Ruth Fielding At College

 OR

 THE MISSING EXAMINATION PAPERS

 BY ALICE B. EMERSON

Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill, " "Ruth Fielding on CliffIsland, " Etc. 

_ILLUSTRATED_

NEW YORKCUPPLES & LEON COMPANYPUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1917, byCupples & Leon Company

Ruth Fielding at College

Printed in U. S. A. 

[Illustration: "ASHORE! PUT US ASHORE!" RUTH GASPED. ]

CONTENTS

 I. Looking Collegeward

 II. Maggie

 III. Expectations

 IV. First Impressions

 V. Getting Settled

 VI. Miss Cullam's Trouble

 VII. Fame Is Not Always an Asset

 VIII. The Stone Face

 IX. Getting on

 X. A Tempest in a Teapot

 XI. The One Rebel

 XII. Ruth Is Not Satisfied

 XIII. The Girl in the Storm

 XIV. "Oft in the Stilly Night"

 XV. An Odd Adventure

 XVI. What Was in Rebecca's Trunk

 XVII. What Was in Rebecca's Heart

 XVIII. Bearding the Lions

 XIX. A Deep, Dark Plot

 XX. Two Surprises

 XXI. Many Things Happen

 XXII. Can It Be a Clue?

 XXIII. The Squall

 XXIV. Treasure Hunting

 XXV. The End of a Perfect Year

RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE

CHAPTER I

LOOKING COLLEGEWARD

"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"

By no possibility could Aunt Alvirah Boggs have risen from her lowrocking chair in the Red Mill kitchen without murmuring this complaint. 

She was a little, hoop-backed woman, with crippled limbs; but shepossessed a countenance that was very much alive, nut-brown andinnumerably wrinkled though it was. 

She had been Mr. Jabez Potter's housekeeper at the Red Mill for morethan fifteen years, and if anybody knew the "moods and tenses" of themiserly miller, it must have been Aunt Alvirah. She even professed toknow the miller's feelings toward his grand-niece, Ruth Fielding, betterthan Ruth knew them herself. 

The little old woman was expecting the return of Ruth now, and she wentto the porch to see if she could spy her down the road, and thus bewarned in time to set the tea to draw. Ruth and her friends, who hadgone for a tramp in the September woods, would come in ravenous for teaand cakes and bread-and-butter sandwiches. 

Aunt Alvirah looked out upon a very beautiful autumn landscape when sheopened the farmhouse door. The valley of the Lumano was attractive atall times--in storm or sunshine. Now it was a riot of color, from thedeep crimson of the sumac to the pale amber of certain maple leaveswhich fell in showers whenever the wanton breeze shook the boughs. 

"Here they come!" murmured Aunt Alvirah. "Here's my pretty!"

She identified the trio striding up the roadway, distant as they were. Ruth, her cheeks rosy, her hair flying, came on ahead, while theblack-haired and black-eyed twins, Helen and Tom Cameron, walkedhand-in-hand behind her. This was their final outing together in thevicinity of the Red Mill for many months. Helen and Tom were always veryclose companions, and although they had already been separated duringschool terms, Tom had run over from Seven Oaks to see his sister atBriarwood for almost every week-end. 

"No more of 'sich doin's now, old man, " Helen said to him, smilingrather tremulously. "And even when you get to Harvard next year, youwill not be allowed often at Ardmore. They say there is a sign 'No BoysAllowed' stuck up beside every 'Keep Off the Grass' sign on the Ardmorelawns. "

"Nonsense!" laughed Tom. 

"Oh, I only repeat what I've been told. "

"Well, Sis, you won't be entirely alone, " Tom said kindly. "Ruth will bewith you. You and she will have your usual good times. "

"Of course. But _you'll_ be awfully lonely, Tommy. "

"True enough, " agreed Tom. 

Then Ruth's gay voice hailed them from the porch upon which she hadmounted yards ahead of them. 

"Come on, slow-pokes. Aunt Alvirah has put on the tea. I smell it!"

Ruth Fielding did not possess her chum's measure of beauty. Helen was adainty, compelling brunette with flashing eyes--eyes she had alreadylearned to use to the undoing of what Ruth called "the youthful male ofthe species. "

As for Ruth herself, she considered boys no mystery. She was fond ofTom, for he was the first friend she had made in that long-ago time whenshe arrived, a little girl and a stranger, at the Red Mill. Other boysdid not interest Ruth in the least. 

Without Helen's beauty, she was, nevertheless, a decidedly attractivegirl. Her figure was well rounded, her eyes shone, her hair was justwavy enough to be pretty, and she was very, very much alive. If RuthFielding took an interest in anything that thing, Tom declared, "wentwith a bang!"

She was positive, energetic, and usually finished anything that shebegan. She had already done some things that few girls of her age couldhave accomplished. 

The trio of friends trooped into Aunt Alvirah's clean and shiningkitchen. 

"Dear me! dear me!" murmured the little old woman, "I sha'n't have thepleasure of your company for long. I'll miss my pretty, " and she smiledfondly at Ruth. 

"That's the only drawback about coming home from school, " grumbled Tom, looking really forlorn, even with his mouth full of Aunt Alvirah's poundcake. 

"What's the drawback?" demanded his twin. 

"Going away again. Just think! We sha'n't see each other for so long. "

He was staring at Ruth, and Helen, with a roguish twinkle in her eye, passed him her pocket-handkerchief--a wee and useless bit oflace--saying:

"Weep, if you must, Tommy; but get it over with. Ruth and I are notgnashing _our_ teeth about going away. Just to think! ARDMORE!"

Nothing but capital letters would fully express the delight she put intothe name of the college she and Ruth were to attend. 

"Huh!" grunted Tom. 

Aunt Alvirah said: "It wouldn't matter, deary, if you was both goin' offto be Queens of Sheby; it's the goin' away that hurts. "

Ruth had her arms about the little old woman and her own voice wascaressing if not lachrymose. 

"Don't take it so to heart, Aunt Alvirah. We shall not forget you. Youshall send us a box of goodies once in a while as you always do; and Iwill write to you and to Uncle Jabez. Keep up your heart, dear. "

"Easy said, my pretty, " sighed the old woman. "Not so easy follered out. An' Jabe Potter is dreadful tryin' when you ain't here. "

"Poor Uncle Jabez, " murmured Ruth. 

"Poor Aunt Alvirah, you'd better say!" exclaimed Helen, sharply, for shehad not the patience with the miserly miller that his niece possessed. 

At the moment the back door was pushed open. Helen jumped. She fearedthat Uncle Jabez had overheard her criticism. 

But it was only Ben, the hired man, who thrust his face bashfully aroundthe edge of the door. The young people hailed him gaily, and Ruthoffered him a piece of cake. 

"Thank'e, Miss Ruth, " Ben said. "I can't come in. Jest came to the shedfor the oars. "

"Is uncle going across the river in the punt?" asked Ruth. 

"No, Miss Ruth. There's a boat adrift on the river. "

"What kind of boat?" asked Tom, jumping up. "What d'you mean?"

"She's gone adrift, Mr. Tom, " said Ben. "Looks like she come from one o'them camps upstream. "

"Oh! let's go and see!" cried Helen, likewise eager for something new. 

Neither of the Cameron twins ever remained in one position or wereinterested solely in one thing for long. 

The young folk trooped out after Ben through the long, covered passageto the rear door of the Red Mill. The water-wheel was turning and thejar of the stones set every beam and plank in the structure totrembling. The air was a haze of fine white particles. Uncle Jabez cameforward, as dusty and crusty an old miller as one might ever expect tosee. 

He was a tall, crabbed looking man, the dust of the mill seemingly soground into the lines of his face that it was grey all over and onewondered if it could ever be washed clean again. He only nodded to hisniece and her friends, seizing the oars Ben had brought with theobservation:

"Go 'tend to Gil Martin, Ben. He's waitin' for his flour. Where ye beenall this time? That boat'll drift by. "

Ben knew better than to reply as he hastened to the shipping door whereMr. Martin waited with his wagon for the sacks of flour. The miller wentto the platform on the riverside, Ruth and her friends following him. 

"I see it!" cried Tom. "Can't be anybody in it for it's sailingbroadside. "

Uncle Jabez put the oars in the punt and began to untie the painter. 

"All the more reason we should get it, " he said drily. "Salvage, yeknow. "

"You mustn't go alone, Uncle Jabez, " Ruth said mildly. 

"Huh! why not?" snarled the old miller. 

"Something might happen. If Ben can't go, I will take an oar. "

He knew she was quite capable of handling the punt, even in the rapids, so he merely growled his acquiescence. At that moment Ruth discoveredsomething. 

"Why! the boat isn't empty!" she cried. 

"You're right, Ruth! I see something in it, " said Tom. 

Uncle Jabez straightened up, holding the painter doubtfully. 

"Aw, well, " he grunted. "If there's somebody in it----"

He saw no reason for going after the drifting boat if it were manned. Hecould not claim the boat or claim salvage for it under suchcircumstances. 

But the strange boat was drifting toward the rapids of the Lumano thatbegan just below the mill. In the present state of the river this "whitewater, " as lumbermen call it, was dangerous. 

"Why, how foolish!" Helen cried. "Whoever is in that boat is lying inthe bottom of it. "

"And drifting right toward the middle of the river!" added her twin. 

"Hurry up, Uncle Jabez!" urged Ruth. "We must go out there. "

"What fur, I'd like to know?" demanded the miller sharply. "We ain'thired ter go out an' wake up every reckless fule that goes driftin' by. "

"Of course not. But maybe he's not asleep, " Ruth said quickly. "Maybehe's hurt. Maybe he has fainted. Why, a dozen things might havehappened!"

"An' a dozen things might _not_ have happened, " said old Jabez Potter, coolly retying the painter. 

"Uncle! we mustn't do that!" cried his niece. "We must go out in thepunt and make sure all is right with that boat. "

"Who says so?" demanded the miller. 

"Of course we must. I'll go with you. Come, do! There is somebody indanger. "

Ruth Fielding, as she spoke, leaped into the punt. Tom would have beenglad to go with her, but she had motioned him back before he couldspeak. She was ashamed to have the miller so display the mean side ofhis nature before her friends. 

Grumblingly he climbed into the heavy boat after her. Tom cast off andRuth pushed the boat's nose upstream, then settled herself to one of theoars while Uncle Jabez took the other. 

"Huh! they ain't anything in it for us, " grumbled Mr. Potter as the puntslanted toward mid-stream. 

CHAPTER II

MAGGIE

Ruth Fielding knew very well the treacherous current of the Lumano. Shesaw that the drifting boat with its single occupant was very near to thepoint where the fierce pull of the mid-stream current would seize it. 

So she rowed her best and having the stroke oar, Uncle Jabez was obligedto pull _his_ best to keep up with her. 

"Huh!" he snorted, "it ain't so pertic'lar, is it, Niece Ruth? Thatfeller----"

She made no reply, but in a few minutes they were near enough to thedrifting boat for Ruth to glance over her shoulder and see into it. Atonce she uttered a little cry of pity. 

"What now?" gruffly demanded Uncle Jabez. 

"Oh, Uncle! It's a girl!" Ruth gasped. 

"A gal! _Another gal?_" exclaimed the old miller. "I swanny! The RedMill is allus littered up with gals when you're to hum. "

This was a favorite complaint of his; but he pulled more vigorously, nevertheless, and the punt was quickly beside the drifting boat. 

A girl in very commonplace garments--although she was not at all acommonplace looking girl--lay in the bottom of the boat. Her eyes wereclosed and she was very pale. 

"She's fainted, " Ruth whispered. 

"Who in 'tarnation let a gal like that go out in a boat alone, andwithout airy oar?" demanded Uncle Jabez, crossly. "Here! hold steady. I'll take that painter and 'tach it to the boat. We'll tow her in. Butlemme tell ye, " added Uncle Jabez, decidedly, "somebody's got ter pay mefur my time, or else they don't git the boat back. She seems to be allright. "

"Why, she isn't conscious!" cried Ruth. 

"Huh!" grunted Uncle Jabez, "I mean the boat, not the gal. "

Ruth always suspected that Uncle Jabez Potter made a pretense of beingreally worse than he was. When a little girl she had been almost afraidof her cross-grained relative--the only relative she had in the world. 

But there were times when the ugly crust of the old man's character wasrubbed off and his niece believed she saw the true gold beneath. She wasfrequently afraid that others would hear and not understand him. Nowthat she was financially independent of Uncle Jabez Ruth was not sosensitive for herself. 

They towed the boat back to the mill landing. Tom and Ben carried thestrange girl, still unconscious into the Red Mill farmhouse, andbustling little Aunt Alvirah had her put at once to bed. 

"Shall I hustle right over to Cheslow for the doctor?" Tom asked. 

"Who's goin' to pay him?" growled Uncle Jabez, who heard this. 

"Don't let that worry you, Mr. Potter, " said the youth, his black eyesflashing. "If I hire a doctor I always pay him. "

"It's a good thing to have that repertation, " Uncle Jabez said drily. "One should pay the debts he contracts. "

But Aunt Alvirah scoffed at the need of a doctor. 

"The gal's only fainted. Scare't it's likely, findin' herself adrift inthat boat. You needn't trouble yourself about it, Jabez. "

Thus reassured the miller went back to examine the boat. Although it wassomewhat marred, it was not damaged, and Uncle Jabez was satisfied thatif nobody claimed the boat he would be amply repaid for his trouble. 

Naturally, the two girls fluttered about the stranger a good deal whenAunt Alvirah had brought her out of her faint. Ruth was particularlyattracted by "Maggie" as the stranger announced her name to be. 

"I was working at one of those summer-folks' camps up the river. Mr. Bender's, it was, " she explained to Ruth, later. "But all the folks wentlast night, and this morning I was going across the river with mybag--oh, did you find my bag, Miss?"

"Surely, " Ruth laughed. "It is here, beside your bed. "

"Oh, thank you, " said the girl. "Mr. Bender paid me last night. One ofthe men was to take me across the river, and I sat down and waited, andnobody came, and by and by I fell into a nap and when I woke up I wasout in the river, all alone. My! I was frightened. "

"Then you have no reason for going back to the camp?" asked Ruth, thoughtfully. 

"No--Miss. I'm through up there for the season. I'll look for anothersituation--I--I mean job, " she added stammeringly. 

"We will telephone up the river and tell them you are all right, " Ruthsaid. 

"Oh, thank you--Miss. "

Ruth asked her several other questions, and although Maggie wasreserved, her answers were satisfactory. 

"But what's goin' to become of the gal?" Uncle Jabez asked that eveningafter supper, when he and his niece were in the farmhouse kitchen alone. 

Aunt Alvirah had carried tea and toast in to the patient and was sittingby her. 

The girl of the Red Mill thought Maggie did not seem like the usual"hired help" whom she had seen. She seemed much more refined than onemight expect a girl to be of the class to which she claimed to belong. 

Ruth looked across the table at her cross-grained old relative and madeno direct reply to his question. She was very sure that, after all, hewould be kind to the strange girl if Maggie actually needed to behelped. But Ruth had an idea that Maggie was quite capable of helpingherself. 

"Uncle Jabez, " the girl of the Red Mill said to the old man, softly, "doyou know something?"

"Huh?" grunted Uncle Jabez. "I know a hull lot more than you youngsprigs gimme credit for knowin'. "

"Oh! I didn't mean it that way, " and Ruth laughed cheerily at him. "Imean that I have discovered something, and I wondered if you haddiscovered the same thing?"

"Out with it, Niece Ruth, " he ordered, eyeing her curiously. "I'll tellye if it's anything I already know. "

"Well, Aunt Alvirah is growing old. "

"Ye don't say!" snapped the miller. "And who ain't, I'd like to know?"

"Her rheumatism is much worse, and it will soon be winter. "

"Say! what air ye tryin' to do?" he demanded. "Tellin' me these herepuffictly obvious things! Of course she's gittin' older; and of courseher rheumatiz is bound to grow wuss. Doctors ain't never yet foundnothin' to cure rheumatiz. And winter us'ally follers fall--even in thishere tarnation climate. "

"Well, but the combination is going to be very bad for Aunt Alvirah, "Ruth said gently, determined to pursue her idea to the finish, no matterhow cross he appeared to be. 

"Wal, is it _my_ fault?" asked Uncle Jabez. 

"It's nobody's fault, " Ruth told him, shaking her head, and veryserious. "But it's Aunt Alvirah's misfortune. "

"Huh!"

"And we must do something about it. "

"Huh! Must we? What, I'd like to have ye tell me?" said the old miller, eyeing Ruth much as one strange dog might another that he suspected wasafter his best marrow bone. 

"We must get somebody to help her do the work while I am at college, "Ruth said firmly. 

The dull red flooded into Uncle Jabez's cheeks, and for once gave him alittle color. His narrow eyes sparkled, too. 

"There's one thing I've allus said, Niece Ruth, " he declared hotly. "Yeair a great one for spending other folks' money. "

It was Ruth's turn to flush now, and although she might not possess whatAunt Alvirah called "the Potter economical streak, " she did own to aspark of the Potter temper. Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, althoughshe was far from quarrelsome. 

"Uncle Jabez, " she returned rather tartly, "have I been spending much of_your_ money lately?"

"No, " he growled. "But ye ain't l'arnt how to take proper keer of yerown--trapsin' 'round the country the way you do. "

She laughed then. "I'm getting knowledge. Some of it comes high, I havefound; but it will all help me _live_. "

"Huh! I've lived without that brand of l'arnin', " grunted Uncle Jabez. 

Ruth looked at him amusedly. She was tempted to tell him that he had notlived, only existed. But she was not impudent, and merely went on tosay:

"Aunt Alvirah is getting too old to do all the work here----"

"I send Ben in to help her some when she's alone, " said the miller. 

"And by so doing put extra work on poor Ben, " Ruth told him, decidedly. "No, Aunt Alvirah must have another woman around, or a girl. "

"Where ye goin' to find the gal?" snapped the miller. "Work gals don'tlike to stay in the country. "

"She's found, I believe, " Ruth told him. 

"Huh?"

"This Maggie we just got out of the river. She has no job, she says, andshe wants one. I believe she'll stay. "

"Who's goin' to pay her wages?" demanded Uncle Jabez, getting back to"first principles" again. 

"I'll pay the girl's wages, Uncle Jabez, " Ruth said seriously. "But youmust feed her. And she must be fed well, too. I can see that part of hertrouble is malnutrition. "

"Huh? Has she got some ketchin' disease?" Uncle Jabez demanded. 

"It isn't contagious, " Ruth replied drily. "But unless she is well fedshe cannot be cured of it. "

"Wal, there's plenty of milk and eggs, " the miller said. 

"But you must not hide the key of the meat-house, Uncle, " and now Ruthlaughed outright at him. "Four people at table means a depletion of yoursmoked meat and a dipping occasionally into the corned-beef barrel. "

"Wal----"

"Now, if I pay the girl's wages, you must supply the food, " his niecesaid, firmly, "Otherwise, Aunt Alvirah will go without help, and thenshe will break down, and _then_----"

"Huh!" grunted the miller. "I couldn't let her go back to the poorfarm, I s'pose?"

He actually made it a question; but Ruth could not see his face, for hehad turned aside. 

"No. She could not return to the poorhouse--after fifteen years!"exclaimed the girl. "Do you know what _I_ should do?" and she asked thequestion warmly. 

"Somethin' fullish, I allow. "

"I should take her to Ardmore with me, and find a tiny cottage for her, and maybe she would keep house for Helen and me. "

"That'd be jest like ye, Niece Ruth, " he responded coolly. "You thinkyou have all the money in the world. That's because ye didn't aim whatye got--it was give to ye. "

The statement was in large part true, and for the moment Ruth's lipswere closed. Tears stood in her eyes, too. She realized that she couldnot be independent of the old miller had not chance and kind-hearted andgrateful Mrs. Rachel Parsons given her the bulk of the amount nowdeposited in her name in the bank. 

Ruth Fielding's circumstances had been very different when she had firstcome to Cheslow and the Red Mill. Then she was a little, homeless, orphan girl who was "taken in out of charity" by Uncle Jabez. And verykeenly and bitterly had she been made to feel during those first fewmonths her dependence upon the crabbed old miller. 

The introductory volume of this series, "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill, or, Jacob Parloe's Secret, " details in full the little girl's trials andtriumphs under these unfortunate conditions--how she makes friends, smooths over difficulties, and in a measure wins old Uncle Jabez'sapproval. The miller was a very honest man and always paid his debts. Because of something Ruth did for him he felt it to be his duty to payher first year's tuition at boarding school, where she went with her newfriend, Helen Cameron. In "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall, " the RedMill girl really begins her school career, and begins, too, to satisfythat inbred longing for independence which was so strong a part of hercharacter. 

In succeeding volumes of the "Ruth Fielding Series, " we follow Ruth'sadventures in Snow Camp, a winter lodge in the Adirondack wilderness; atLighthouse Point, the summer home of a girl friend on the Atlanticcoast; at Silver Ranch, in Montana; at Cliff Island; at Sunrise Farm;with the Gypsies, which was a very important adventure, indeed, for RuthFielding. In this eighth story Ruth was able to recover for Mrs. RachelParsons, an aunt of one of her school friends, a very valuable pearlnecklace, and as a reward of five thousand dollars had been offered forthe recovery of the necklace, the entire sum came to Ruth. This moneymade Ruth financially independent of Uncle Jabez. 

The ninth volume of the series, entitled, "Ruth Fielding in MovingPictures; or, Helping the Dormitory Fund, " shows Ruth and her chumsengaged in film production. Ruth discovered that she could write a goodscenario--a very good scenario, indeed. Mr. Hammond, president of theAlectrion Film Corporation, encouraged her to write others. When theWest Dormitory of Briarwood Hall was burned and it was discovered thatthere had been no insurance on the building, the girls determined to doall in their power to rebuild the structure. 

Ruth was inspired to write a scenario, a five-reel drama of schoolgirllife, and Mr. Hammond produced it, Ruth's share of the profits goingtoward the building fund. "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was not onlylocally famous, but was shown all over the country and was even now, after six months, paying the final construction bills of the WestDormitory, at Briarwood. 

In this ninth volume of the series, Ruth and Helen and many of theirchums graduated from Briarwood Hall. Immediately after the graduationthe girl of the Red Mill and Helen Cameron were taken south by NettieParsons and her Aunt Rachel to visit the Merredith plantation in SouthCarolina. Their adventures were fully related in the story immediatelypreceding the present narrative, the tenth of the "Ruth FieldingSeries, " entitled, "Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie; or, Great Times in theLand of Cotton. "

Home again, after that delightful journey, Ruth had spent most of theremaining weeks of her vacation quietly at the Red Mill. She was engagedupon another scenario for Mr. Hammond, in which the beautiful old millon the Lumano would figure largely. She also had had many preparationsto make for her freshman year at Ardmore. 

Ruth and Helen were quite "young ladies" now, so Tom scoffingly said. And going to college was quite another thing from looking forward to aterm at a preparatory school. Nevertheless, Ruth had found plenty oftime to help Aunt Alvirah during the past few weeks. 

She had noted how much feebler the old woman was becoming. Therefore, she was determined to win Uncle Jabez to her plan of securing help inthe Red Mill kitchen. The coming of the girl, Maggie, though a strangecoincidence, Ruth looked upon as providential. She urged Uncle Jabez toagree to her proposal, and the very next morning she sounded Maggie uponthe subject. The strange girl was sitting up, but Aunt Alvirah would nothear to her doing anything as yet. Ruth found Maggie in thesitting-room, engaged in looking at the Ardmore Year Book which Ruth hadleft upon the sitting-room table. 

"Pretty landscapes about the college, aren't they?" Ruth suggested. 

"Oh yes--Miss. Very pretty, " agreed Maggie. 

"That is where I am going to college, " Ruth explained. "I enter as afreshman next week. "

"Is that so--Miss?" hesitated Maggie. Her heretofore colorless faceflushed warmly. "I've heard of that--that place, " she added. 

"Indeed, have you?"

Maggie was looking at the photograph of Lake Remona, with a part ofBliss Island at one side. She continued to stare at the picture whileRuth put before her the suggestion of work at the Red Mill. 

"Oh, of course, Miss Fielding, I'd be glad of the work. And you're veryliberal. But you don't know anything about me. "

"No. And I shouldn't know much more about you if you brought a dozenrecommendations, " laughed Ruth. 

"I suppose not--Miss. " It seemed hard for the girl to get out that"Miss, " and Ruth, who was keenly observant, wondered if she really hadbeen accustomed to using it. 

They talked it over and finally reached an agreement. Aunt Alvirah wassweetly grateful to Ruth, knowing full well that there must have been a"battle royal" between the miller and his niece before the former hadagreed to the new arrangement. 

Ruth was quite sure that Maggie was a nice girl, even if she was queer. At least, she gave deference to the quaint little old housekeeper, andseemed to like Aunt Alvirah very much. And who would not love the woman, who was everybody's aunt but nobody's relative?

Once or twice Ruth found Maggie poring over the Year Book of ArdmoreCollege, rather an odd interest for a girl of her class. But Maggie wasrather an odd girl anyway, and Ruth forgot the matter in her finalpreparations for departure. 

CHAPTER III

EXPECTATIONS

"I expect she'll be a haughty, stuck-up thing, " declared Edith Phelps, with vigor. 

"'Just like _that_, '" drawled May MacGreggor. "We should worry about thefamous authoress of canned drama! A budding lady hack writer, I fancy. "

"Oh, dear me, no!" cried Edith. "Didn't you see 'The Heart of aSchoolgirl' she wrote? Why, it was a good photo-play, I assure you. "

"And put out by the Alectrion Film Corporation, " joined in another ofthe group of girls standing upon the wide porch of Dare Hall, one of thefour large dormitories of Ardmore College. 

The college buildings were set most artistically upon the slope ofCollege Hill, each building facing sparkling Lake Remona. Save theboathouse and the bathing pavilions, Dare and Dorrance Halls at the eastside of the grounds, and Hoskin and Hemmingway Halls at the west side, were the structures nearest to the lake. 

Farther to the east an open grove intervened between the dormitories andthe meadows along the Remona River where bog hay was cut, and which weresometimes flooded in the freshet season. 

