A MYSTERIOUS WARNING
"Good-morning, Mrs. Dean. Is Marjorie here?" There was a hint of
suppressed excitement in the clear voice that asked the question.
"Good morning, Harriet. Come in." Mrs. Dean smiled pleasantly upon her
caller, as she ushered her into the hall. "You are out early this
morning. Yes, Marjorie is here. She hasn't come downstairs yet. She is a
little inclined to linger in bed on Saturday morning."
"I can't blame her," laughed Harriet. "I am fond of doing the same. But
I've a special reason for being out early this morning. It's about
basket ball. You may be sure of that."
"Basket-ball is enjoying its usual popularity. I hear a great deal about
it of late," returned Mrs. Dean. "Pardon me." Raising her voice, she
called up the stairway, "Mar-jorie!"
"Coming down on the jump, Captain!" answered Marjorie's voice. Verifying
her words, she bounded lightly down the stairs, still in her dressing
gown, her hair falling in long loose curls about her lovely face. "I
knew who was here. I heard Harriet's voice."
"Oh, Marjorie," burst forth Harriet, taking a quick step forward.
"I--something awfully queer has happened!" She glanced nervously about
her, but Mrs. Dean had already vanished through the doorway, leading
into the dining room. She rarely intruded upon Marjorie's callers longer
than to welcome them.
"What is it, Harriet?" fell wonderingly from Marjorie's lips. Her
friend's early call, coupled with her agitated manner, betokened
something unusual.
"Read this!" Harriet thrust a sheet of pale gray note paper into
Marjorie's hand. "It's the strangest thing I ever heard of!"
Marjorie swept the few scrawling lines of which the paper boasted with a
keen, comprehensive glance. As its import dawned upon her, her brown
eyes grew round with amazement. She re-read it twice. "Where did you
receive it?" came her sharp question, as she continued to hold it in her
hand.
"I don't know when it came. Mother found it on the floor in the
vestibule this morning. I was still in bed. She sent Nora, our maid,
upstairs with it. You can imagine I didn't stop to finish my nap. I
hurried and dressed, ate about three bites of breakfast and started for
your house as fast as I could travel. I thought you ought to see it
first. What do you make of it?"
"I hardly know what to think." Marjorie's glance strayed from Harriet's
perturbed face to the mysterious letter of warning. "Somehow, I don't
believe it was written for a joke. Do you?"
"No, I don't." Harriet shook her head positively. "I think it was
intended for just what it is, a warning to be on our guard to-day. I'll
tell you something, Marjorie. I never mentioned it before
because--well--you know I've never liked Mignon La Salle since she
nearly broke up basket ball at Sanford High last year, and I was afraid
it might sound hateful on my part, but the girls of Mignon's squad are
as tricky as can be. Twice, in the first practice game we played, I had
my own troubles with them. Once Daisy Griggs nearly knocked me over. She
pretended it was an accident, but it wasn't. Then, in the second half,
Mignon poked me in the side with her elbow. We were bunched so close
that not even the referee saw her. I almost had the ball, but my side
hurt me so that I missed it entirely. Susan Atwell was awfully cross
about something that day, too. I asked her what had happened, but she
only muttered that she hoped she'd get through the game without being
murdered. She wouldn't say another word, but you can guess from what
I've told you that she must have had good reason for getting mad. Did
she say anything to you?"
"No; I wish she had." A flash of anger darkened Marjorie's delicate
features. "The girls of Mignon's team have played fairly enough with me.
They are rough, I'll say that, but, so far they've not overstepped the
rules."
"They know better than to try their tricks on _you_!" exclaimed Harriet
hotly, "or on Muriel, either. Mignon's afraid of you because you are
everything that's good and noble!"
"Nonsense," Marjorie grew red at this flattering assertion.
"It's true, just the same. She's afraid of Muriel, too, because she
knows that Muriel would report her to Miss Archer in a minute. She
thinks she can harass Esther and Susan and me and that we won't dare say
anything for fear Miss Archer will make a fuss. She knows how crazy we
are to play and that we'd stand a good deal of knocking about rather
than spoil everything. It's different with Muriel. If _she_ got mad, she
would walk off the floor and straight to Miss Archer's office, and those
girls know it."
Marjorie was silent. What Harriet said in regard to Muriel was
undoubtedly true. Since the latter had turned from Mignon La Salle to
her, she had been the soul of devotion. She had never forgiven Mignon
for her cowardly conduct on the day of the class picnic. Muriel
reverenced the heroic, and Mignon had disgraced herself forever in the
eyes of this impulsive, hero-worshipping girl.
