A WILD NIGHT OF IT
It was a beautiful night, with the Hunter's Moon set high and bright
in its ocean of flickering stars, like nothing else than moon and
stars in the same old blue canopy, brocaded and embossed with
incorrigible little gray clouds, ducking in and out of lacy paths
and shadowy skyscapes.
Beneath, on Wellington campus, the dormitories stood up like tiny
cottages here and there, the more important building, Madison Hall,
towering pompously over the smaller flock. It was in Madison that
Jane and Judith as juniors were housed, while over in a west corner
grouped about the big walled entrance was, among the lesser
landmarks, Lenox, one of the first erected of the Wellington
buildings; quaint, roomy and just now decidedly "spooky."
The scene was fascinating in its silence, for only the dimmest of
path lights seemed alive over the big place, and not a breath of
wind stirred the tenacious oak leaves or other rugged foliage, too
sparse to be counted, now that winter had given warning and was on
his ruthless way.
The two figures creeping along like some elfin prowlers were Jane
and Dozia, and they made straight through that bold moonlight for
Lenox Hall.
"Doesn't it seem silly?" Jane took time to remark. "The very idea of
expecting trouble on such a night."
"It's all your doing, Lady Jane," Dozia retaliated, "and if I don't
see a ghost after all this I'll never forgive you."
"There was no guarantee, Dozia. But I did promise to appease the
fears of those youngsters. What time is it?"
"When I left my nice cozy room for this, it was twenty minutes to
twelve. I believe you were on time at the fire escape, so I would
say it is now about ten minutes of. Hold my hand, Jane. This may be
thrilling but it's awfully weird."
"Don't you like it? Look at that moon, and all the sparklers!"
"But think of those hedges, ugh! I'm wobbly at the knees already,
and we're not half way across. Never knew a campus could be so--
oceanic. I shall be striking out with my arms presently, feet seem
unable to carry all the responsibility," and the tall girl cuddled
into Jane's cape as far as the garment would accommodate her.
"You are not really nervous, Dozia the Fearless," Jane rebuked.
"Why, I'm just tingling with the spirit of adventure."
"You may, and the spirit of adventure is a lot more attractive than
the spirits we're out gunning for. Do you expect to get off scot-
free if you smash anything with that golf stick? What do you think
Miss Rutledge will say?"
"I shan't bang unless there is nothing else to do, and then I'm sure
I can explain. A Montana girl from a real ranch ought to have some
credit for field work." Jane was twirling her capable brassie with
rather a dangerous swing and the odd weapon now seemed formidable
indeed.
"What's that?" exclaimed Dozia, as a shadow almost tripped them.
"It's an animal I know but--"
"A frightened little rabbit," replied Jane. "They have a lovely time
when the thoughtless girls are safe behind doors. But, Dozia,
honestly I think I do see something else--bigger than--a rabbit!"
Both girls stopped suddenly and drew back in the shadow of a tall
lilac bush. They were well across the campus and now, at the end of
the path, near the gate and not far from Lenox Hall, something moved
in and out of the moonlit way. It seemed to cross from the big stone
wall and glide into the grove of magnolia.
Jane dropped Dozia's arm and stepped out to peer after the shadow.
They were scarcely near enough to hear footfalls even had the
padding of leaves and heavy grass not actually deadened that
possibility.
"Lively ghost!" she whispered. "Let's head it off through the
grove."
"But, Jane, it may be some dangerous prowler--"
"How could he get in here? Besides we are protected." She had the
golf club firm in her right hand and seemed to depend on it to lay
ghosts or prowlers. "Come on, Dozia. Of course that is not a bona
fide ghost but it may be the noise maker."
Dozia followed Jane, although she did hang on to an end of the blue
cape and pulled back whenever the darkness seemed too uncertain of
penetration. The little thickets of ornamental evergreens suddenly
loomed up into proportions of veritable forests, and every baby
Christmas tree was swelled out like a circular blue fir, thick and
prickly.
But Jane headed straight as the foliage allowed, across the campus
to the magnolia grove, where the eucalyptus trees shot up bare and
leafless, ghostly, spectral in the searching moonlight.
A crisp snapping of some dry brambles sent out an alarm from the
hedges close to Lenox Hall and the girls listened anxiously.
"Human," whispered Jane, "and rather dainty. Hardly a masculine foot
to that light touch. Don't be alarmed, Dozia. We are two to one and
evidently that other one is a female." She said this with assumed
confidence, for she feared Dozia might turn and run at any moment.
They were almost in the little grove and it was between there and
the boxwood that touched the side porch of Lenox that this hidden
thing must be. Jane was by no means as brave as her carefree manner
indicated, and every time she held a bush from brushing Dozia's face
she took occasion to listen intently for vagrant noises.
Stumbling over low underbrush in their rubber soled tennis shoes was
not like walking out in the open, and just as Dozia breathed a sigh
of relief that the landscape gardening went no further, a wild
scream, shrill and piercing, cut the night like an arrow!
Speechless, the girls stood terrified, while the wail seemed to
linger suspended somewhere!
"Oh, what was it?" gasped Dozia, but Jane clung to her arm in
silence.
The next instant a clanging of chains and rattling of metals broke
out from Lenox Hall.
"Quick," exclaimed Jane, almost dragging her companion forward, "we
must locate it, we must reach the dormitory!" But before they could
even gain the pathway, the big fire bell pealed out its alarm and;
suddenly every window in Lenox Hall blazed with light at a single
flash--the answer of that electric button pressed by the matron, who
now swung open the big oaken door and stood summoning her frightened
charges to "come out" in the order of fire drill.