To the west the lake extended as far as the girls on the porch couldsee, a part of its sparkling surface being hidden by the green and hillybulk of Bliss Island. The shaded green lawns of the campus between Dareand Hoskin Halls were crossed by winding paths. 

A fleshy girl who was near the group but not of it, had been viewingthis lovely landscape with pleasure. Now she frankly listened to thechatter of the "inquisitors. "

"Well, " Edith Phelps insisted, "this Ruth Fielding was so petted at thatbackwoods' school where she has been that I suppose there will be noliving in the same house with her. "

Edith was one of the older sophomores--quite old, indeed, to the eyes ofthe plump girl who was listening. But the latter smiled quietly, nevertheless, as she listened to the sophomore's speech. 

"We shall have to take her down a peg or two, of course. It's bad enoughto have the place littered up with a lot of freshies----"

"Just as we littered it up last year at this time, Edie, " suggested May, with a chuckle. 

"Well, " Edith said, laughing, "if I don't put this Ruth Fielding, theauthoress, in her place in a hurry, it won't be because I sha'n't try. "

"Have a care, dearie, " admonished one quiet girl who had not spokenbefore. "Remember the warning we had at commencement. "

"About what?" demanded two or three. 

"About that Rolff girl, you know, " said the thoughtful girl. 

"Oh! I know what you mean, " Edith said. "But that was a warning to thesororities. "

"To everybody, " put in May. 

"At any rate, " Dora Parton said, "Dr. Milroth forbade anything in theline of hazing. "

"Pooh!" said Edith. "Who mentioned hazing? That's old-fashioned. We'retoo ladylike at Ardmore, I should hope, to _haze_--my!"

"'My heye, blokey!'" drawled May. 

"You are positively coarse, Miss MacGreggor, " Dora said, severely. 

"And Edie is so awfully emphatic, " laughed the Scotch girl. "But shewill have to take it out in threatenings, I fear. We can't haze thisFielding chit, and that's all there is to it. "

"Positively, " said the quiet girl, "that was a terrible thing they didto Margaret Rolff. She was a nervous girl, anyway. Do you remember her, May?"

"Of course. And I remember being jealous because she was chosen by theKappa Alpha as a candidate. Glad _I_ wasn't one if they put all theirnew members through the same rigmarole. "

"That is irreverent!" gasped Edith. "The Kappa Alpha!"

"I see Dr. Milroth took them down all right, all right!" remarkedanother of the group. "And now none of the sororities can solicitmembers among either the sophs or the freshies. "

"And it's a shame!" cried Edith. "The sorority girls have such fun. "

"Half murdering innocents--yes, " drawled May. "That Margaret Rolff wasjust about scared out of her wits, they say. They found her wanderingabout Bliss Island----"

"Sh! We're not to talk of it, " advised Edith, with a glance at the fatgirl in the background who, although taking no part in the discussion, was very much amused, especially every time Ruth Fielding's name wasbrought up. 

"Well, I don't know why we shouldn't speak of it, " said Dora Parton, whowas likewise a sophomore. "The whole college knew it at the time. WhenMargaret Rolff left they discovered that the beautiful silver vase wasgone, too, from the library----"

"Oh, hush!" exclaimed May MacGreggor, sharply. 

"Won't hush--so now!" said the other girl, smartly, making a face at theScotch lassie. "Didn't Miss Cullam go wailing all over the college aboutit?"

"That's so, " Edith agreed. "You'd have thought it was her vase that hadbeen stolen. "

"I don't believe the vase was stolen at all, " May said. "It was mixed upin that initiation and lost. I know that the Kappa Alpha girls areraising a fund to pay for it. "

"Pay for it!" scoffed some one. "Why, they couldn't do that in athousand years. That was an Egyptian curio--very old and very valuable. Pay for it, indeed! Those Kappa Alphas, as well as the other sororities, are paying for their fun in another way. "

"But, anyway, " said the quiet girl, "it was a terrible experience forMiss Rolff. "

"Unless she 'put it on' and got away with the loot herself, " said Edith. 

"Oh, scissors! _now_ who's coarse?" demanded May MacGreggor. 

But the conversation came back to the expected Ruth Fielding. Thesegirls had all arrived at Ardmore several days in advance of the openingof the semester. Indeed, it is always advisable for freshmen, especially, to be on hand at least two days before the opening, forthere is much preparation for newcomers. 

The fleshy girl who had thus far taken no part in the conversationrecorded, save to be amused by it, had already been on the ground longenough to know her way about. But she was not yet acquainted with any ofher classmates or with the sophomores. 

If she knew Ruth Fielding, she said nothing about it when Edith Phelpsbegan to discuss the girl of the Red Mill again. 

"Miss Cullam spoke to me about this Fielding. It seems she has anacquaintance who teaches at that backwoods' school the child wentto----"

"Briarwood a backwoods' school!" said May. "Not much!"

"Well, it's somewhere up in New York State among the yaps, " declaredEdith. "And Cullam's friend wrote her that Fielding is a wonder. Dearme! how I _do_ abominate wonders. "

"Perhaps we are maligning the girl, " said Dora. "Perhaps Ruth Fieldingis quite modest. "

"What? After writing a moving picture drama? Is there anything modestabout the motion picture business in _any_ of its branches?"

"Oh, dear me, Edie!" cried one of her listeners, "you're dreadful. "

"I presume this canned drama authoress, " pursued Edith, "will haveink-stains on her fingers and her hair will be eternally flying abouther careworn features. Well! and what are _you_ laughing at?" shesuddenly and tartly demanded of the plump girl in the background. 

"At you, " chuckled the stranger. 

"Am I so funny to look at?"

"No. But you are the funniest-talking girl I ever listened to. Let melaugh, won't you?"

Before this observation could be more particularly inquired into, someone shouted:

"Oh, look who's here! And in style, bless us!"

"And see the freight! Excess baggage, for a fact, " May MacGreggor said, under her breath. "Who _can_ she be?"

"The Queen of Sheba in all her glory had nothing on this lady, " criedEdith with conviction. 

It was not often that any of the Ardmore girls, and especially afreshman, arrived during the opening week of the term in a privateequipage. This car that came chugging down the hill to the entrance ofDare Hall was a very fine touring automobile. The girl in the tonneau, barricaded with a huge trunk and several bags, besides a huge leatherhat-box perched beside the chauffeur, was very gaily appareled as well. 

"Goodness! look at the labels on that trunk, " whispered Dora Parton. "Why, that girl must have been all over Europe. "

"The trunk has, at any rate, " chuckled May. 

"Hist!" now came from the excited Edith Phelps. "See the initials, 'R. F. ' What did I tell you? It is that Fielding girl!"

"Oh, my aunt!" groaned the plump girl in the background, and sheactually had to stuff her handkerchief in her mouth to keep fromlaughing outright again. 

The car had halted and the chauffeur got down promptly, for he had toremove some of the "excess baggage" before the girl in the tonneau couldalight. 

"I guess she must think she belongs here, " whispered Dora. 

"More likely she thinks she owns the whole place, " snapped Edith, whohad evidently made up her mind not to like the new girl whose baggagewas marked "R. F. "

The girl got out and shook out her draperies. A close inspection wouldhave revealed the fact that, although dressed in the very height offashion (whatever _that_ may mean), the materials of which thestranger's costume were made were rather cheap. 

"This is Dare Hall, isn't it?" she asked the group of girls above her onthe porch. "I suppose there is a porter to help--er--the man with mybaggage?"

"It is a rule of the college, " said Edith, promptly, "that each girlshall carry her own baggage to her room. No male person is allowedwithin the dormitory building. "

There was a chorused, if whispered, "Oh!" from the other girls, and thenewcomer looked at Edith, suspiciously. 

"I guess you are spoofing me, aren't you?" she inquired. 

"Help! help!" murmured May MacGreggor. "That's the very latest Englishslang. "

"She's brought it direct from 'dear ol' Lunnon', " gasped one of theother sophomores. 

"Dear me!" said Edith, addressing her friends, "wouldn't it be nice tohave a 'close up' taken of that heap of luggage? It really needs acamera man and a director to make this arrival a success. "

The girl who had just come looked very much puzzled. The chauffeurseemed eager to be gone. 

"If I can't help take in the boxes, Miss, I might as well be going, " hesaid to the new arrival. 

"Very well, " she rejoined, stiffly, and opening her purse gave him abill. He lifted his cap, entered the car, touched the starter and in amoment the car whisked away. 

"I declare!" said May MacGreggor, "she looks just like a castaway on theshore of a desert island, with all the salvage she has been able torecover from the wreck. "

And perhaps the mysterious R. F. Felt a good deal that way. 

CHAPTER IV

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Greenburg was the station on the N. Y. F. & B. Railroad nearest toArdmore College. It was a small city of some thirty or forty thousandinhabitants. The people, not alone in the city but in the surroundingcountry, were a rather wealthy class. Ardmore was a mile from theoutskirts of the town. 

Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron, her chum, had arrived with other girlsbound for the college on the noon train. Of course, the chums knew noneof their fellow pupils by name, but it was easily seen which of thosealighting from the train were bound for Ardmore. 

There were two large auto-stages in waiting, and Ruth and Helen followedthe crowd of girls briskly getting aboard the buses. As they saw othergirls do, the two chums from Cheslow gave their trunk checks to a man onthe platform, but they clung to their hand-baggage. 

"Such a nice looking lot of girls, " murmured Helen in Ruth's ear. "It'sfine! I'm sure we shall have a delightful time at college, Ruthie. "

"And some hard work, " observed Ruth, laughing, "if we expect to keep upwith them. There are no dunces in this crowd, my dear. "

"Goodness, no!" agreed her friend. "They all look as sharp as needles. "

There were girls of all the classes at the station, as was easily seen. Ruth and Helen chanced to get into a seat with two of the seniors, whoseemed most awfully sophisticated to the recent graduates of BriarwoodHall. 

"You are just entering, are you not--you and your friend?" asked thenearest senior of Ruth. 

"Yes, " admitted the girl of the Red Mill, feeling and looking very shy. 

The young women smiled quietly, saying:

"I am Miss Dexter, and am beginning my senior year. I am glad to be thefirst to welcome you to Ardmore. "

"Thank you so much!" Ruth said, recovering her self-possession. Then shetold Miss Dexter her own name and introduced Helen. 

"You girls have drawn your room numbers, I presume?"

"They were drawn for us, " Ruth said. "We are to be in Dare Hall and hopeto have adjoining rooms. "

"That is nice, " said Miss Dexter. "It is so much pleasanter when twofriends enter together. I am at Hoskin Hall myself. I shall be glad tohave you two freshmen look me up when you are once settled. "

"Thank you, " Ruth said again, and Helen found her voice to ask:

"Are all the seniors in Hoskin Hall, and all the freshmen at Dare Hall?"

"Oh, no. There are members of each class in all four of thedormitories, " Miss Dexter explained. 

"I suppose there will be much for us to learn, " sighed Ruth. "It isdifferent from a boarding school. "

"Do you both come from a boarding school?" asked their new acquaintance. 

"We are graduates of Briarwood Hall, " Helen said, with pride. 

"Oh, indeed?" Miss Dexter looked sharply at Ruth again. "Did you sayyour name was Ruth Fielding?"

"Yes, Miss Dexter. "

"Why, you must be the girl who wrote a picture play to help build adormitory for your school!" exclaimed the senior. "Really, how nice. "

"There, Ruth!" said Helen, teasingly, "see what it is to be famous. "

"I--I hope my reputation will not be held against me, " Ruth said, laughing. "Let me tell you, Miss Dexter, we all at Briarwood helped toswell that dormitory fund. "

"I fancy so, " said the senior. "But all of your schoolmates could nothave written a scenario which would have been approved by the AlectrionFilm Corporation. "

"I should say not!" cried Helen, warmly. "And it was a great picture, too. "

"It was clever, indeed, " agreed Miss Dexter. "I saw it on the screen. "

Miss Dexter introduced the girl at the other end of the seat--anothersenior, Miss Purvis. The two entering freshmen felt flattered--how couldthey help it? They had expected, as freshmen, to be quite haughtilyignored by the seniors and juniors. 

But there were other matters to interest Ruth and Helen as the auto-busrolled out of the city. The way was very pleasant; there were beautifulhomes in the suburbs of Greenburg. And after they were passed, therewere lovely fields and groves on either hand. The chums thought they hadseldom seen more attractive country, although they had traveled morethan most girls of their age. 

The road over which the auto-bus rolled was wide and well oiled--asplendid automobile track. But only one private equipage passed them onthe ride to Ardmore. That car came along, going the same way asthemselves, just as they reached the first of the row of facultydwellings. 

There was but one passenger in the car--a girl; and she was packedaround with baggage in a most surprising way. 

"Oh!" gasped Helen, in Ruth's ear, "I guess there goes one of the realfancy girls--the kind that sets the pace at college. "

Ruth noticed that Miss Dexter and Miss Purvis craned their necks to seethe car and the girl, and she ventured to ask who she was. 

"I can't tell you, " Miss Dexter said briskly. "I never saw her before. "

"Oh! Perhaps, then, she isn't going to the college. "

"Yes; she must be. This road goes nowhere else. But she is a freshman, of course. "

"An eccentric, I fancy, " drawled Miss Purvis. "You must know that eachfreshman class is bound to have numbered with it some most surprisingindividuals. _Rarae aves_, as it were. "

Miss Dexter laughed. "But the corners are soon rubbed off and theirpeculiarities fade into the background. When I was a freshman, thereentered a woman over fifty, with perfectly white hair. She was a _dear_;but, of course, she was an anomaly at college. "

"My!" exclaimed Helen. "What did she want to go to college for?"

"The poor thing had always wanted to go to college. When she was youngthere were few women's colleges. And she had a big family to help, andfinally a bedridden sister to care for. So she remained faithful to herhome duties, but each year kept up with the graduating class of a localpreparatory school. She was really a very well educated and brightwoman; only peculiar. "

"And what happened when she came to Ardmore?" asked Ruth, interested, "is she still here?"

"Oh, no. She remained only a short time. She found, she said, that hermind was not nimble enough, at her age, to keep up with the classes. Which was very probably true, you know. Unless one is constantly engagedin hard mental labor, one's mind must get into ruts by the time one isfifty. But she was very lovely, and quite popular--while she lasted. "

Helen was more interested just then in the row of cottages occupied bythe members of the faculty, and here strung along the left side of thehighway. They were pretty houses, set in pretty grounds. 

"Oh, look, Helen!" cried Ruth, suddenly. 

"The lake!" responded Helen. 

The dancing blue waters of Lake Remona were visible for a minute betweentwo of the houses. Ruth, too, caught a glimpse of the small island whichraised its hilly head in the middle of the lake. 

"Is that Bliss Island?" she inquired of Miss Dexter. 

"Yes. You can see it from here. That doesn't belong to the college. "

"No?" said Ruth, in surprise: "But, of course, the girls can go there?"

"It is 'No Man's Land, ' I believe. Belongs to none of the estatessurrounding the lake. We go there--yes, " Miss Dexter told her. "TheStone Face is there. "

"What is that, please?" asked Ruth, interested. "What is the StoneFace?"

"A landmark, Miss Fielding. That Stone Face was quite an important spotlast May--wasn't it, Purvis?" the senior asked the other girl. 

"Oh, goodness me, yes!" said Miss Purvis. "Don't mention it. Think whatit has done to our Kappa Alpha. "

"What do you suppose ever became of that girl?" murmured Miss Dexter, thoughtfully. 

"I can't imagine. It was a sorry time, take it all in all. Let's nottalk of it, Merry. Our sorority has a setback from which it will neverrecover. "

All this was literally Greek to Ruth, of course. Nor did she listen withany attention. There were other things for her and Helen to beinterested in, for the main building of the college had come into view. 

They had been gradually climbing the easy slope of College Hill from theeast. The main edifice of Ardmore did not stand upon the summit of theeminence. Behind and above the big, winged building the hill rose to awooded, rounding summit, sheltering the whole estate from the northwinds. 

Just upon the edge of the forest at the top was an octagon-shapedobservatory. Ruth had read about it in the Year Book. From the balconyof this observatory one could see, on a clear day, to the extreme westend of Lake Remona--quite twenty-five miles away. 

The newcomers, however, were more interested at present in the bigbuilding which faced the lake, half-way down the southern slope ofCollege Hill, and which contained the hall and classrooms, as well asthe principal offices. The beautiful campus was in front of thisbuilding. 

"All off for Dare and Dorrance, " shouted the stage driver, stopping hisvehicle. 

The driveway here split, one branch descending the hill, while the mainthread wound on past the front of the main building. Ruth and Helenscrambled down with their bags. 

"Good-bye, " said Miss Dexter smiling on them. "Perhaps I shall see youwhen you come over to the registrar's office. We seniors have to do thehonors for you freshies. "

Miss Purvis, too, bade them a pleasant good-bye. The chums set off downthe driveway. On their left was the great, sandstone, glass-roofed bulkof the gymnasium, and they caught a glimpse of the fenced athletic fieldbehind it. 

Ahead were the two big dormitories upon this side of the campus--Dareand Dorrance Halls. The driveway curved around to the front of thesebuildings, and now the private touring car the girls had before noticed, came shooting around from the lake side of the dormitories, passing Ruthand Helen, empty save for the chauffeur. 

"Goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "I wonder if that dressy girl with all thegoods and chattels is bunked in _our_ dormitory?"

"'Our' dormitory, no less!" laughed Ruth. "Do you feel as much at homealready as _that_?"

"Goodness! No. I'm only trying to make myself believe it. Ruth, what ane-_nor_-mous place this is! I feel just as small as--as a little mousein an elephant's stall. "

Ruth laughed, but before she could reply they rounded the corner of thebuilding nearest to the campus and saw the group of girls upon its broadporch, the stranger at the foot of the steps, and the heap of baggagepiled where the chauffeur had left it. 

"Hello!" May MacGreggor said, aloud, "here are a couple more kittens. Look at the pretty girl with the brown eyes and hair. And thesmart-looking, black-eyed one. Now! _here_ are freshies after my ownheart. "

Edith Phelps refused to be called off from the girl and the baggage, however. She said coolly:

"I really don't know what you will do with all that truck, MissFielding. The rooms at Dare are rather small. You could not possibly getall those bags and the trunk--and certainly not that hat-box--into oneof these rooms. "

"My name isn't Fielding, " said the strange girl, paling now, but whetherfrom anger or as a forerunner to tears it would have been hard to tell. Her face was not one to be easily read. 

"Your name isn't _Fielding_?" gasped Edie Phelps, while the latter'sfriends burst into laughter. "'R. F. '! What does that stand for, pray?"

At this moment the fleshy girl who had been all this time in thebackground on the porch, flung herself forward, burst through the group, and ran down the steps. She had spied Ruth and Helen approaching. 

"Ruthie! Helen! _Ruth Fielding!_ Isn't this delightsome?"

The fleshy girl tried to hug both the chums from Cheslow at once. EdiePhelps and the rest of the girls on the porch gazed and listened inamazement. Edie turned upon the girl with the heap of baggage, accusingly. 

"You're a good one! What do you mean by coming here and fooling us allin this way? What's your name?"

"Rebecca Frayne--if you think you have a right to ask, " said the newgirl, sharply. 

"And you're not the canned drama authoress?"

"I don't know what you mean, I'm sure, " said Rebecca Frayne. "But I_would_ like to know what I'm to do with this baggage. "

Ruth had come to the foot of the steps now with Helen and the fleshygirl, whom the chums had hailed gladly as "Jennie Stone. " The girl ofthe Red Mill heard the speech of the stranger and noted her woebegoneaccent. She turned with a smile to Rebecca Frayne. 

"Oh! I know about that, " she said. "Just leave your trunk and bags hereand put your card and the number of your room on them. The men will bealong very soon to carry them up for you. I read that in the Year Book. "

"Thank you, " said Rebecca Frayne. 

The group of sophomores and freshmen on the porch opened a way for theBriarwood trio to enter the house, and said never a word. Jennie Stonewas, as she confessed, grinning broadly. 

CHAPTER V

GETTING SETTLED

"What does this mean, Heavy Jennie?" demanded Helen, pinching the verycomfortable arm of their fleshy friend. 

"What does that mean? Ouch, Helen! You know you're pinching somethingwhen you pinch _me_. "

"That's why I like to. No fun in trying to make an impression on bones, you know. "

"But it doesn't hurt bones so much, " grumbled Jennie. "Remember what thefruit-stand man printed on his sign: 'If you musta pincha da fruit, pincha da cocoanut. ' You can't so easy bruise bony folk, Helen. "

"You are dodging the issue, Heavy, " declared Helen. "What does thismean?"

"What does what mean?" demanded the fleshy girl, grinning widely again. 

"How came you here, of course?" Ruth put in, smiling upon their gay andusually thoughtless friend. "You said you did not think you could cometo Ardmore. "

"And you had conditions to make up if you did come, " declared Helen. 

"I made 'em up, " said Jennie, laughing. 

"And you're here ahead of us! Oh, Heavy, what sport!" cried Helen, undertaking to pinch the plump girl again. 

"Now, that's enough of that, " said Jennie Stone. "I have feelings, aswell as other folk, Helen Cameron, despite my name. Have a heart!"

"We are so glad to see you, Heavy, " said Ruth. "You mustn't mind Helen'sexuberance. "

"And you never said a word about coming here when you wrote to us downSouth, " Helen said, eyeing the fleshy girl curiously. 

"I didn't know what to do, " confessed Jennie Stone. "I talked it overwith Aunt Kate. She agreed with me that, if I had finished school, I'dput on about five pounds a month, and that's all I _would_ do. "

"Goodness!" gasped Ruth and Helen, together. 

"Yes, " said Heavy, nodding with emphasis. "That's what I did the firstmonth. Nothing to do, you see, but eat and sleep. If I'd had to go towork----"

"But couldn't you find something to do?" demanded the energetic Ruth. 

"At Lighthouse Point? You know just how lazy a spot that is. And inwinter in the city it would be worse. So I determined to come here. "

"To keep from getting fatter!" cried Helen. "A new reason for coming tocollege. "

"Well, " said Jennie, seriously, "I missed the gym work and I missedbeing uncomfortable. "

"Uncomfortable?" gasped Ruth and Helen. 

"Yes. You know, my father's a big man, and so are my older brothers big. Everything in our house is big and well stuffed and comfortable--chairsand beds and all. I never was comfortable in my bed at Briarwood. "

"Horrible!" cried Helen, while Ruth laughed heartily. 

"And _here_!" went on Heavy, lugubriously. "Wait till you see. Do youknow, all they give us here is _cots_ to sleep on? _Cots_, mind!Goodness! when I try to turn over I roll right out on the floor. Youought to see my sides already, how black-and-blue they are. I've beenhere two nights. "

"Why did you come so early?"

"So as to try to get used to the food and the beds, " groaned Heavy. "ButI never will. One teacher already has advised me about my diet. She saysvegetables are best for me. I ate a peck of string beans this noon forlunch--strings and all--and I expect you can pick basting threads out ofme almost anywhere!"

"The teacher didn't advise you to eat _all_ the vegetables there were, did she?" asked Ruth, as they climbed the stairs. 

"She did not signify the amount. I just ate till I couldn't get downanother one. I sha'n't want to see another string bean for some time. "

Ruth and Helen easily found the rooms that had been drawn for them theJune previous. Of course, they were not the best rooms in the hall, forthe seniors had first choice, and then the juniors and sophomores hadtheir innings before the freshmen had a chance. 

But there was a door between Ruth's and Helen's rooms, as they hadhoped, and Jennie's room was just across the corridor. 

"We Sweetbriars will stick together, all right, " said the fleshy girl. "For defence and offence, if necessary. "

"You evidently expect to have a strenuous time here, Heavy, " laughedRuth. 

"No telling, " returned Jennie Stone, wagging her head. "I fancy thereare some 'cut-ups' among the sophs who will try to make our sweet younglives miserable. That Edie Phelps, for instance. " She told them how thesophomores had met the new girl, Rebecca Frayne, and why. 

"Oh, dear!" said Ruth. "But that was all on _my_ account. We shall haveto be particularly nice to Miss Frayne. I hope she's on our corridor. "

"Do you suppose they will haze you, Ruth, just because you wrote thatscenario?" asked Helen, somewhat troubled. 

"There's no hazing at Ardmore, " laughed Ruth. "They can't bother me. 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!'"she singsonged. 

"Just the same, " Jennie said, morosely, "that Edie Phelps has a sharptongue. "

"We, too, have tongues, " proclaimed Helen, who had no intention of beingput upon. 

"Now, girls, we want to take just what is handed us good-naturedly, "Ruth advised. "We are freshmen. Next year we will be sophomores, and cantake it out on the new girls then, " and she laughed. "You know, we'veall been through it at Briarwood. "

"Goodness, yes!" agreed Helen. "It can't be as bad at college as it wasduring our first term at Briarwood Hall. "

"This Edie Phelps can't be as mean as The Fox 'useter was, ' I suppose, "added Jennie Stone. "Besides, I fancy the sophs need us freshmen--ourgood will and help, I mean. The two lower classes here have to line upagainst the juniors and seniors. "

"Oh, dear, me, " sighed Ruth. "I hoped we had come here to study, not tofight. "

"Pooh!" said the fleshy girl, "where do you go in this world that youdon't have to fight for your rights? You never get something fornothing. "

However, the possibility of trouble disturbed their minds but slightly. For the rest of the day the trio were very busy. At least, Ruth andHelen were busy arranging their rooms and unpacking, and Jennie Stonewas busy watching them. 

They went to the registrar's office that day, as this was required. Otherwise, they were in their rooms, after their baggage was delivered, occupied until almost dinner time. Heavy had been on the ground longenough, as she said, to know most of the ropes. They were supposed todress rather formally for dinner, although not more than two-thirds ofthe girls had arrived. 

There were in Dare Hall alone as many pupils as had attended Briarwoodaltogether. This was, indeed, a much larger school life on which theywere entering. 

So many of the girls they saw were older than themselves--and the trioof girls had been among the oldest girls at Briarwood during their lastsemester. 

