. "Who said anything about every one? We don't
want the whole school--just you and Bobby and Louise and Frances and
Libbie and the Guerin girls."

"Sure, the same bunch that came up on the train," said Tommy Tucker.
"Lead me to Mrs. Eustice and I'll ask her."