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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red
+Cross, by Gertrude W. Morrison
+
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross
+       Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause
+
+Author: Gertrude W. Morrison
+
+Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8137]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 17, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIRLS AIDING THE RED CROSS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kevin Handy, Joshua Hutchinson, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross
+
+OR
+
+AMATEUR THEATRICALS FOR A WORTHY CAUSE
+
+BY
+
+GERTRUDE W. MORRISON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+I THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
+II THE RED CROSS GIRL
+III ODD!
+IV THE MYSTERY MAN
+V SAND IN THE GEARS
+VI THE BANK-NOTE
+VII SOMETHING EXCITING
+VIII THE FOREFRONT OF TROUBLE
+IX THE ICE CARNIVAL
+X BUT WHO IS HE?
+XI A REHEARSAL
+XII BUBBLE, BUBBLE
+XIII MOTHER WIT HAS AN IDEA
+XIV CHAINS ON HIS WHEELS
+XV PIE AND POETRY
+XVI EMBER NIGHT
+XVII A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+XVIII WHERE WAS PURT?
+XIX LAURA LISTENS
+XX TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER
+XXI AND A THIRD THING
+XXII THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PURT
+XXIII THE LAST REHEARSAL
+XXIV MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE
+XXV IT IS ALL ROUNDED UP
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
+
+
+"Well, if that isn't the oddest thing that ever happened!" murmured Laura
+Belding, sitting straight up on the stool before the high desk in her
+father's glass-enclosed office, from which elevation she could look down
+the long aisles of his jewelry store and out into Market Street,
+Centerport's main business thoroughfare.
+
+But Laura was not looking down the vista of the electrically lighted shop
+and into the icy street. Instead, she gave her attention to that which lay
+right under her eyes upon the desk top. She looked first at the neat
+figures she had written upon the page of the day ledger, after carefully
+proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of coin on the
+desk at her right hand.
+
+"It is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in
+answer to her own first declaration.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and it was always Laura's duty to straighten out
+her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high school
+girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she could give
+the books proper attention weekly. Laura had taken a course in bookkeeping
+and she was quite familiar with the business of keeping a simple set of
+books like these.
+
+She never let the day ledger and the cash get far apart. It was her custom
+to strike a balance weekly, and this she was doing at this time. Or she was
+trying to! But there seemed to be something entirely wrong with the cash
+itself.
+
+She knew that the figures on the ledger were correct. She had asked her
+father, and even Chet, her brother, who was helping in the store this
+evening, if either of them had taken out any cash without setting the sum
+down in the proper record.
+
+"It is an even fifty dollars--neither more nor less," she had told them,
+with a puzzled little frown corrugating her pretty forehead.
+
+They had both denied any such act--Chet, of course, vigorously.
+
+"What kind of hardware are you trying to hang on me, Mother Wit?" he
+demanded of his sister. "I know Christmas will soon be on top of us, and a
+fellow needs all the money there is in the world to buy even one girl a
+decent present. But I assure you I haven't taken to nicking papa's cash
+drawer."
+
+"I don't know but mother is right," Laura sighed. "Your language is
+becoming something to listen to with fear and trembling. And I am not
+accusing you, Chetwood. I'm only asking you!"
+
+"And I'm only answering you--emphatically," chuckled her brother.
+
+"It is no laughing matter when you cannot find fifty dollars," she told
+him.
+
+"You'd better stir your wits a little, then, Sis," he advised. "You know
+Jess and Lance will be along soon and we were all going shopping together,
+and skating afterward. Lance and I want to practice our grapevine whirl."
+
+But being advised to hurry did not help. For half an hour since Chet had
+last spoken the girl had sat in a web of mystery that fairly made her head
+spin! Her ledger figures were proved over and over again. But the cash!
+Then once more she bent to her task.
+
+The piles of coin were all right she finally decided. She counted them over
+and over again, and they came to the same penny exactly. So she pushed the
+coin aside.
+
+Then she slowly and carefully counted again the bank-notes, turning them
+one by one face down from left to right. The amount, added to the sum of
+the coins, was equal to the figures on the ledger. Then she did what she
+had already done ten or a dozen times. She recounted the bills, turning
+them from right to left.
+
+She was fifty dollars short!
+
+Christmas was approaching, and the Belding jewelry store was, of course,
+rather busier than at other seasons. That was why Chet Belding was helping
+out behind the counters. Out there, he kept a closer watch on the front
+door than Laura, with her financial trouble, could.