"Why, we're only _kids_, " sighed Helen. "There's a girl on thiscorridor--at the other end, thank goodness!--who looks old enough to bea teacher. "

"Miss Comstock, " said Heavy. "I know. She's a senior. There are noteachers rooming at Dare. Only the housekeeper downstairs. But you'llfind a senior at the head of each table--and Miss Comstock looks awfullystern. "

Ruth and Helen found the rooms they were to occupy rather different fromthose they had chummed in at Briarwood. In the first place, these roomswere smaller, and the furniture was very plain. As Jennie had warnedthem, there were only cots to sleep upon--very nice cots, it was true, and there was a heavy coverlet for each, to turn the cots into divans inthe daytime. 

"I tell you what we can do, " Ruth suggested at the start. "Let's makeone room the study, and both sleep in the other. "

"Bully idea, " agreed Helen. 

They proceeded to do this, the result being a very plain sleeping room, indeed, but a well-furnished study. They had brought with them all thepennants and other keepsakes from Briarwood, and sofa pillows andcushions for the chairs, and innumerable pictures. 

Before night the study looked as homelike as the old room had at thepreparatory school. They had rugs, too, and one big lounging chair, purchased second-hand, that Heavy had, of course, occupied most of theafternoon. 

"Well! I hope you've finished at last, " sighed the fleshy girl when thewarning bell for dinner rang. "I'm about tired out. "

"You should be, " agreed Ruth, commiseratingly. "You've helped so much. "

"Advising is harder than moving furniture and tacking up pictures, "proclaimed Jennie. "Brain-fag is the trouble with me and hunger. "

"We admit the final symptom, " said Helen. "But if your brain is everfagged, Heavy, it will only be from thinking up new and touching menus. Come on, now, we're going to scramble into some fresh frocks. You go anddo the same, Miss Lazybones. "

CHAPTER VI

MISS CULLAM'S TROUBLE

Ruth and Helen were much more amply supplied with frocks of a somewhatdressy order than when they began a semester at Briarwood Hall. Theirwardrobes here were well filled, and of course there was no supervisionof what they wore as there had been at the preparatory school. 

When they went downstairs to the dining-room with Jennie Stone, theyfound they had made no mistake in "putting their best foot forward, " asHelen called it. 

"My! I feel quite as though I were going to a party, " Ruth confessed. 

The girls rustled through the corridors and down the wide stairways, laughing and talking, many of the freshmen, it was evident, alreadyhaving made friends. 

"There's that girl, " whispered Jennie Stone, suddenly. 

"What girl?" asked Helen. 

"Oh! the girl with all the luggage, " laughed Ruth. 

"Yes, " said the fleshy girl. "What was her name?"

"Rebecca Frayne, " said Ruth, who had a good memory. 

She bowed to the rather over-dressed freshman. She saw that nobody waswalking with Rebecca Frayne. 

"I hope she sits at our table, " Ruth added. 

"Of course, " Helen rejoined, with a smile, "Ruth has already spiedsomebody to be good to. "

"Shucks!" said Jennie. "I don't think she'd make a particularly pleasantaddition to our party. "

"What does _that_ matter?" demanded Helen, roguishly. "Ruth is alwayspicking up the sore-eyed kittens. "

"I think that is unkind, " returned Ruth, shaking her head. "Maybe MissFrayne is a very nice girl. "

"I wonder what she's got in all those bags and the big trunk?" saidJennie. "I see she's wearing the same dress she traveled in. "

"I wager she misses her maid, " sighed Helen. "Can't dress without one, Is'pose. "

But there were too many other girls to watch and to comment on for thetrio to give much attention to Rebecca Frayne. Ruth, however, said, witha little laugh:

"I must feel some interest in her. Her initials are the same as mine. "

"And her arrival certainly took the curse off yours, my dear, " Jennieagreed. "Edie Phelps and her crowd were laying for you and no mistake. "

"I wonder if we shouldn't eschew all slang now that we have come toArdmore?" Helen suggested demurely. 

"You set the example then, my lady!" cried Heavy. 

Miss Comstock, the very severe looking senior, sat at the table at whichthe Briarwood trio of freshmen found their numbers; but Miss Frayne wasat the housekeeper's table. There were ten or twelve girls at each tableand throughout the meal a pleasant hum of voices filled the room. 

Ruth and Helen, not to mention their fleshy chum, were soon at theirease with their neighbors; nor did Miss Comstock prove such a bugaboo asthey feared. Although the senior was a particularly silent girl, she hada pleasant smile and was no wet blanket upon the enjoyment of thedinner. At least, she did not serve as a wet blanket upon Jennie Stone. The fleshy girl's appetite betrayed the fact that she had been stintedat noon, and that a diet of string beans was scarcely a satisfactoryone. 

As they left the dining-room and came out into the wide, well-lightedentrance hall of the house, a lady just entering bowed to Jennie Stone. 

"There she is!" groaned the fleshy girl. "Caught in the act!"

"Who is she, Heavy?" demanded Helen, in an undertone. 

"She looks nice, " observed Ruth. 

"Miss Cullam. She's the one that advised the string beans, " declaredJennie out of the corner of her mouth. Then she added, most cordially:"Oh! how do you do! These are my two chums from Briarwood--Ruth Fieldingand Helen Cameron. Miss Cullam, girls. "

The teacher, who was rather elderly, but very brisk and neat, if notwholly attractive, approached smiling. 

"You will meet me in mathematics, young ladies, " she said, shaking handswith the two introduced freshmen. "And how are you to-night, Miss Stone?Have you stuck to your vegetable diet, as I advised?"

Heavy made her jolly, round face seem as long as possible, and groanedhollowly. 

"Oh, Miss Cullam!" she said, "I believe I could have stuck to the diet, if----"

"Well, if what?" demanded the teacher. 

"If the diet would only stick to _me_. But it doesn't. I ate _pecks_ ofstring beans for lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon I felt like acastaway after two weeks upon a desert island. "

"Nonsense, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the teacher, yet laughing too. Heavywas so ridiculous that it was impossible not to be amused. "You shouldpractise abstinence. Really, you are the very fattest girl at Ardmore, Ido believe. "

"That sounds horrid!" declared Jennie with sudden vigor, and she did notlook pleased. 

"You may as well face the truth, my dear, " said the mathematics teacher, eyeing the distressing curves of the fleshy girl without prejudice. "Here are upwards of a thousand girls--or will be when all have arrivedand registered. And you will be locally famous. "

"Oh, don't!" groaned Ruth. 

"Poor Heavy!" gasped Helen. 

Miss Cullam uttered a short laugh. 

"Your friends evidently love you, my dear, " she said, patting the fleshygirl's plump cheek. "But you want to make new friends--you wish to beadmired, I know. It will not be pleasant to gain the reputation of beingArdmore's heavyweight, will it?"

"It sounds pretty bad, " admitted Heavy, coming out of her momentaryslough of despond. "But we all have our little troubles, don't we, MissCullam?"

Somehow this question seemed to quench the teacher of mathematics' goodspirits. A cloud settled upon her countenance, and she nodded seriously. 

"We all have; true enough, Miss Stone, " she said. "And I hope you, aspupils at Ardmore, will never suffer such disturbance of mind as I, ateacher, sometimes do. "

Ruth, who had started up the stairway next to the teacher, put afriendly hand upon Miss Cullam's arm. "I hope we three will never add toyour burdens, my dear Miss Cullam, " she whispered. 

The instructor flashed a rather wondering look at the girl of the RedMill; then she smiled. It was a grouty person, indeed, who could lookinto Ruth Fielding's frank countenance and not return her smile. 

"Bless you! I have heard of you already, Ruth Fielding. I have no idea Ishall be troubled by you or your friends. " They had fallen behind theothers a few steps. "But we never can tell. Since last term--well!"

Much, evidently, was on Miss Cullam's mind; yet she kept step with Ruthwhen they came to the corridor on which the rooms of the threeBriarwoods opened. Ruth could always find something pleasant to say. This woman with the care-graved countenance smiled whimsically as shelistened, keeping at the girl's shoulder. 

Evidently somewhat oppressed by the attentions of the instructor, Helenand Heavy had disappeared into the fleshy girl's room. 

"Do come in and see how nicely we have fixed our sitting-room--study, Imean, of course, " and Ruth laughed, opening the door. 

"Looks homelike, " confessed Miss Cullam. Then, with a startled glancearound the room, she murmured: "Why, it's the very room!"

"What is that you say?" asked Ruth, curiously. 

"Do you know who had this room last year?"

"Of course I haven't the first idea, " returned the girl of the Red Mill. 

"Miss Rolff. "

"Do I know her?" asked Ruth, somewhat puzzled. 

"She left before the end of the term. I--I am not sure just what thematter was with her. But she is connected in my mind with a greatmisfortune. "

"Indeed, Miss Cullam?" said the sympathetic Ruth. 

It was, perhaps, the sympathy in her tone that urged the instructor toconfide her trouble to a strange girl--a freshman, at that!

"I hope I shall never have the same fears and doubts regarding you andyour friends, Miss Fielding, that I have felt about some of these girlswho are now sophomores--and some of the juniors, too. "

"Oh, Miss Cullam! What do you mean?"

"Well, I'll tell you, my dear, " the teacher said, taking the comfortablechair at Ruth's gestured recommendation, as the girl switched on theelectricity. "You seem like an above-the-average sensible girl----"

Ruth laughed at that, but she dimpled, too, and Miss Cullam joined inthe laughter. 

"Some of these girls were mere flyaways, " she said. "But not many, afterall. Girls who come as far as college, even to the freshman course incollege, usually have something in their pretty noddles besides ideasfor dressing their hair. 

"Well, I will confide in you, as I say, because I have a fancy to. Ilike you. Listen to the troubles of a poor mathematics instructor. "

"Yes, Miss Cullam, " said Ruth, demurely. 

"You see, my dear, " said Miss Cullam, who had a whimsical way about herthat Ruth had begun to delight in, "after all, we college instructorsare all necessarily of the race of watch dogs. "

"Oh, Miss Cullam!"

"Our girls are put upon their honor and are in the main worthy of ourconfidence. But we have experiences that show us how frail human virtueis. 

"For instance, there are examinations. A most trying necessity areexaminations. They come mainly toward the close of the college year, anda few of our girls are not prepared to pass. 

"Last year I felt that some of my freshmen and sophomores could notpossibly comply with the mathematical requirements. When I received fromthe printers my copies of the questions to be proposed to the classes Ireally felt that a few of my girls were going to have a hard time, " andshe smiled again, yet there was still trouble in her eyes. 

"I chanced to be in the library when I received the papers. You have notseen our library yet, have you, Miss Fielding?"

"No, Miss Cullam. You know, Helen and I arrived only this afternoon atArdmore. "

"That is so. Well, the library is a very beautifully furnished building. It was a gift from certain alumni. I was alone in the reception-roomwhen I examined the papers, and being called suddenly to a duty and notwishing to take the papers with me, I rolled them up and thrust theminto a vase standing upon the table. When I returned in a few minutes, still hurried by a task before me, I found that I had thrust the papersso far into the small-mouthed vase that I could not reach them. Quite aridiculous situation, was it not?

"But now the plot thickens, " went on the teacher, with a sigh. "Thepapers were safe enough there, of course. The vase was a very beautifuland valuable silver one, and had its place of honor on that table. Icould not stop to retrieve the question papers with a pair of tongs--asI might, had I not been hurried. When I returned armed with the tongs inthe morning----"

"Yes, Miss Cullam?" rejoined Ruth, interestedly, as the teacher pausedin her story. 

"The vase--and, of course, the question papers--was gone, " said thelady, in a sepulchral tone. 

"Oh!"

"And almost all the girls I had marked for failure in mathematics wentthrough the examination with colors flying!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth again, and quite blankly. 

"Do you see the terrible suspicion that has been eating at my mind eversince? There happened to be other unfortunate matters connected with thedisappearance of the vase, too. _It_ has never been found. One of thevery freshmen who I feared would fail in the examination left thecollege under a cloud. "

"Oh, Miss Cullam!" gasped Ruth. "Is she suspected of stealing thevase--and the examination papers?"

"I scarcely know what to say in answer to that, " said Miss Cullam, gravely. "It seems that one of the sororities was initiating candidateson that night. One of the--er--'stunts, ' as they call their ridiculousceremonies, included the filching of this vase after dark and its burialsomewhere on Bliss Island. So Dr. Milroth later informed me. 

"The girl chosen for this ridiculous performance, Miss Rolff, whooccupied this very room, was found at daybreak wandering alone upon theisland in a hysterical condition. She insisted upon leaving the collegeimmediately, before I had discovered the absence of the vase and themissing papers. 

"I felt that I could not arouse suspicion in Dr. Milroth's mind bymentioning the papers. I secured copies from the printer. Of course, itis all ancient history now, my dear, " ended the mathematics teacher, with a sigh. "But you see, suspicion once fastened upon my mind, itstill troubles me. "

"But what became of the poor girl?" asked Ruth, sympathetically. 

"That I cannot tell you, " Miss Cullam said, rising. "She has notreturned this year, and I understand that Dr. Milroth lost trace ofher. "

CHAPTER VII

FAME IS NOT ALWAYS AN ASSET

Just why the teacher of mathematics had taken Ruth Fielding into herconfidence upon this rather curious event, it would be hard to say. Teachers are human like other people, and perhaps sometimes prone togossip. 

However, Ruth felt that it was a confidence, and she did not mention thematter of the missing examination papers to her chum or to Jennie Stone. The other Briarwood girls were the only members of the freshman classRuth was likely to be intimate with for some days. 

Friendships are not made so quickly at college as at smaller schools. There were so many girls that it took some time for the trio to adjustthemselves and to become acquainted with their mates. 

In the morning they went again to the registrar's office, and there theymet Miss Dexter, who was appointed to escort them about, show them thecollege offices, the bookstore, and introduce them to such of theinstructors as came in the path of the new girls. 

Of course, their tuition fees--one hundred and seventy-five dollarseach--for the year had been already paid. Their board would be ninedollars weekly, and all books, stationery, gymnastic suits and supplies, as well as medical and hospital fees (if they chanced to be ill) wouldbe extra. 

There were only a few simple rules of behavior to note. If a girl is notwell trained in ladylike demeanor before arriving at the college age sheis, of course, hopeless. The faculty have other things to do besideswatching the manners as well as the mental attributes, of the students. 

Ruth and her friends learned that they were not to leave the collegegrounds before six in the morning. 

"And who'd want to?" demanded Heavy. "That's the best time to sleep. "

However, the fleshy girl soon learned that if she was to have areasonable time for breakfast she must be up betimes. The meal wasserved from seven to a quarter to eight. Chapel was at eight-thirty, butnot compulsory. Recitations began at nine and lunch was at twelve. 

Recitations and lectures (these latter did not interest our freshmen, for they had no lectures the first year) ended at three-thirty, when, all the girls were supposed to take gymnastics of some kind. Otherwise, their time was their own until dinner at six o'clock. 

The girls had the time free from seven till seven-thirty. The followingtwo hours were those devoted to quiet study (or should be) in their ownrooms, or in the reference department of the library. At ten all weresupposed to retire. 

The students might leave the grounds at any time during the day, butnever in the evening without a chaperon. These rules and requirementsseemed easy enough to the trio from Briarwood Hall, used as they were tothe far stricter oversight of the teachers in the preparatoryinstitution. 

More girls appeared at Ardmore that day, and the one following would seethe opening of the semester and, as Jennie Stone said, "the bucklingdown to real work. " A notice was posted on the bulletin boards alreadycommanding all freshmen to meet at Hoskin Hall after dinner thatevening, signed by the president of the sophomore class. 

"What's _she_ got to do with _us_?" Helen demanded, with a sniff. 

"Aren't we allowed to run our own class affairs here?" Heavy asked. 

"I fancy not, " Ruth rejoined. "Miss Dexter told me that the sophs andfreshies were usually lined up against the two older classes. The sophsneed us, and we need them. "

"I have an idea, " said Heavy, with a warning shake of her head, "thatsome of the sophs don't care so much for us. "

The trio were returning from the college hall as they chatted. Helensuddenly exclaimed:

"Girls! did you ever see so many tam-o'-shanters in your little lives?And such a wealth of colors?"

It was true that every girl in sight (and there were "just hundreds!" toquote Heavy again), unless she were bareheaded, wore a tam-o'-shanter. 

"The most popular thing in head covering at Ardmore this year, that issure, " said Ruth. 

"Oh! will you look at the one that Frayne girl is wearing?" Helengasped. 

"Goodness!" said Heavy. "Looks like an Italian sunset. "

"Or a badly scrambled egg, " put in Helen. "There! I believe that girlwould look a fright whatever she put on. "

"She can't help her taste, poor girl, " Ruth said. 

"My!" sighed Heavy. "I like to hear you talk, Ruth. You're as full ofexcuses for everybody criticised as a chestnut is of meat, " and shenibbled one of the nuts in question as she spoke. Then:

"Wow! Oh, the nasty thing!"

Helen laughed uproariously. "Something besides meat in that chestnut, Heavy. Did it squirm much?"

"Don't ask me, " said the fleshy girl, gloomily. "Of such is life! 'Inever owned a gay gazelle----'"

"Cut it out. You never owned a gazelle of any kind, " said Helen. "Youknow you never did. "

It was just here that the trio came upon a group of girls of whom EdithPhelps was evidently the leader. It was opposite the gymnasium, underthe wide-spreading oaks that gave shade to that quarter of the campus. The Briarwood girls had been about to enter the gymnasium building tolook around. 

Edith and her friends were mostly in gymnasium costumes. They had beentossing the medicine ball; but it was plain that they had gathered herenear the path the three freshmen friends followed, for a purpose. 

"Oh, here comes the leading lady!" cried Edith Phelps, in a high andaffected voice. "Get set! Camera!"

The girls, or most of them, struck most ridiculous attitudes at Edie'sword, while an oblong, black box suddenly appeared, affixed upon atripod, and May MacGreggor, who was out for fun as much as any of thesophomores, began to turn a tiny crank on one side of the box. 

"Hi! what are you trying to do--you fat person there?" demanded Edie, excitedly, imitating a movie director, and waving back the amazed andsomewhat angry Jennie Stone. "Want to crab the film?"

"Oh, the mean things!" gasped Helen, growing as red as though the jokewere aimed directly at herself. 

"Cracky!" murmured the fleshy girl, who couldn't help seeing theridiculous side of it. "Isn't that funny?"

At the moment, too, a thin little tune began to wander from the blackbox, none other than "The Wearing of the Green. " Inside the box was oneof those little, old-fashioned Swiss music boxes, and May wasindustriously turning the crank. 

"Register fear, Miss Fielding!" shouted Edith, energetically. "Fear, Isay! Don't you realize that you are about to be flung over a cliff andthat a mad bull is waiting bel-o-o-w to catch you on his horns? Close upof the bull, please!"

Ruth had been first surprised, then not a little displeased; but sheknew instinctively if she showed that this buffoonry offended andtroubled her it would only be repeated again and again. 

Much better able than her chum, Helen Cameron, to control her features, she began now to smile broadly. 

"Girls!" she said aloud to her two friends, "it must be that that girlknows Mr. Grimes personally or has seen him at work. You remember Mr. Grimes, the Alectrion director who filmed our play at Briarwood?"

"And was so nasty to Hazel Gray? I should say!" exclaimed Jennie, instantly falling in with Ruth's attempt to pass the incident off as ajoke. 

"I think _she's_ nasty-mean, " muttered Helen, her black eyes snapping. 

"If you played that tune while making a film for me, Miss MacGreggor, Ishould want to jig, " Heavy cried, and started to do a few ridiculoussteps in front of the black box. 

Ruth continued to smile, too, saying to Edith Phelps: "You might havewarned us of this. I'd have liked to primp a little before posing forthe camera. "

The other girls laughed. It did not take much to make them laugh, and itis possible that they laughed as much at Edie as with her. But as thetrio of freshmen went on toward Dare Hall, Ruth shook her headdoubtfully. 

"What's the matter, Ruthie?" asked Helen, squeezing her arm. "The meanthings!"

"I wonder, " murmured Ruth. 

"You wonder what?" demanded Helen. 

Ruth sighed. "I guess fame isn't always an asset, " she said. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE STONE FACE

Ruth knew better than to show anger over any such silly joke. If she wasto be made the laughing stock of her class by the sophomores, she mightas well face it and bear the cross good-naturedly. 

Ruth was as sensitive as any refined girl. It hurt her to be ridiculed. But she had not spent years at boarding school without learning that thebest way--indeed, the only way--to bear successfully such indignityis to ignore it. That is, to ignore the fun poked at one as far aspossible. To bear the jokes with a smile. So she would not allow herfriends to comment much upon this scene before the gymnasium building. 

She had never given herself airs because of her success in writingscenarios. Another girl might have done so. But Ruth was naturallymodest, and had never really ceased to be surprised at her own success. 

The new scenario she was at work upon, the scenes of which were laid atthe Red Mill, was born of an idea she had evolved when her attention hadfirst been turned to motion-picture writing. 

Mr. Hammond, her kind friend and the president of the Alectrion FilmCorporation, had advised her to postpone the use of this idea until shehad tried her apprentice hand on other and simpler scenarios. The timeseemed ripe now, however, for the writing of "Crossed Wires, " and he hadencouraged her to go ahead. 

All the visible effect Edith Phelps' joke had upon Ruth was to send herto the unfinished scenario. After returning from the college offices onthis occasion she worked on her play until lunch time. 

"There's too much new to see and to do for you to pore over letterwriting, Ruth, " Helen declared, misunderstanding her friend'soccupation. "We want to see Ardmore. We want to go out on the lake if wecan get a boat. We've got to see the gym and the library. And to-nightwe must turn up at this meeting, it seems, and see what Miss Dunstan, the soph president, has to say to us freshies. "

"Oh, I want to go out on the lake!" cried Ruth, agreeing. "And I want toexplore that island. "

"What island?" demanded Jennie, coming into the chums' study. 

"Bliss Island. "

"'Tisn't part of the college grounds, " said the fleshy girl. 

"Don't care. Want to see it, " declared Ruth. "I hope we can get a boat. I didn't see many in use this morning. "

"Some of the girls own their own. Especially canoes, " said Jennie Stone. "But it's _the_ thing to make the 'eight. ' Let me tell you, us Ardmoresare supposed to be some rowists! Our first eight beat the GillingsCollege first eight last June. "

"We'll all try for the eight then, " Helen said. 

"And _you_, Jennie?" asked Ruth, mildly. 

"Oh, _me_!"

"String beans for yours, Heavy, " Helen cried, clapping her hands. "You'll have to diet on them until you have reduced to little more thana string yourself if you expect to make the eight. "

"Bet I could do it, " grumbled Heavy. 

"A bet's a bet!" cried Helen. "I take you. "

"Don't be rude, girls, " advised Ruth. "You sound like regular, sure-enough gamblers. And, anyway, Heavy will never be able to make theeight. She might as well pay her wager now. "

"Oh! oh! oh!" laughed Helen. "A palpable hit!"

"You just see!" said Heavy, firmly. "I'll show you. "

"My dear, " Ruth said, "if you show us a sylph-like form in time to makethe freshman eight----"

"It will be the eighth wonder of the world, " finished Helen. 

Jennie tossed her head. "I don't know about the sylph-like form, but atleast I mean to possess a slender figure when I have followed MissCullam's advice on diet. You'll see!"

"Poor Heavy!" groaned Helen. "She is letting herself in for a most awfultime, and no mistake. "

After luncheon the three girls set forth to explore the place. 

"If I keep this up I'll need nothing else to get me thin. We havetramped miles, " the fleshy girl announced at length. "Oh! my poor, poorfeet!"

"Wear sensible shoes, then, " said Helen, who was the very last person tofollow her own advice on this point. 

"Easy enough to say, " groaned Jennie. "There ain't any such an animal!You know that in this day and generation shoe makers have ceased to makesensible shoes. I look at 'em in the shop windows, " pursued the achinggirl, "and I wonder what sort of foot the human pedal extremity willbecome in a generation or two. Those pointed toes!

"Why, " declared the suddenly warmed up Jennie Stone, "they tell us abouta two-toed sloth living in Central and South America. Believe _me_! thepresent-day shoemaker seems to have secured a last to fit a _one_-toedsloth. "

"I don't know about the number of their toes, " Ruth said, laughing; "butmany of those who wear the fancy shoes are _sloths_, all right. "

They had looked over the library before this, and walked down pastHoskin and Hemmingway Halls on the west side of the campus, and soreached the lake. There were some girls at the boathouse, and a fewcraft were out. It was possible for the three friends to get a boat andRuth and Helen rowed, with Heavy lazily reclining in the stern. 

"Beginning that strenuous life that is to reduce your weight, Heavy?"questioned Helen. 

"I am practising deep breathing, " Jennie said. "They say that helps alot. "

They headed the light skiff directly for Bliss Island. It was not morethan a mile off shore, and was a beautiful place. At the landing theysaw several girls whom they knew were sophomores, for among them was MayMacGreggor. 

"Here are some more of Cook's Trippers, " said the Scotch girl, gaily. "Seeing the sights, _mes infantes_?"

"Trying to, " Jennie announced. "But you're really not so bad looking, Miss MacGreggor. I wouldn't call you a 'sight. '"

"Now, that will be all of that, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the sophomore, but her brown eyes danced as the other girls laughed. "I believe youthree girls are Briarwoods, are you not?"

"Yes, " Helen said. 

"I can believe it, " said May. "I have felt the briers. Now, let us calla truce. "

"With all my heart, Miss MacGreggor, " Ruth said quickly. 

"You're a good little thing!" returned the Scotch girl. "I know yourheart is big enough. And we sophs really shouldn't nag you freshies, youknow, for we must pull together against the seniors and juniors. Butyou'll hear about that to-night. "

"Thank you, Miss MacGreggor, " Ruth said. "And now that we are at thisisland, would you mind telling us where the Stone Face is situated?"

"Ah! one of the wonders of the place, " said May. "And who told you aboutthe Stone Face, Freshie?"

"I have heard it is well worth seeing, " said Ruth, demurely. 

"I will be your escort, " said May. 

They found the Scotch girl very companionable. She led them up a ruggedpath through the trees and around the rocks. 

"And did that girl have to come up here--_and in the dark_?" murmuredRuth at last. 

"What girl?" Helen asked. 

"Who are you talking about, Miss Fielding?" asked the sophomore. 

"That girl--Miss Rolff. "

"Oh! don't mention her name!" groaned May MacGreggor. "If it hadn't beenfor _her_, you-uns and we-uns wouldn't be cut out of the sororities. Awicked shame!"

