Helen tiptoed to the window and peered out suddenly. She expected to
catch the eavesdropper, but----
"Why, there's nobody here, Ruth," she complained.
"No-o?"
"Not a soul. The ledge is bare away to the end. You--you must have been
mistaken, dear."
Ruth looked out again and Jennie Stone crowded in between them, likewise
eager to see.
"I know there was a girl there," whispered Ruth. "She lay right under
this window."
"But what for? Trying to scare us?" asked Helen.
"Trying to break her own neck, I should think," sniffed Jennie. "Who'd
risk climbing along this ledge?"
"_I_ have," confessed Helen. "It's not such a stunt. Other girls have."
"But _why?_" demanded the plump freshman. "What was she here for?"
"Listening, I tell you," Helen said.
"To what? We weren't discussing buried treasure--or even any personal
scandal," laughed Jennie. "What do you think, Ruth?"
"That is strange," murmured the girl of the Red Mill reflectively.
"The strangest thing is where she could have gone so quickly," said
Helen.
"Pshaw! around the corner--the nearest corner, of course," observed
Jennie with conviction.
"Oh! I didn't think of that," cried Ruth, and went to the other window,
for the study shared during their freshman year by her and Helen Cameron
was a corner room with windows looking both west and south.
When the trio of puzzled girls looked out of the other open window,
however, the wide ledge of sandstone which ran all around Dare Hall just
beneath the second story windows was deserted.
"Who lives along that way?" asked Jennie, meaning the occupants of the
several rooms the windows of which overlooked the ledge on the west side
of the building.
"Why--May MacGreggor for one," said Helen. "But it wouldn't be May. She's
not snoopy."
"I should say not! Nor is Rebecca Frayne," Ruth said. "She has the fifth
room away. And girls! I believe Rebecca would be delighted to go with us
to Arizona."
"Oh--well----Could she go?" asked Helen pointedly.
"Perhaps. Maybe it can be arranged," Ruth said reflectively.
She seemed to wish to lead the attention of the other two from the
mystery of the girl she had observed on the ledge. But Helen, who knew
her so well, pinched Ruth's arm and whispered:
"I believe you know who it was, Ruthie Fielding. You can't fool me."
"Sh!" admonished her friend, and because Ruth's influence was very
strong with the black-eyed girl, the latter said no more about the
mystery just then.
Ruth Fielding's influence over Helen had begun some years before--indeed,
almost as soon as Ruth herself, a heart-sore little orphan, had arrived
at the Red Mill to live with her Uncle Jabez and his little old
housekeeper, Aunt Alvirah, "who was nobody's relative, but everybody's
aunt."
Helen and her twin brother, Tom Cameron, were the first friends Ruth
made, and in the first volume of this series of stories, entitled, "Ruth
Fielding of the Red Mill," is related the birth and growth of this
friendship. Ruth and Helen go to Briarwood Hall for succeeding terms
until they are ready for college; and their life there and their
adventures during their vacations at Snow Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at
Silver Ranch, at Cliff Island, at Sunrise Farm, with the Gypsies, in
Moving Pictures and Down in Dixie are related in successive volumes.
Following this first vacation trip Ruth and Helen, with their old chum
Jennie Stone, entered Ardmore College, and in "Ruth Fielding at College;
Or, The Missing Examination Papers," the happenings of the chums'
freshman year at this institution for higher education are narrated.
The present story, the twelfth of the series, opens during the closing
days of the college year. Ruth's plans for the summer--or for the early
weeks of it at least--are practically made.
The trip West, into the Hualapai Range of Arizona for the business of
making a moving picture of "The Forty-Niners" had already stirred the
imagination of Ruth and her two closest friends. But the idea of forming
a larger party to ride through the wilds from Yucca to Freezeout Camp
was a novel one.
"It will be great fun," said Helen again. "Of course, old Tom will go
along anyway----"
"To chaperon us," giggled Jennie.
"No. To see we don't fall out of our saddles," Ruth laughed. "Now! let's
think about it, girls, and decide on whom we shall invite."
"Trix and Sally," Jennie said.
"And Ann Hicks!" cried Helen. "You write to her, Ruth."
"I will to-night," promised her chum. "And I'm going to speak to Rebecca
Frayne at once."
"I'll see Beatrice," stated Jennie, moving toward the door.
"And I'll run and ask Sally. She's a good old scout," said Helen.
But as soon as the plump girl had departed, Helen flung herself upon
Ruth. "Who was she? Tell me, quick!" she demanded.
"The girl under that window?"
"Of course. You know, Ruthie."
"I--I suspect," her chum said slowly.
"Tell me!"
"Edie Phelps."
