The Orchard Secret Part 6

"What?"

"If we did collect this money we could donate it to the college to have the swimming pool repaired."

"That's sweet of you and a good idea, Arden, but I don't believe we could do it," objected Sim. "Besides, I don't exactly believe what it says on this poster. It seems very silly for a young fellow to disappear just when he's coming into a lot of money--a fortune."

"Perhaps he was made to disappear," suggested Terry, her eyes opening wide.

"Oh! You mean--kidnaped?" asked Arden.

"Yes."

"Worse and more of it!" laughed Sim.

"Well, anyhow, we could try, couldn't we?" Arden asked. "You'd help, wouldn't you, Terry?"

"Yes, indeed I'll help. I've always fancied myself in the role of a detective, spouting pithy Chinese philosophy and generally getting underfoot."

"Now, Terry, just be serious for once. And Sim, you also. You know how disappointed you were when you found out the swimming pool was----"

"_Kapoot!_" chuckled Sim, supplying Arden's evident lack of a word with the latest Russian expression. "Go on!"

"Well," resumed Arden, pouting a little, "you never can tell. Maybe we could do it. It isn't impossible. Stranger things have happened. And I just know I've seen that young man on the poster somewhere before. If I could only remember where! Did either of you ever have that feeling?"

"Lots of times. I'm for you, Arden!" declared Sim. "I'll do what I can and whatever you say. This mysterious Harry Pangborn may very well be right around here."

"Around Cedar Ridge!" shrilled Terry.

"Certainly! Why not? If the authorities didn't think it likely that he might be in this vicinity, why did they put the poster up here in the post office? And they mentioned Morrisville," challenged Sim.

"There's something in that," Terry admitted.

"Oh, if he should be in hiding around here and we could find him and claim the thousand dollars reward," breathed Arden, "wouldn't it be just wonderful! And what a sensation when we magnanimously turned the money over to the college for the swimming pool. Oh, oh!"

"Would you do that for dear old Alma Mater when you don't know her so very well?" asked Sim, who, with her chums, was still gazing at the poster of the good-looking but missing heir of the Pangborn estate of millions.

"I'd do it for you, Sim, dear," murmured Arden. "I want you to be happy here, since I teased you so to come."

"And you think I won't be happy without the swimming pool?"

"Will you?"

"Not as happy as I would be with it."

"But even admitting that this missing young man may be around here,"

suggested Terry, "what chance have we of finding him? We have so much college work to do. For, after all, we were sent here to learn something," she sighed.

"Granted," laughed Arden. "But we may find time for a little detective work on the side as well as for hazing. Oh, it's a wonderful prospect!"

She swung around in a few dance steps right there in the old post office.

"Well, we'd better be getting back," suggested Sim after this. "Oh, look at the clock!" she gasped. Then followed a hurried sending of some picture postcards they had bought; cards on which they marked with an X the location of their room.

The three chums were bubbling with life, laughter, and merriment as they turned to leave the little building, but their mirth was turned to alarm as a stern voice a.s.sailed them.

"Young ladies!"

They looked around to see Rev. Dr. Henry Bordmust sternly regarding them from the doorway.

"Yes, Dr. Bordmust," Sim almost whispered as the chaplain appeared to be waiting for formal recognition.

"You are freshmen!" he accused, with a glance at their mortarboards, the ta.s.sels of which told the tale. "You know you are not permitted over here--in the post office. It is against the college rules--for you freshmen. Return at once! You must! You must!"

He appeared strangely stirred and angry, and his dark brows, shading his bright little eyes, bent into a frown. But somehow, after that first booming and accusative "young ladies," the chaplain seemed exhausted, as though the anger pent up in him had taken something from his none too profuse vitality. He was an old man. Now he essayed a wintry smile and added, as he gently waved them out with motions of his thin white hands:

"That is to say, you shouldn't have come here. You--er--have no need to be--er--frightened at this first infraction of the rules, but--er--another time you may be--er--campused for such action."

Then, having seen that the three were on their way out, Dr. Bordmust turned to the window, evidently to buy some stamps for the letters he held in one hand. He murmured to himself in those queer, quavering, meaningless tones:

"Too bad; too bad! I can't always be watching! Dear me!"

Wonderingly, Arden and her chums looked at the shrinking figure in black as they pa.s.sed out of the door. But Dr. Bordmust gave them no further attention.

CHAPTER V Rescued

Sim, who was hurrying after Arden and Terry up the steep hill on top of which was perched Bordmust Hall, uttered a series of frightened exclamations.

"Oo-oo-oo! Oh, my! Oh, but I was frightened. Wasn't he angry!"

"Since Dr. Bordmust is our chaplain, it was probably what might be called righteous anger," suggested Arden.

"What do you suppose he meant when he spoke about not always watching?"

asked Terry.

"I don't know," Arden had to admit. "The girls say Dr. Bordmust is really queer at times. I suppose it is because he's such a profound student. He knows such a lot, all about Egypt, so many languages, and they say ancient history is an open book to him." Arden was fairly sprinting along the boardwalk that made the steep path up to Bordmust Hall a little easier. What with talking and hurrying, her breath was a bit gaspy.

"Well, don't ask me what it all means," begged Terry. "I can't even guess. But, oh! I do hope I'm not going to be late for this first cla.s.s."

"So say we all of us," chanted Sim.

"They can't be too severe at the very beginning," murmured Arden.

Bordmust Hall, where most of the cla.s.s sessions were held, crowned with its cla.s.sic architecture the summit of the long slope which formed the eminence of the broad acres about Cedar Ridge College. It was behind the main, or dormitory, building in which were housed the executive offices and the residence rooms of the faculty. To the southwest of the hall, and easily viewed from the steps, was the unused pool. To the northwest, and in line with the main building, was the beautiful Gothic chapel with its wonderful stained-gla.s.s windows. Near the chapel was the unimposing home of the chaplain, Rev. Dr. Bordmust; one of whose ancestors had partly endowed Cedar Ridge. For this reason the hall was named for him.

At the foot of the slope on which the hall stood were the rambling fields and gardens where much of the farm produce for the college tables was raised. The nearest of the farm-lands, so called, was the orchard, part of which could be seen from the southeast windows of the dormitory. And it was this orchard that the taxi-man had indicated in such a warning manner. It was this orchard into which Tom Scott, the good-looking porter, had been staring the night of the arrival of Arden Blake and her chums. So much had been crowded into the comparatively short time the three freshmen had been at college that they had almost forgotten the strange orchard. Even now they had no chance to consider the matter, for they, with many other girls, were hastening to their first cla.s.ses.