"Oh, I've heard about that, " said Jennie, puffing because of the hardclimb. "Did she really have to come here, and _alone_, when she wasinitiated?"

"She started for here, " said May, gloomily. "With a flashlight, Ibelieve. But she lost her nerve----

"There! there's the rock you're looking for. "

It was a huge boulder in an open field. At the angle from which theyviewed it, the face of the rock really bore some semblance to a humancountenance--the features of an old, old woman. 

"Ugly old hag!" was May MacGreggor's comment upon the odd boulder. 

CHAPTER IX

GETTING ON

The three freshmen friends from Briarwood learned a good deal more thatevening than the Year Book would ever have taught them. The girls beganto crowd into the Hoskin Hall dining-room right after dinner. Theseniors and the juniors disappeared, but there were a large number ofsophomores present, besides the president of that class who addressedthe freshmen. 

The latter learned that in athletics especially the rivalry between thetwo lower and the two upper classes was intense. It was hardly possible, of course, for any of the freshmen, and for few of the sophomores togain positions on any of the first college teams in basket ball, rowing, tennis, archery, or other important activities of a physical nature. 

All athletic sports, which included, as well as those named above, running and jumping and other track work, were under the directsupervision of the college athletic association. All the girls couldbelong to that. Indeed, they were expected to, and the fees were small. But for a freshman to show sufficient athletic training to make any ofthe first teams, would almost seem impossible. They could get on thescrubs and possess their souls with patience, hoping to win places onthe first teams perhaps in their sophomore year. 

However, there had once been a girl in a freshman class at Ardmore whosucceeded in throwing the hammer a record-making distance; and once afreshman had been bow oar in the first eight. These were targets to aimfor, Miss Dunstan, the sophomore president, told the new girls. 

She was, of course, a member of the athletic committee, and having toldthe new girls all about the sports she proceeded to advise them aboutorganizing their class and electing officers. This should be done by theend of the first fortnight. Meanwhile, the freshman should get together, become acquainted, and electioneer for the election of officers. 

Class politics at Ardmore meant something. There were already groups andcliques forming among the freshmen. It was an honor to hold office inthe class, and those who were ambitious, or who wished to control thepolicy of the class, were already at work. 

Ruth and her friends were so ambitious in quite another direction--intwo, in fact--that they rather overlooked these class activities. Thefollowing day actually opened the work of the semester, and as theyalready had their books the trio settled immediately to their lessons. 

They were taking the classical course, a four-years' course. During thisfirst year their studies would be English, a language (their choice ofFrench or German) besides the never-to-be-escaped Latin; mathematics, including geometry, trigonometry and higher algebra. They had not yetdecided whether to take botany or chemistry as the additional study. 

"We want to keep together as much as possible, in classes as well asout, " Helen said. "Let's take the same specials, too. "

"I vote for botany, " Ruth suggested. "That will take us into the woodsand fields more. "

"You mean, it will give us an excuse for going into the woods andfields, " Jennie said. "I'm with you. And if I have to walk much to cutdown weight, it will help. "

"My goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "Heavy really _has_ come to college toget rid of her superabundance of fat. "

"Surest thing you know, " agreed the fleshy girl. 

The freshmen learned that they would have from fifteen to eighteenrecitation periods weekly, of forty-five minutes each. The recitationperiods occurred between nine and twelve in the forenoon and one andthree-thirty in the afternoon. 

It took several days to get all these things arranged rightly; the threefriends managed to get together in all classes. The classes numberedfrom twenty to forty students and the girls began to get acquainted withthe teachers very quickly. Trust youth for judging middle-age almostimmediately. 

"I like Dr. McCurdy, " Helen said, speaking of their English instructor, who was a man. "He knows what he's about and goes right at it. Nofooling with him. None of this, 'Now young ladies, I hope you arepleasantly situated and that we are going to be good friends. ' Pah!"

Ruth laughed. "The dear old things!" she said gaily. "They meanwell--even that Miss Mara, whom you are imitating. And she _does_ have abeautiful French accent, if she _is_ Irish. "

They liked Dr. Frances Milroth. Her talk in chapel was an inspiration, and that first morning some of the girls came out into the sunshine withwet eyelashes. They began to realize that they were here at college forsomething besides either play or ordinary study. They were at Ardmore tolearn to get a grip on life. 

Instrumental and vocal music could be taken at any time which did notinterfere with the regular recitations, and of course Ruth took thelatter as a special, while Helen did not neglect her violin. 

"I guess I'll take up the study of the oboe, " grumbled Jennie Stone. "Idon't seem to know just what to do with myself while you girls aremaking sweet sounds. "

"Why don't you roll, Heavy?" demanded Helen. 

"Roll _what_? Roll a hoop?" asked the fleshy girl. 

"No. Roll a barrel, I should say would be nearer to it, " Helenresponded, eyeing Jennie's plump waistline reflectively. "Get down androll. Move back the furniture, give yourself plenty of room, and _roll_. They say that will reduce one's curves. "

"Wow! And what would the girl say downstairs under me?" asked JennieStone. "I'd begin by being the most unpopular girl in this freshmanclass. "

These first few days were busy ones; but the girls of the freshman classwere fast learning just where they stood. Then happened something thatawoke most of the class to the fact that they needed to get together, that they must, after all, take up cudgels for themselves. 

"Just like a flock of silly sheep, running together when they see adog, " Helen at first said. 

"I guess there is a good reason in nature for sheep to do that, " Ruthsaid, on reflection. "Sheep fear wolves more than any other animal, anda dog is a wolf, after all, only domesticated. "

"Huh!" grunted Jennie. "Then we are sheep and the seniors are wolves, are they? I could eat up most of these seniors I've seen, myself. I willbe a savage sheep--woof! woof!"

The matter that had made the disturbance, however, was not to beignored. 

CHAPTER X

A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT

Arrangements for the organization of the freshman class had lagged. 

This fact may have been behind the notice put upon the bulletin boardsall over the Ardmore grounds some time after bedtime one evening andbefore the rising bell rang the next morning. It intimated a bit ofhazing, but hazing of a quality that the faculty could only wink at. 

The notice was as follows:

 FRESHMEN

 _It is the command of the Senior Class of Ardmore that no Freshman shall appear within the college grounds wearing a tam-o'-shanter of any other hue save the herewith designated color, to wit: Baby Blue. This order is for the mental and spiritual good of the incoming class of Freshmen. Any member of said class refusing to obey this order will be summarily dealt with by the upper classes of Ardmore. _

Groups gathered immediately after breakfast about the bulletin boards. Of course, the seniors and juniors passed by with dignified bearing, andwithout comment. The sophomores remained upon the outskirts of thegroups of excited freshmen to laugh and jeer. 

"A disturbed bumblebees' nest could have hummed no louder, " Helendeclared, as the three friends walked up to chapel, which they made apoint of attending. 

"Why! to think of the _cheek_ of those seniors!" ejaculated Jennie. "Andthe juniors are just as bad!"

"What are you going to do about that tam of yours, Heavy?" asked Ruth, slily. "It's a gay thing--nothing like baby blue. "

"Oh well, " growled the fleshy girl, "baby blue is one of my favoritecolors. "

"Mine, too, " said Ruth, drily. 

"Oh, girls! Are you going to give right in--_so_ easy?" gasped Helen. 

"I don't feel like making myself conspicuous, " Ruth said. "You can wagerthat most of our class will hustle right off and get the proper hue intams. "

"Then we'd better go to town this very afternoon, " Jennie cried, inhaste, "and see if we can find three of baby blue shade. The stores willbe drained of them by to-morrow. "

"But to give--right--in!" wailed Helen, who dearly loved a fight. 

"No. It isn't that. But, as the advertisements say: 'Eventually, so whynot now?' We'll have to come to it. Let's get our tams while thetamming's good. "

Helen could not see the reason for obeying the senior order; but shecould see no reason, either, for not following her chum's lead. Thethree girls telephoned for a taxicab, which came to Dare Hall for themat half past three. 

They were not the only girls going to town; but some of the freshmen, like Helen, wished to display their independence and refused--as yet--toobey the senior command. 

A line at the bottom of the notice announced that three days wereallowed the freshmen to obtain their proper tam-o'-shanters. 

"Three days!" gasped Heavy, as they started off in the little car. "Why, it will take the stores in Greenburg two weeks to supply sufficient tamsof the proper color. "

"Then if we don't get ours, " laughed Ruth, "we'd better go bareheadeduntil the new tams can be sent us from home. "

"I won't do that!" cried the annoyed Helen. "Oh! oh!" she exclaimed, thenext moment, and before they were out of the grounds. "See Miss Frayne!She has her scrambled-egg tam on. "

"Don't you suppose she has read the notice?" worried Ruth. 

"Why hasn't she?"

"Well, she seems to flock together with herself so much. Nobody seems tobe chummy with her--yet, " Ruth explained. 

"Now, old Mother Worry!" exclaimed Helen, "bother about _her_, willyou?"

"Yes, ma'am, " said Ruth, demurely. "I shall, I suppose. "

"Goodness, Ruth!" cried Jennie. 

They discovered a rather strange thing when they arrived in Greenburgand entered the first store that dealt in ladies' apparel. Oh, yes, indeed! the proprietor had tam-o'-shanters of just the required shade, baby blue. The friends bought immediately for fear some of the othergirls who had come to town would find these and buy the proprietor out. 

And then, prone to the usual feminine frailty, they went "windowshopping. " And in every store seeking trade from the college girls theyfound the baby blue tam-o'-shanters. 

"It's the most astonishing thing!" gasped Helen. "What do you suppose itmeans? Did you ever see so many caps of one kind and color in all yourlife?"

"It is amazing, " agreed Ruth. Yet she was reflective. 

Jennie began to laugh. "Wonder if the seniors are just helping out theirfriends among the tradespeople? It looks as though the storekeepers hadbought a superabundance of baby blue caps and the seniors were puttingit up to us to save the stores from bankruptcy. "

Ruth, however, thought it must be something other than that. Was it thatthe storekeepers had been notified by the senior "powers that be" to beready to supply a sudden large demand for tam-o'-shanters of thatparticular hue?

At least, one little Hebrew asked the three friends if they had alreadybought their tam-o'-shanters. "For vy, I haf a whole case of your classcolors, ladies, that my poy iss opening. "

"What class color?" demanded Helen, grumpily enough. 

"Oh, Mees! A peau-ti-ful plue!"

"They're all doing it! They're all doing it!" murmured Jennie, staggering out of the "emporium. " "This is going to affect my brain, girls. _Did_ the seniors know the storekeepers had the tams in stock, orhave the storekeepers been put wise by our elder sisters at Ardmore?"

"What's the odds?" finally laughed Helen, as they got into the waitingcar. "We've got _our_ tams. I only hope there are enough to go around. "

The appearance of more than a score of baby-blue caps on the campusbefore evening showed that our trio of freshmen were not the onlymembers of their class who considered it wise to obey the mandate of thelordly seniors, and without question. 

The tempest in the teapot, however, continued to rage. Many girlsdeclared they had not come to Ardmore to "be made monkeys of. "

"No, " May MacGreggor was heard to say. "Some of you were alreadyassisted by nature. But get together, freshies! Can't you read thehandwriting on the wall?"

"We can read the typewriting on the billboards, " sniffed Helen Cameron. "Don't ask us to strain our eyesight farther. "

Perhaps this was really the intention behind the senior order--that theentering girls should become more quickly riveted into a compact body. How the rooms occupied by the more popular freshmen buzzed during thenext few days!

Our trio of friends, Ruth, Helen and Jennie, had been in danger ofestablishing a clique of three, if they had but known it. Now they wereforced to extend their borders of acquaintanceship. 

As they were three, and were usually seen about the study-room Ruth andHelen had established, it was natural that other girls of their class onthat corridor of Dale Hall should flock to them. They thus became thenucleus at this side of the campus of the freshman class. Fromdiscussing the rule of the haughty seniors, the freshmen began to talkof their own organization and the approaching election. 

Had Ruth allowed her friends to do so, there would have been started aboom by Helen and Jennie Stone for the girl of the Red Mill forpresident of the freshman class. This honor Ruth did not desire. Therewere several girls whom she had noted already among her mates, olderthan she, and who evidently possessed qualities for the position. 

Besides, Ruth Fielding felt that if she became unduly prominent at firstat Ardmore, girls like Edith Phelps would consider her a particularlybright target. She told herself again, but this time in private, thatfame was not always an asset. 

CHAPTER XI

THE ONE REBEL

However much the natural independence of the freshmen balked at themandate promulgated by the seniors, baby-blue tam-o'-shanters grew morenumerous every hour on the Ardmore campus. 

The sophomores were evidently filled with glee; the juniors and seniorssmiled significantly, but said nothing. The freshmen had been put intheir place at once, it was considered. But the attack upon them hadmade the newcomers eager for an organization of their own. 

"If we are going to be bossed this way--and it is disgraceful!--we mustbe prepared to withstand imposition, " Helen announced. 

So they began busily settling the matter of the organization of theclass and the choosing of its officers. Before these matters werearranged completely, however, there was an incident of note. 

The freshmen, as a body, were invited to attend a sophomore "roar. " Itwas to be the first out-of-door "roar" of the year and occurred rightafter classes and lectures one afternoon. The two lower classes scampedtheir gymnasium work to make it a success. 

Now, a "roar" at Ardmore was much nicer than it sounds. It was merely anopen-air singing festival, and this one was for the purpose of makingthe freshmen familiar with the popular songs of the college. 

Professor Leidenburg, the musical director, himself led the outdoorconcert. The sophomores stood in a compact body before the main entranceto the college hall. Massed in the background, and in a half circle, were the freshmen. 

The weather had become cool and all the girls wore theirtam-o'-shanters. For the first time it was noticeable how pretty thepale blue caps on the freshmen's heads looked. And the new girlslikewise noted that most of the tam-o'-shanters worn-by their sophomorehostesses were pale yellow. 

It was whispered then (and strange none of the freshmen had discoveredit before) that the class preceding theirs at Ardmore--the presentsophomores--had been forced to wear caps of a distinctive color, too. These pale yellow ones were their old caps, left over from the previouswinter. 

The open-air assemblages of the college were made more attractive bythis scheme of a particular class color in head-wear. 

There was a blot in the assembly of the freshmen on this occasion. Itwas not discovered in the beginning. Soon, however, there was muchwhispering, and looking about and pointing. 

"Do you see _that_?" gasped Jennie, who had been straining her neck andhopping up and down on her toes to see what the other girls were lookingat. 

"What _are_ you rubbering at, Heavy?" demanded Helen, inelegantly. 

"Yes; what's all the disturbance?" asked Ruth. 

"That girl!" ejaculated the fleshy one. 

"What girl now? Any particular girl?"

"She's not very particular, I guess, " returned Jennie, "or she wouldn'tdo it. "

"Jennie!" demanded Helen. "_Who_ do _what_?"

"That Frayne girl, " explained her plump friend. 

Rebecca Frayne stood well back in the lines of freshmen. It could not besaid that she thrust herself forward, or sought to gain the attention ofthe crowd. Nevertheless, among the mass of pale blue tam-o'-shanters, her parti-colored one was very prominent. 

"Goodness!" gasped Ruth. "Doesn't she know better?"

"Do you suppose she is one of those stubborn girls who just 'won't bedriv'?" giggled Helen. 

It was no laughing matter. The three days of grace written upon theseniors' order regarding the caps had now passed. There seemed no goodreason for one member of the freshman class to refuse to obey thecommand. Indeed, they had all tacitly agreed to do as they weretold--upon this single point, at least. 

"There certainly are enough of them left in town so that she can buyone, " Jennie Stone said. 

"Goodness!" snapped Helen. "If _my_ complexion can stand such a sillycolor, _hers_ certainly can. "

Before the out-of-doors concert was over, news of this rebellion on thepart of a single freshman had run through the crowd like a breath ofwind over ripe wheat. It almost broke up the "roar. "

As the last verse of the last song was ended and the company began todisperse, the freshmen themselves, and the sophomores as well, stared atRebecca Frayne in open wonder. She started for her room, which was inDare Hall on the same corridor as that of the three girls fromBriarwood, and Ruth and Helen and Jennie were right behind her. 

"That certainly is an awful tam, " groaned Jennie. "What do you supposemakes her wear it, anyway? Let alone the trouble----"

She broke off. Miss Dexter, the first senior who had spoken to Ruth andHelen coming over from the railway station on the auto-bus, stopped thestrange girl whose initials were the same as those of the girl of theRed Mill. 

"Will you tell me, please, why you are wearing that tam-o'-shanter?"asked Miss Dexter. 

Rebecca Frayne's head came up and a spot of vivid red appeared in eitherof her sallow cheeks. 

"Is that _your_ business?" she demanded, slowly. 

"Do you know that I am a senior?" asked Miss Dexter, levelly. 

"I don't care if you are two seniors, " returned Rebecca Frayne, saucily. 

Miss Dexter turned her back upon the freshman and walked promptly away. The listeners were appalled. None of them cared to go forward and speakto Rebecca Frayne. 

"Cracky!" gasped Helen. "She's an awful spitfire. "

"She's an awful chump!" groaned Jennie. "The seniors won't do a thing toher!"

But nothing came at once of Rebecca's refusal to obey the seniors'command regarding tam-o'-shanters. It was known, however, that theexecutive committees of both the senior and junior classes met that nextnight and supposedly took the matter up. 

"Oh, no! They don't haze any more at Ardmore, " said Jennie, shaking herhead. "But just wait!"

CHAPTER XII

RUTH IS NOT SATISFIED

Ruth Fielding was not at all satisfied. Not that her experiences inthese first few weeks of college were not wholly "up to sample, " as theslangy Jennie Stone remarked. Ruth was getting personally all out ofcollege life that she could expect. 

The mere fact that a little handful of the girls looked at her somewhataskance because of her success as a motion picture writer, did notgreatly trouble the girl of the Red Mill. She could wait for them toforget her small "fame" or for them to learn that she was quite assimple and unaffected as any other girl of her age. It was about RebeccaFrayne that Ruth was disturbed in her mind. Here was the case of astudent who, Ruth believed, was much misunderstood. 

She could not imagine a girl deliberately making trouble for herself. Rebecca Frayne by the expenditure of a couple of dollars in the purchaseof a new tam-o'-shanter might have easily overcome this dislike that hadbeen bred not alone in the minds of the girls of the two upper classes, but among the sophomores and her own classmates as well. The sophomoresthought her ridiculous; the freshmen themselves felt that she wasbringing upon the whole class unmerited criticism. 

Ruth looked deeper. She saw the strange girl walk past her matesunnoticed, scarcely spoken to, indeed, by the freshmen and ignoredcompletely by members of the other classes. And yet, to Ruth's mind, there seemed to be an air about Rebecca Frayne--a look in her eyes, perhaps--that seemed to beg for sympathy. 

It was no hardship for Ruth to speak to the girl and try to be friendlywith her. But opportunities for this were not frequent. 

In the first place Ruth's own time was much occupied with her studies, her own personal friends, Helen and Jennie, and the new scenario onwhich she worked during every odd hour. 

Several times Ruth went to the door of Rebecca's room and knocked. Shepositively knew the girl was at home, but there had been no answer toher summons and the door was locked. 

The situation troubled Ruth. When she was among her classmates, Rebeccaseemed nervously anxious to please and eager to be spoken to, althoughshe had little to say. Here, on the other hand, once alone in her room, she deliberately shut herself away from all society. 

Soon after the outdoor song festival that had been so successful, andimmediately following the organization of the freshman class and itselection of officers, Ruth and Helen went over to the library oneevening to consult some reference books. 

The reference room was well filled with busy girls of all classes, whocame bustling in, got down the books they required, dipped into them fora minute and then departed to their own studies, or else settled down towork on their topics for a more extended period. 

It was a cold evening, and whenever a girl entered from the hall abreath of frosty air came with her, and most of those gathered in theroom were likely to look up and shiver. Few of those assembled failed tonotice Rebecca Frayne when she came in. 

"Goodness! See who has came, " whispered Helen. 

"Oh, Rebecca!" murmured Ruth, looking up as the girl in question crossedthe room. 

"Hasn't she the cheek of all cheeks to breeze in here this way?" Helenwent on to say with more force than elegance. "That awful tam again. "

One could not fail to see the tam-o'-shanter very well. It wasnoticeable in any assembly. 

Perhaps half of the girls in the reference room were seniors andjuniors. Several of the members of the younger classes nodded to thenewcomer, though not many noticed her in this way. 

There was, however, almost immediately a general movement by the girlsbelonging to the senior and junior classes. They got up grimly, put awaythe books they were at work upon, and filed out, one by one, and withoutsaying a word. 

Helen stared after them, and nudged Ruth. 

"What is it?" asked her chum, who had been too busy to notice. 

"Did you see that?" asked Helen. 

"Did I see what?"

"There isn't a senior or a jun left in the room. That--that's somethingmore than a coincidence. "

Ruth was puzzled. "I really wish you would explain, " she said. 

Helen was not the only girl remaining who had noticed the immediatedeparture of the members of the two older classes. Some of thesophomores were whispering together. Rebecca's fellow-classmen glancedat her sharply to see if she had noticed what had occurred. 

"I can't believe it, " Ruth said worriedly, after Helen explained. "Theywould not go out because she came in. "

The next day, however, the matter was more marked. Rebecca could sing;she evidently loved singing. In the classes for vocal music there wasoften a mixture of all grades, some of the seniors and juniors attendingwith the sophomores and freshmen. 

Ruth Fielding, of course, never missed these classes. She hoped to benoticed and have her voice tried out for the Glee Club. ProfessorLeidenburg was to give a little talk on this day that would be helpful, and the class was well attended. 

But when Rebecca Frayne came into the small hall just before theprofessor himself appeared, there was a stir throughout the audience. The girls, of course, were hatless here; but that morning Rebecca hadbeen seen wearing the "scrambled-egg tam, " as Helen insisted uponcalling it. 

There was an intake of breath all over the room. Rebecca walked down theaisle in search of an empty seat. 

And suddenly half the seats were empty. She could have her choice--and alarge one. 

"Goodness!" Helen gasped. 

Every senior and junior in the room had arisen and had left her seat. Not a word had been spoken, nor had they glanced at Rebecca Frayne, whoat first was unaware of what it portended. 

The older girls filed out silently. Professor Leidenburg entered by thedoor beside the organ just in time to see the last of them disappear. Helooked a bit surprised, but said nothing and took up the matter at handwith but half an audience. 

Rebecca Frayne had seen and understood at last. She sat still in herseat, and Ruth saw that she did not open her lips when, later, thechoruses were sung. Her face was very pale. 

Nobody spoke to her when the class was dismissed. This was not anintentional slight on the part of her mates; simply, the girls did notknow what to say. 

The seniors and juniors were showing Rebecca that she was taboo. Theirattitude could not be mistaken. And so great was the influence of theseolder girls of Ardmore upon the whole college that Rebecca walkedentirely alone. 

Ruth and Helen walked down the hill behind Rebecca that afternoon. Ruthwas very silent, while Helen buzzed about a dozen things. 

"I--I wonder how that poor girl feels?" murmured the girl of the RedMill after a while. 

"Cold, I imagine!" declared her chum, vigorously. "I'm half frozenmyself, Ruth. There's going to be a big frost to-night and the lake isalready skimmed over. Say, Ruth!"

"Well?" asked her friend, absently. 

"Let's take our skates first thing in the morning down to that man whosharpens things at the boathouse; will you?"

CHAPTER XIII

THE GIRL IN THE STORM

Ruth Fielding was quite as eager for fun between lessons as either Helenor Jennie, and the prospect of skating on such a large lake as Remonadelighted her. The second day following the incident in the chorusclass, the ice which had bound Lake Remona was officially pronouncedsafe. 

Gymnasium athletics lost their charm for those girls who were trulyactive and could skate. There were luxurious damsels who preferred to bepushed about in ice-chairs by more active girls or by hired attendants;but our trio of friends did not look upon that as enjoyment. 

Even Jennie Stone was a vigorous skater. After a day or two on the ice, when their ankles had become strong enough, the three made a circuit ofBliss Island--and that was "some skate, " to quote Jennie. 

The island was more than a mile from the boathouse, and it was five orsix miles in circumference. Therefore, the task was quite all of aneight-mile jaunt. 

"But 'do or die' is our motto, " remarked Helen, as they set forth onthis determined journey. "Let's show these pussy girls what it means tohave trained at Briarwood. "

"That's all right! that's all right!" grumbled Jennie. "But your mottois altogether too grim and significant. Let's limit it. I want to _do_if I can; but mercy me! I don't want to _die_ yet. You girls have got tostop and rest when I say so, or I won't go at all. "

Ruth and Helen agreed. That is why it took them until almost dinner-timeto encircle the island. Jennie Stone was determined to rest upon theleast provocation. 

"We'll be starved to death before we get back, " Helen began to complainwhile they were upon the south side of the island. "I should think youwould feel the pinch of privation, Heavy. "

"I do, " admitted the other hollowly. 

"Well, why didn't you escape it by refusing to come, or else by bringinga lunch?" demanded the black-eyed girl. 

"No. This is a part of the system, " groaned Jennie. 

"What system, I'd like to know?" Ruth asked, in surprise. 

"System of martyrdom, I guess, " sniffed Helen. 

"You've said it, " agreed the plump girl. "That is the truest word yetspoken. Martyrdom! that is what it means for me. "

"What means to you?" snapped Helen, exasperated because she could notunderstand. 

"This dieting and exercising, " Jennie said more cheerfully. "Ideliberately came so far and without food to see if I couldn't reallylose some weight. Do you know, girls, I am so hollow and so tired rightnow, that I believe I must have lost a few ounces, anyway. "

"You ridiculous thing!" laughed Helen, recovering her good nature. 

"Should we sacrifice ourselves for your benefit, do you think, Jennie?"Ruth asked. 

"Why not? 'Love thy neighbor as thyself, ' only more so. I need theinspiration of you girls to help me, " Jennie declared. "Do you know, sometimes I am almost discouraged?"

"About what?" asked Helen. 