"Don't hurry, be calm!" she called out in the voice of authority,
and by now the freshmen who lined the halls and stairways, had
recovered their composure and even courage in the face of rescue.
Jane and Dozia rushed up to Miss Gifford, the matron, and asked
about the outside alarm. At her word Jane jumped to the fire box,
smashed the glass with her golf club and then turned the key.
By this time the students were outside the building, and in their
night robes the seventy-five freshmen shivered from fear and
exposure, while Miss Gifford, Jane and Dozia tried to reassure them.
"Where's the fire?" asked Jane, as the local brigade of volunteer
citizens dashed in the grounds through the main gateway.
"Where is it?" demanded Miss Gifford of the students. There was no
smoke, no blaze, not even an odor of things burning could be
distinguished.
"It must have been in the big attic," someone said, "for it was the
old brass bell that rang first."
"Who gave the alarm?" demanded the matron.
No one answered this, and the momentary pause was broken now by the
wild rush of the fire department along the roadway.
First the hose cart, the "hook and ladder" jerked up to the porch
where the girls waited, breathless but calmer now that men and means
had come to their rescue.
"One side! One side!" shouted the chief, and to the credit of that
department it must be said his men stretched their line of hose
along from the hydrant and up those steps, even through the crowd of
trembling students, in regular fire drill time. Jane stepped inside
the hall and was sniffing audibly.
"Wait a minute!" she commanded. "We haven't located the fire yet and
it may not be very much. The house is equipped with extinguishers,"
she informed the alert chief. "They may answer without water."
The rubber coated men held their hose high and were ready to shout
in signal to the man at the hydrant, while Jane took the chief
upstairs. He never spoke but tramped ahead as if a word would
imperil the dignity of the Wide Awake Hose Company. Neither did Jane
venture further remarks for she was "gunning" for the fire and
thinking of ghosts!
Doors to right and left were promptly pushed open but no evidence of
fire could be found.
"Try the attic," said the chief finally, "rubbish might catch from a
flue."
At his order Jane turned into the narrow box stairway, lighted only
by a flash in the hands of Chief Murry.
The actual panic of that yell and its subsequent fire alarm was now
subsiding in Jane's mind, and instead of Fire the whole situation
assumed an aspect of Ghosts. In spite of her courage she was very
glad the chief was at her heels, and when she finally reached the
last narrow step and stood under the rafters, Jane Allen sent a
sweeping eye over that dark attic.
"Not here!" declared the fireman before she could see more than the
inky blackness of the old garret, with only that one spot of
moonlight pasted on the slanting roof by an invisible window.
As he turned Jane felt obliged to follow, although she would have
been glad to go further in and see what it was that moved over by
the patch of moonlight. Something did move--she was sure of that,
but a fireman and a chief could not be asked to investigate anything
but smoke or flame, and neither element was discernible, so she
followed down the box stairway to confront the waiting brigade.
"Who pulled that box?" demanded Chief Murry, angrily.
"I did," replied Jane. "But the alarm came from within and the
students were out before I did so."
"Well, there's no fire here!" he announced witheringly. "And you
young 'uns better get indoors. Been in all the sheds and corners,
Ben?" to his assistant.
"Every inch, and there being no kitchen here, 'tain't likely a fire
would be tucked away in a closet, though we looked thoroughly. Queer
how the thing happened."
Miss Gifford was now trying to march her charges back, but a good
sized contingent refused flatly to comply with her orders. They
answered her quietly but firmly.
"They would never sleep another night in Lenox Hall. If it wasn't
haunted it was surely queer."
With the courage of juniors Jane and Dozia attempted to laugh the
whole thing off, but the freshmen were determined.
"How did YOU get over here?" suddenly demanded little Nellie
Saunders of Dozia. '"I thought it was a rule to stay in your own
dorm when a first alarm fire gong sounded in another building?"
"'We were visiting," replied Jane so quickly Nellie thought the
reply meant something, and was too absorbed in the crisis of the
situation to further press her question.
"But you children will be ill!" wailed Miss Gifford helplessly. "You
simply must come indoors."
"Come into the recreation room," insisted Jane. "We won't ask you to
go back upstairs yet."
"We just wouldn't go," declared Daisy Blaire. "If I can't sleep in
another cottage I shall telegraph mamma to come and take me home
this very night or day, whichever it is."
This resolve met with hearty approval, for it was seconded from many
quarters until open revolt or general mutiny seemed imminent.
The firemen were driving out with the jog trot of a false alarm, and
ghosts or no ghosts, Jane, Dozia and Miss Gifford, each and all
realized that those frightened children must be persuaded to go
indoors. Their bare feet alone made the matter imperative, if bath
robes did somewhat lessen the danger from a cold night's exposure.
The sudden tingling of the telephone shot another bolt of terror
through them.
"There, that's the hall," said Miss Gifford. "At least make it
possible for me to report you are all safe in Lenox."
Jane and Dozia wound arms around a few leaders and this with the
matron's appeal firmly broke their deadlock and a thin stream of
frowzy heads and pretty boudoir robes dripped into the old walnut
hall.
Miss Gifford used the telephone at the foot of the circular
staircase. She was giving a very tactfully worded account of the
incident to the president, and it was very evident the whole
occurrence would be conspiciously free of sensation if the matron's
verbal report were embodied in official records.
A long drawn out and happily intoned reply floated from Miss
Gifford's lips as she half turned from the telephone and surveyed
Jane and Dozia.
"Oh, yes indeed, they are both here, perfectly safe," she announced,
"and I don't know what I should have done without their assistance."
So the raiders had been "found missing" at Madison Hall!