Before Dare Hall was quiet that night it was known throughout the
dormitory that six girls of the freshman class were going to spend a
part of the summer vacation in the wilds of Arizona.
"Like enough we'll never see any of them again," declared May
MacGreggor. "The female of the species is scarce in 'them parts,' I
understand. They will all six get married to cowboys, or gold miners,
or----"
"Or movie actors," snapped Edith Phelps, with a toss of her head. "I
presume Fielding is quite familiar with any quantity of 'juvenile leads'
and 'stunt' actors as well as 'custard-pie comedians.'"
"Oh, behave, Edie!" chuckled the Scotch girl. "I'd love to go with 'em
myself, but I must help mother take care of the children this summer.
There's a wild bunch of 'loons' at my house."
Fortunately, Helen Cameron did not hear Edith's criticism. Helen had a
sharp tongue of her own and she had no fear now of the sophomore.
Indeed, both Ruth and Helen had quite forgotten over night their
suspicions regarding the girl at their study window. They arose betimes
and went for a last run around the college grounds in their track suits,
as they had been doing for most of the spring. The chums had gone in for
athletics as enthusiastically at Ardmore as they had at Briarwood Hall.
Just as they set out from the broad front steps of Dare and rounded the
corner of the building toward the west, Ruth stopped with a little cry.
There at her feet lay a letter.
"Somebody's dropped a billet-doux," said Helen. "Or is it just an
envelope?"
Ruth picked it up and turned it over so that she could see its face.
"The letter is in it," she said. "And it's been opened. Why, Helen!"
"Yes?"
"It's for Edie Phelps."
Helen had already glanced upward. "And right under our windows," she
murmured. "I bet she dropped it when----"
"I suppose she did," said Ruth, as her chum's voice trailed off into
silence. Suddenly Helen, who was looking at the face of the envelope,
gasped.
"Look!" she exclaimed. "See the return address in the corner?"
"Wha----Why, it says: 'Box 24, R. F. D., Yucca, Arizona!'"
"Yucca, Arizona," repeated Helen. "Just where we are going. Ruth! there
is something very mysterious about this. Do you realize it?"
"It is the oddest thing!" exclaimed Ruth.
"Edith getting letters from out there and then creeping along that ledge
under our windows to listen. Well, I'd give a cent to know what's in
that letter."
"Oh, Helen! We couldn't," cried Ruth, quickly, folding the envelope and
slipping it between the buttons of her blouse.
"Just the same," declared her chum, "she was eavesdropping on us. We
ought to be excused if we did a little eavesdropping on her by reading
her letter."
But Ruth set off immediately in a good, swinging trot, and Helen had to
close her lips and put her elbows to her sides to keep up with her.
Later, when they had taken their morning shower and had dressed and all
the girls were trooping down the main stairway of Dare Hall in answer to
the breakfast call, Ruth spied Edith Phelps and hailed her, drawing the
letter from her bosom.
"Hi, Edith Phelps! Here's something that belongs to you."
The sophomore turned quickly to face the girl of the Red Mill, and with
no pleasant expression of countenance. "What have you there?" she
snapped.
"A letter that you dropped," said Ruth, quietly.
"That _I_ dropped?" and she came quickly to seize the proffered missive.
"Ha! I suppose you took pains to read it?"
Ruth drew back, paling. The thrust hurt her cruelly and although she
would not reply, the sophomore's gibe did not go without answer. Helen's
black eyes flashed as she stepped in front of her chum.
"I can assure you Ruth and I do not read other people's correspondence
any more than we listen to other people's private conversation, Phelps,"
she said directly. "We found that letter _under our window where you
dropped it last night!_"
Ruth caught at her arm; but the stroke went home. Edith Phelps' face
reddened and then paled. Without further speech she hurried away with
the letter gripped tightly in her hand. She did not appear at breakfast.
"It's terrible to be always ladylike," sighed Helen to Ruth. "I just
_know_ we have seen one end of a mystery. And that's all we are likely
to see."
"It is the most mysterious thing why Phelps should be interested in our
affairs, and be getting letters from Yucca," admitted Ruth.
The chums had no further opportunity of talking this matter over, for it
was at breakfast that Rebecca Frayne threw her bomb. At least, Jennie
Stone said it was such. Rebecca came over to Miss Comstock's table where
the chums and Jennie sat and demanded:
"Ruth Fielding! who is going to chaperon your party?"