"About my weight. I watch the bathroom scales with eagle eye. Butinstead of coming down by pounds, I only fall by ounces. It is awfullydiscouraging. And then, " added the fleshy girl, "the other day when wehad such a scrumptuous dinner--was it Columbus Day? I believe so--I wastempted to eat one of my old-time 'full and plenty' meals, and what doyou think?"

"You had the nightmare, " said Helen. 

"Not a chance! But I went up _two pounds and a half_--or else the scaleswere crazy!"

"Girls!" exclaimed Ruth, suddenly. "Do you know it is snowing?"

"My! I never expected that, " cried Helen, as a feathery flake lit uponthe very point of her pretty nose. "Ow!"

"Well, we'd better go on, I guess, " Ruth observed. "Put your best footforward, please, Miss Jennie. "

"I don't know which is my best foot now, " complained the heavy girl. "They are both getting lame. "

"We'll just have to make you sit down on the ice while we drag you, "announced Helen, increasing the length of her stroke. 

"Not much you won't!" exclaimed Jennie Stone, "I'm cold enough as itis. "

"Shall we take off our skates and walk over the island, girls?"suggested Ruth. "That will save some time and more than a little workfor Heavy. "

"Don't worry about me, " put in Jennie. "I need the exercise. And walkingwould be worse than skating, I do believe. "

It was snowing quite thickly now; but the shore of the island was notfar away. The trio hugged it closely in encircling the wooded and hillypiece of land. 

"Say!" Helen cried, "we're not the only girls out here to-day. "

"Huh?" grunted Jennie, head down and skating doggedly. 

"See there, Ruth!" called the black-eyed girl. 

Ruth turned her face to one side and looked under the shade of her hand, which she held above her eyes. There was a figure moving along the shoreof Bliss Island just abreast of them. 

"It's a girl, " she said. "But she's not skating. "

"Who is it? A freshie?" asked Jennie, but little interested. 

Ruth did not reply. She seemed wonderfully interested by the appearanceof the girl on shore. She fell behind her mates while she watched thefigure. 

The snow was increasing; and that with the abruptly rising island, furnished a background for the strange girl which threw her into relief. 

At first Ruth was attracted only by her figure. She could not see herface. 

"Who can she be? Not one of the girls at Dare Hall----"

This idea spun to nothingness very quickly. No! The figure ashorereminded Ruth Fielding of nobody whom she had seen recently. Thefeeling, however, that she knew the person grew. 

The snow blew sharply into the faces of the skating girls; but she onshore was somewhat sheltered from the gale. The wind was out of thenorth and west and the highland of the island broke the zest of the galefor the strange girl. 

"And yet she isn't strange--I _know_ she isn't, " murmured Ruth Fielding, casting another glance back at the figure on the shore. 

"Come on, Ruth! _Do_ hurry!" cried Helen, looking back. "Even Heavy isbeating you. "

Ruth quickened her efforts. The strange girl disappeared, mounting apath it seemed toward the center of the island. Ruth, head bent and lipstightly closed, skated on intent upon her mystifying thoughts. 

The trio rounded the island at last. They got the wind somewhat at theirbacks and on a long slant made for the boathouse landing. It was growingdusk, but there was a fire at the landing that beckoned them on. 

"Glad it isn't any farther, " Helen panted. "This snow is gathering sofast it clogs one's skates. "

"Oh, I must be losing pounds!" puffed Jennie Stone. "I bet none of myclothes will fit me to-morrow. I shall have to throw them all away. "

"Oh, Heavy!" giggled Helen. "That lovely new silk?"

"Oh--well--I shall take _that_ in!" drawled Jennie. 

"I've got it!" exclaimed Ruth, in a most startling way. 

"Goodness me! are you hurt?" demanded Helen. 

"What you got? A cramp?" asked Jennie, quite as solicitous. 

"I know now who that girl looked like, " declared Ruth. 

"What girl?" rejoined Helen Cameron. "The one over yonder, on the otherside of the island?"

"Yes. She looks just like that Maggie who came to the mill, Helen. Youremember, don't you? The girl I left to help Aunt Alvirah when I came tocollege. "

"Well, for the land's sake!" said Jennie Stone. "If she's up there atthe Red Mill, how can she possibly be down here, too? You're talking outof order, Miss Fielding. Sit down!"

CHAPTER XIV

"OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT"

Ruth Fielding could not get that surprising, that almost unbelievable, discovery out of her mind. 

It seemed ridiculous to think that girl could be Maggie, "the waif, " shehad seen on Bliss Island. Aunt Alvirah had written Ruth a letter only afew days before and in it she said that Maggie was very helpful andseemed wholly content. 

"Only, " the little old housekeeper at the Red Mill wrote, "I don't knowa mite more about the child now than I did when Mr. Tom Cameron and ourBen brought her in, all white and fainty-like. "

The girls had to hurry on or be late to dinner. But the very first thingRuth did when she reached their rooms in Dare Hall was to look up AuntAlvirah's letter and see when it was dated and mailed. 

"It's obvious, " Ruth told herself, "that Maggie could have reached herealmost as soon as the letter if she had wished to. But why come at all?If it was Maggie over on that island, why was she there?"

Of course, these ruminations were all in private. Ruth knew better thanto take her two close friends into her confidence. If she did themystery would have been the chief topic of conversation after dinner, instead of the studies slated for that evening. 

An incident occurred, however, at dinner which served to take Ruth'smind, too, from the mystery. There were a number of seniors and juniorsquartered at Dare Hall. Nor were all the seniors table-captains atdinner. 

This evening the dining hall had filled early. Perhaps the brisk air andtheir outdoor exercise had given the girls sharper appetites than usual. It had the three girls from Briarwood. They were wearied after theirlong skate around the island and as ravenous as wolves. They couldscarcely wait for Miss Comstock, at the head of their particular table, to begin eating so they might do so, too. 

And just at this moment, as the pleasant bustle of dinner began, and thelightly tripping waitresses were stepping hither and yon with theirtrays, the door opened and a single belated girl entered the dininghall. 

As though the entrance of this girl were expected, a hush fell over theroom. Everybody but Jennie looked up, their soup spoons poised as theywatched Rebecca Frayne walk down the long room to her place at thehousekeeper's table. 

"Sh!" hissed Helen, admonishing Jennie Stone. 

"What's the matter?" demanded the fleshy girl in surprise. "Is my soupnoisy? I'll have to train it better. "

But nobody laughed. All eyes were fastened on the girl who had madeherself so obnoxious to the seniors and the juniors of Ardmore. She satdown and a waitress put her soup before her. Before poor Rebecca couldlift her spoon there was a stir all over the room. Every senior andjunior (and there were more than half a hundred in the dining hall)arose, save those acting as table-captains or monitors. The rustle oftheir rising was subdued; they murmured their excuses to the heads oftheir several tables in a perfectly polite manner; and not a glance fromtheir eyes turned toward Rebecca Frayne. But as they walked out of thedining hall, their dinners scarcely tasted, the slight put upon thefreshman who would not obey was too direct and obvious to be mistaken. 

Even Jennie Stone was at length aroused from her enjoyment of the verygood soup. 

"What do you know about _that_?" she demanded of Ruth and Helen. 

Ruth said not a word. To tell the truth she felt so sorry for RebeccaFrayne that she lost taste for her own meal, hungry though she had beenwhen she sat down. 

How Rebecca herself felt could only be imagined. She had already shownherself to be a painful mixture of sensitiveness and carelessness ofcriticism that made Ruth Fielding, at least, wonder greatly. 

Now she ate her dinner without seeming to observe the attitude themembers of the older classes had taken. 

"Cracky!" murmured Jennie, in the middle of dinner. "She's got all thebest of it--believe me! The seniors and the juns go hungry. "

"For a principle, " snapped the girl beside her, who chanced to be asophomore. 

"Well, " said Jennie, smiling, "principles are far from filling. They'rea good deal like the only part of the doughnut that agreed with thedyspeptic--the hole. Please pass the bread, dear. Somebody must haveeaten mine--and it was nicely buttered, too. "

"Goodness! nothing disturbs your calm, does it, Miss Stone?" criedanother girl. 

Few of the girls in the dining hall, however, could keep their minds ortheir gaze off Rebecca Frayne. In whispers all through the meal she wasdiscussed by her close neighbors. Girls at tables farther away talked ofthe situation frankly. 

And the consensus of opinion was against her. It was the general feelingthat she was entirely in the wrong. The very law which she had essayedto flaunt was that which had brought the freshmen together as a class, and was welding them into a homogeneous whole. 

"She's a goose!" exclaimed Helen Cameron. 

And perhaps this was true. It did look foolish. Yet Ruth felt that theremust be some misunderstanding back of it all. It should be explained. The girl could not go on in this way. 

"First we know she'll be packing up and leaving Ardmore, " Ruth saidworriedly. 

"She'll leave nobody in tears, I guess, " declared one girl withinhearing. 

"But she's one of us--she's a freshman!" Ruth murmured. 

"She doesn't seem to desire our company or friendship, " said another andmore thoughtful girl. 

"And she won't pack up in a hurry, " drawled Jennie, still eating. "Remember all those bags and that enormous trunk she brought?"

"But, say, " began Helen, slowly, "where are all the frocks and thingsshe was supposed to bring with her? We supposed she'd be the peacock ofthe class, and I don't believe I've seen her in more than threedifferent dresses and only two hats, including that indescribablybrilliant tam. "

Ruth said nothing. She was thinking. She planned to get out of thedining hall at the same time Rebecca did, but just as the dessert wasbeing passed the odd girl rose quickly, bowed her excuses to thehousekeeper, and almost ran out of the hall. 

"She was crying!" gasped Ruth, feeling both helpless and sympathetic. 

"I wager she bit her tongue, then, " remarked Jennie. 

Ruth hurried through her dessert and left the dining hall ahead of mostof the girls. She glanced through the long windows and saw that it wasstill snowing. 

"I wonder if that girl is over on the island yet?" she reflected as sheran upstairs. 

Her first thought just then was of an entirely different girl. She wentto Rebecca's door and knocked. She knocked twice, then again. But noanswer was returned. No light came through the keyhole, or from underthe door; yet Ruth felt sure that Rebecca Frayne was in the room, andweeping. It was a situation in which Ruth Fielding longed to help, yetthere seemed positively nothing she could do as long as the stubborngirl would not meet her half way. With a sigh she went to the study sheand Helen jointly occupied. 

Before switching on the light she went to one of the windows that lookedout on the lake. Bliss Island was easily visible from this point. Thesnow was still falling, but not heavily enough to obstruct her visionmuch. The white bulk of the island rose in the midst of the field ofsnow-covered ice. It seemed nearer than it ordinarily appeared. 

As Ruth gazed she saw a spark of light on the island, high up from theshore, but evidently among the trees, for it was intermittent. Now itwas visible and again only a red glow showed there. She was still gazingupon this puzzling light when Helen opened the door. 

"Hello, Ruthie!" she cried. "All in the dark? Oh! isn't the outsideworld beautiful to-night?"

She came to the window and put her arm about Ruth's waist. 

"See how solemnly the snow is falling--and the whole world is white, "murmured the black-eyed girl. "'Oft in the stilly night'----Or is it'Oft in the silly night'?" and she laughed, for it was not often nor forlong that the sentiment that lay deep in Helen's heart rose to thesurface. "Oh! What's that light over there, Ruth?" she added, with quickapprehension. 

"That is what I have been looking at, " Ruth said. 

"But you don't tell me what it is!" cried Helen. 

"Because I don't know. But I suspect. "

"Suspect what?"

"That it is a campfire, " said Ruth. "Yes. It seems to be in one spot. Only the wind makes the flames leap, and at one time they are plainlyvisible while again they are partly obscured. "

"Who ever would camp over on Bliss Island on a night like this?" gaspedHelen. 

"I don't see why you put such mysteries up to me, " returned Ruth, with ashrug. "I'm no prophet. But----"

"But what?"

"Do you remember that girl we saw on the island this afternoon?"

"Goodness! Yes. "

"Well, mightn't it be she, or a party she may be with?"

"Campers on the island in a snow storm? No girls from this college wouldbe so silly, " Helen declared. 

"I'm not at all sure she was an Ardmore girl, " said Ruth, reflectively. 

"Who under the sun could she be, then?"

"Almost anybody else, " laughed Ruth. "It is going to stop snowingaltogether soon, Helen. See! the moon is breaking through the clouds. "

"It will be lovely out, " sighed Helen. "But hard walking. "

Ruth gestured towards their two pairs of snowshoes crossed upon thewall. "Not on those, " she said. 

"Oh, Ruthie! Would you?"

"All we have to do is to tighten them and sally forth. "

"Gracious! I'd be willing to be Sally Fifth for a spark of fun, "declared Helen, eagerly. 

"How about Heavy?" asked Ruth, as Helen hastened to take down thesnowshoes which both girls had learned to use years before at Snow Camp, in the Adirondacks. 

"Dead to the world already, I imagine, " laughed Helen. "I saw her to herroom, and I believe she was so tired and so full of dinner that shetumbled into bed almost before she got her clothes off. You'd never gether out on such a crazy venture!"

Helen was as happy as a lark over the chance of "fun. " The two girlsskilfully tightened the stringing of the shoes, and then, having put oncoats, mittens, and drawn the tam-o'-shanters down over their ears, theycrept out of their rooms and hastened downstairs and out of thedormitory building. 

There was not a moving object in sight upon the campus or the slopingwhite lawns to the level of the frozen lake. The two chums thrust theirtoes into the straps of their snowshoes and set forth. 

CHAPTER XV

AN ODD ADVENTURE

Six inches or more of snow had fallen. It was feathery and packed wellunder the snowshoes. The girls sank about two inches into the fleecymass and there the shoes made a complete bed for themselves and theweight of their wearers. 

"You know what I'd love to do this winter?" said Helen, as they trudgedon. 

"What, my dear?" asked Ruth, who seemed much distraught. 

"I'd like to try skiing. The slope of College Hill would be justsplendiferous for _that_! Away from the observatory to the lake--andthen some!"

"We'll start a skiing club among the freshies, " Ruth said, warmlyaccepting the idea. "Wonder nobody has thought of it before. "

"Ardmore hasn't waked up yet to all its possibilities, " said Helen, demurely. "But this umpty-umph class of freshmen will show the college athing or two before we pass from out its scholastic halls. "

"Question!" cried Ruth, laughing. Then: "There! you can see that lightagain. "

"Goodness! You're never going over to that island?" cried Helen. 

"What did we come out for?" asked Ruth. "And scamp our study hour?"

"Goodness!" cried Helen, again, "just for _fun_. "

"Well, it may be fun to find out just who built that fire and what for, "said Ruth. 

"And then again, " objected her chum, "it may be no fun at all, but_serious_. "

"I have a serious reason for finding out--if I can, " Ruth declared. 

"What is it, dear?"

"I'll tell you later, " said Ruth. "Follow me now. "

"If I do I'll not wear diamonds, and I may get into trouble, " objectedHelen. 

"You've never got into very serious trouble yet by following myleadership, " laughed Ruth. "Come on, Fraid-cat. "

"Ain't! But we don't know who is over there. Just to think! A camp inthe snow!"

"Well, we have camped in the snow ourselves, " laughed Ruth, harking backto an adventure at Snow Camp that neither of them would ever be likelyto forget. 

They scuffed along on the snowshoes, soon reaching the edge of the lake. Nobody was about the boathouse, for the ice would have to be swept andscraped by the horse-drawn machines before the girls could go skatingagain. 

The moon was pushing through the scurrying clouds, and the snow hadceased falling. 

"Look back!" crowed Helen. "Looks as though two enormous animals hadcome down the hillside, doesn't it?"

"The girls will wake up and view our tracks with wonder in the morning, "said Ruth, with a smile. "Perhaps they'll think that some curiousmonsters have visited Ardmore. "

"That would cause more wonderment than the case of Rebecca Frayne. Whatdo you suppose is finally going to happen to that foolish girl?"

"I really cannot guess, " Ruth returned, shaking her head sadly. "Poorthing!"

"Why! she can't be _poor_, " gasped Helen. "Look at all those trunks shebrought with her to Ardmore. And her dresses are tremendouslyfancy--although we've not seen many of them yet. "

Ruth stared at her chum for a moment without replying. It was rightthere and then that she came near to guessing the secret of RebeccaFrayne's trouble. But she forbore to say anything about it at the time, and went on beside her chum toward the white island, much disturbed inher mind. 

Now and then they caught sight of the dancing flames of the campfire. But when they were nearer the island, the hill was so steep that theylost sight completely of the light. 

"Suppose it's a _man_?" breathed Helen, suddenly, as they began to climbthe shore of Bliss Island. 

"He won't eat us, " returned Ruth. 

"No. They don't often. Only cannibals, and they are not prevalent inthis locality, " giggled Helen. "But if it _is_ a man----"

"Then we'll turn around and go back, " said Ruth, coolly. "I haven't comeout here to get acquainted with any male person. "

"Bluie! Suppose he's a real nice boy?"

"There's no such an animal, " laughed Ruth. "That is, not around here atthe present moment. "

"Oh yes. I see, " Helen rejoined drily. "The nearest _nice_ one is at theSeven Oaks Military Academy. "

"So you say, " Ruth said demurely. "But if it were Tom?"

"Dear old Tom and some of his chums!" cried Helen. "Wouldn't it begreat? This Adamless Eden is rather palling on me, Chum. The other girlshave visitors, but our friends are too far away. "

"Hush!" advised Ruth. "Whoever it is up there will hear you. "

Helen was evidently not at all enamored of this adventure. She laggedbehind a little. Yet she would not allow Ruth to go on alone tointerview the mysterious camper. 

"I tell you what, " the black-eyed girl said, after a moment and in awhisper. "I believe that fire is up near the big boulder we lookedat--you remember? The Stone Face, do they call it?"

"Quite possibly, " Ruth rejoined briskly. "Come on if you're coming. I'msure the Stone Face won't hurt us. "

"Not unless it falls on us, " giggled Helen. 

The grove of big trees that covered this part of the hillside was open, and the chums very easily made their way toward the fire, even onsnowshoes. But the shoes naturally made some noise as they scuffed overthe snow, and in a minute Ruth stopped and slipped her feet out of thestraps, motioning Helen to do the same. They wore overshoes so there wasno danger of their getting their feet wet in the snow. 

Hand in hand, Ruth and Helen crept forward. They saw the fire flickeringjust before them. There was a single figure between the fire and thevery boulder of which Helen had spoken. 

Reaching the edge of the grove the girls gazed without discovery at thecamp in the snow. The boulder stood in a small open space, and it was sohigh and bulky that it sheltered the fire and the camper quitecomfortably. As Ruth had suspected, the latter was the girl she had seenwalking upon the southern shore of Bliss Island. She knew her by herfigure, if not by her face, which was at the moment hidden. 

"She's alone, " whispered Helen, making the words with her lips more thanwith her voice. 

"What _can_ she be doing out here?" was the black-eyed girl's nextdemand. 

Her chum put out a hand in a gesture of warning and at once walked outof the shelter of the trees and approached the fire. Helen lingeredbehind. After all, it was so strange a situation that she did not feelvery courageous. 

The moon had quite broken through the clouds now and as Ruth drew nearerto the fire and the girl, her shadow was projected before her upon thesnow. The girl who looked like Maggie suddenly espied this shadow, raised her head, and leaped up with a cry. 

"Don't be frightened, Maggie, " said Ruth. "It's only us two girls. "

"My--my name is--isn't Maggie, " stammered the strange girl. 

And sure enough, having once seen her closely, Ruth Fielding saw thatshe was quite wrong in her identification. This was not the girl who haddrifted down the Lumano River to the Red Mill and taken refuge with AuntAlvirah. 

This was a much more assertive person than Maggie--a girl with plenty ofhealth, both of body and mind. Maggie impressed one as being mentally ornervously deficient. Not so this girl who was camping here in the snowon Bliss Island. Yet there was a resemblance to Maggie in the figure ofthe stranger, and Ruth noted a resemblance in her features, too. 

"My goodness me!" she said, laughing pleasantly. "If you're not ourMaggie you look near enough like her to be her sister. "

"Well, I haven't any sister in that college, " said the strange girl, shortly. "You're from Ardmore, aren't you?"

"Yes, " Ruth said, Helen now having joined them. "And we saw yourlight----"

"My _what_?" demanded the camping girl, who was warmly, though plainlydressed. 

"Your campfire. You see, " explained Ruth, finding it rather difficultafter all to talk to this very self-possessed girl, "we skated aroundthe island to-day----"

"I saw you, " said the stranger gruffly. "There were three of you. "

"Yes. And I thought you looked like Maggie, then. "

"Isn't this Maggie one of you?" sharply demanded the stranger. 

"She's a girl whom--whom I know, " Ruth said quickly. "A really nicegirl. And you do look like her. Doesn't she, Helen?"

"Why--yes--something like, " drawled Helen. 

"And did you have to come out here to see if I were your friend?" askedthe other girl. 

"When I saw the campfire--yes, " Ruth admitted. "It seemed so strange, you know. "

"What seemed strange?" demanded the girl, very tartly. It was plain thatshe considered their visit an intrusion. 

"Why, think of it yourself, " Ruth cried, while Helen sniffed audibly. "Agirl camping alone on this island--and in a snowstorm. "

"It isn't snowing now, " said the girl, smiling grimly. 

"But it was when we saw the fire at first, " Ruth hastened to say. "Youknow yourself you would be interested. "

"Not enough to come clear out here--must be over a mile!--to see aboutit, " was the rejoinder. "I usually mind my own business. "

"So do we, you may be sure!" spoke up Helen, quick to take offence. "Come away, Ruth. "

But the girl of the Red Mill was not at all satisfied. She said, frankly:

"I do wish that you would tell us why you are here? Surely, you won'tremain all night in this lonely place? There is nobody else on theisland, is there?"

"I should hope not!" exclaimed the girl. "Only you two busybodies. "

"But, really, we came because we were interested in what went on here. It seems so strange for a girl, alone----"

"You've said that before, " was the dry reply. "I am a girl alone. I amhere on my own business. And _that_ isn't yours. "

"Oh!" ejaculated Helen, angrily. 

"Well, if you don't like being spoken to plainly, you needn't stay, " thestrange girl flung at her. 

"I see that very well, " returned Helen, tossing her head. "_Do_ comeaway, Ruth. "

"Ha!" exclaimed the strange girl, suddenly looking at Ruth moreintently. "Are you called Ruth?"

"Yes. Ruth Fielding is my name. "

"Oh!" and the girl's face changed in its expression and a little flushcame into her cheeks. "I've--I've heard of you. "

"Indeed! How?" cried Ruth, eagerly. She felt that this girl must reallyhave some connection with Maggie at the mill, she looked so much likethe waif. 

"Oh, " said the other girl slowly, looking away, "I heard you wrotepicture plays. I saw one of them. That's all. "

Ruth was silent for a moment. Helen kept tugging at her arm and urgingher to go. 

"We--we can do nothing for you?" queried the girl of the Red Mill atlast. 

"You can get off the island--that's as much as I care, " said the strangegirl, with a harsh laugh. "You're only intruding where you're notwanted. "

"Well, I do declare!" burst out Helen again. "She is the most impolitething. _Do_ come away, Ruthie. "

"We really came with the best intentions, " Ruth added, as she turnedaway with her chum. "It--it doesn't look right for a girl to be alone ata campfire on this island--and at night, too. "

"I sha'n't stay here all night, " the girl said shortly. "You needn'tfret. If you want to know, I just built the fire to get warm by before Istarted back. "

"Back where?" Ruth could not help asking. 

"_That_ you don't know--and you won't know, " returned the strange girl, and turned her back upon them. 

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT WAS IN REBECCA'S TRUNK

The two chums did not speak a word to each other until they hadrecovered their snowshoes and set out down the rough side of BlissIsland for the ice. Then Helen sputtered:

"People like _that_! Did you ever see such a person? I never was soinsulted----"

"Pshaw! She was right--in a way, " Ruth said coolly. "We had no realbusiness to pry into her affairs. "

"Well!"

"I got you into it. I'm sorry, " the girl of the Red Mill said. "Ithought it really was Maggie, or I wouldn't have come over here. "

"She's something like that Maggie girl, " proclaimed Helen. "_She_ wasnice, I thought. "

"Maybe this girl is nice, taken under other circumstances, " laughedRuth. "I really would like to know what she is over here for. "

"No good, I'll be bound, " said the pessimistic Helen. 

"And another thing, " Ruth went on to say, as she and her chum reachedthe level of the frozen lake, "did you notice that pick handle?"

"That what?" demanded Helen, in amazement. 

"Pickaxe handle--I believe it was, " Ruth said thoughtfully. "It wasthrust out of the snow pile she had scraped away from the boulder. And, moreover, the ground looked as though it had been dug into. "

"Why, the ground is as hard as the rock itself, " Helen cried. "There aresix or eight inches of frost right now. "

"I guess that's so, " agreed Ruth. "Perhaps that's why she built such abig fire. "

"What _do_ you mean, Ruth Fielding?" cried her chum. 

"I think she wanted to dig there for something, " Ruth repliedreflectively. "I wonder what for?"

When they had returned to Dare Hall and had got their things off andwere warm again, they looked out of the window. The campfire on theisland had died out. 

"She's gone away, of course, " sighed Ruth. "But I would like to knowwhat she was there for. "

"One of the mysteries of life, " said Helen, as she made ready for bed. "Dear me, but I'm tired!"

She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. Not soRuth. The latter lay awake some time wondering about the odd girl on theisland and her errand there. 

Ruth Fielding had another girl's troubles on her mind, however--and agirl much closer to her. The girl on the island merely teased herimagination. Rebecca Frayne's difficulties seemed much more important toRuth. 

Of course, there was no real reason for Ruth to take up cudgels for herodd classmate. Indeed, she did not feel that she could do that, for shewas quite convinced that Rebecca Frayne was wrong. Nevertheless, she wasvery sorry for the girl. The trouble over the tam-o'-shanter had becomethe most talked-of incident of the school term. For the severalfollowing days Rebecca was scarcely seen outside her room, save in goingto and from her classes. 

She did not again appear in the dining hall. How she arranged aboutmeals Ruth and her friends could not imagine. Then the housekeeperadmitted to Ruth that she had allowed the lonely girl to get her ownlittle meals in her room, as she had cooking utensils and an alcohollamp. 

