The Orchard Secret Part 11

With renewed energy they fell to their task once more. Arden discovered Sim's pile of apples from the afternoon gathering and was putting them into the bag; they could not return to those sophs without filling their orders.

Suddenly the night's silence was broken by a loud noise: a sound between a sneeze and a snort, as the girls afterward described it.

Then something like a black shadow tore past the frightened trio, moving with great speed and thudding feet, if that tearing scramble could have been made by feet. In her excitement Terry switched off the light. The darkness was at once made more dark.

"Oh! Help! Help! It's--got me!" screamed Arden, in a voice filled with terror.

Some strange force seemed to fling her aside, her skirt being caught and twisted around her legs, twirling her like a human top. She tried to retain her balance but toppled over and fell heavily in a pile of leaves and apples, too frightened to know where she was.

"Arden!" cried Sim. "What happened? Where are you?"

"Are you hurt?" demanded Terry trying in vain to get her fingers on the elusive light switch. "Oh, Arden! Whatever--was it?"

"It--it just missed me!" panted Arden, struggling to her feet. "But whatever it was, it certainly tried to get me! Oh, for mercy's sake, take those apples and let's get out of here!"

"Show a light, Terry!" begged Sim. "Where are the apples?"

"I--I dropped the bag when that terrible thing rushed past me and was nearly entangled in my skirt," Arden confessed. "Oh, this is awful!"

"Those sophs!" muttered Sim, "and these unlucky apples!"

"Beasts!" snapped Terry, who at last had the torch glowing again.

Then, never daring to look behind them, the three frightened freshmen, with Sim carrying the bag of apples, Terry focusing the torch on the uncertain way, and Arden almost in hysterical tears, ran out of the perilous orchard. This surely had been a terrifying encounter.

"But remember again," breathed Sim when she felt strong enough to do so, "the apples are for--the sophs, but the--mystery--is ours!" Good little Sim!

CHAPTER VIII A Tea Dance

"There!"

Sim flung the bag of apples with desperate aim straight at Jessica Darglan, who stood in surprised dismay near the doorway of her room.

"We're back! We got the apples for you. But don't ever ask us to go to that orchard again. It's a _terrible_ place!" Arden almost shook her finger at Jessica.

"I think you sophs are going a little too far in this hazing business."

Terry spoke firmly. "We tried to be good sports about it, but we might have been hurt or killed--or something! Well, anyhow, here's your lamp, and you have the apples. Come on, girls!" she finished a little lamely, but a little defiantly as well.

The three frightened freshmen wearily climbed the last flight of stairs to their room. Never had the sight of those three beds in a row seemed so pleasant, so rea.s.suring.

Terry decided to let her French go until morning. Arden and Sim thanked their lucky stars they could go to bed with easy consciences. They had nothing to prepare.

"But, Arden, what was it?" asked Sim as she began to undress.

"You haven't given us any idea," added Terry.

"For the simple reason that I can't," was the answer made after a moment of thought. "It was all so sudden--and terrible--a rus.h.i.+ng black shape--something getting tangled in my skirt--twirling me down and--and--around----"

"Whoosing, snorting, and sneezing like some giant of an old man with a bad cold," finished Sim.

"Yes," Arden a.s.sented, glad to have been helped out.

"The orchard," murmured Terry. "Could it have been--a snake?"

"You're thinking of the Garden of Eden and Eve's apple, I guess," laughed Sim.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it!" begged Arden. "Maybe it was--the wind."

"You know it wasn't," said Sim calmly.

"It may have been--for all I _know_," Arden said. "I'm going to bed and try to forget it. College life should make girls brave."

The others followed her example but sleep was long in coming. Adventures like the peril in the orchard called for pulling covers over one's head, Arden remarked, and she did exactly that. Darling sleep came at last.

In the morning, at breakfast, the trio guardedly whispered to a few of their friends something of what had happened, but the real secret they kept to themselves. There were murmurs of wonder amid promises, exacted and given, of silence. But the talk spread. The idea of three freshmen--etc.--etc.--!

It was two days later, though, before an effect was produced. Then the whole college was called to General a.s.sembly, and the three in room 513 realized to what an extent gossip had traveled.

"Any stories which you may have heard about queer things happening in the old orchard must be taken, well--conservatively, at least." It was the dean speaking to the college students, who for once were all vitally interested in her discourse. "There is not much danger of our upper cla.s.s students taking these things seriously. But in a college of this size, stories travel with remarkable speed. It would not be to the credit of Cedar Ridge to have such rumors spread on the outside. So we shall say no more about it, except to remark that, apparently, our soph.o.m.ores this year are doing a very good job of hazing. It is to be hoped they will remember where hazing ends and bullying begins." The dean's usually austere manner suddenly melted into a kindly interest.

"She must have heard something," Arden whispered to Sim. "Do you notice she doesn't say exactly what happened?"

"It's my guess," whispered Sim, "she doesn't _know_ exactly what."

The three girls were sitting together in the large a.s.sembly hall.

"Foxy old thing!" Terry spoke out of the corner of her mouth at Arden.

"I'd like to hear just how much she actually knows."

The dean had finished with the matter of the orchard. She swept her glance over the faces raised expectantly to hers as she broached a new and not unwelcome subject.

"The Soph.o.m.ore Tea Dance will be held this year earlier than usual; in New York, at the Hotel Chancellor. The committee, of which Jessica Darglan, Margaret Everett, and Priscilla MacGovern are the active heads, ask your support in their undertaking." A murmur of approval greeted this announcement. "They have voted to give any funds they may raise to the college treasury for the reconditioning of the swimming pool. I wish them every success." This was a real p.r.o.nouncement.

Then, gathering herself together and teetering on her toes as if, Terry said, she was getting ready to jump, the dean dismissed her students.

"Wouldn't you just know they'd do something like that!" Arden was speaking, as the three chums sauntered toward their cla.s.ses in Bordmust Hall. "Stealing our plan!"

"But we didn't announce it, Arden," Terry remarked. "That is, if you mean we are to try for the thousand dollars reward for information about that missing Harry Pangborn."

"That's what I mean."

"But we haven't done anything," suggested Sim. "Really, you know, Arden----"

"Why didn't they give us a chance? I just know we can solve that mystery if we have time. I'm sure of it!"