"We had better show this letter to the other girls," Marjorie said with
sudden decision. "Come upstairs to my house. I'll hurry and dress.
Suppose you have a few more bites of breakfast with me. Your early
morning rush must have made you hungry, and you ought to be well fed, if
you expect to do valiant work on the field of battle this afternoon."
"I _am_ hungry," conceded Harriet, "and I won't wait to be urged. I'd
love to take breakfast with you." Then, lowering her voice, she asked:
"Is Mary going to the game?"
A faint wistfulness tinged Marjorie's voice as she said slowly. "I don't
know. I haven't asked her. I suppose she is, though."
Although it was whispered among Marjorie's close friends that the
unpleasant scene at her party had left a yawning gap between the two
friends, never, by so much as a word, had Marjorie intimated the true
state of affairs to any one except Constance and Jerry Macy. Not even
Susan Atwell and Muriel Harding knew just how matters stood. Harriet
remembered this in the same moment of her question, and, flushing at her
own inquisitiveness, remarked hurriedly, "Everyone in school is coming
to see us play."
"I'm glad of that." Marjorie had recovered again her usual cheerfulness,
and answered heartily. She kept up a lively stream of talk as she
completed her dressing. Tucking the letter inside her white silk blouse
she led the way downstairs to the dining room. She was slightly relieved
to see Mary's place at the table vacant. She guessed that the latter had
heard Harriet's voice and had purposely remained in her room. She had
not gone astray in this supposition. Mary _had_ heard Harriet speak and
knew only too well what had brought her to the Deans' house so early
that morning.
It was nine o'clock when Marjorie and Harriet left the house to call on
Susan Atwell, who lived nearest. Susan read the mysterious warning and
was duly impressed with its significance. She was equally at sea as to
the writer. It soon developed, however, that Harriet had been correct in
assuming that Susan's wrath at the first game played against Mignon's
team had been occasioned by their unfair tactics. She had been slyly
tripped by Louise Selden, she asserted, and had fallen heavily.
"All this is news to me," declared Marjorie, frowning her disapproval.
"It must be stopped."
"How?" inquired Susan almost sulkily.
"If necessary, we must have an understanding with our opponents," was
the quiet response.
"That is easy enough to say," retorted Susan, "but if we were to accuse
those girls of playing unfairly, they would simply laugh at us and call
us babies."
"I'd rather be laughed at and called a baby than allow such unfairness
to go on." There was a ring of determination in Marjorie's reply.
"Let us hurry on to Muriel and hear her views," suggested Harriet. "She
lives next door to Esther Lind, so we can call them together and show
them the letter."
Once the team were together they spent an anxious session over the
letter left by an unseen hand. Discussion ran rife. With her usual
impetuosity Muriel announced her intention of taking Mignon to task
before the game. "I'm not afraid of her," she boasted. "I'd rather not
play than to feel that at any minute I might be laid up for repairs. I'm
much obliged to the one who wrote this. He or she must have had a
troubled conscience."
Marjorie cast a startled glance at Muriel. Could it be possible that
Mary had written the note? And yet something about the gray stationery
had seemed familiar. She was not sure, but she thought she had at some
time or other received a letter from her chum written on gray note
paper. She resolved to look through Mary's letters to her as soon as she
reached home. If Mary had, indeed, sent the warning, it was because she
felt constrained to do the only honorable thing in her power.
Association with Mignon had not entirely deadened her sense of right and
wrong. A wave of love and longing brought the tears to Marjorie's eyes.
She winked them back. She must not betray herself to her schoolmates.
"Listen to me, girls," she began earnestly. "We mustn't say a word to
our opponents before the game. I know I just said that we ought to have
an understanding, and I meant it. But we had better wait until the end
of the first half. If everything is all right, then so much the better.
If it isn't--well--we shall at least have given them their chance."
The players lingered in the Hardings' living room to discuss the coming
contest, go over their signals and prepare themselves as effectually as
possible for the fray. It was almost noon when Marjorie sped up the
stairs to her room, there to put into execution the search she had
decided to make. Mary's letters to her, tied with a bit of blue ribbon,
reposed in a pretty lacquered box designed especially to hold them.
Marjorie untied the ribbon and fingered them with a sigh of regret for
the happy past. Most of them were written on white paper, a few were on
pale blue, Mary's color. Almost at the bottom of the box was one gray
envelope. The searcher drew a quick breath as she separated it from its
fellows. Drawing the envelope from her blouse, she compared the two.
They were identical. The mysterious warning was no longer a mystery
to her.