AT THE SCHOOL AGAIN
"There's only one word worse," said a gloomy voice so close behind them
that Vi clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. "And that,"
the gloomy voice went on, "is _theft_!"
The girls never afterward knew what kept them from breaking loose and
running away. Probably it was because they were paralyzed with fright.
While they had thought the man was still in the hut he had come softly up
behind them and had overheard the last, at any rate, of what they had
said. Billie, as usual, was the first to recover herself.
"Will you take us to Three Towers now?" she asked in a voice that she
hardly recognized as her own. "Do you know the way?"
"Yes," he answered, adding moodily, as though to himself: "Hugo Billings
ought to know the way."
Billie caught at the name quickly, for she had been wondering what this
strange person called himself.
"Hugo Billings!" she said eagerly. "Is that your name?"
The man had started on ahead of them through the dark woods, but now he
stopped and looked back and Billie could almost feel his eyes boring into
her.
"Did I say so?" he asked sharply, then just as quickly turned away and
started on again.
"Goodness, I guess he must be a crazy criminal," thought Billie
plaintively, as she and her chums followed their leader, stumbling on
over rocks and roots that sometimes bruised their ankles painfully. "I
suppose there are some people that are both. Anyway, he must be a
criminal, or he wouldn't have been so mad about my knowing his name."
The rest of that strange journey seemed interminable. There were times
when the girls were sure the man who called himself Hugo Billings was not
taking them toward Three Towers Hall at all. It seemed impossible that
they could have wandered such a long way into the woods.
Then suddenly their feet struck a hard-beaten path and they almost cried
aloud with relief. For they recognized the path and knew that the open
road was not far off. Once on the open road, they could find their way
alone.
Abruptly the man in front stopped and turned to face them. Once more the
girls' hearts misgave them. Was he going to make trouble after all? Why
didn't he go on?
And then the man spoke.
"I won't go any farther with you," he said, and there was something in
his manner of speaking that made them see again in imagination the tired
slump of his shoulders, the wild, haunted look in his eyes. "I don't like
the road. But you can find it easily from here. Then turn to your right.
Three Towers is hardly half a mile up the road. Good night."
He turned with abruptness and started back the way they had come. But
impulsively Billie ran to him, calling to him to stop. Yet when he did
stop and turned to look at her she had not the slightest idea in the
world what she had intended to say--if indeed she had really intended to
say anything.
"I--I just wanted to thank you," she stammered, adding, with a swift
little feeling of pity for this man who seemed so lonely: "And if there's
anything I can ever do to--to--help you----"
"Who told you I needed help?" cried the man, his voice so harsh and
threatening that Billie started back, half falling over a root.
"Why--why," faltered Billie, saying almost the first thing that came into
her mind. "You looked so--so--sad----"
"Sad," the man repeated bitterly. "Yes, I have enough to make me sad. But
help!" he added fiercely. "I don't need help from you or any one."
And without another word he turned and strode off into the darkness.
After that it did not take the girls long to reach the road. They felt,
someway, as if they must have dreamed their adventure, it had all been so
strange and unreal. And yet they knew they had never been more awake in
their lives.
"Please don't talk about it now," begged Vi when Laura would have
discussed it. "Let's wait till we get in our dorm with lights and
everything. I'm just shivering all over."
For once the others were willing to do as the most timid of the trio
wished, and they hurried along in silence till they saw, with hearts full
of thankfulness, the lights of Three Towers Hall shine out on the road
before them.
"Look, I see the lights!"
"So do I!"
"Thank goodness we haven't much farther to go."
"It's all of a quarter of a mile, Vi."
"Huh! what's a quarter of a mile after such a tramp as we have had?" came
from Billie.
"And after such an experience," added Laura.
"We'll certainly have some story to tell."
"I want something to eat first."
"Yes, and dry clothes, too."
"What a queer hut and what a queer man!"
"I've heard of people being lost before," said Billie, as they ran up the
steps that led to the handsomest door in the world, or at least so they
thought it at that moment. "But now I know that what they said about it
wasn't half bad enough."
"But not every one finds a hut and a funny man when they get lost," said
Vi.
"Well, you needn't be so conceited about it," said Laura, pausing with
her hand on the door knob. "The girls probably won't believe us when we
tell them."
But Laura was wrong. The girls did really believe the story of Hugo
Billings and the hut and became tremendously excited about it. At first
they were all for making up an expedition and going to see it--the only
drawback being that the chums could not have directed them to it if they
would.
And they would not have wished to, anyway. They had rather good reason to
believe that Hugo Billings would not want a lot of curious girls spying
about his quarters, and, being sorry for him and grateful to him for
helping them out of their fix, they absolutely refused to have anything
to do with the idea.
They were greeted with open arms on the night of their return. Miss
Walters, the much-beloved head of Three Towers Hall, said that she had
been just about to send out a searching party for them.
They were late for supper, but that only made their appetites better, and
as they were favorites of the cook they were given an extra share of
everything and ate ravenously, impatient of the questions flung at them
by the curious girls.
"Thank goodness the Dill Pickles aren't here," Laura said to Billie
between mouthfuls of pork chop. "Think of coming home with _our_
appetites to the kind of dinners they used to serve us."
"Laura! what a horrible thought," cried Billie, her eyes dancing as she
helped herself to two more biscuits. "That's treason."
For the "Dill Pickles" were two elderly spinsters who had been teachers
at Three Towers Hall when Billie and her chums had first arrived. Their
tartness and strictness and miserliness had made the life of the girls in
the school uncomfortable for some time.
And then had come the climax. Miss Walters, having been called away for a
week or two, Miss Ada Dill and Miss Cora Dill, disrespectfully dubbed by
the girls the twin "Dill Pickles," had things in their own hands and
proceeded to make the life of the girls unbearable. They had taken away
their liberty, and then had half starved them by cutting down on the
meals until finally the girls had rebelled.
With Billie in the lead, they had marched out of Three Towers Hall one
day, bag and baggage, to stay in a hotel in the town of Molata until Miss
Walters should get back. Miss Walters, coming home unexpectedly, had met
the girls in town, accompanied them back to Three Towers and, as one of
the girls slangily described it, "had given the Dill Pickles all that was
coming to them."
In other words, the Misses Dill had been discharged and the girls had
come off victorious. Now there were two new teachers in their place who
were as different from the Dill Pickles as night is from day. All the
girls loved them, especially a Miss Arbuckle who had succeeded Miss Cora
Dill in presiding over the dining hall.
So it was to this that Laura had referred when she said, "Thank goodness
the Dill Pickles are gone!"
After they had eaten all they could possibly contain, the girls retired
to their dormitories, where they changed their clothes, still damp from
their adventure, for comfortable, warm night gowns, and held court, all
the girls gathering in their dormitory to hear of their adventures, for
nearly an hour.
At the end of that time the bell for "lights-out" rang, and the chums
found to their surprise that for once they were not sorry. What with the
adventure itself and the number of questions they had answered, they were
tired out and longed for the comfort of their beds.
"But do you suppose," said Connie Danvers as she rose to go into her
dormitory, which was across the hall, "that the man was really a little
out of his head?"
"I think he was more than a little," said Laura decidedly, as she dipped
her face into a bowl of cold water. "I think he was just plain crazy."
Connie Danvers was a very good friend of the chums, and one of the most
popular girls in Three Towers Hall. Just now she looked a little worried.
"Goodness! first we have the Codfish," she said, "and then you girls go
and rake up a crazy man. We'll be having a menagerie next!"