+
+Suddenly he darted down the long room to welcome a group of young people
+who pushed open the jewelry-store door. They burst in with a hail of merry
+voices and a clatter of tongues that drowned every other sound in the store
+for a minute, although there were but four of them.
+
+"Easy! Easy!" begged Mr. Belding, who was giving his attention to a
+customer near the front of the store. "Take your friends back to Laura's
+coop, Chetwood."
+
+Hushed for the moment, the party drifted back toward Laura's desk. The
+young girl was still too deeply engaged with the ledger and cash to look up
+at first.
+
+"What is the matter, Mother Wit?" demanded the taller of the two girls who
+had just come in--a most attractive-looking maiden, whom Chet had at once
+taken on his arm.
+
+"Engine trouble," chuckled Laura's brother. "The old thing just won't
+budge! Isn't that it, Laura?"
+
+The tall youth--dark and delightfully romantic-looking, any girl would have
+told you--went around into the little office and looked over Laura's
+shoulder.
+
+"What's gone wrong, Laura?" he asked, with sympathy in his voice and
+manner.
+
+"You want to get a move on, Mother Wit!" cried the youngest girl of the
+troop, saucy looking, and with ruddy cheeks and flyaway curls. This was
+Clara Hargrew, whom her friends called Bobby, and whose father kept the big
+grocery store just a block away from the Belding jewelry store. "Everybody
+will have picked over the presents in all the stores and got the best of
+everything before we get there."
+
+"That's right," said the last member of the group; and this was a short and
+sturdy boy who had the same mischievous twinkle in his eye that Bobby
+Hargrew displayed.
+
+His name was Long, and because he was short, everybody at Central High
+(save the teachers, of course) called him "Short and Long." He and Bobby
+Hargrew were what hopeless grown folk called "a team!" When they were not
+hatching up some ridiculous trick together, they were separately in
+mischief.
+
+"But you say Short and Long has done some of his Christmas shopping
+already," Jess Morse, the tall visitor, said. "Just think, Laura! He has
+sent Purt Sweet his annual present."
+
+"So soon?" said Laura Belding, but with her mind scarcely on what her
+friends were saying. "And Thanksgiving is only just passed!"
+
+"I thought I'd better be early," said Short and Long, with solemn
+countenance. "I wrote 'Not to be opened till Christmas' upon the package."
+
+Bobby and Jess and Lance burst into giggles. "Let's have the joke!"
+demanded Chet. "What did you send the poor fish, Short?"
+
+"You guessed it! You guessed it, Chet Belding!" cried Bobby. "Aren't you a
+clever lad?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Laura, now becoming more seriously interested.
+
+"Why," Jess Morse said, "he got a codfish down at the market and wrapped it
+up in a lot of paper and put it in a long, beautifully decorated Christmas
+box. If Purt Sweet keeps that box without opening it until Christmas, I am
+afraid the Board of Health will be making inquiries about the Sweet
+premises."
+
+"You scamp!" exclaimed Laura sternly, to Short and Long.
+
+"He's all right!" declared Bobby warmly. "You know just how mean and stingy
+Purt Sweet is--and his mother has more money than anybody else in
+Centerport. Last Christmas, d'you know what Purt did?"
+
+"Something silly, of course," Laura said.
+
+"I don't know what you call silly. I call it mean," declared the smaller
+girl. "Purt got it noised abroad that he was going to give a present to
+every fellow in his class--didn't he, Short?"
+
+"That's what he did," said Billy Long, taking up the story. "And the day
+before Christmas he got us all over to his house and offered each of us a
+drink of ice-water! And some of the kids had been foolish enough to buy him
+things--and give 'em to him ahead of time, too!"
+
+"Serves you right for being so piggish," commented Chet.
+
+"It was a mean trick," agreed Laura, "for some of the boys in Purt's grade
+are much younger than he is. But this idea of giving Christmas presents
+because you expect something in return----"
+
+"Is pretty small potatoes," finished Lance Darby, the dark youth. "But
+what's the matter here, Laura?" he added. "I've counted these bills and
+they are just exactly right by those figures you have set down there."
+
+"You turned them from left to right as you counted, Lance," cried Laura.
+
+"Sure! I counted the face of each bill," was the answer.
+
+"Now count them the other way!" exclaimed Laura in despair.
+
+Her friends gathered around while Laura did this. Even Chet gave some
+attention to his sister's trouble now. From right to left the packet of
+bank-notes came to fifty dollars less than the sum accredited to them on
+the ledger.
