The Dean Explains
The mysteriously tolled bell had ceased ringing now. Fascinated, the
girls remained at the window looking at the prone black figure of Rev.
Dr. Bordmust lying on the edge of the sinister orchard. That the orchard
was sinister at least Arden, Sim, and Terry were ready to testify.
The last cry for help from the aged chaplain and the final echo of the
tolling bell came together.
"What shall we do, Arden?" murmured Terry.
"We must do something!" insisted Jane.
"Yes, it's sort of up to us, since we're here on the scene," agreed Sim.
"The dean will have to know about this," suggested Terry.
"But there's something else to do first," spoke Arden.
"What?" chorused her chums.
"That poor man is hurt," went on Arden. "He needs help, and we must hurry
to get it. I'll tell you what. We three," she motioned to herself and her
roommates, "are already campused. Whatever happens can't make much
difference to us, even if we're caught now. We'll go out and see what we
can do to help poor Henny, and you others go tell Tiddy."
"A good idea!" assented Sim. "Jane, you and the others can take the food
with you when you go to tell Tiddy. It's a wonder she or some of the
others haven't been aroused already by the bell. But when you go to her,
hide the food, somehow. No use wasting it after all the trouble we had
getting it."
"No, indeed," said Ethel Anderson.
Quickly the two groups separated. Arden, Sim, and Terry hurried out of a
rear door, which they unlocked, while Jane and the others, stuffing the
pies, chickens, and bottles of milk under their big sweaters, hastened to
take word to the dean.
Arden, Sim, and Terry ran with all the frightened speed they could summon
across the damp grass of the rear campus toward the edge of the orchard.
By another gleam of moonlight they had a glimpse of the chaplain resuming
his painful crawling after a period of rest following his cries for help.
When he saw the girls running toward him, Dr. Bordmust, as if giving up
the fight, now that assistance was at hand, collapsed on the leaf-strewn
ground.
Terry was the first to reach him.
"Are you hurt, Dr. Bordmust?" she asked. "What happened?"
"Do tell us! Tell us how we can help you," appealed Sim.
"Are you badly injured?" faltered Arden.
"My leg--I think my right leg is broken," he faltered. "It is very
painful. I cannot bear my weight on it. That is why I had to crawl
along."
"Did you fall?" asked Arden.
"Not exactly. I was struck by something--something attacked me as I was
walking through the orchard. It was some great, black, rushing 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 grass
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 assistant 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 passed 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 assembled, 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."
There were uneasy twistings and turnings on the part of the girls, and
many whispered comments, despite the frowning warnings of various
teachers scattered about the room.
"But you need have no further fears," the dean went on. "The beast has
been caught and penned up securely. It will be kept under restraint from
this time on. So no one need have any fears of going into our orchard--if
she has occasion to go there."
"So this is what the taxi-man must have been hinting at," thought Arden.
"Though why he didn't dare speak of it I can't imagine. And I suppose it
was the ram that knocked me down. I was lucky!"
"This is the explanation of the greater part of the night's alarm, young
ladies," continued the dean. "It is all very simple. It is unfortunate
that Dr. Bordmust was injured, but he is now resting comfortably, and
another clergyman has been temporarily engaged, so there will be chapel
service--as usual." The dean smiled with dry humor, having noted flashes
of joy on the faces of several students at the idea of escaping from
morning devotions.
"Dr. Bordmust has asked me, as a favor to him," stated the dean, "not to
punish the girls who were out of their rooms against rules after hours.
They kindly went to his assistance and summoned much-needed help. I am
happy to accede to our chaplain's request, for I know the whole
undergraduate body is extremely fond of him. I will ask no questions of
those girls. In fact, I hereby publicly thank them for their great
presence of mind. There is only one thing I must insist on."
There was a portentous pause, and the dean ended the silence by saying:
"If the ringing of the alarm bell was done as a joke--please don't repeat
it." She smiled benignly. "Now you may go on with your lunch."