The Orchard Secret

  CHAPTER XVI Arden's Adventure

  The moon looked down upon a strange party of girls a moment later, forthey had all rushed out of the gymnasium after the ringing of the alarmbell. Blackened faces and slicked-back hair, some in tattered garmentsand others in borrowed finery, sophomores and freshmen crowded forward tothat side of the building where hung the bell.

  But when they reached the spot nothing was to be seen. The bell rope wasstill swaying as though recently tugged at, but the hands that had doneit were not in evidence. The bell itself still faintly vibrated from therecent violent clanging.

  "Well, at least here's something they can't blame us for," said Sim tothe curious Arden and Terry. "We have perfect alibis and dozens ofwitnesses. This time somebody else can be campused."

  "Of course, Sim," Terry agreed. "But the point is--who did it? It'srather a childish thing to do--going about pulling bells and then runningaway. It doesn't frighten anyone in the least, if that's what it wasintended for."

  "It was silly, that's true, Terry; but listen to this." Arden motionedfor her two chums to come closer to her. "Come over here where the otherswon't hear. We don't want to have Tiddy blaming us for any more alarmingstories."

  "Arden! You have something to tell us, I know!" Terry was pulling Simaway from a group of chattering girls. "Come over here, Sim. Arden knowssomething!"

  The three from 513 separated from the main crowd of disguised girls, andArden began.

  "I was dancing with Jane Randall when something made me look up at one ofthe high gym windows, and there I saw a strange, white face staring in atme."

  "Arden--you didn't!" gasped Sim quickly. "Do you mean directly at you theface was staring?"

  "It seemed so."

  "Do you think that was the person who rang the bell?"

  "That, my dear Watson, is just the point. It was such a short time afterI saw the face that the bell rang, it couldn't have been done by theperson who looked in at me through the window."

  "How thrilling! For Pete's sake, don't let anyone know what you saw,Arden. If you do we'll be in more trouble!" Terry said.

  "She's right," Sim agreed. "We'll keep it under our hats until we findout something more. The others are going back in, now. We'd better goin."

  The sophomores and freshmen, so rudely disturbed at their reconciliationparty, having investigated as best they could in the uncertain moonlight,and having discovered nothing more than that the evidence of the swayingrope indicated the bell had rung (which evidence their ears alreadytestified to), were returning to the gymnasium.

  But before they went in, though just how it started no one appeared toknow, they were all doing a sort of snake dance in the silvery sheen ofthe moonlight.

  Twisting and turning, the line of masquerading girls in fantastic figurescircled beneath the old alarm bell that hung on a projecting beam outfrom the side of the building. It thus projected to allow the sound ofits alarm to vibrate freely in all directions. Above their heads and outof reach of the hands of the tallest of the girls, dangled the weatheredrope attached to the bell.

  "It must have been a very tall person who could reach that rope!" pantedTerry as she circled with Sim.

  "A veritable giant," was the answer. "None of the girls could have doneit."

  "No. That's what I thought."

  "What are you talking about?" demanded Terry, who had been caught in thehuman maelstrom by some strange girl and whirled about.

  "We don't quite know," said Arden.

  Screaming and laughing, the sophomores in the lead took the freshmenrunning across the campus and stopped in front of the dormitory.

  "Good-night, freshies!" cried Toots and some of the leaders. "And happydreams!"

  "That means the end of hazing," said Arden. "It's always done this way."

  "Thank goodness for that!" murmured Terry.

  The party was over. Then the girls, sophomores and freshmen, formed afriendly circle and sang "Autumn Leaves," the alma mater song. The girls'voices carried softly through the moonlit night and even the mostunromantic was impressed with the beauty of the words and melody.

  Then, bidding one another good-night, the happy students hurried to theirrespective rooms, talking excitedly. And the dean and her helpers settledmore comfortably in their beds, knowing that for another term this affairwas successfully over.

  The door of 513 shut on Arden, Sim, and Terry. For a moment they stoodlooking at one another, and then, as if by agreement, they began tolaugh; hysterical laughs but none the less hearty.

  "Oh, you do look such a sight, Sim!" Terry gasped.

  "Why bring that up?" Sim chuckled.

  "But we had a lovely time," Arden said. "Even if there was a mysteriousbell ringing and a face----"

  "Tell us more about that," begged Sim.

  "I've told you all I know. I saw a face--an old man's, I'm sure, staringin at me from the window. Then the bell rang."

  "But why?" demanded Terry.

  "If we could find out, perhaps we could solve the mystery of severalother things that have happened around Cedar Ridge," Arden said.

  "But that bell," went on Sim. "I heard some of the girls talking. Itseems it is an old alarm bell, to be rung in case of fires. But when thetelephone system was put in the rope that originally reached close to theground, so help could be summoned from the town and from nearbyresidents, was cut off. And it was cut off so high up that no ordinaryperson, standing under the rope, could reach it."

  "Why was that done?" asked Terry.

  "Because it was found," Sim explained, "that when the rope was left longenough to be reached, some students, thinking it fun, rang the alarm.That was long before our time. So the dean had the rope cut short."

  "Why didn't she take it off altogether?" asked Arden.

  "I asked a soph that," explained Sim, "and she told me it was thoughtbest to leave most of the rope in place so if ever it was necessary tosound the old bell, it could be done."

  "But how, if the rope was high up?" Terry inquired.

  "By standing on a ladder, I suppose. Don't ask me, for I really don'tknow."

  With determination they began washing off the marks of the eyebrow-pencilmustaches, using cold cream, and finally they were ready for bed.

  "Well," remarked Arden in tones that told her chums she had made up hermind seriously, "something is going to happen, I feel sure of it."Pressed for details, she would say nothing more.