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" breathed Lance.
+
+"That's the strangest thing!" declared Jess Morse.
+
+"Why," said Bobby of the quick mind, "must be some of the bills are not
+printed right."
+
+"Nonsense!" ejaculated Chet.
+
+"Who ever heard of such a thing as a banknote being printed wrong unless it
+was a counterfeit?" demanded Laura.
+
+Mr. Belding, having finished with his customer, came back to the little
+office and heard this. "I am quite sure we have taken in no counterfeits--
+eh, Chet?" he said, smiling.
+
+"And there's only one big bill--this hundred," said Chet, who had taken the
+package of bills and was flirting them through his fingers. "I took that in
+myself when I sold that lavalliere to the man I told you about, Father. You
+remember? He was a stranger, and he said he wanted to give it to a young
+girl. I------"
+
+"Let's see that bill, Chet!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly.
+
+Chet slipped the hundred-dollar note out of the packet and handed it to the
+grocer's daughter. But she immediately cried:
+
+"I want to see the hundred-dollar bill, Chet. Not this one."
+
+"Why, that's the hundred------"
+
+"This is a fifty," interrupted Bobby. "Can't you see?"
+
+She displayed the face of a fifty-dollar bank-note to their wondering eyes.
+Their exclamations drowned Mr. Belding's voice, and he had to speak twice
+before Bobby heard him.
+
+"Turn it over!"
+
+The grocer's daughter did so. The other side of the bill was the face of a
+hundred-dollar bank-note! At this there certainly was a hullabaloo in and
+around the office. Mr. Belding could scarcely make himself heard again. He
+was annoyed.
+
+"What is the matter with that bank-note? Whether it is counterfeit or not,
+you took it in over the counter, Chetwood," he said coldly.
+
+"This very day," admitted his oldest son.
+
+"Then, my boy, it is up to you," said the jeweler grimly.
+
+"What----Just what do you mean?" asked Chet, somewhat troubled by his
+father's sternness.
+
+"In a jewelry store," said Mr. Belding seriously, "as I have often told
+you, a clerk must keep his eyes open. You admit taking in this bill. If the
+Treasury Department says it is worth only fifty dollars, I shall expect you
+to make good the other fifty."
+
+The young people stared at each other in awed silence as the jeweler turned
+away. They could feel how annoyed he was.
+
+"Gee!" gasped Chet, "if I'm nicked fifty dollars, how shall I ever be able
+to buy Christmas presents, or even give anything for the Red Cross drive?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry, Chet!" Jess Morse murmured.
+
+"Looks as if hard times had camped on your trail, old boy," declared Lance.
+
+"But maybe it is a hundred-dollar bill," Laura said.
+
+"It's tough," Short and Long muttered.
+
+"Try to pass it on somebody else," chuckled Bobby, who was not very
+sympathetic at that moment.
+
+"Got it all locked up, Laura?" Jess asked. "Well, let us go then. You can't
+make that bill right by looking at it, Chet."
+
+"I--I wish I could get hold of the man who passed it on me," murmured the
+big fellow.
+
+"Would you know him again?" Lance asked.
+
+"Sure," returned his chum, getting his own coat and hat while his sister
+put on her outdoor clothing. "All ready? We're going, Pa."
+
+"Remember what I said about that bill, Chetwood," Mr. Belding admonished
+him. "You will learn after this, I guess, to look at both sides of a
+hundred-dollar bill--or any other--when it is offered to you."
+
+"Aw, it's a good hundred, I bet," grumbled Chet.
+
+"If it is, I'll add an extra fifty to my Red Cross subscription," rejoined
+his father with some tartness.
+
+"Well, that's something!" Bobby Hargrew said quickly. "We want to boost the
+fund all we can. And what do you think?"
+
+"My brain has stopped functioning entirely since I got so bothered by that
+bank-note," declared Laura Belding, shaking her head. "I can't think."
+
+"Mr. Sharp and the rest of the faculty have agreed that we shall give a
+show for the Red Cross," declared Bobby, with enthusiasm. "Just what we
+wanted them to do!"
+
+"Oh, joy!" cried Jess, clasping her hands in delight.
+
+"Miss Josephine Morse, leading lady, impressarioess, and so forth," laughed
+Lance Darby, "will surely be in on the theatricals."
+
+"Maybe they will let you write the play, Jess," said Chet admiringly.