"It is not usually allowed, I know. But Miss Frayne seems to have cometo college prepared to live in just that way. She is a small eater, anyway. And--well, anything to avoid friction. "

"Of course, " Ruth said to Helen and Jennie Stone, "lots of girls live infurnished rooms and get their own meals--working girls and students. Butit is not a system generally allowed at college, and at Ardmoreespecially. We shall hear from the faculty about it before the matter isdone with. "

"Well, we're not doing it, " scoffed Jennie. "And that Rebecca Frayne isbehaving like a chump. "

"But how she does stick to that awful tam!" groaned Helen. 

"Stubborn as a mule, " agreed Jennie. 

"I saw her with another hat on to-day, " said Ruth, reflectively. 

"That's so! It was the one she wore the day she arrived, " Helen saidquickly. "A summer hat. I wonder what she did bring in that trunk, anyway? She has displayed no such charming array of finery as Iexpected. "

Ruth did not discuss this point. She was more interested in the state ofRebecca's mind, though, of course, there was not much time for her togive to anything but her studies and regular duties now, for as the termadvanced the freshmen found their hours pretty well filled. 

Scrub teams for certain indoor sports had been made up, and even JennieStone took up the playing of basketball with vigor. She was reallylosing flesh. She kept a card tacked upon her door on which she set downthe fluctuations of her bodily changes daily. When she lost a wholepound in weight she wrote it down in red ink. 

Their activities kept the three friends well occupied, both physicallyand mentally. Yet Ruth Fielding could not feel wholly satisfied orcontent when she knew that one of her mates was in trouble. She hadtaken an interest in Rebecca Frayne at the beginning of the semester;yet of all the freshmen Rebecca was the one whom she knew the least. 

"And that poor girl needs somebody for a friend--I feel it!" Ruth toldherself. "Of course, she is to blame for the situation in which she nowis. But for that very reason she ought to have somebody with whom totalk it over. "

Ruth determined to be that confidant of the girl who seemed to wish noassociate and no confidant. She began to loiter in the corridors betweenrecitation hours and at odd times. Whenever she knocked on Rebecca'sdoor there was no reply. Other girls who had tried it quickly gave uptheir sympathetic attentions. If the foolish girl wished for no friends, let her go her own way. That became the attitude of the freshman class. Of course, the sophomores followed the lead of the seniors and thejuniors, having as little to do with the unfortunate girl as possible. 

But the day and hour came at last when Ruth chanced to be right at handwhen Rebecca Frayne came in and unlocked her room door. Her arms werefull of small packages. Ruth knew that she had walked all the way to thegrocery store on the edge of Greenburg, which the college girls oftenpatronized. 

It had been a long, cold walk, and Rebecca's fingers were numb. Shedropped a paper bag--and it contained eggs!

Now, it is quite impossible to hide the fact of a dropped egg. Atanother time Ruth might have laughed; but now she soberly retrieved thepaper bag before the broken eggs could do much damage, and stepped intothe room after the nervous Rebecca. 

"Oh, thank you!" gasped the girl. "Put--put them down anywhere. Thankyou!"

"My goodness!" said Ruth, laughing, "you can't put broken eggs down_anywhere_. Don't you see they are runny?"

"Never mind, Miss Fielding----"

"Oh! you've a regular kitchenette here, haven't you?" said Ruth, emboldened to look behind a curtain. "How cunning. I'll put these eggsin this clean dish. Mercy, but they are scrambled!"

"Don't trouble, Miss Fielding. You are very kind. "

"But scrambled eggs are pretty good, at that, " Ruth went on, unheedingthe other girl's nervousness. "If you can only get the broken shells outof them, " and she began coolly to do this with a fork. "I should thinkyou would not like eating alone, Rebecca. "

The other girl stared at her. "How can I help it?" she asked harshly. 

"Just by getting a proper tam and stop being stubborn, " Ruth told her. 

"Miss Fielding!" cried Rebecca, her face flushing. "Do you think I dothis for--for fun?"

"You must. It isn't a disease, is it?" and Ruth laughed aloud, determined to refuse to take the other's tragic words seriously. 

"You--you are unbearable!" gasped Rebecca. 

"No, I'm not. I want to be your friend, " Ruth declared boldly. "I wantyou to have other friends, too. No use flocking by one's self atcollege. Why, my dear girl! you are missing all that is best in collegelife. "

"I'd like to know what _is_ best in college life!" burst out RebeccaFrayne, sullenly. 

"Friendship. Companionship. The rubbing of one mind against another, "Ruth said promptly. 

"Pooh!" returned the startled Rebecca. "I wouldn't want to rub my mindagainst some of these girls' minds. All I ever hear them talk about isdress or amusements. "

"I don't think you know many of the other girls well enough to judge thecalibre of their minds, " said Ruth, gently. 

"And why don't I?" demanded Rebecca, still with a sort of suppressedfury. 

"We all judge more or less by appearances, " Ruth admitted slowly. "Ipresume _you_, too, were judged that way. "

"What do you mean, Miss Fielding?" asked Rebecca, more mildly. 

"When you came here to Ardmore you made a first impression. We all do, "Ruth said. 

"Yes, " Rebecca admitted, with a slight curl of her lip. She wasnaturally a proud-looking girl, and she seemed actually haughty now. "Iwas mistaken for _you_, I believe. "

Ruth laughed heartily at that. 

"I should be a good friend of yours, " she said. "It was a great sell onthose sophomores. They had determined to make poor little me suffer forsome small notoriety I had gained at boarding school. "

"I never went to boarding school, " snapped Rebecca. "I never was_anywhere_ till I came to college. Just to our local schools. I workedhard, let me tell you, to pass the examinations to get in here. "

"And why don't you let your mind broaden and get the best there is to behad at Ardmore?" Ruth demanded, quickly. "The girls misunderstand you. Ican see that. We freshmen have got to bow our heads to the will of theupper classes. It doesn't hurt--much, " and she laughed again. 

"Do you think I am wearing this old tam because I am stubborn?" demandedthe other girl, again with that fierceness that seemed so strange in oneso young. 

"Why--aren't you?"

"No. "

"Why do you wear it, then?" asked Ruth, wonderingly. 

"_Because I cannot afford to buy another!_"

Rebecca Frayne said this in so tense a voice that Ruth was fairlystaggered. The girl of the Red Mill gazed upon the other's flaming facefor a full minute without making any reply. Then, faintly, she said:

"I--I didn't understand, Rebecca. We none of us do, I guess. You camehere in such style! That heavy trunk and those bags----"

"All out of our attic, " said the other, sharply. "Did you think themfilled with frocks and furbelows? See here!"

Ruth had already noticed the packages of papers piled along one wall ofthe room. Rebecca pointed to them. 

"Out of our attic, too, " she said, with a scornful laugh that was reallyno laugh at all. "Old papers that have lain there since the Civil War. "

"But, Rebecca----"

"Why did I do it?" put in the other, in the same hard voice. "Because Iwas a little fool. Because I did not understand. 

"I didn't know just what college was like. I never talked with a girlfrom college in my life. I thought this was a place where only richgirls were welcome. "

"Oh, Rebecca!" cried Ruth. "That isn't so. "

"I see it now, " agreed the other girl, shortly. "But we always have hadto make a bluff at our house. Since _I_ can remember, at least. Grandfather was wealthy; but our generation is as poor as Job's turkey. 

"I didn't want to appear poor when I arrived here; so I got out the oldbags and the big trunk, filled them with papers, and brought them along. A friend lent me that car I arrived in. I--I thought I'd make a splurgeright at first, and then my social standing would not be questioned. "

"Oh, Rebecca! How foolish, " murmured Ruth. 

"Don't say that!" stormed the girl. "I see that I started all wrong. ButI can't help it now, " and suddenly she burst into a passion of weeping. 

CHAPTER XVII

WHAT WAS IN REBECCA'S HEART

It was some time before Ruth could quiet the almost hysterical girl. Rebecca Frayne had held herself in check so long, and the bitterness ofher position had so festered in her mind, that now the barriers wereburst she could not control herself. 

But Ruth Fielding was sympathetic. And her heart went out to this lonelyand foolish girl as it seldom had to any person in distress. She felt, too, did Ruth, as though it was partly her fault and the fault of theother freshmen that Rebecca was in this state of mind. 

She was fearful that having actually forced herself upon Rebecca thatthe girl might, when she came to herself, turn against her. But atpresent Rebecca's heart was so full that it spilled over, once havingfound a confidant. 

In Ruth Fielding's arms the unfortunate girl told a story that, ifsupremely silly from one standpoint, was a perfectly natural and notuncommon story. 

She was a girl, born and brought up in a quiet, small town, living inthe biggest and finest house in that town, yet having suffered actualprivations all her life for the sake of keeping up appearances. 

The Frayne family was supposed to be wealthy. Not as wealthy as ageneration or so before; still, the Fraynes were looked upon as theleaders in local society. 

There was now only an aunt, Rebecca, a younger sister, and a brother whowas in New York struggling upward in a commission house. 

"And if it were not for the little Fred can spare me and sends me twicea month, I couldn't stay here, " Rebecca confessed during this long talkwith Ruth. "He's the best boy who ever lived. "

"He must be, " Ruth agreed. "I'd be glad to have a brother like that. "

Rebecca had been hungry for books. She had always hoped to take acollege course. 

"But I was ignorant of everything, " she sighed. 

Ruth gathered, too, that the aunt, who was at the nominal head of theFrayne household, was also ignorant. This Aunt Emmy seemed to be anempty-headed creature who thought that the most essential thing for agirl in life was to be fancifully dressed, and to attain a position insociety. 

Aunt Emmy had evidently filled Rebecca's head with such notions. Thegirl had come to Ardmore with a totally wrong idea of what it meant tobe in college. 

"Why! some of these girls act as waitresses, " said Rebecca. "I couldn'tdo _that_ even to obtain the education I want so much. Oh! Aunt Emmywould never hear to it. "

"It's a perfectly legitimate way of helping earn one's tuition, " Ruthsaid. 

"The Fraynes have never done such things, " the other girl saidhaughtily. 

And right there and then Ruth decided that Rebecca Frayne was going tohave a very hard time, indeed, at Ardmore unless she learned to lookupon life quite differently from the way she had been taught at home. 

Already Ruth Fielding had seen enough at Ardmore to know that many ofthe very girls whose duties Rebecca scorned, were getting more out oftheir college life than Rebecca Frayne could possibly get unless shetook a radically different view of life and its comparative values fromthat her present standards gave her. 

The girls who were waitresses, and did other work to help pay for theirtuition or for their board were busy and happy and were respected bytheir mates. In addition, they were often the best scholars in theclasses. 

Rebecca was wrong in scorning those who combined domestic service withan attempt to obtain an education. But Ruth was wise enough to see thatthis feeling was inbred in Rebecca. It was useless to try to change heropinion upon it. 

If Rebecca were poverty-stricken, her purse could not be replenished byany such means as these other girls found to help them over the hardplaces. In this matter of the tam-o'-shanter, for instance, it would bevery difficult to help the girl. Ruth knew better than to offer to payfor the new tam-o'-shanter the freshman could not afford to buy. To makesuch an offer would immediately close the door of the strange girl'sfriendship to Ruth. So she did not hint at such a thing. She talked on, beginning to laugh and joke with Rebecca, and finally brought her out ofher tears. 

"Cheer up, " Ruth said. "You are making the worst possible use of yourtime here--keeping to yourself and being so afraid of making friends. We're not all rich girls, I assure you. And the girls on this corridorare particularly nice. "

"I suppose that may be. But if everywhere I go they show so plainly theydon't want me----"

"That will stop!" cried Ruth, vigorously. "If I have to go to Dr. Milroth myself, it shall be stopped. It is hazing of the crudest kind. Oh! what a prettily crocheted table-mat. It's old-fashioned, butpretty. "

"Aunty does that, almost all the time, " Rebecca said, with a littlelaugh. "Fred once said--in confidence, of course--that half the familyincome goes for Aunt Emmy's wool. "

"Do _you_ do it, too?" Ruth asked suspiciously. 

"Oh yes. I can. "

"Say! could you crochet one of these tams?" cried Ruth, eagerly. 

"Why--I suppose so, " admitted the other girl. 

"Then, why not? Do it to please the seniors and juniors. It won't hurtto bow to a custom, will it? And you only need buy a few hanks of woolat a time. "

Rebecca's face flamed again; but she took the suggestion, after all, with some meekness. 

"I _might_ do that, " she admitted. 

"All right. Then you'll be doing your part. And talk to the girls. Letthem talk to you. Come down to the dining-room for your meals again. Youknow, the housekeeper, Mrs. Ebbets, will soon be getting into troubleabout you. Somebody will talk to Dr. Milroth or to some other member ofthe upper faculty. "

"I suppose so, " groaned Rebecca. "They won't let poor little me alone. "

"Oh, you can't expect to have your own way at school, " cried Ruth, laughing. "Oh, and say!"

"Well, Miss Fielding?"

"_Do_ call me Ruth, " begged the girl of the Red Mill. "It won't cost youa cent more, " but she said it so good-naturedly that Rebecca had tolaugh. 

"I will, " said the other girl, vehemently. "You are the very nicestlittle thing!"

"Well, now that's settled, " laughed Ruth, "do something for me, willyou?"

"Any--anything I can, " agreed Rebecca, with some doubt. 

"You know we girls on this corridor are going to have a sitting-room allto ourselves. That corner room that is empty. Everybody is going tobuy--is going to give something to help furnish the room. "

"Oh, Ruth! I can't----"

"Yes you can, " interrupted Ruth, quickly. "When you stop this foolisheating by yourself, you can bring over your alcohol lamp. It's just whatwe want to make tea on. Now, say you will, Rebecca!"

"I--I will. Why, yes, I can do that, " Rebecca agreed. 

"Goody! I'll tell the girls. And you'll be as welcome as the flowers inMay, lamp or no lamp, " she cried, kissing Rebecca again and bustling outof the room. 

CHAPTER XVIII

BEARDING THE LIONS

Ruth had shown a very cheerful face before Rebecca Frayne, but when shewas once out of the room the girl of the Red Mill did not show such asuperabundance of cheerfulness. 

She knew well enough that Rebecca had become so unpopular that publicopinion could not be changed regarding her in a moment. 

Besides, there were the two upper classes to be considered. Their orderregarding the freshmen's head-covering had been flagrantly disobeyed, and would have to be disobeyed for some time to come. A girl cannotcrochet a tam-o'-shanter in a minute. 

Having undertaken to straighten out Rebecca Frayne's troubles, however, Ruth did not publicly shrink from the task. She was one who made up hermind quickly, and having made it up, set to work immediately to carrythe matter through. 

Merry Dexter, the first senior she had met upon coming to Ardmore, waskindly disposed toward her, and Ruth knew that Miss Dexter was aninfluential member of her class. Therefore, Ruth took her trouble--andRebecca's--directly to Miss Dexter. 

Yet, she did not feel that she had a right to explain, even to this onesenior, all that Rebecca Frayne had confided to her. She realized thatthe girl, with her false standards of respectability and socialstanding, would never be able to hold up her head at college if her realfinancial situation were known to the girls in general. Ruth was bound, however, to take Miss Dexter somewhat into her confidence to obtain ahearing. She put the matter before the senior as nicely as possible, saying in conclusion:

"And she will knit herself a tam of the proper color just as soon aspossible. No girl, you know, Miss Dexter, likes to admit that she ispoor. It is dreadfully embarrassing. So I hope that this matter will beadjusted without her situation being discussed. "

"Goodness! _I_ can't change things, " the senior declared. "Not unlessthat girl agrees to do as she is told--like the rest of you freshies. "

"Then my opinion of your class, Miss Dexter, " Ruth said firmly, "must beentirely wrong. I did not believe that they ordered us to wear baby bluetams just out of an arbitrary desire to make us obey. Had I believed_that_ I would not have bought a new tam myself!"

"You wouldn't?"

"No, Miss Dexter. Nor would a great many of us freshmen. We believed theorder had a deeper significance--and it _had_. It helped our class gettogether. We are combined now, we are a social body. And I believe thatif I took this matter up with Rebecca's class, and explained just hersituation to them (which, of course, I do not want to do), the freshmenas a whole would back me in a revolt against the upper classes. "

"You're pretty sure of that, Ruth Fielding, are you?" demanded thesenior. 

"Yes, I am. We'd all refuse to wear the new tams. You seniors andjuniors would have a nice time sending us all to Coventry, wouldn't you?If you didn't want to eat with us, you'd all go hungry for a long timebefore the freshmen would do as Rebecca foolishly did. "

Miss Dexter laughed at that. And then she hugged Ruth. 

"I believe you are a dear girl, with a lot of good sense in your head, "she said. "But you must come before our executive committee and talk tothem. "

"Oh, dear! Beard the lions in their den?" cried Ruth. 

"Yes, my dear. I cannot be your spokesman. "

Ruth found this a harder task than she had bargained for; but she wentthat same evening to a hastily called meeting of the senior committee. Perhaps Miss Dexter had done more for her than she agreed, however, forRuth found these older girls very kind and she seemingly made themeasily understand Rebecca's situation without being obliged to say injust so many words that the girl was actually poverty-stricken. 

And it was probable, too, that Ruth Fielding helped herself in thisincident as much as she did her classmate. The members of the olderclasses thereafter gave the girl of the Red Mill considerably moreattention than she had previously received. Ruth began to feel surprisedthat she had so many warm friends and pleasant acquaintances in thecollege, even among the sophomores of Edith Phelps' stamp. Edith Phelpsfound her tart jokes about the "canned-drama authoress" falling ratherflat, so she dropped the matter. 

Older girls stopped on the walks to talk to Ruth. They sat beside her inchapel and at other assemblies, and seemed to like to talk with her. Although Ruth did not hold an office in her own class organization, yetshe bade fair to become soon the most popular freshman at Ardmore. 

Ruth was perfectly unconscious of this fact, for she had not a spark ofvanity in her make-up. Her mind was so filled with other and moreimportant things that her social conquests impressed her but little. Shedid, however, think a good bit about poor Rebecca Frayne's situation. She warned her personal friends among the freshmen, especially those atDare Hall, to say nothing to Rebecca about the unfortunate affair. 

Rebecca came into the dining-room again. Ruth knew that she had actuallybegun to crochet a baby blue tam-o'-shanter. But it was a question inRuth's mind if the odd girl would be able to "keep up appearances" onthe little money she had left and that which her brother could send herfrom time to time. It was quite tragic, after all. Rebecca was sure ofgood and sufficient food as long as she could pay her board; but thegirl undoubtedly needed other things which she could not purchase. 

Naturally, youth cannot give its entire attention to even so tragic amatter as this. Ruth's gay friends acted as counterweights in her mindto Rebecca's troubles. 

The girls were out on the lake very frequently as the cold weathercontinued; but Ruth never saw again the strange girl whom she and Helenhad interviewed at night on Bliss Island. 

Hearing from Aunt Alvirah as she did with more or less frequency, thegirl of the Red Mill was assured that Maggie seemed content and wasproving a great help to the crippled old housekeeper. Maggie seemedquite settled in her situation. 

"Just because that queer girl looked like Maggie doesn't prove thatMaggie knows her, " Ruth told herself. "Still--it's odd. "

Stormy weather kept the college girls indoors a good deal; and thegeneral sitting-room on Ruth's corridor became the most social spot inthe whole college. 

The girls whose dormitory rooms were there, irrespective of class, allshared in the furnishing of the sitting-room. Second-hand furniture isalways to be had of dealers near an institution like Ardmore. Besides, the girls all owned little things they could spare for the generalcomfort, like Rebecca Frayne's alcohol lamp. 

Helen had a tea set; somebody else furnished trays. In fact, all the"comforts of home" were supplied to that sitting-room; and the girlswere considered very fortunate by their mates in other parts of thehall, and, indeed, in the other three dormitory buildings. 

But during the holiday recess something happened that bade fair todeprive Ruth and her friends of their special perquisite. Dr. McCurdy'swife's sister came to Ardmore. The McCurdys did not keep house, preferring to board. They could find no room for Mrs. Jaynes, until itwas remembered that there was an unassigned dormitory room at Dare Hall. 

Many of the girls had gone home over the brief holidays; but our threefriends from Briarwood had remained at Ardmore. 

So Ruth and Helen and Jennie Stone chanced to be among the girls presentwhen the housekeeper of Dare Hall came into the sitting-room and, toquote Jennie, informed them that they must "vamoose the ranch. "

"That is what Ann Hicks would call it, " Jennie said, defending herlanguage when taken to task for it. "We've just got to get out--and it'sa mean shame. "

Dr. McCurdy was one of the important members of the faculty. Of course, the girls on that corridor had no real right to the extra room. All theycould do was to voice their disappointment--and they did that, one maybe sure, with vociferation. 

"And just when we had come to be so comfortably fixed here, " groanedone, when the housekeeper had departed. "I know I shall dis-_like_ thatMrs. Jaynes extremely. "

"We won't speak to her!" cried Helen, in a somewhat vixenish tone. 

"Maybe she won't care if we don't, " laughed Ruth. 

But it was no laughing matter, as they all felt. They made a gloomyparty in the pretty sitting-room that last evening of its occupancy as acommunity resort. 

"There's Clara Mayberry in her rocker again on that squeaky board, "Rebecca Frayne remarked. "I hope she rocks on that board every eveningover this woman's head who has turned us out. "

"Let's all hope so, " murmured Helen. 

Jennie Stone suddenly sat upright in the rocker she was occupying, butcontinued to glare at the ceiling. A board in the floor of the roomabove had frequently annoyed them before. Clara Mayberry sometimesforgot and placed her rocker on that particular spot. 

"If--if she had to listen to that long, " gasped Jennie suddenly, "shewould go crazy. She's just that kind of nervous female. I saw her atchapel this morning. "

"But even Clara couldn't stand the squeak of that board long, " Ruthobserved, smiling. 

Without another word Jennie left the room. She came back later, so fullof mystery, as Helen declared, that she seemed on the verge of bursting. 

However, Jennie refused to explain herself in any particular; but theboard in Clara Mayberry's room did not squeak again that evening. 

CHAPTER XIX

A DEEP, DARK PLOT

"Heavy is actually losing flesh, " Helen declared to Ruth. "I can seeit. "

"You mean you _can't_ see it, " laughed her chum. "That is, you can't seeso much of it as there used to be. If she keeps on with the rowingmachine work in the gym and the basket ball practise and dancing, shewill soon be the thinnest girl who ever came to Ardmore. "

"Oh, never!" cried Helen. "I don't believe I should like Heavy so muchif she wasn't a _little_ fat. "

People who had not seen Jennie Stone for some time observed the changein her appearance more particularly than did her two close friends. Thiswas proved when Mr. Cameron and Tom arrived. 

For, as the girls did not go home for just a few days, Helen's fatherand her twin unexpectedly appeared at college on Christmas Eve, andtheir company delighted the chums immensely. 

On Friday evenings the girls could have company, and on all Saturdayafternoons, even during the college term. Also a girl could have a youngman call on her Sunday evening, provided he took her to service atchapel. 

The three Briarwood friends had had no such company heretofore. Theymade the most of Mr. Cameron and Tom, therefore, during Christmas week. 

There was splendid sleighing, and the skating on the lake was at itsvery best. Ruth insisted upon including Rebecca Frayne in some of theirparties, and Rebecca proved to be good fun. 

Tom stared at Jennie Stone, round-eyed, when first he saw her. 

"What's the matter with you, Tom Cameron?" the fleshy girl asked, rathertartly. "Didn't you ever see a good-looking girl before?"

"But say, Jennie!" he cried, "are you going into a decline?"

"I decline to answer, " she responded. But she dimpled when she said it, and evidently considered Tom's rather blunt remark a compliment. 

The Christmas holidays were over all too soon, it seemed to the girls. Yet they took up the class work again with vigor. 

Their acquaintanceship was broadening daily, both in the student bodyand among the instructors. Most of the strangeness of this new collegeworld had worn off. Ruth and Helen and Jennie were full-fledged"Ardmores" now, quite as devoted to the college as they had been to dearold Briarwood. 

After New Year's there was a raw and rainy spell that spoiled many ofthe outdoor sports. Practice in the gymnasium increased, and Helen saidthat Jennie Stone was bound to work herself down to a veritable shadowif the bad weather continued long. 

Ruth was in Rebecca's room one dingy, rainy afternoon, having skippedgymnasium work of all kind for the day. The proprietor of the room hadfinished her baby blue cap and had worn it the first time that week. 

"I feel that they are not all staring at me now, " she confessed to Ruth. 

Ruth was at the piles of old papers which Rebecca had hidden under ahalf-worn portierre she had brought from home. 

"Do you know, " the girl of the Red Mill said reflectively, "these oldthings are awfully interesting, Becky?"

"What old things?"

"These papers. I've opened one bundle. They were all printed in Richmondduring the Civil War. Why, paper must have been awfully scarce then. Some of these are actually printed on wrapping paper--you can scarcelyread the print. "

"Ought to look at those Charleston papers, " said Rebecca, carelessly. "There are full files of those, too, I believe. Why, some of them areprinted on wall paper. "

"No!"

"Yes they are. Ridiculous, wasn't it?"

Ruth sat silent for a while. Finally she asked:

"Are you sure, Becky, that you have quite complete files here of thisRichmond paper? For all the war time, I mean?"

"Yes. And of the South Carolina paper, too. Father collected them duringand immediately following the war. He was down there for years, yousee. "

"I see, " Ruth said quietly, and for a long time said nothing more. 

But that evening she wrote several letters which she did not show Helen, and took them herself to the mailbag in the lower hall. 

Before this, Mrs. Jaynes, Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law, was settled inthe room which had formerly been used by the girls as their ownparticular sitting-room. She was not an attractive woman at all; so itwas not hard for her youthful associates on that corridor of Dare Hallto declare war upon Mrs. Jaynes. 

Indeed, without having been introduced to a single girl there, Mrs. Jaynes eyed them all as though she suspected they belonged to a tribe ofBushmen. 

Naturally, during hours of relaxation, and occasionally at other times, the girls joked and laughed and raced through the halls and sang andotherwise acted as a crowd of young people usually act. 

