Arden's Adventure
The moon looked down upon a strange party of girls a moment later, for
they had all rushed out of the gymnasium after the ringing of the alarm
bell. Blackened faces and slicked-back hair, some in tattered garments
and others in borrowed finery, sophomores and freshmen crowded forward to
that side of the building where hung the bell.
But when they reached the spot nothing was to be seen. The bell rope was
still swaying as though recently tugged at, but the hands that had done
it were not in evidence. The bell itself still faintly vibrated from the
recent violent clanging.
"Well, at least here's something they can't blame us for," said Sim to
the curious Arden and Terry. "We have perfect alibis and dozens of
witnesses. This time somebody else can be campused."
"Of course, Sim," Terry agreed. "But the point is--who did it? It's
rather a childish thing to do--going about pulling bells and then running
away. It doesn't frighten anyone in the least, if that's what it was
intended for."
"It was silly, that's true, Terry; but listen to this." Arden motioned
for her two chums to come closer to her. "Come over here where the others
won't hear. We don't want to have Tiddy blaming us for any more alarming
stories."
"Arden! You have something to tell us, I know!" Terry was pulling Sim
away from a group of chattering girls. "Come over here, Sim. Arden knows
something!"
The three from 513 separated from the main crowd of disguised girls, and
Arden began.
"I was dancing with Jane Randall when something made me look up at one of
the high gym windows, and there I saw a strange, white face staring in at
me."
"Arden--you didn't!" gasped Sim quickly. "Do you mean directly at you the
face was staring?"
"It seemed so."
"Do you think that was the person who rang the bell?"
"That, my dear Watson, is just the point. It was such a short time after
I saw the face that the bell rang, it couldn't have been done by the
person who looked in at me through the window."
"How thrilling! For Pete's sake, don't let anyone know what you saw,
Arden. If you do we'll be in more trouble!" Terry said.
"She's right," Sim agreed. "We'll keep it under our hats until we find
out something more. The others are going back in, now. We'd better go
in."
The sophomores and freshmen, so rudely disturbed at their reconciliation
party, having investigated as best they could in the uncertain moonlight,
and having discovered nothing more than that the evidence of the swaying
rope indicated the bell had rung (which evidence their ears already
testified to), were returning to the gymnasium.
But before they went in, though just how it started no one appeared to
know, they were all doing a sort of snake dance in the silvery sheen of
the moonlight.
Twisting and turning, the line of masquerading girls in fantastic figures
circled beneath the old alarm bell that hung on a projecting beam out
from the side of the building. It thus projected to allow the sound of
its alarm to vibrate freely in all directions. Above their heads and out
of reach of the hands of the tallest of the girls, dangled the weathered
rope attached to the bell.
"It must have been a very tall person who could reach that rope!" panted
Terry as she circled with Sim.
"A veritable giant," was the answer. "None of the girls could have done
it."
"No. That's what I thought."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Terry, who had been caught in the
human maelstrom by some strange girl and whirled about.
"We don't quite know," said Arden.
Screaming and laughing, the sophomores in the lead took the freshmen
running across the campus and stopped in front of the dormitory.
"Good-night, freshies!" cried Toots and some of the leaders. "And happy
dreams!"
"That means the end of hazing," said Arden. "It's always done this way."
"Thank goodness for that!" murmured Terry.
The party was over. Then the girls, sophomores and freshmen, formed a
friendly circle and sang "Autumn Leaves," the alma mater song. The girls'
voices carried softly through the moonlit night and even the most
unromantic was impressed with the beauty of the words and melody.
Then, bidding one another good-night, the happy students hurried to their
respective rooms, talking excitedly. And the dean and her helpers settled
more comfortably in their beds, knowing that for another term this affair
was successfully over.
The door of 513 shut on Arden, Sim, and Terry. For a moment they stood
looking at one another, and then, as if by agreement, they began to
laugh; hysterical laughs but none the less hearty.
"Oh, you do look such a sight, Sim!" Terry gasped.
"Why bring that up?" Sim chuckled.
"But we had a lovely time," Arden said. "Even if there was a mysterious
bell ringing and a face----"
"Tell us more about that," begged Sim.
"I've told you all I know. I saw a face--an old man's, I'm sure, staring
in at me from the window. Then the bell rang."
"But why?" demanded Terry.
"If we could find out, perhaps we could solve the mystery of several
other things that have happened around Cedar Ridge," Arden said.
"But that bell," went on Sim. "I heard some of the girls talking. It
seems it is an old alarm bell, to be rung in case of fires. But when the
telephone system was put in the rope that originally reached close to the
ground, so help could be summoned from the town and from nearby
residents, was cut off. And it was cut off so high up that no ordinary
person, standing under the rope, could reach it."
"Why was that done?" asked Terry.
"Because it was found," Sim explained, "that when the rope was left long
enough to be reached, some students, thinking it fun, rang the alarm.
That was long before our time. So the dean had the rope cut short."
"Why didn't she take it off altogether?" asked Arden.
"I asked a soph that," explained Sim, "and she told me it was thought
best to leave most of the rope in place so if ever it was necessary to
sound the old bell, it could be done."
"But how, if the rope was high up?" Terry inquired.
"By standing on a ladder, I suppose. Don't ask me, for I really don't
know."
With determination they began washing off the marks of the eyebrow-pencil
mustaches, using cold cream, and finally they were ready for bed.
"Well," remarked Arden in tones that told her chums she had made up her
mind seriously, "something is going to happen, I feel sure of it."
Pressed for details, she would say nothing more.