+
+They reached the door and stepped into the street. There had been rain and
+a freeze. The sidewalks, as well as the highway itself, were slippery.
+Bobby suddenly screamed:
+
+"See there! Oh! He'll be killed!"
+
+A rapidly-driven automobile turned the corner by the Belding store. A man
+was crossing Market Street, coming toward the group of young people.
+
+The careless driver had not put on his chains. The car skidded. The next
+instant the pedestrian was knocked down, and at least one wheel ran over
+his prostrate body.
+
+Instead of stopping, the car went into high speed and dashed up the street
+and was quickly out of sight. The young people ran to the prostrate man.
+Nobody for the moment thought of the automobile driver who was responsible
+for the affair.
+
+The victim had blood on his face from a cut high up on his crown. He was
+unconscious. It was Chet Belding who stood up and spoke, first of all.
+
+"I thought so! I thought so!" he gasped. "Do you know who this is?"
+
+"Who?" asked Jess, clinging to his arm as the crowd gathered.
+
+"This is the man who passed that phony hundred-dollar bill on me. The very
+one!"
+
+"Is he dead?" whispered Bobby Hargrew, looking under Chefs elbow down at
+the crimson-streaked face of the unfortunate man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE RED CROSS GIRL
+
+
+Market street was well lighted, but it was not well policed. That last fact
+could not be denied, or the recklessly driven automobile that had knocked
+down the stranger would never have got away so easily. People from both
+sides of the street and from the stores near by ran to the spot; but no
+policeman appeared until long after the automobile was out of sight.
+
+The exciting statement that Chet Belding had made so interested and
+surprised his friends that for a few moments they gave the victim of the
+injury little of their attention. Meanwhile a figure glided into the group
+and knelt beside the injured man who lay upon the ice-covered street. It
+was a girl, not older than Laura and Jess, but one who was dressed in the
+veil and cloak of the Red Cross.
+
+She was not the only Red Cross worker on Market Street that Saturday
+evening, for the drive for the big Red Cross fund had begun, and many
+workers were collecting. This girl, however seemed to have a practical
+knowledge of first-aid work. She drew forth a small case, wiped the blood
+away from the man's face with cotton, and then began to bandage the wound
+as his head rested against her knee.
+
+"Somebody send for the ambulance," she commanded, in a clear and pleasant
+voice. "I think he has a fractured leg, and he may be hurt otherwise."
+
+Her request brought the three girls of Central High to their senses. Bobby
+darted away to telephone to the hospital from her father's store. The older
+girls offered the Red Cross worker their aid.
+
+For a year and a half the girls of Central High had been interested in the
+Girls' Branch League athletics; and with their training under Mrs. Case,
+the athletic instructor, they had all learned something about first-aid
+work.
+
+The girls of Centerport had changed in character without a doubt since the
+three high schools of the city had become interested so deeply in girls'
+athletics. With the high schools of Keyport and Lumberport, an association
+of league units had been formed, and the girls of the five educational
+institutions were rivals to a proper degree in many games and sports.
+
+How all this had begun and how Laura Belding by her individual efforts had
+made possible the Central High's beautiful gymnasium and athletic field, is
+told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "The Girls of Central
+High; Or, Rivals for All Honors." This story served to introduce this party
+of young people who have met in the jewelry store, as well as a number of
+other characters, to the reader.
+
+In "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna; Or, The Crew That Won," the
+enthusiasm in sports among the girls of the five high schools reaches a
+high point.
+
+As the three cities in the league are all situated upon the beautiful lake
+named above, aquatic games hold a high place in the estimation of the rival
+associations in the league. Fun and sports fill this second volume.
+
+"The Girls of Central High at Basket Ball; Or, The Great Gymnasium
+Mystery," the third book, tells of several very exciting games in which the
+basket-ball team of Central High takes part, and the reader learns, as
+well, a good deal more about the individual characters of the girls
+themselves and of some very exciting adventures they have.
+
+"The Girls of Central High on the Stage; Or, The Play That Took the Prize,"
+the fourth volume in the series, is really Jess Morse's story, although
+Laura and their other close friends have much to do in the book and take
+part in the play which Jess wrote, and which was acted in the school
+auditorium. It was proved that Jess Morse had considerable talent for play
+writing, and the professional production of her school play aided the girl
+and her mother over a most trying financial experience.
+
+The fifth volume, "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field; Or, The
+Champions of the School League," is an all around athletic story in which
+rivalries for place in school athletics, excitement and interest of plot,
+and stories of character building are woven into a tale calculated to hold
+the attention of any reader interested in high school doings.