Mrs. Jaynes was plainly of that sort that believes that all youthfulnessand ebullition of spirits should be suppressed. Luckily, she met thegirls but seldom--only when she was going to and from her room. Onstormy days she remained shut up in her apartment most of the time, andMrs. Ebbetts sent a maid up with her tray at meal time. She never ate inthe Dare Hall dining-room. 

Meantime, Jennie Stone had several mysterious sessions with certain ofthe girls who felt quite as she did regarding the usurpation of Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law of the spare room. Had Ruth not been so busy inother directions she would have realized that a plot of some kind was inprocess of formation, for Helen was in it, as well. 

Jennie Stone had made a friend of Clara Mayberry on the floor above. Infact, a number of the girls on the lower corridor affected by thepresence of Mrs. Jaynes, were in and out of Clara's room all day long. None of these girls remained long at a time--not more than half an hour;but another visitor always appeared before the first left, right throughthe day, from breakfast call till "lights out. " And after retiring hourthere began to be seen figures stealing through the corridors and on thestairway between the two floors. That is, there would have been seensuch ghostly marauders had there been anybody to watch. 

Mrs. Jaynes crossly complained to Mrs. Ebbetts that she was kept awakeall night long--and all day, for that matter! But as she never put herhead out of her room after the lights were lowered in the corridors, shedid not discover the soft-footed spectres of the night. 

"But, " she complained to Mrs. Ebbetts, "it is the noisiest room I everwas in. Such a squeaking you never heard! And all the time, day andnight. "

"I do not understand that at all, " said the puzzled housekeeper. 

"I'd like to know how the girl who had that room before I took it, stoodthat awful squeaking noise, " said the visitor. 

"Why, Mrs. Jaynes, " said the housekeeper, "no girl slept there. It was asitting-room. "

"Even so, I cannot understand how anybody could endure the noise. If Ibelieved in such things I should declare the room was haunted. "

"Indeed, Madam!" gasped the housekeeper. "I do not understand it. "

"Well, I cannot endure it. I shall tell my sister that I cannot remainhere at Ardmore unless she finds me other lodgings. That awful _squeak, squeak, squeak_ continues day and night. It is unbearable. "

In the end, Dr. McCurdy found lodgings for his sister-in-law inGreenburg. The girls of Ruth's corridor were delighted, and that nightheld a regular orgy in the recovered sitting-room. 

"Thank goodness!" sighed Jennie Stone, "no more up and down all nightfor us, either. We may sleep in peace, as well as occupy the room inpeace. "

"What _do_ you mean, Heavy?" demanded Ruth. 

"Oh, Ruthie! That's one time we put one over on you, dear, " said thefleshy girl sweetly. "You were not asked to join in the conspiracy. Wefeared your known sympathetic nature would revolt. "

"But explain!"

"Why, Clara let us use her rocking chair, " Jennie said demurely. "It's avery nice chair. We all rocked in it, one after another, half-hourwatches being assigned----"

"Not at night?" cried the horror-stricken Ruth. 

"Oh, yes. All day and all night. Every little minute that rocker wasgoing upon the squeaky board. It's a wonder the board is not worn out, "chuckled the wicked Jennie. 

"Well, I never!" proclaimed Ruth, aghast. "What won't you think of next, Jennie Stone?"

"I don't know. I know I'm awfully smart, " sighed Jennie. "I did so muchof the rocking myself, however, that I don't much care if I never see arocking-chair again. "

CHAPTER XX

TWO SURPRISES

Ruth Fielding knew that Rebecca Frayne was painfully embarrassed formoney. She managed to find the wherewithal for her board, and hertextbooks of course had been paid for at the beginning of the collegeyear. But there are always incidentals and unforeseen small expenses, which crop up in a most unexpected manner and clamor for payment. 

Rebecca never opened her lips about these troubles, despite the factthat she loved Ruth and was much with the girl of the Red Mill. But Ruthwas keen-eyed. She knew that Rebecca suffered for articles of clothing. She saw that her raiment was becoming very, very shabby. 

The girl in this trouble was foolish, of course. But foolishness is adisease not so easily cured. There was not the slightest chance ofgiving Rebecca anything that she needed; Ruth knew that quite well. Herfinery--and cheap enough it was--the girl would flaunt to the bitterend. 

Deep down she was a good girl in every respect; but she did put on airsand ape the wealthy girls she saw. What garments she owned had beenultra-fashionable in cut, if poor in texture, when she had come tocollege. But fashions change so frequently nowadays that already poorRebecca Frayne was behind the styles--and she knew it and grievedbitterly. 

Most of her mates at Dare Hall, the freshmen especially, usually dressedin short cloth skirts and middy blouses, with a warm coat over all incold weather. Would Rebecca be caught going to classes in such anoutfit? Not much! That was why her better clothes wore out so quicklyand now looked so shabby. Jennie Stone said, with disgust, and with morethan a little truth, perhaps:

"That girl primps to go to recitations just as though she were bound fora party. I don't see how she finds time for study. "

Ruth realized that Rebecca was made that way, and that was all there wasto it. She wasted no strength, nor did she run the risk of being badfriends with the unwise girl, by criticising these silly things. Ruthbelieved in being helpful, or else keeping still. 

Rebecca could never be induced to try to do the things that other poorgirls did at college to help pay their expenses. Perhaps she was notreally fitted for such services, and would only have failed. 

Other girls acted as waitresses, did sewing, one looked after the linenfor one of the dormitories, another darned hose and repaired lingerie. Dr. Frances Milroth's own personal secretary was a junior who wasworking her way through Ardmore and was taking a high mark, too, in herstudies. 

One girl helped Mrs. Leidenburg with her children during several hoursof each day. Some girls were agents for articles which their collegemates were glad to secure easily and quickly. 

Indeed, the field of endeavor seemed rather well covered, and it wouldhave been hard to discover anything new for Rebecca Frayne to do, hadthe girl even been willing to "go into trade, " a thing Rebecca had toldRuth a Frayne had never done. 

This attitude of the Frayne family seemed quite ridiculous to Ruth, butshe knew it was absolutely useless to scold Rebecca. 

Indeed, it was not Ruth Fielding's way to be a scold. If she could notbe helpful she preferred to ignore that which she saw was wrong. And inRebecca Frayne's case she was determined to be helpful if she could. Rebecca was a bright scholar. After all, she would shine in her classbefore all was said and done. They could not afford to lose such areally bright girl from among the freshmen. 

Often on stormy days Ruth spent the time between recitations and dinnerin Rebecca's room. 

"I never saw anybody so fond of old papers as you are, Ruthie, " Rebeccasaid. "Do take 'em all if you like. Of course, I'll never be sillyenough to carry them back home with me. They are only useful to helpbuild the fire. "

"Don't dare destroy one of them, Rebecca Frayne!" Ruth had warnedher--and actually made her promise that she would not do so. 

Then the replies to Ruth's letters came. She had gone all through thebundles of papers by this time, arranged them according to their datesof issue, and wrapped the different years' issues in strong paper. Rebecca could not see for the life of her, she said, what Ruth wasabout. 

"Surely they can't be worth much as old paper, Ruthie. I know you are aregular little business woman; but junk men aren't allowed on thecollege grounds. "

"Expressmen are, my dear, " laughed Ruth. 

"What do you mean? What _are_ you going to do with those papers?"

"You said you didn't care----"

"And I don't. They are yours to do with as you please, " said thegenerous Rebecca Frayne. 

"To punish you, " Ruth said seriously, "I ought really to take you atyour word, " and she shook her head. 

"What meanest thou, my fair young lady?" asked Rebecca, laughing. 

"Read this, " commanded Ruth, handing her, with the air of the stage hero"producing the papers, " one of the letters she had received. "Cast yourglance over this, Miss Frayne. "

The other received the letter curiously, and read it with dawningsurprise. She read it twice and then gazed at Ruth with almostspeechless amazement. 

"Well! what do you think of your Aunt Ruth _now_?" demanded the girl ofthe Red Mill, laughing. 

"It--it can't be _so_, Ruthie!" murmured Rebecca Frayne, the hand whichheld the letter fairly shaking. 

"It's just as _so_ as it can be, " and Ruth continued to laugh. 

The tears suddenly flooded into Rebecca's eyes. She could not turnquickly enough to hide them from Ruth's keen vision. But all she saidwas:

"Well, Ruthie! I congratulate you. Think of it! Two hundred dollarsoffered for each set of those old papers. Well!"

"You see, it would scarcely have been wise to have built the fire withthem, " Ruth said drily. 

"I--I should say not. And--and they have lain in our attic for years. "

"And you brought them to college as waste paper, " Ruth added. 

Rebecca was silent. Ruth, smiling roguishly, stole up behind her. Suddenly she put both arms around Rebecca Frayne and hugged her tight. 

"Becky! Don't you understand?" she cried. 

"Understand what?" Rebecca asked gruffly, trying to dash away her fewtears. 

"Why, honey, I did it for _you_. I believed the papers must be worthsomething. I had heard of a set of New York illustrated papers for theyears of the Civil War selling for a big price. These, I believed, mustbe even more interesting to collectors of such things. 

"So I wrote to Mr. Cameron, and he sent me the names of old bookdealers, and _they_ sent me the addresses of several collectors. ThisMr. Radley has a regular museum of such things, and he offers the bestprice--four hundred dollars for the lot if they prove to be as perfectas I said they were. And they _are_. "

"Yes--but----"

"And, of course, the money is yours, Rebecca, " said Ruth, promptly. "Youdon't for a moment suppose that I would take your valuable papers andcheat you out of the reward just because I happened to know more abouttheir worth than you did? What do you take me for?"

"Oh--oh, Ruthie!"

"What do you take me for?" again demanded Ruth Fielding, quite as thoughshe were offended. 

"For the best and dearest girl who ever lived!" cried Rebecca Frayne, and cast herself upon Ruth's breast, holding her tightly while shesobbed there. 

This was one surprise. But there was another later, and this was asurprise for Ruth herself. 

She was very glad to have been the means of finding Rebecca such a nicelittle fortune as this that came to her for the old periodicals. Withwhat the girl's brother could send her, Rebecca would be pretty sure ofsufficient money to carry her through her freshman year and pay for hersecond year's tuition at Ardmore. 

"Something may be found then for Rebecca to do, " thought Ruth, "thatwill not so greatly shock her notions of gentility. Dear me! she's asnice a girl as ever lived; but she is a problem. "

Ruth had other problems, however, on her mind. One of these broughtabout the personal surprise mentioned above. She had found time finallyto complete the scenario of "Crossed Wires, " and after some changes hadbeen made in it, Mr. Hammond had informed her that it would be put inthe hands of a director for production. It called for so many outdoorscenes, however, that the new film would not be made until spring. 

Spring was now fast approaching, and Ruth determined to be at the RedMill on a visit when the first scenes were taken for her photo-drama. 

Of course, if she went, Helen must go. They stood excellently well inall their classes, and it was not hard to persuade Dr. Milroth, who hadgood reports of both freshmen, to let them go to Cheslow. 

Ruth's coming home was in the nature of a surprise to Uncle Jabez andAunt Alvirah. The old housekeeper was outspoken in her joy at seeing"her pretty" once more. Uncle Jabez was startled into perhaps a warmergreeting of his niece than he ordinarily considered advisable. 

"I declare for't, Ruth! Ain't nothin' the matter, is there?" he asked, holding her hand and staring into her face with serious intent. 

"Oh, no, Uncle. Nothing at all the matter. Just ran home to see how youall were, and to watch them take the pictures of the old mill. "

"Ain't lost any of that money, have ye?" persisted the miller. 

"Not a penny. And Mr. Hammond sent me a nice check on account ofroyalties, too, " and she dimpled and laughed at him. 

"All right, " grunted Uncle Jabez. "Ye wanter watch out for that theremoney. Business is onsartain. Ain't no knowin' when everything'll go topot _here_. I never see the times so hard. "

But Ruth was not much disturbed by such talk. Uncle Jabez had beenprophesying disaster ever since she had known him. 

Maggie welcomed Ruth cordially, as well as Ben. Maggie was still thepuzzling combination of characteristics that she had seemed to Ruth fromthe first. She was willing to work, and was kind to Aunt Alvirah; butshe always withdrew into herself if anybody tried to talk much to her. 

The others at the Red Mill had become used to the girl's reticence; butto Ruth it remained just as tantalizing. She had the feeling that Maggiewas by no means in her right environment. 

"Doesn't she ever write letters?" Ruth asked Aunt Alvirah. "Doesn't sheever have a visitor?"

"Why, bless ye, my pretty! I don't know as she writes much, " AuntAlvirah said, as she moved about the kitchen in her old slow fashion. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! Well Ruthie, she reads a lot. She's allfor books, I guess, like you be. But she don't never talk much. And avisitor? Why, come to think on't, she did have one visitor. "

"Is that so?" cried the curious Ruth. "Let's hear about it. I feelgossipy, Aunt Alvirah, " and she laughed. 

She knew that Maggie was away from the house, and they were alone. Shecould trust Aunt Alvirah to say nothing to the girl regarding herqueries. 

"Yes, my pretty, " the old woman said, "she did have one visitor. Anothergal come to see her the very week you went away to college, Ruthie. "

"Is that so? Who was she?"

"Maggie didn't say. I didn't ask her. Ye see, she ain't one ter confidein a body, " explained Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head and loweringherself into her rocking chair. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"

"But didn't you see this visitor?"

"Why, yes, Ruthie. I seen her. It was funny, too, " Aunt Alvirah said, shaking her head. "I meant to write to you about it; then I forgot. 

"I hears somebody knock on the door one day, and I opened the door andthere I declare stood Maggie herself. Or, I thought 'twas her. "

"What?" gasped Ruth, very much interested. 

"She looked a sight like her, " said Aunt Alvirah, laughing to herself atthe remembrance. "Yet I knowed Maggie had gone upstairs to make thebeds, and this here girl who had knocked on the door was all dressedup. "

"'Why, Maggie!' says I. And she says, kinder tart-like:

"'I ain't Maggie. But I want to see her. '

"So I axed her in; but she wouldn't come. I seen then maybe she was alittle younger than Maggie is. Howsomever I called to Maggie, and shewent out, and the two of 'em walked up and down the road for an hour. The other gal never come in. And I seen her start back toward Cheslow. Maggie never said no word about her from that day to this. 

"Do you know what I think about it, Ruthie?" concluded Aunt Alvirah. 

"No, Aunt Alvirah, " said the girl of the Red Mill, reflectively. 

"I think that was Maggie's sister. Maybe she works out for somebody inCheslow. "

Ruth merely nodded. She did not think much of that phase of the matter. What she was really puzzling over was her memory of the girl she andHelen had interviewed on the island in Lake Remona before the Christmasholidays. 

That girl had looked very much like Maggie, too!

CHAPTER XXI

MANY THINGS HAPPEN

It was, of course, hard to tell by merely seeing them taken what thepictures about the old Red Mill would be like; but Ruth and Helen bothacted in them as "extras" and were greatly excited over the film, onemay be sure. 

The director, not the cross Mr. Grimes this time, assured Ruth that hewas confident "Crossed Wires" would make good on the screen. Hazel Grayplayed the lead in the picture, as she had in "The Heart of a SchoolGirl, " and Ruth and Helen were glad to meet the bright little screenactress again. 

Miss Gray seemed to have forgotten all about Tom Cameron and Ruth, forsome reason, felt glad. She ventured to ask Helen if her twin was stillas enamored of the young actress as he had seemed to be the year before. 

"Why, no, " Helen said thoughtfully. "You know how it is with boys; theyhave one craze after another, Ruthie. "

"No. Do they?" asked the other. 

"Yes. Tom made a collection of the photographs of a slap-stick comedianat first. Then he decorated his room at Seven Oaks with all the pictureshe could find of Miss Gray. Now, when I was over there with father theother day, what do you suppose is his chief decoration on his roomwalls?"

"I haven't the least idea, " Ruth confessed. 

"Great, ugly, brutal boxers! Prize-fighters! Awful pictures, Ruth! Isuppose next he will make a collection of the photographs of burglars!"and Helen laughed. 

The chums were whisked back to Ardmore, having been absent five days. They were so well prepared in their recitations, however, that they didnot fall behind in any particular. Indeed, these two bright-minded girlsfound it not difficult to keep up with their classes. 

Even Jennie Stone, leisure loving as she naturally was, had no realdifficulty in being well to the front in her studies. And she had becomeone of the most faithful of devotees of gymnastic practice. 

Ardmore's second basket ball five pushed the first team hard; and JennieStone was on the second five. As the spring training for the boatsopened she, as well as Ruth and Helen, tried for the freshmeneight-oared shell. All three won places in that crew. 

Jennie was still somewhat over-weight. But the instructor put her at bowand her weight counted there. Ruth was stroke and Helen Number 2. Aspractice went on it was proved that the freshman crew was a very wellbalanced one. 

They more than once "bumped" the sophomore shell in trial races, andonce came very near to catching the junior eight. The seniors andjuniors began now to pay more attention to the freshman class;especially to those members who showed well in athletics. 

Because of their characters and their class standing, several of theinstructors besides Miss Cullam, the mathematics teacher, were thefriends of the Briarwoods. Miss Cullam had shown a warm appreciation ofRuth Fielding's character all through the year. Not that Ruth was aprize pupil in Miss Cullam's study, for she was not. Mathematics was theone study it was hard for Ruth to interest herself in. But when the girlof the Red Mill had a hard thing to do, she always put her whole mind toit; and, therefore, she made a good mark in mathematics in spite of herdistaste for the study. 

"You are doing well, Miss Fielding, " Miss Cullam declared. "Better thanI expected. I have no doubt that you will pass well in the year'sexaminations. "

"And you won't be afraid that I'll crib the answers, Miss Cullam?" Ruthasked, laughing. 

"Hush! don't repeat gossip, " Miss Cullam said smiling, however, ratherruefully. "Even when the gossip emanates from an old cross-patch of ateacher who gets nervous and worries about improbabilities. No. I do notbelieve any of my girls would take advantage of the examination papers. Yet, I would give a good deal to know just where those papers and thatvase went. "

"Has nothing ever been heard from Miss Rolff since she left Ardmore?"Ruth asked. 

"No. Not a word. And it is hard on the sororities, too. Heretofore, thegirls have enjoyed the benefits of the associations for three years. _You_, I am sure, Ruth, would have been invited by this time to join oneof the sororities. "

"And I should dearly love to, " sighed Ruth. "The Kappa Alpha. It looksgood to me. But there are other things in college--and out of it, too. Oh see, Miss Cullam! Here is what I wanted to show you, " and the girl ofthe Red Mill brought forth a large envelope from her handbag. 

They were talking together in the library on this occasion, it being aSaturday afternoon when there was nothing particular to take up eitherthe teacher's time or the pupil's. Ruth emptied the envelope on thetable. 

"See these photographs? They are stills taken in connection with my newscenario. I want you to see just how lovely a place the old Red Mill, where I live, is. "

Miss Cullam adjusted her eyeglasses with a smile, and picked up thetopmost picture which Mr. Hammond had sent to Ruth. 

"That's dear old Aunt Alvirah herself feeding the chickens. She doesn'tknow that we took that picture of her. If I had said 'photograph' to thedear old creature, she would have been determined to put on her best biband tucker!"

"That's the back yard. Isn't it, dear? Who is that on the porch?"asked Miss Cullam. 

"On the porch? Why, _is_ anybody on the porch? I don't remember that. "

Ruth stooped to peer closer at the unmounted photograph in the teacher'shand. 

"Why! there _is_ somebody standing there, " she murmured. "You can seethe head and shoulders just as plain----"

"And the face, " said Miss Cullam, with strange eagerness. 

"Oh, I know!" cried Ruth, and she laughed heartily. "Of course. That'sMaggie. "

"Maggie?"

"Yes. The girl who helps Aunt Alvirah. And she's quite an interestingcharacter, Miss Cullam. I'll tell you about her some day. "

"Yes?" said Miss Cullam, reflectively. 

"Now, here is the front of the old house----"

"Allow me to keep this picture for a little while, will you, MissFielding?" broke in the teacher, still staring at the clearly exposedface of Maggie on the porch. 

"Why, yes, certainly, " responded the girl, curiously. 

"I wish to show this girl's face to somebody else. She seems veryfamiliar to me, " the mathematics teacher said. 

CHAPTER XXII

CAN IT BE A CLUE?

Ruth gave the matter of Maggie's photograph very little thought. Not atthat time, at least. She merely handed the print over to Miss Cullam andforgot all about it. 

These were busy days, both in the classroom and out of it. The warmth oflate spring was in the air; every girl who felt at all the bloodcoursing in her veins, tried to be out of doors. 

The whole college was eager regarding the coming boat races. Ardmore wasto try out her first eight-oared crew with three of several colleges, and two of the trials would be held upon Lake Remona. 

There were local races between the class crews every Saturday afternoon. Jennie Stone had to choose between basket ball and rowing, for therewere Saturdays when both sports were in ascendency. 

"No use. I can't be in two places at once, " declared Jennie, regretfullyresigning from the basketball team. 

"No, honey, " said Helen. "You're not big enough for that now. A fewmonths ago you might have played basket ball and sent your shadow topull an oar with us. See what it means to get thin. "

"My! I feel like another girl, " said the fleshy one ecstatically. "Whatdo you suppose my father will say to me in June?"

"He'll say, " suggested Helen, giggling, "'you took so much away, why doyou bring so little back from college?'"

It was several days before Miss Cullam returned to Ruth the picture shehad borrowed; and when she did she made a statement regarding it thatvery much astonished the girl of the Red Mill. 

"I will tell you now, my dear; why I wished to keep the photograph, " theteacher said. "I showed it to Dr. Milroth and to several of the othermembers of the faculty. "

"Indeed?" responded Ruth, quite puzzled. 

"Some of them agree with me. Dr. Milroth does not. Nevertheless, I wishyou would tell me all about this Maggie who works for your aunt----"

"Maggie!" gasped Ruth. "What do you mean, Miss Cullam? Was it becauseher face is in the picture that you borrowed it?"

"Yes, my dear. I think, as do some of the other instructors, that Maggielooks very much like the Miss Rolff who last year occupied the room youhave and who left us so strangely before the close of the semester. "

"Oh, Miss Cullam!"

"Foolish, am I?" laughed the teacher. "Well, I suppose so. You know allabout Maggie, do you?"

"No!" gasped Ruth. 

Eagerly she explained to the mathematics teacher how the strange girlhad appeared at the Red Mill and why she had remained there. Miss Cullamwas no less excited than Ruth when she heard these particulars. 

"I must tell Dr. Milroth this, " Miss Cullam declared. "Say nothing aboutit, Ruth Fielding. And she says her name is 'Maggie'? Of course!Margaret Rolff. I believe that is who she is. "

"But to go out to housework, " Ruth said doubtfully. 

"That doesn't matter. We must learn more about this Maggie. Say nothinguntil I have spoken to Dr. Milroth again. "

But if this was a clue to the identity and where-abouts of the girl whohad left Ardmore so abruptly the year before, Ruth learned something thevery next day that, unfortunately, put it quite beyond her ability todiscover further details in the matter. 

A letter arrived from Aunt Alvirah and after reading it once throughRuth hurried away to Miss Cullam with the surprising news it contained. 

Maggie had left the Red Mill. Without any explanation save that she hadbeen sent for and must go, the strange girl had left Aunt Alvirah andUncle Jabez, and they did not know her destination. Ben, the hired man, had driven her to the Cheslow railway station and she had taken aneastbound train. Otherwise, nothing was known of the strange girl'smovements. 

"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Cullam. "I am certain, then, that she isMargaret Rolff. Even Dr. Milroth has come to agree that it may be thatstrange girl. I hoped there was a chance of learning what really becameof those missing examination papers--and, of course, the vase. But howcan we discover what became of them if the girl has disappeared again?"

"Well, it's a very strange thing, I am sure, " Ruth admitted. "Of course, I'll write the folks at the Red Mill that if Maggie--or whatever herreal name is--ever turns up there again, they must let me know at once. "

"Yes, do, " begged the teacher. "Now that the subject has come up again Ifeel more disturbed than ever over those papers. _Were_ they lost, orweren't they? My dear Ruth! you don't know how I feel about thatmystery. All these girls whom I think so highly of, are still undersuspicion. "

"I hope nothing like that will happen this year, dear Miss Cullam, " Ruthsaid warmly. "I feel that we freshmen all want to pass our examinationshonestly--or not at all. "

"That is exactly what I believe about the other girls, " groaned theteacher. "But the sorority members admit that Margaret Rolff wasinstructed to remove the Egyptian vase from the library as a part of thestunt she was expected to do during the initiation ceremonies. 

"And in that vase were my papers. Of course, the girls did not know theexamination papers were there before the vase was taken. _But whatbecame of them afterward?_"

"Why, Miss Cullam, " Ruth said thoughtfully, "of course they must stillbe in the vase. "

"Perhaps. Then, perhaps not, " murmured the teacher. "Who knows?"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SQUALL

The first college eight went off to Gillings, and, as it was only a fewmiles by rail, half the student body, at least, went to root for thecrew. The Ardmore boat was beaten. 

"Oh, dear! To come home plucked in such a disgusting way, " groanedHelen, who, with Jennie, as well as Ruth, was among the disgruntled anddisappointed girls who had gone to see the race. "It is awful. "

"It's taught them a lesson, I wager, " Ruth said practically. "We haveall been rowing in still water. The river at Gillings is rough, and thelocal eight was used to it. I say, girls!"

"Say it, " said Jennie, gruffly. "It can't be anything that will hurt usafter what we've seen to-day. Three whole boatlengths ahead!"

"Never mind, " broke in Helen. "The races with Hampton and Beardsley willbe on our own lake. "

"And if there is a flutter of wind, our first eight will be beatenagain, " from Jennie Stone. 

"No, no, girls!" Ruth cried. "I heard the coach tell them that hereaftershe was going to make them row if there was a hurricane. And that's what_we_ must do. "

"_Who_ must do, Ruthie? What do you mean?" asked Helen. 

"The freshman eight. "

"E-lu-ci-date, " drawled Jennie. 

"We must learn to handle our shell in rough water. If there is a breathof wind stirring we mustn't beat it to land, " said Ruth, vigorously. "Let's learn to handle our shell in really rough water. "

"Sounds reasonable, " admitted Jennie. "Shall we all take out accidentpolicies?"

"No. All learn to swim. That's the wisest course, " laughed Ruth. 