  But a few evenings after this, up to which time nothing of moment hadhappened save that the three from 513 began to feel more and more theircampused bonds, a thick hazy fog enveloped the college grounds, spreadingto the near-by town and villages about. Arden was walking alone from thelibrary back to the dormitory. The fog seemed suddenly swept in from thedistant sea, settling in the low places so that the upper stories of thebuilding seemed floating in the air.

  Arden thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt and in one feltthe letter Sim had entrusted to her--the letter asking her father forpermission to leave college. The excitement of the masquerade party andthe mysterious bell-ringing had done nothing to lighten Sim's depression.She was still determined, it seemed, to carry out her intention.

  Sim didn't seem to care about anything. She was not the least bit excitedby the bell-ringing nor by the strange face, and evidently had dismissedthem from her mind.

  Arden felt there was no time to be lost if Sim was to be kept at CedarRidge. The strange face she had seen through the obscured window when shewas dancing with Jane Randall had seemed vaguely familiar, but she hadglimpsed it for so short a time that it was impossible to recognize it.No one else had seen it, of that Arden was certain, for no one had spokenof it, and there were no more stories current of mysterious doings aboutthe college.

  "Sim will just pack up and go home unless something is done to make herchange her mind," thought Arden as she walked along through the fog. "AndI'm going to do it!"

  Campused or not, sh
e would now go to the little railroad station and senda telegraph message to her always sympathetic father, asking him for themoney to put the swimming pool in order. That would cause Sim to remain.

  Arden had everything in her favor for concealment, and she neededconcealment in this risky undertaking. The fog, becoming more dense everyminute, and the fact that she was alone, would allow her to reach thestation unobserved. Also it was just the time when most of the studentswere in their rooms preparing to go down to supper in a short time.

  Arden ran through the gathering gloom across the campus and toward thepost office. The yellow gleaming lights of the railroad station beckonedto her with their flickering rays from the other side of the tracks.

  There was always the chance that someone from the college might be in thelittle suburban station looking up trains, inquiring about baggage orexpress shipments, or sending a telegram. But Arden, risking thediscovery of her voidance of the campus prohibition, kept on her ratherperilous way. At the same time she was trying to be cautious.

  First, she walked with light footsteps toward the window of the telegraphand ticket office nearest the tracks. She tried to peer through thiswindow into the waiting room beyond but could see nothing through themurky glass and the heavy mesh of wire that covered it, save theindistinct figure of the ticket agent whose duties were combined withthose of baggage-man, train dispatcher, telegraph operator, andoccasional expressman.

  "I'll try the side window," Arden determined, and through this she wasable to glance into the deserted station. There was no one in the waitingroom, as far as she could see: not even one of the few town taxi-driversescaping from the heavy fog and the chilly dampness of the approachingnight.

  "Here's luck!" Arden thought. "If I'm quick I can send the telegram andbe out of here before anyone sees me. Of course, the smart thing to havedone would have been to write out my message before I came here. But Ithink it won't take long."

  The dark brown door leading into the waiting room was heavy and stuck atthe sill. That many feet had kicked it loose was evidenced by severaldents and scratches showing at the bottom in the dim glow of an outsidelamp under the station platform covering. After one or two futile effortsArden managed to push back the door and enter.

  The ticket and telegraph office was faintly lighted, but as Arden lookedin through the little window, protected by a wicket of brass, she couldnot make out the form of the agent she was sure she had seen when shepeered in from the outside platform.

  "Oh, dear!" worried the girl. "He must have gone out, and before he comesback to take my message, someone from the college may stop in here andcatch me. That's the worst of these country places. I suppose there isn'tanother train for some time and the agent went out for a rest. If I couldonly reach in and get a telegraph blank I could write the message, with anotation to send it collect, and leave it here for him. Let's see--whatshall I say? 'Must have a thousand dollars at once. Can you send it?Letter follows.' Dad will probably think I've embezzled some of thecollege funds or stolen some jewels. Oh, where is that agent?"

  She drummed impatiently with a pencil on the shelf of the window andstood on tiptoes to look in. As she did so the agent suddenly emergedfrom where he was crouched low in a stooping position halfway into asmall supply closet in one corner of his cubbyhole of an office, out ofArden's sight. The agent stood up so quickly, directly in front of thewicket window confronting Arden, that it was as if some giganticJack-in-the-box had popped out at her.

  "Oh!" she gasped, preventing herself, by a strong effort, from springingback. Then again, but less hysterically: "Oh, here you are!"

  "Well?" asked the agent and he smiled.

  Arden opened her mouth to say she wanted to send a telegram, but thesudden appearance of the man, popping up into her view in that manner,was so disconcerting that she could only stand there and stare at him.And as she stared she realized, with a shock, that she had seen the faceof this man somewhere before. She stood there, silent and perplexed,trying to solve the puzzle, trying to remember. Could she have seen theman before?

  He stood patiently waiting for her to state her wants.

  But Arden went into a strange panic of fear and uncertainty.

  "I--I think I've forgotten something!" she gasped, backing nervously awayfrom the window. "I--I'll come back--later." She forced to her face arather sickly smile.

  "Very well," said the man behind the wicket. "I'll be open for quite awhile yet."

  Then, turning away, Arden fled, pulled open the door, scurried across thetracks and rushed back to college. Her one thought was to bring Terry andSim with her to the station on a strange errand. She wanted them to helpher identify the man in the ticket office as the missing Pangborn heir,pictured on the placard in the post office.

  For that was exactly what Arden believed. So obsessed had she become withthe poster picture and the reward offered for information about theoriginal, that she was sure she was right.

  The man who had popped up at the wicket window was Harry Pangborn.

  "I'm positive of it!" murmured Arden as she ran faster. "But I must getSim and Terry to look at him. I'll need their evidence."