+
+During the summer previous to the opening of the present story in the
+series, these friends spent a most enjoyable time camping on Acorn Island,
+and the sixth tale, "The Girls of Central High in Camp; Or, The Old
+Professor's Secret," is as full of mystery, adventure, and fun as it can
+be. Since the end of the long vacation the Girls of Central High, as well
+as the boys who are their friends, had settled down to hard work both in
+studies and athletics. Ice had come early this year and already Lake Luna
+was frozen near the shore and most of the steamboat traffic between the
+lake cities had ceased.
+
+The great pre-holiday Red Cross drive had now enthralled the girls of
+Central High, as well as the bulk of Centerport's population. Everybody
+wanted to put the city "over the top" with more than its quota subscribed
+to the fund.
+
+In the first place, the boys' and girls' athletic associations of Central
+High were planning an Ice Carnival to raise funds for the cause, and it was
+because of that exhibition that Chet Belding and Lance Darby wished to get
+down to the ice that evening and try their own particular turn, after the
+shopping expedition that also had been planned.
+
+As it happened, however, neither the shopping nor the skating was done on
+this particular Saturday night.
+
+As Bobby Hargrew ran to telephone to the hospital, Short and Long had
+grabbed the wrists of his two older and taller boy friends and led them out
+of the crowd in a very mysterious way.
+
+"Did you get a good look at that car?" he whispered to Chet and Lance.
+
+"Of course I didn't," said the latter. "It went up the street like the
+wind. Didn't it, Chet?"
+
+"That rascal was going some when he turned the corner of Rapidan Street. I
+wonder he did not skid again and smash his car to pieces against the
+hydrant. Served him right if he had," Chet said.
+
+"There were no chains on his wheels," said Short and Long, in the same
+mysterious way.
+
+"You said it," agreed Lance. "What then?"
+
+"There are not many cars in Centerport right now without chains on. The
+streets have been icy for more than twenty-four hours."
+
+"Your statement is irrefutable," said Chet, grinning.
+
+"Get it off your chest, Short and Long," begged Lance. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," said the earnest lad, "that I know a car that was out this
+afternoon without chains, and it was a seven-seater Perriton car--just as
+this one that knocked down Chet's friend was."
+
+"It was a Perriton, I believe," murmured Lance.
+
+But Chetwood Belding said: "I don't know whether that poor fellow is a
+friend of mine or not. If I have to give Pa fifty dollars--Whew!"
+
+"But the car?" urged Lance Darby. "Who has a Perriton car, Short and Long?"
+
+"And without chains?" added Chet, waking up to the main topic.
+
+"Come along, fellows," said the younger lad. "I won't tell you. But I'll
+take you to where you can see the car I mean. If it still is without chains
+on the wheels, and has just been used--Well, we can talk about it then!"
+
+"All right," said Chet. "We can't do any good here. Here comes the
+ambulance. That poor fellow is going to be in the hospital for some time, I
+bet."
+
+There was such a crowd around the spot where the victim of the accident lay
+that the boys could not see the Central High girls, save Bobby Hargrew, who
+came running back from her father's store just as the clanging of the
+ambulance gong warned the crowd that the hospital had responded in its
+usual prompt fashion.
+
+The boys hailed the smaller girl and told her they were off to hunt for the
+car that had knocked down the victim. Then the three hurried away.
+
+Meanwhile, in the center of the crowd Laura Belding and Jess Morse had been
+aiding the girl in the Red Cross uniform as best they could to care for the
+man who was hurt. The latter had not opened his eyes when the ambulance
+worked its way into the crowd and halted beside the three girls on their
+knees in the street.
+
+"What have you there?" asked the young doctor, who swung himself off the
+rear of the truck.
+
+Laura and Jess told him. The third girl, the one who had done the most for
+the unfortunate man, did not at first say a word.
+
+The driver brought the rolled stretcher and blanket. He laid it down beside
+the victim. When the doctor had finished his brief notes he helped his aid
+lift the man to the stretcher. They picked it up and shoved it carefully
+into the ambulance.
+
+"I know you, Miss Belding," said the doctor. "And this is Miss Morse, isn't
+it? Do you mind giving me your name and address?" he asked the third girl.
+
+Was there a moment's hesitation on the part of the Red Cross girl? Laura
+thought there was; yet almost instantly the stranger replied:
+
+"My name is Janet Steele."