"What? Chaperon?" murmured Ruth, quite taken aback by the question.
"Of course. You say Helen's brother is going. And there will be a guide
and other men. We've got to have a chaperon."
"Oh!" gasped Helen. "Poor old Tommy! If he knew that! He won't bite you,
Rebecca."
"You girls certainly wouldn't dream of going on that long journey unless
you were properly attended?" cried Rebecca, horrified.
"What do you think we need?" demanded Jennie Stone. "A trained nurse, or
a governess?"
Rebecca was thoroughly shocked. "My aunt would never hear of such a
proceeding," she affirmed. "Oh, Ruth Fielding! I want to go with you;
but, of course, there must be some older woman with us."
"Of course--I presume so," sighed Ruth. "I hadn't thought that far."
"Whom shall we ask?" demanded Helen. "Mrs. Murchiston won't go. She's
struck. She says she is too old to go off with any harum-scarum crowd of
school girls again."
"I like that!" exclaimed Jennie, in a tone that showed she did not like
it at all. "We have got past the hobbledehoy age, I should hope."
Miss Comstock, the senior at their table, had become interested in the
affair, and she suggested pleasantly:
"We Ardmores often try to get the unattached members of the faculty to
fill the breach in such events as this. Try Miss Cullam."
"Oh, dear me!" muttered Helen.
Ruth said briskly, "Miss Cullam is just the person. Do you suppose she
has her summer free, Miss Comstock?"
"She was saying only last evening that she had made no plans."
"She shall make 'em at once," declared Ruth, jumping up and leaving her
breakfast. "Excuse me, Miss Comstock. I am going to find Miss Cullam,
instantly."
It was Miss Cullam, too, who had worried most about the lost examination
papers which Ruth had been the means of finding (as related in "Ruth
Fielding at College"); and the instructor of mathematics had taken a
particular interest in the girl of the Red Mill and her personal
affairs.
"I haven't ridden horseback since I was a girl," she said, in some
doubt. "And, my _dear!_ you do not expect me to ride a-straddle as girls
do nowadays? Never!"
"Neither will Rebecca," chuckled Ruth. "But we who have been on the
plains before, know that a divided skirt is a blessing to womankind."
"I do not think I shall need that particular blessing," Miss Cullam
said, rather grimly. "But I believe I will accept your invitation, Ruth
Fielding. Though perhaps it is not wise for instructors and pupils to
spend their vacations together. The latter are likely to lose their fear
of us----"
"Oh, Miss Cullam! There isn't one of us who has a particle of fear of
you," laughed Ruth.
"Ahem! that is why some of you do not stand so well in mathematics as
you should," said the teacher dryly.
That was a busy day; but the party Ruth was forming made all their
plans, subject, of course, to agreement by their various parents and
guardians. In one week they were to meet in New York, prepared to make
the long journey by train to Yucca, Arizona, and from that point into
the mountains on horseback.
Helen found time for a little private investigation; but it was not
until she and Ruth were on the way home to Cheslow in the parlor car
that she related her meager discoveries to her chum.
"What did you ever learn about Edie Phelps?" Helen asked.
"Oh! Edie? I had forgotten about her."
"Well, I didn't forget. The mystery piques me, as the story writers
say," laughed Helen. "Do you know that her father is an awfully rich
man?"
"Why, no. Edith doesn't make a point of telling everybody perhaps,"
returned Ruth, smiling.
"No; she doesn't. You've got to hand it to her for that. But, then, to
blow about one's wealth is about as crude a thing as one can do, isn't
it?"
"Well, what about Edith's father?" asked Ruth, curiously.
"Nothing particular. Only he is one of our 'captains of industry' that
the Sunday papers tell about. Makes oodles of money in mines, so I was
told. Edith has no mother. She had a brother----"
"Oh! is he dead?" cried Ruth, with sympathy.
"Perhaps he'd better be. He was rusticated from his college last year.
It was quite a scandal. His father disowned him and he disappeared.
Edith felt awfully, May says."
"Too bad," sighed Ruth.
"Why, of course, it's too bad," grumbled Helen. "But that doesn't help
us find out why Edie is so much interested in our going to Yucca; nor
how she comes to be in correspondence with anybody in that far, far
western town. What do you think it means, Ruthie?"
"I haven't the least idea," declared the girl of the Red Mill, shaking
her head.