"Ain't it the _trewth_?" agreed Jennie, making a face. "I'm not much ofa swimmest in fresh water. But I never could sink. "

The freshmen with the chums in the eight-oared shell proved to be allfair swimmers. And that crew was not the only one that redoubled itspractice after the disastrous race at Gillings College. 

Each class crew did its very best. The coaches were extremely stern withthe girls. Ardmore had a reputation for turning out champion crews, andthe year before, on their own water, the Ardmore eight had beatenGillings emphatically. 

 "But if we can win races only on our own course, " _The Jasper_, the Ardmore College paper declared, "what is the use of supporting an athletic association and four perfectly useless crews?"

They had all been so sure of victory over Gillings--both the studentbody and the faculty--that the disgrace of their beating cut all thedeeper. 

 "It is fortunate, " said the same stern commenter, "that our races with Hampton, and again with Beardsley, will be on Lake Remona. At least, our crew knows the water here--on a perfectly calm day, at any rate. "

"I see Merry Dexter's fine Italian hand in _that_, " Ruth declared, whenshe and her chums read the criticism of the chief college eight. "And ifit is true of the senior shell, how much more so of our own? We must beready to risk a little something for the sake of pulling a good race. "

"Goodness!" murmured Helen. "When we're away off there in the middle ofthe course between the landing and Bliss Island, for instance, and asquall threatens, it is going to take pluck, my dear, to keep us allsteady. "

"I tell you what!" exclaimed Jennie Stone. 

"Tell it, if you're sure it won't hurt us, " laughed Helen. 

"Let's get the coach to have us circle the island when we're out inpractice. It's always a little rough off both ends of Bliss Island, andwe should get used to rough water before our final home races. "

For, before the season was over, the four Ardmore eights would compete, and that race was the one which the three under-classes particularlytrained for. 

Jennie's suggestion sounded practical to her chums; so there were threealready agreed when it was broached to the freshmen eight. The coachthought well of it, too; for there was always a motor boat supposed tobe in sight of the shells when they were out at practice. 

This was in April, and, in Ardmore's latitude, a very uncertain monthApril is--a time of showers and smiles, calms and uncertain gales. Nevertheless, so thoroughly were the freshmen eight devoted to practicethat it had to be a pretty black looking afternoon, indeed, that keptthem from stepping into their boat. 

The boatkeeper was a weather-wise old man, who had guarded the Ardmoregirls against disaster on the lake for a decade. Being so well used toreading the signs he never let the boats out when he considered theweather threatening in any measure. 

One afternoon, when there had been a call passed for the freshmen eightto gather at the boathouse immediately after recitations, Johnnie, asthe boatman was called, had been called away from his post. Only a greenassistant was there to look after the boats, and he was much too bashfulto "look after the girls, " as Jennie, giggling, observed. 

"I don't see why they don't put blinders on that young man, " she said. "Whenever he has to look at one of us girls his freckles light up asthough there was an electric bulb behind each individual one. "

"Oh, Heavy! Behave!" murmured Helen, yet amused, too, by the bashfulnessof the assistant. 

"We _are_ a sight, I admit, " went on Jennie. "Everything in the shell, girls? Now! up with it. Come on, little Trix, " she added to thecoxswain. "Don't get your tiller-lines snarled, and bring your'nose-warmer'"--by which inelegant term she referred to the megaphonewhich, when they were really trying for speed was strapped to thecoxswain's head. 

The eight oarswomen picked the light shell up, shoulder high, andmarched down the platform to the float. Taking their cue from thetam-o'-shanters the seniors had made them wear early in their collegeexperience, the freshmen eight wore light blue bandannas wound aroundtheir heads, with the corners sticking up like rabbit-ears, blueblouses, short skirts over bloomers, and blue stockings with whiteshoes. Their appearance was exceedingly natty. 

"If we don't win in the races, we'll be worth looking at, " Helen oncesaid pridefully. 

The assistant boatkeeper remained at a distance and said not a word tothem, although there was a bank of black cloud upon the western horizoninto which the sun would plunge after a time. 

"We're the first out, " cried one of the girls. "There isn't another boaton the lake. "

"Wrong, Sally, " Ruth Fielding said. "I just saw a boat disappear behindBliss Island. "

"Not one of _ours_?" cried Jennie, looking about as they lowered theshell into the water. 

"No. It was a skiff. Came from the other side, I guess. Or perhaps itcame up the river from the railroad bridge. "

"Now, " said Trix Davenport, the coxswain, "are we going to ask that boyto get out the launch and follow us?"

"Oh, goodness me! No, " said Helen, with assurance. "We don't want himtagging us. Do we, girls?"

"Perhaps it might be better, " Ruth said slowly. 

But the chorus of the other girls cried her down. Besides, she did notbelieve there was any danger. Of course, a rowing shell is an uncertainthing; but she had never yet seen an accident on the lake. 

All stepped in, adjusted their oars, and the coxswain pushed off. Havingadjusted the rudder-lines, Trix affixed the megaphone, and lifted herhand. The eight strained forward, and the coxswain began to beat time. 

Ruth set the pace in a long, swinging stroke, and the other seven fellinto time. The shell shot out from the landing just as the coachappeared around the corner of Dare Hall, on her way down from thegymnasium. She gave one glance at the sky, and then started to run. 

"Those foolish girls!" she exclaimed. "Where's Johnny?"

The freshman eight was far out upon the lake when she reached theboathouse, and she quickly saw that the old boatkeeper was not in sight. She tried to signal the crew of the shell to return; but the girls inthe frail craft were too interested in their practice to look backtoward the shore. Indeed, in a very few minutes, they swept through theslightly rough water at the eastern end of the island and disappearedbehind it. The coach, Miss Mallory, beckoned the assistant boatman andordered out the launch. But there was something wrong with the engine, and he lost some time before getting the craft started. 

Meanwhile, the cloudbank was rolling up from the west. The sun suddenlywas quenched. A breath of cold wind swept down the lake and fretted thetiny waves. They sprang up in retaliation and slapped the bow of thelaunch, which finally got under its sputtering way. 

Then a squall of wind swooped down and Miss Mallory was almost swept offher feet. The boatman steered carefully, but the engine was not yetworking in good fashion. The coach made a mistake, too, in directing thelaunch. Instead of starting directly up the lake, and rounding the headof the island to meet the freshman shell, she ordered the boatman totrail the boat that had disappeared. 

The launch was some time in beating around the lower end of the island. 

CHAPTER XXIV

TREASURE HUNTING

The freshmen shell was well around the end of Bliss Island and behindit, before the squall broke. Pulling into the rising gale as they wereand the water being always a little rough here, at first none of RuthFielding's associates in the craft realized that there was the leastdanger. 

They were well off shore, for near the island the water was shallow andthere were rocks. These rowing shells are made so lightly that a merescraping of the keel over a sunken boulder would probably completelywreck the craft, and well the girls knew this. 

Trix Davenport steered well out from the dangerous shallows. "Pull away, girls!" she shouted through her megaphone. "It's going to blow. "

And just then the real squall swept down upon them. Ruth, althoughsetting a good, long stroke, found of a sudden that the shell wasscarcely moving ahead. The wind was so strong that they were onlyholding their own against it. 

"Pull!" shouted the coxswain again. 

Ruth bent forward, braced her feet firmly and drove the long oar-bladedeep into the jumping little waves. Those waves quickly became largerand "jumpier. " A white wreath formed upon their crests. The shell in avery few seconds was in the midst of white water. 

Once with Uncle Jabez, and in a heavy punt, the girl of the Red Mill hadbeen caught in the rapids of the Lumano below the mill, and had foughtwith skill and courage to help save the boat. This effort was soon to beas great--and she realized it. 

She set a pace that drove the shell on in the teeth of the squall; butthe boat shivered with every stroke. It was as though they were tryingto push the narrow, frail little shell into a solid wall. 

In pulling her oar Ruth scarcely ever raised her eyes to a level withthe coxswain's face; but when she chanced to, she saw that Trix waspallid and her eyes were clouded with fear. 

Ruth hoped none of the other girls saw that mask of dread which thesituation had forced upon their little coxswain. She wanted to cry outto Trix--to warn her to hide her emotion. But she had no breath to sparefor this. 

Every ounce of breath and of muscle she owned, Ruth put into her stroke. She felt the rhythmic spring of the craft, and knew that her mates werekeeping well up with her. They were doing their part bravely, eventhough they might be frightened. 

And then, suddenly and fortunately, the freshman craft found a shelteredbit of water. A high shoulder of the hilly island broke the force of thewind. 

"Ashore! Put us ashore!" Ruth managed to gasp so that Trix heard her. 

"We--we'll wreck the shell!" complained Trix. "It's so shallow. "

"We'll not drown in shallow water, " ejaculated Ruth, expelling the wordsbetween strokes. 

The coxswain shot them shoreward. She caught a glimpse of another boatpulled up on the beach--the skiff they had earlier seen rounding thepoint of the island. 

In thirty seconds they were safe. The rain began to pour down upon themin a brisk torrent. But that did not matter. 

"Rather be half drowned in the rain than wholly drowned in the lake!"Jennie Stone declared, as they scrambled out into the shallow water, more than ankle deep, and lifted the treacherous shell out of the lake. 

"Goodness! what a near one that was!" Helen declared. 

Ruth looked at the skiff drawn up on the shore, and then up into thegrove of trees. 

"I wonder where the girl is who was in that boat?" she said. 

"Was it a girl?" asked Helen, with interest. 

"Yes. She must have found shelter somewhere from this rain. Come on! Wemay be able to keep reasonably dry up there in the woods. "

The other girls followed Ruth, for she was naturally their leader. Therain continued to beat down upon them; but before they reached theopening in which was situated the Stone Face, Ruth spied an evergreen, the drooping branches of which offered them reasonable shelter. 

"Come on into the green tent, girls!" shouted Jennie Stone, plunginginto the dimly lighted circle under the tree. "Oh! Goodness! What'sthat?"

"A dog!"

"A cow! and I'm afraid of co-o-ows!" wailed Sally Blanchard, seizingupon Ruth as the nearest savior. 

"Don't be silly, child, " vouchsafed Helen, who had followed Jennie. "Howwould a cow come upon this island--a mile from shore?"

"Or a dog?" laughed Ruth. "What _did_ you see, Jennie Stone?"

"She just tried to fool us, " Helen declared. 

"Didn't either, " the stout girl said warmly. "Something ran out at thefar side as I came in. "

"An animal?" gasped Trix Davenport. 

"Well, " returned Jennie Stone, "it certainly wasn't a vegetable. Atleast, I never saw a vegetable run as fast as that thing did. "

"You needn't try to scare us to death, Heavy, " complained Helen. "Ofcourse it must have been the girl Ruth said came ashore in that skiff. "

"Well, I didn't think of her, " admitted Jennie. "But she ran like aferret. I'd like to know who she is. "

"Remember the girl we found over here that night in the snowstorm?"whispered Helen to Ruth. "The girl who looked like that Maggie?"

"Oh, don't I!" exclaimed Ruth, shaking her head. 

"What do you suppose _she_ was after--and what is this one over here onthe island for?" pursued Helen, languidly. 

Ruth made no reply, but her cheeks flushed and her eyes grew brighter. She stooped and peered out at the decreasing rainfall. There was a pathleading straight toward the Stone Face. Had this girl whom Jennie hadseen gone in that direction?

The other members of the freshman crew were so inordinately busychattering and laughing and telling jokes and stories that nobody forthe moment noticed Ruth Fielding, who stole out from the covert throughthe fast slackening rainfall without saying a word. Lightly running overthe crest of the hill, she came in sight of the huge boulder at whichshe and Helen had experienced their never-to-be-forgotten adventure thewinter before. 

She saw nobody at the foot of the boulder, but she pressed on to theedge of the grove to make sure. And then she saw that somebody hadcertainly and very recently been at work near the boulder. 

There was a pickaxe--perhaps the very one she had seen there in thewinter--and a shovel. Some attempt had been made to dig over thegravelly soil for some yards from the foot of the boulder. 

"Goodness me! what can this mean?" thought the girl of the Red Mill. "Something must be buried here! Treasure hunters! Fancy!" and shelaughed a little uncertainly. "Can somebody believe that this is one ofthe hiding places of Captain Kidd's gold? Who ever heard the like?"

The rain ceased falling. There was a tooting of a horn down behind theisland. The launch had come in sight of the shell and Miss Mallory wastrying to signal the girls to return to the shore. 

But Ruth did not go back. She heard the girls shout for her, but insteadof complying she went straight across to the Stone Face and picked upthe heavy pickaxe. 

"I don't believe whoever has been digging has found anything yet, " shetold herself. "No. She's been here before--for, of course, it is thatgirl. She couldn't have dug all this over in a few minutes. No. She hasbeen here and dug unsuccessfully. Then she has come back to-day foranother attempt at--at the treasure, shall we call it? Well!"

There was already an excavation more than a foot in depth and severalyards in circumference. Whatever it was the strange girl had been aftershe was not quite sure of its burial place. 

In the winter when she had essayed to dig for the hidden thing there hadbeen too much frost in the ground. Besides, doubtless Ruth and Helen'sinquisitiveness had frightened the strange girl away. Now she was backagain--somewhere now on Bliss Island. She had not accomplished herpurpose as yet. Ruth smote the hard ground at her feet with all herstrength. The pick sunk to its helve in the earth, now softened by thespring rain. 

"Oh! I hit something!" she gasped. 

In all probability she would not have continued to dig had this successnot met her at the beginning. Really, her swinging of the pickaxe hadbeen idly done. But the steel rang sharply on something. She raised thepick and used it thereafter more cautiously. There certainly wassomething below the surface--not very far down----

Dropping the pickaxe, Ruth gained possession of the shovel and threwaside the loose earth. Yes! there was some object hidden there--some"treasure" which she desired to see. 

In a few moments, becoming impatient of the shovel, she cast it asideand stooping, with her feet planted firmly in the muddy earth, shegroped in the hole with both hands. 

Before she dragged the object into sight Ruth Fielding was positive byits shape and the feel of it, of the nature of the object. As she roseup at last, firmly grasping the object, a sharp voice said behind her:

"Well, now that you've interfered and found it, suppose you hand it overto me. You haven't any business with that vase, you know!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE END OF A PERFECT YEAR

Helen Cameron came running over the hill and down the sloppy paththrough the grove. When she reached the Stone Face where Ruth and thestrange girl were standing, she cried:

"What _is_ the matter with you, Ruthie Fielding? Come on over to theboat. Miss Mallory sent me after you. . . . Why! who's this?"

"Don't you remember this girl, Helen?" asked Ruth, seriously. 

"Why! it's the girl who was camping in the snow, isn't it?" said Helen, curiously eyeing the stranger. "How-do?"

But the other was not pleased to allow the situation to develop intomerely a well-bred meeting of three former acquaintances. She did notvouchsafe Helen a glance, but said, directing her words toward Ruth:

"I want that vase. It doesn't belong to you. "

"Goodness, Ruthie!" put in her chum, for the first time seeing theobject in Ruth's hands. "What is that thing?"

"I just dug it up here. It is the Egyptian vase taken from the Ardmorelibrary last year I believe. "

"It doesn't matter where it came from. I want it, " cried the strangegirl, and she stepped forward quickly as though to seize the muddy vase. 

But Helen sprang forward and pushed her back. 

"Hold on! I guess if Ruth's got it, you'll have to wait and proveproperty, " said Helen. "How about it, Ruth?"

"She must tell us all about it, " said Ruth, firmly. "Perhaps I may lether have it--if she tells us the truth. "

"The truth!" exclaimed Helen. 

"I won't tell you a thing!" cried the strange girl. "You haven't anyright to that vase. "

"Nor have you, " Ruth told her. 

"Well----"

"Nor has Margaret Rolff, " went on Ruth, coolly. "I take it you areacting for her, aren't you?"

"Why, " cried Helen, beginning to understand. "That is the girl who leftArdmore last year?"

"And came to the Red Mill after spending the summer at a camp on theLumano and helped Aunt Alvirah, " Ruth added, with a smile. 

"Well, I never! Not Maggie?" demanded Helen. 

"I think I am right, " Ruth said quietly. "Am I not?" to the other girl. "Our Maggie is Margaret Rolff, and _you_ must be her sister. At least, you look enough like her to be some relative. "

The other made a gesture of resignation and dropped her hands. "I mightas well confess it, " she admitted. "You are Ruth Fielding, and Margytold me long ago you might be trusted. "

"And this is my particular friend, Helen Cameron, " Ruth said, "who is tobe fully trusted, too. "

"I suppose so, " said the girl. "My name is Betty. I'm Margy's youngersister. Poor Margy. She never was very strong. I mean that she wasalways giving in to other people--was easily confused. 

"She's bright enough, you know, " pursued the other girl, warmly; "butshe is nervous and easily put out. What those girls did to her last yearat this college was a shame!"

Another hail from behind the hill warned Ruth that she must attend MissMallory's command or there would be trouble. 

"We cannot wait to hear it all, Miss--Betty, did you say your name was?Where are you staying?"

"I have been working in Greenburg all winter. We're poor girls and haveno parents. Margy is with me now, " said the girl. "And I want that vase. I want it for Margy. She will never be satisfied until she can give itback to the dean of the college herself and explain how she came to hideit, and then forgot where she hid the vase. "

"Tell me where to find you in Greenburg, " said Ruth, hastily. "No! I'llnot let you have the vase now. I will not show it to anybody else, however, and we'll come over to town this evening and bring it with us, and talk with Maggie. "

"Oh, Miss Fielding----"

"That must satisfy you, " said Ruth, firmly; and Betty Rolff had to besatisfied with this promise. She told the chums where she and Margaretwere staying and then Ruth and Helen ran back to their friends, Ruthconcealing the hastily wiped silver vase under the loose front of herblouse. 

"Goodness!" she said to Helen, "I hope nobody will see it. Do I bulge_much_?"

There was so much excitement among the crew of the freshman eight, however, that Ruth's treasure-trove was not discovered. Under MissMallory's direction they launched the shell again, climbed aboard, andmade a safe passage to the dock. 

A notice was put up that very evening, however, to the effect that noneof the racing shells were to be taken out unless the launch was mannedand went with the frailer craft. 

The students of Ardmore were allowed to leave the college grounds in theevening if they were properly chaperoned. And when Ruth went to MissCullam and explained a little of what was afoot, the mathematicsinstructor was only too glad to act in the capacity of chaperon. 

Helen had telephoned for a car, and the three rode down to Greenburgimmediately after dinner. Ruth carried the recovered vase, just as shehad dug it out of the hole by the Stone Face on Bliss Island, wrapped ina paper. She had not had time either to clean it or to examine it morethoroughly. 

They easily found the boarding house, the address of which Betty Rolffhad given to Ruth. It was a respectable place, but was far fromsumptuous. It was evident, as Ruth had been previously informed, thatthe Rolff girls were not very well off in this world's goods. 

When the visitors climbed to the second floor bedroom where the sisterswere lodged, Miss Cullam took the lead, walked straight in, seizedMargaret Rolff in her arms and implanted a kiss upon the pale cheek ofthe girl who had for so many months been Aunt Alvirah's assistant at theRed Mill. 

"You poor girl!" said the mathematics teacher. "What you must have beenthrough! Now, I am delighted to see you again, and you must tell me allabout it--how you came to take the vase, and bury it, and all. "

There was a good deal of talk on both sides before all this that MissCullam asked was explained. But the facts were made clear at last. 

In the first place, Margaret Rolff had always been very much afraid ofthe dark and of being alone at night. But she wanted so much to become amember of the Kappa Alpha that she did not try to cry off when shereceived her instructions as a candidate for membership in thatsorority. 

The first part of her initiation test was easy enough. She secured theEgyptian vase from the reception room of the library without beingapprehended. Then she was rowed across the lake to the island by severalblack-robed and hooded figures whom she did not know. 

Left with a flashlight and a spade to bury the stolen vase within ashort distance of the Stone Face, Margaret had tried her best to controlher nerves and do as she was commanded. But she could never reallyremember whether she had buried the vase or not. The idea had been forher to bury it, and then another candidate would be made to search forit the next night. 

Everything about the initiation went wrong, however, because Margaretlost her nerve. The members of the sorority could not find the placewhere the candidate had really dug her hole and buried the vase. AndMargaret had fled in a panic from the college before further inquirycould be made. 

"All this time, " explained the practical sister, Betty, "Margy haswanted to know if she did bury the vase or not. She felt she had stolenfrom the college and could be punished for it. I think those girls thatset her the task should be punished. "

"They have been, " said Miss Cullam, grimly. "Yet, it was really amisunderstanding all around. Now, let me see that vase, Ruth Fielding. "

The latter was glad to do this. The teacher opened the package andimmediately turned the vase upside down and shook it. There wasevidently something inside, and after some work with the handiest of allfeminine tools, a hatpin, a soggy mass of paper was dislodged from theEgyptian vase. 

"The missing examination papers, girls!" sighed Miss Cullam, with muchsatisfaction. "There, Margaret! You may have the vase and return it toDr. Milroth to-morrow if you like. And I hope you will return to thecollege and be with us next year. 

"I have what _I_ am after and feel more contented in my mind than I havefor some months. Dear me, girls! you don't at all understand what anumber of trials and perplexities are heaped upon the minds of us poorteachers. "

 * * * * *

There were many other incidents occurring at Ardmore before the end ofwhat Helen Cameron declared was a "perfect year. " But nothing createdmore interest than the recovery of the Egyptian vase with the missingexamination papers, unless it was the boat races. Though to a few, perhaps, certain plans for the coming summer overtopped even these inimportance. These were such a very great secret that the chums scarcelydared discuss them. 

But those readers who may so desire will read about the happenings thatdeveloped from these plans of Ruth and her friends in the subsequentvolume of the series, entitled, "Ruth Fielding in the Saddle; or, College Girls in the Land of Gold. "

First of the races was that with the first eight of Beardsley; and thecrew of Ardmore won. Then came the trial between Ardmore and HamptonCollege, and the former won that as well. 

Ardmore was in high fettle at that. _The Jasper_ was quite asenthusiastically complimentary now as it had been critical after therace with Gillings, for in winning the race against Hampton College, theArdmore crew had been forced to row through very rough water. 

Commencement came in June, and two days before the graduation exercisesof the senior class, the local aquatic sports were held. The mainincident of this carnival was the race between the class eights. 

The shells were started at twenty-yard intervals, and in the order ofthe classes. The freshman eight, in which rowed Ruth, Helen and Jennie, had practised vigorously all these weeks and now they displayed thevalue of their exertions. 

Within the first quarter they "bumped" the sophomore eight. This crewdropped out of the race immediately and the freshmen spun ahead, Ruthsetting a wonderfully effective stroke, and little Trix Davenportswaying her body in time with the motion of the boat and shoutingencouragement through her megaphone. 

On and on crept the freshman eight until there was barely a hand'sbreadth between the nose of their shell and the stern of the juniorcraft. The crowd along shore cheered the younger girls vociferously, andalthough they did not quite "bump" the juniors before crossing the mileline----

"We came so near it there was no fun in it!" declared Jennie Stone, delightedly. "Oh, girls! some of us are going to be great rowists aftera few more years at Ardmore. "

"Dear me, " panted Helen, making the last pun of the term. "It should becalled _Hard_-more. I never worked so hard in my life as I have thisfirst year at college. "

"But it will never hurt us, " laughed Ruth, later. "We have got onfamously. "

"_You_ have, my dear, " interposed Helen. "You stand A, number one inclasses. And look at that new play of yours--a big success! Money isrolling in on you----"

"Think a little of yourself, " proposed Ruth. "Don't you consider yourtime well spent here, my dear chum?"

"Sure! It _is_ the end of a perfect year, " agreed Helen. 

"And think of me--_little_ me!" cried Jennie Stone, bursting into thechums' study at that moment, and in time to hear the last of theconversation. "Do you know what's happened, girls?"

"No! What?" demanded the curious Helen. 

"I have lost another pound, " said the ex-fat girl, in a sepulchralvoice. 

THE END

THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES

By ALICE B. EMERSON

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_12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional_. 

Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Heradventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of everyreader. 

Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction. 

 1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL

 2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL

 3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP

 4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT

 5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH

 6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND

 7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM

 8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES

 9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES

 10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE

 11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE

 12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE

 13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS

 14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT

 15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND

 16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST

 17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST

 18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE

 19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING

 20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH

 21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS

 22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA

 23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO

 24. RUTH FIELDING AT CAMERON HALL

 25. RUTH FIELDING CLEARING HER NAME

 26. RUTH FIELDING IN TALKING PICTURES

 27. RUTH FIELDING AND BABY JUNE

 28. RUTH FIELDING AND HER DOUBLE

 29. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREATEST TRIUMPH

 30. RUTH FIELDING AND HER CROWNING VICTORY

These books may be purchased wherever books are sold

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THE BARTON BOOKS FOR GIRLS

By MAY HOLLIS BARTON

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_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored Jacket. _

_Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. _

_May Hollis Barton is a new writer for girls who is bound to wininstant popularity. Her style is somewhat of a reminder of that ofLouisa M. Alcott, but thoroughly up-to-date in plot and action. Clean tales that all the girls will enjoy reading. _

 1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY

 2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL

 3. NELL GRAYSON'S RANCHING DAYS

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 6. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

 7. HAZEL HOOD'S STRANGE DISCOVERY

 8. TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY

 9. THE GIRLS OF LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

 10. KATE MARTIN'S PROBLEM

 11. THE GIRL IN THE TOP FLAT

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THE BETTY GORDON SERIES

By ALICE B. EMERSON

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Author of the "Ruth Fielding Series"

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_A new series of stories bound to make this writer more popular thanever with her host of girl readers. Every one will want to know BettyGordon, and every one will be sure to love her. _

 1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM

 2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON

 3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL

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 6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK

 7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS

 8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH

 9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS

 10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARLS

 11. BETTY GORDON ON THE CAMPUS

 12. BETTY GORDON AND THE HALE TWINS

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 15. BETTY GORDON AND THE MYSTERY GIRL

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Books for Girls

BY ALICE B. EMERSON

RUTH FIELDING SERIES

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE Or, The Missing Examination Papers. 

 RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold. 

Cupples & Leon Co. , Publishers, New York.