+
+"Ah! Your address?" repeated the doctor.
+
+This time there was no doubt that the girl flushed, and more than a few
+seconds passed before she made answer:
+
+"Thirty-seven Whiffle Street."
+
+At the same moment somebody exclaimed: "Here comes Fatty Morehead, the cop.
+Better late than never," and a general laugh went up from the crowd.
+
+Jess seized Laura's wrist, exclaiming: "Oh, Laura! he will want to take
+down our names and addresses, too. Let's get away."
+
+The Red Cross girl uttered an ejaculation of chagrin. She began pushing her
+way out of the press, and in an opposite direction from that in which the
+portly policeman was coming.
+
+Jess whispered swiftly in Laura's ear: "Come on! Let's follow her! I'm
+awfully interested in that Red Cross girl, Laura!"
+
+"Why should you be?" asked her chum. "Although she looks like a nice girl,
+I never saw her before."
+
+"Neither did I," said Jess. "But did you hear the address she gave? That is
+the poor end of Whiffle Street, as you very well know, and mother and I
+used to live right across the street from that house. I did not know
+anybody lived in the old Eaton place. It has been empty for a long, long
+time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ODD!
+
+
+Bobby Hargrew met Laura and Jess on the edge of the crowd, for she had been
+unable to worm herself into the middle of it again, and told them swiftly
+of the boys' departure to hunt for the car that had done the damage.
+
+"And that's just like the boys!" exclaimed Jess Morse, with some
+exasperation. "To run away and desert us!"
+
+"I don't know but I'm glad," said Laura. "I don't feel much like shopping
+after seeing that poor man hurt."
+
+"Or skating, either," complained Jess.
+
+Presently the three overtook the strange girl. Bobby, whom Chet had said
+was "just as friendly with strangers as a pup with a waggy tail,"
+immediately got into conversation with her.
+
+"Say! was he hurt badly?" she asked.
+
+"I think his right leg was broken," the Red Cross girl replied. "And his
+head was badly hurt. Your friends, here, could see that."
+
+"He bled dreadfully," sighed Laura. "But you had the bandage on so nicely
+that the doctor did not even disturb it, my dear."
+
+"Thank you," said the Red Cross girl. She hesitated on the corner of the
+side street. "I fear I must leave you here. I am going home."
+
+"Oh," cried Jess, who was enormously curious, "we can go your way just as
+well as not, Miss Steele! We live at the other end of Whiffle Street--up on
+the hill, you know."
+
+"All but me," put in Bobby. "But I can run right through Laura's yard to my
+house."
+
+She indicated Laura as she spoke. The Red Cross girl looked at Mother Wit
+with some expectancy. Jess came to the rescue.
+
+"Let's get acquainted," she said. "Why not? We'll never meet again under
+more thrilling circumstances," and she laughed. "This is Miss Laura
+Belding, Miss Steele. On your other hand is Miss Hargrew--Miss Clara
+Hargrew. I am Josephine Morse. I used to live across the street from the
+old Eaton place where you live now."
+
+"You are a stranger in town, are you not?" Laura asked, taking the new
+girl's hand.
+
+"Yes, Miss Belding. We have only been here four weeks. But I have worked in
+the Red Cross before--and one must do something, you know."
+
+"Do something!" burst forth Bobby. "If you went to Central High and had Gee
+Gee for one of your teachers, you'd have plenty to do."
+
+"We are all three Central High girls," said Laura gently. "Have you
+finished school, Miss Steele?"
+
+"I have not been able to attend school regularly for two years," admitted
+the new girl. "I am afraid," and she smiled apologetically, "that you are
+all much further advanced in your education than I am. You see, my mother
+is an invalid and I must give her a great deal of my time. It does not
+interfere, however, with my doing a little for the Red Cross."
+
+"I am sorry your mother is ill," said Laura.
+
+"We were advised to come up here for her sake," said Janet Steele hastily.
+"We have been living in a coast town. The doctors thought an inland
+climate--a drier climate--would be beneficial."
+
+"I hope it will prove so," said Laura.
+
+"It seems a shame you can't get out with the other girls," Jess added.
+
+"And come to school and let Gee Gee get after you," joined in Bobby grimly.
+
+"Is she such a very strict disciplinarian?" asked Miss Steele, smiling down
+at the irrepressible one as they walked through the side street toward
+Whiffle.
+
+"She's the limit," declared Bobby.