But a few evenings after this, up to which time nothing of moment had
happened save that the three from 513 began to feel more and more their
campused bonds, a thick hazy fog enveloped the college grounds, spreading
to the near-by town and villages about. Arden was walking alone from the
library back to the dormitory. The fog seemed suddenly swept in from the
distant sea, settling in the low places so that the upper stories of the
building seemed floating in the air.
Arden thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt and in one felt
the letter Sim had entrusted to her--the letter asking her father for
permission to leave college. The excitement of the masquerade party and
the mysterious bell-ringing had done nothing to lighten Sim's depression.
She was still determined, it seemed, to carry out her intention.
Sim didn't seem to care about anything. She was not the least bit excited
by the bell-ringing nor by the strange face, and evidently had dismissed
them from her mind.
Arden felt there was no time to be lost if Sim was to be kept at Cedar
Ridge. The strange face she had seen through the obscured window when she
was dancing with Jane Randall had seemed vaguely familiar, but she had
glimpsed it for so short a time that it was impossible to recognize it.
No one else had seen it, of that Arden was certain, for no one had spoken
of it, and there were no more stories current of mysterious doings about
the college.
"Sim will just pack up and go home unless something is done to make her
change her mind," thought Arden as she walked along through the fog. "And
I'm going to do it!"
Campused or not, she would now go to the little railroad station and send
a telegraph message to her always sympathetic father, asking him for the
money to put the swimming pool in order. That would cause Sim to remain.
Arden had everything in her favor for concealment, and she needed
concealment in this risky undertaking. The fog, becoming more dense every
minute, and the fact that she was alone, would allow her to reach the
station unobserved. Also it was just the time when most of the students
were in their rooms preparing to go down to supper in a short time.
Arden ran through the gathering gloom across the campus and toward the
post office. The yellow gleaming lights of the railroad station beckoned
to her with their flickering rays from the other side of the tracks.
There was always the chance that someone from the college might be in the
little suburban station looking up trains, inquiring about baggage or
express shipments, or sending a telegram. But Arden, risking the
discovery of her voidance of the campus prohibition, kept on her rather
perilous way. At the same time she was trying to be cautious.
First, she walked with light footsteps toward the window of the telegraph
and ticket office nearest the tracks. She tried to peer through this
window into the waiting room beyond but could see nothing through the
murky glass and the heavy mesh of wire that covered it, save the
indistinct figure of the ticket agent whose duties were combined with
those of baggage-man, train dispatcher, telegraph operator, and
occasional expressman.
"I'll try the side window," Arden determined, and through this she was
able to glance into the deserted station. There was no one in the waiting
room, as far as she could see: not even one of the few town taxi-drivers
escaping from the heavy fog and the chilly dampness of the approaching
night.
"Here's luck!" Arden thought. "If I'm quick I can send the telegram and
be out of here before anyone sees me. Of course, the smart thing to have
done would have been to write out my message before I came here. But I
think it won't take long."
The dark brown door leading into the waiting room was heavy and stuck at
the sill. That many feet had kicked it loose was evidenced by several
dents and scratches showing at the bottom in the dim glow of an outside
lamp under the station platform covering. After one or two futile efforts
Arden managed to push back the door and enter.
The ticket and telegraph office was faintly lighted, but as Arden looked
in through the little window, protected by a wicket of brass, she could
not make out the form of the agent she was sure she had seen when she
peered in from the outside platform.
"Oh, dear!" worried the girl. "He must have gone out, and before he comes
back to take my message, someone from the college may stop in here and
catch me. That's the worst of these country places. I suppose there isn't
another train for some time and the agent went out for a rest. If I could
only reach in and get a telegraph blank I could write the message, with a
notation to send it collect, and leave it here for him. Let's see--what
shall I say? 'Must have a thousand dollars at once. Can you send it?
Letter follows.' Dad will probably think I've embezzled some of the
college funds or stolen some jewels. Oh, where is that agent?"
She drummed impatiently with a pencil on the shelf of the window and
stood on tiptoes to look in. As she did so the agent suddenly emerged
from where he was crouched low in a stooping position halfway into a
small supply closet in one corner of his cubbyhole of an office, out of
Arden's sight. The agent stood up so quickly, directly in front of the
wicket window confronting Arden, that it was as if some gigantic
Jack-in-the-box had popped out at her.
"Oh!" she gasped, preventing herself, by a strong effort, from springing
back. Then again, but less hysterically: "Oh, here you are!"
"Well?" asked the agent and he smiled.
Arden opened her mouth to say she wanted to send a telegram, but the
sudden appearance of the man, popping up into her view in that manner,
was so disconcerting that she could only stand there and stare at him.
And as she stared she realized, with a shock, that she had seen the face
of this man somewhere before. She stood there, silent and perplexed,
trying to solve the puzzle, trying to remember. Could she have seen the
man before?
He stood patiently waiting for her to state her wants.
But Arden went into a strange panic of fear and uncertainty.
"I--I think I've forgotten something!" she gasped, backing nervously away
from the window. "I--I'll come back--later." She forced to her face a
rather sickly smile.
"Very well," said the man behind the wicket. "I'll be open for quite a
while yet."
Then, turning away, Arden fled, pulled open the door, scurried across the
tracks and rushed back to college. Her one thought was to bring Terry and
Sim with her to the station on a strange errand. She wanted them to help
her identify the man in the ticket office as the missing Pangborn heir,
pictured on the placard in the post office.
For that was exactly what Arden believed. So obsessed had she become with
the poster picture and the reward offered for information about the
original, that she was sure she was right.
The man who had popped up at the wicket window was Harry Pangborn.
"I'm positive of it!" murmured Arden as she ran faster. "But I must get
Sim and Terry to look at him. I'll need their evidence."