The Orchard Secret Part 32

"Not exactly. I was struck by something--something attacked me as I was walking through the orchard. It was some great, black, rus.h.i.+ng shape that threw itself upon me. I went down heavily--I could feel the bones of my leg snap. I--I must have lost consciousness--for a time, at least. When I came to, I found myself lying beneath a tree. I managed to get this far, and then the pain----"

"We heard you call for help," said Sim.

"You heard me--up in your room?" His voice was querulous.

The girls did not care to go into particulars.

"We have sent someone to bring help," said Arden, kneeling down beside the aged chaplain. "But can we do anything to ease you until help comes?"

"Rest yourself, Dr. Bordmust," Sim begged. She sat down in the wet gra.s.s and lifted the tired white head into her lap.

"You--you are very kind, young ladies," the chaplain murmured. "I shall see that----"

"What's the matter?" suddenly cried Arden as she saw his head sag queerly to one side.

"He's fainted, I guess," answered Sim.

"Oh, dear!" wailed Terry. "The poor man! But here come the girls and the dean, I think, and two men. Now we'll be all right."

"At least he will, though as for us----" Arden did not finish.

An excited throng of students and others hurried toward the three alarmed freshmen surrounding the chaplain. The dean, rather neatly dressed in spite of the hurry under which she had donned her garments, was in the lead.

Behind her was Miss Lucant, the college infirmarian. Then came Jane and her chums with the gardener, Anson Yaeger, and his helper, Tom Scott, bringing up in the rear.

"You certainly got a lot of help in a short time, Jane," whispered Arden as the girls mingled.

"Oh, the dean was quick enough once she was awake. She sent me for Miss Lucant and had one of the girls telephone to the gardener's house to rouse him. Tiddy certainly got organized quickly!"

Miss Anklon, who even had the forethought to bring a flashlight with her, focused it on the pale face of the chaplain, who still was stretched on the ground, his head in Sim's lap.

"Take him to the infirmary at once!" the dean ordered.

"Anson--Tom--you'll have to get some sort of a stretcher to carry him.

That leg, to me, looks to be broken."

"It is," said Arden.

The dean flashed a look and a gleam of light on her but said nothing, nor did she ask how Arden knew.

"I'll have to run back and get a board--or something," said Anson. "A stretcher is what we need, but----"

"We can pull a door off the old tool-shed!" suggested Tom Scott.

"Do that," advised the dean. "Lose no time."

Tom Scott hurried off in the darkness, before Anson could make up his mind what to do, and soon came back with a light door. On this Dr.

Bordmust was carefully rolled, Sim pulling off her sweater to make a pillow for his head, and then the gardener and his a.s.sistant started on the melancholy journey to the college hospital.

Having seen this procession on its way, the dean spoke sharply to the nervous girls.

"Go at once to your rooms," she ordered. "We shall have something to say about this in the morning."

Realizing that they could do nothing more, and feeling that they must have excited the dean's curiosity by all being dressed at that hour of the night, Arden and the others hurried into the dormitory and dispersed to their various rooms.

Meanwhile Dr. Bordmust, who had recovered consciousness, was taken to the infirmary, where Anson and Tom carefully undressed him and put him in bed, with an elderly teacher, who was also a nurse, to look after him. A physician was hurriedly summoned from town and set the broken leg. This much the girls guessed from observation and rumors that floated along the corridor's grapevine route. For none of those engaged in the raid felt like going to bed at once.

And as the food had escaped the watchful eyes of the dean, it having been successfully hidden under sweaters, it was available for the post-midnight feast which was soon under way. Nor was the usual caution necessary, with the excitement over the chaplain's strange adventure still seething.

As the girls ate they talked, naturally, each of the two groups telling the other their parts in the affair. They all admitted it was a queer mystery.

"Do you think the bell had anything to do with it?" Sim wanted to know.

"It might have been rung to draw our attention away from the orchard,"

suggested Arden.

"But no one was paying the least bit of attention to the orchard in the first place," objected Terry.

"But why was Henny there in the orchard at midnight?" Jane Randall propounded. "He had no business there."

"No more than we had in the kitchen," suggested Arden.

"But he _was_ there," declared Mary Todd.

"And something attacked him," said Sim.

"And if you ask me," said Arden positively, "I think that whatever it was that came at us, the night we had to get apples for the sophs, attacked our chaplain."

"Well, what was that?" demanded Ethel.

"I don't know," Arden had to admit.

The girls were silent a moment, and then Sim asked:

"Did you have much trouble rousing Tiddy?"

"Yes," Jane answered, "she sleeps like a horse. We couldn't make her understand for the longest time. She never even noticed how we all bulged with food, and I think she didn't hear the bell at all."

So they talked until there was nothing left to eat though there was still much to wonder at. Arden hid the milk bottles in a closet. Jane Randall opened the door and was followed out by the other visitors to 513, who stole silently down the dark corridors and to their own rooms.

In spite of all the excitement, Arden and her roommates were soon sound asleep.

The next day the very walls of Cedar Ridge must have vibrated, so great was the talk. Rumors of the wildest sort were pa.s.sed from girl to girl.

Arden and her friends were a little afraid to tell of their part in the night's adventure and so listened to the various stories and volunteered nothing.

At lunch, when the whole college was a.s.sembled, Tiddy rang her little bell, and immediately a deep hush followed the talk, laughter, and clatter of dishes.

"Young ladies," began the dean, "so ridiculous are the rumors that are rife here today that I feel I must do a little explaining. Rev. Dr.

Bordmust, while strolling through our orchard last night, was attacked by a huge black ram which knocked him down, and in the fall our chaplain's right leg was broken below the knee. The ram, which it is learned is a savage beast, broke loose from a near-by farm."