+
+"Oh," said Laura mildly, "I think Miss Carrington is nowhere near so strict
+as she used to be. Margit Salgo really has made her quite human, you know."
+
+"Say!" grumbled Bobby, "she can hand out demerits just as easy as ever. And
+she had her sense of humor extracted years ago."
+
+"Has that fault cropped up lately, my dear?" asked Laura, laughing. "It
+must be so. What happened, Bobby?"
+
+The younger girl, who was a sophomore, whereas Laura and Jess were juniors,
+came directly under Miss Carrington's attention in several classes. Bobby
+was forever getting into trouble with the strict teacher.
+
+"Why, look, now," said Bobby, warmly, "just what happened yesterday!
+English class. You know, that's nuts for Gee Gee. I was bothered enough, I
+can tell you, trying to correct a paper she had handed back to me, and she
+kept right on talking and asking questions, and the recitation period was
+almost ended. I didn't want to hang around there to correct that paper--"
+
+"You know very well you should have taken it home to correct," Laura put
+in.
+
+"Oh, don't tell me that! I take so much extra work home as it is, that
+Father Tom Hargrew asks me if I don't do anything at all in school. And,
+anyway, I didn't think Gee Gee saw me. But, of course, she did."
+
+"And then what?" Jess asked.
+
+"Why, she shot a question at me, and I didn't get it at first. 'Miss
+Hargrew! Pay attention!' she went on. Of course, that brought me up
+standing. 'What is a pseudonym?' she wanted to know. How silly! You know
+the trouble we've been having with that car Father Tom bought. 'I don't
+know what it is, Miss Carrington,' I told her. 'But if it is something that
+belongs to an automobile, father will have to buy a new one pretty soon,
+I'm sure.'"
+
+"And she docked you for that!" exclaimed Jess, as though wildly amazed.
+"How cruel!"
+
+"Really, I am afraid we are sometimes cruel to our dear teachers," laughed
+Laura. "But if they are too serious they are such a temptation to us witty
+ones."
+
+"Now, don't be sarcastic, Mother Wit," said Jess, shaking her chum a little
+by the elbow. "You know very well you enjoy nagging the teachers a bit
+yourself, now and then. And Professor Dimp!"
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped Bobby suddenly. "Did you hear the latest about Old
+Dimple?"
+
+"Now, girls," said Laura, quite sternly, "I refuse to hear of Professor
+Dimp being made a goose of."
+
+"Gander, dear! Gander!" exclaimed Jess, _sotto voce_.
+
+"He's an old dear," declared Laura, quite as earnestly. "We found that out,
+I am sure, when we went camping on Acorn Island last summer."
+
+"True! True!" admitted her chum.
+
+"Oh, nobody wants to hurt the old fellow," chuckled Bobby. "But one day
+this week there was a bunch of the boys down at the post-office, and
+Professor Dimp came in to mail a letter. You know he is always reading on
+the street when he walks; never sees anybody, and goes stumbling about
+blindly with a book under his nose. He got into the revolving door and
+Short and Long declares Old Dimple went around ten times before he knew
+enough to come out--and then he was on the street again and had failed to
+mail the letter."
+
+"Oh, Bobby!" cried Jess, while Miss Steele was quite convulsed by the
+statement.
+
+"He's so absent-minded," said Laura sympathetically. "Why didn't Short and
+Long tell him he was in the revolving door?"
+
+"Humph!" chuckled Bobby, "I guess Short thought the old fellow needed the
+exercise."
+
+Just then the girls came to the corner of Whiffle Street The street was
+narrow and crooked in an elbow here. The houses were mostly small, and were
+out of repair. It was, indeed, the poor end of Whiffle Street. On the hill
+end were some of the best residences in Centerport.
+
+"There's the Eaton place across the street," said Jess briskly. "I see
+there is a light, Miss Steele."
+
+"That is mother's room on the first floor--right off the piazza. You know,
+we could not begin to use all the house," the girl added frankly. "There
+are only mother and I and Aunt Jinny."
+
+"Oh! Your aunt?" asked Jess.
+
+"She is mother's old nurse. She has come with us--to help do the housework,
+you know," Miss Steele said frankly, yet again flushing a little. "I--I
+guess I have never lived just as you girls do. We have moved around a great
+deal. I have got such education as I have by fits and starts, you see. I
+suppose you three girls have a perfectly delightful time at your Central
+High?"
+
+"Especially when Gee Gee gets after us with a sharp stick," grumbled Bobby.