"There!" exclaimed Helen, her black eyes fairly snapping with
excitement. "I thought so."
"You did?" asked Ruth, puzzled. "Why should she be listening to us?
She's never shown any particular interest in us Briarwoods."
"But for a week or two I've noticed her hanging around. It's something
concerning this vacation trip she wants to find out about, I believe."
"Why, how odd!" Ruth said. "I can't understand it."
"I wish we'd caught her," said Helen, sharply, for she did not like the
sophomore in question. Edith Phelps had been something of a "thorn in
the flesh" to the chums during their freshman year.
"Well, I don't know," Ruth murmured. "It would only have brought on
another quarrel with her. We'd better ignore it altogether I think."
"Humph!" sniffed Helen. "That doesn't satisfy my curiosity; and I'm
frank to confess that I'm bitten deep by _that_ microbe."
"Oh well, my dear," said Ruth, teasingly, "there are many things in this
life it is better you should not know. Ahem! I'm going to see Rebecca."
Helen ran off, too, to Sarah Blanchard's room. Many of the girls' doors
were ajar and there was much visiting back and forth on this last
evening; while the odor of tea permeated every nook and cranny of Dare
Hall.
Rebecca's door was closed, however, as Ruth expected. Rebecca Frayne was
not as yet socially popular at Ardmore--not even among the girls of her
own class.
In the first place she had come to college with an entirely wrong idea
of what opportunities for higher education meant for a girl. Her people
were very poor and very proud--a family of old New England stock that
looked down upon those who achieved success "in trade."
Had it not been for Ruth Fielding's very good sense, and her advice and
aid, Rebecca could never have remained at Ardmore to complete her
freshman year. During this time, and especially toward the last of the
school year, she had learned some things of importance besides what was
contained within the covers of her textbooks.
But Ruth worried over the possibility that before their sophomore year
should open in September, the influence at home would undo all the good
Rebecca Frayne had gained.
"I've just the thing for you, Becky!" Ruth Fielding cried, carrying her
friend's study by storm. "What do you think?"
"Something nice, I presume, Ruth Fielding. You always _are_ doing
something uncommonly kind for me."
"Nonsense!"
"No nonsense about it. I was just wondering what I should ever do
without you all this long summer."
"That's it!" cried Ruth, laughing. "You're not going to get rid of me so
easily."
"What do you mean?" asked Rebecca, wonderingly.
"That you'll go with us. I need you badly, Becky. You've learned to
rattle the typewriter so nicely----"
"Want me to get an office position for the summer near you?" Rebecca
asked, the flush rising in her cheek.
"Better than that," declared Ruth, ignoring Rebecca's flush and tone of
voice. "You know, I told you we are going West."
"You and Cameron? Yes."
"And Jennie Stone, and perhaps others. But I want you particularly."
"Oh, Ruth Fielding! I couldn't! You know just how _dirt poor_ we are.
It's all Buddie can do to find the money for my soph year here. No! It
is impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible. 'In the bright lexicon of youth,' and so forth.
You can go if you will."
"I couldn't accept such a great kindness, Ruth," Rebecca said, in her
hard voice.
"Better wait till you learn how terribly kind I am," laughed Ruth. "I
have an axe to grind, my dear."
"An axe!"
"Yes, indeedy! I want you to help me. I really do."
"To _write?_" gasped Rebecca. "You know very well, Ruth Fielding, that I
can scarcely compose a decent letter. I _hate_ that form of human folly
known as 'Lit-ra-choor.' I couldn't do it."
"No," said Ruth, smiling demurely. "I am going to write my own scenario.
But I will get a portable typewriter, and I want you to copy my stuff.
Besides, there will be several copies to make, and some work after the
director gets there. Oh, you'll have no sinecure! And if you'll go and
do it, I'll put up the money but you'll be paying all the expenses,
Becky. What say?"
Ruth knew very well that if she had offered to pay Rebecca a salary the
foolishly proud girl would never have accepted. But she had put it in
such a way that Rebecca Frayne could not but accept.
"You dear!" she said, with her arms about Ruth's neck and displaying as
she seldom did the real love she felt for the girl of the Red Mill.
"I'll do it. I've an old riding habit of auntie's that I can make over.
And of course, I can ride."
"You'd better make your habit into bloomers and a divided skirt,"
laughed Ruth. "That's how Jane Ann--and Helen and Jennie, too--will dress,
as well as your humble servant. There _are_ women who ride sidesaddle in
the West; but they do not ride into the rough trails that we are going
to attempt. In fact, most of 'em wear trousers outright."
"Goodness! My aunt would have a fit," murmured Rebecca Frayne.