+
+"Don't mind Bobby," said Laura, laughing. "She is dreadfully slangy, and
+sometimes quite impossible. We do have fine times at Central High.
+Especially in our games and athletic work."
+
+"Miss Steele must be sure and come to our Ice Carnival next week," said
+Jess.
+
+"'Ice Carnival'?" cried the Red Cross girl. "And I just love to skate!"
+
+There came a sudden tapping on the window of the lighted room in the old
+Eaton house. The girls had crossed the street and were standing at the
+gate. Janet Steele wheeled quickly and waved her hand. A sitting figure was
+dimly outlined at the long, French window.
+
+"Oh!" Janet said. "Mother wants us to come in. She doesn't see many
+people--and she enjoys young folk. Won't you come in? It will be a pleasure
+for us both."
+
+Jess and Bobby looked at Laura. They allowed Mother Wit to decide the
+question, and she was but a few seconds in doing so.
+
+"Why, of course! It's not late," she said. "We shall stay but a minute this
+time, Miss Steele."
+
+"Call me Janet," whispered the Red Cross girl, squeezing Laura's arm as
+they went through the sagging gate.
+
+The quartette climbed the steep steps to the piazza. That the Eaton house
+was in bad repair was proved by the broken boards in steps and piazza floor
+and the dilapidated condition of the railing. Even the lock of the front
+door was broken. Janet turned the knob and ushered them into the dimly-lit
+hall.
+
+This was neatly if sparsely furnished. And everything seemed scrupulously
+clean. Their young hostess opened the door into her mother's room, which
+was that originally intended for the parlor.
+
+The eager and curious girls of Central High saw first of all the figure of
+the woman in the wheel chair by the window. She had pulled down the shade
+now and dropped the curtains into place. The whole room was warm and well
+lighted. There was a gas chandelier lighted to the full and an open grate
+heaped with red coals. There was a good rug, comfortable chairs, and a
+canopied bed set in a corner. A tea-table with furnishings was drawn up
+near the fireplace. If one was obliged to spend one's time in a single
+room, this apartment seemed amply furnished for such a condition.
+
+Mrs. Steele herself was no wan and hopeless-looking invalid. She was as
+buxom as Janet, and Janet was as well built a girl, even, as Laura Belding.
+The invalid had shrunken none in body or limbs. She owned, too, a very
+attractive smile, and she held out both hands to greet her young visitors.
+
+"I am delighted!" she said in a strong, quick voice, which matched her
+smile and bright glance perfectly. "Why, Janey, you may go out every
+evening, if you will only bring back with you such a bevy of fresh, sweet
+faces. Introduce me--do!"
+
+The introductions were made amid considerable gaiety. Mother Wit took the
+lead in telling Mrs. Steele who they were. Later Janet related the accident
+on Market Street, which had led to her acquaintance with the three girls of
+Central High.
+
+Laura's keen eyes were not alone fixed upon Mrs. Steele while they talked.
+She took into consideration everything in the house. There was no mark of
+poverty; yet the Steeles lived in a house in a poor neighborhood and one
+that was positively out of repair, and they occupied only a small part of
+it.
+
+When the three girls came out again and Janet had gone in and closed the
+door, Laura was in a brown study.
+
+"Wake up, Mother Wit!" commanded Jess. "What do you think of the Steeles--
+and all?"
+
+All Laura Belding could say in comment, was:
+
+"Odd!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERY MAN
+
+
+The three boys who had set off to find the car that had knocked down the
+stranger on the icy street were as mysterious the next day as they could
+be. At least, so their girl friends declared.
+
+Being Sunday, there was no general gathering of the Central High girls and
+boys, but Laura, naturally, saw her brother early. He was coming from his
+shower in bathrobe and slippers when Laura looked out of her own door.
+
+"What sort of fox-and-goose chase did Short and Long take you and Lance
+away on?" she demanded.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that he was altogether foolish," said Chet doubtfully.
+
+"Then did you really find some trace of the car?" cried Laura, eagerly.
+
+"Well, we found a car. Yes."
+
+"'Goodness to gracious!' as poor Lizzie Bean says. You are
+noncommunicative, Chetwood Belding. What do you mean--you found a car?"
+
+"Laura," said her brother, "I don't know--nor does Lance, or Short and
+Long--whether the fellow we suspect had anything to do with that accident
+or not."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And we don't want to get him in wrong."
+
+"Who is it?" demanded his sister, bluntly.
+
+"No. We won't tell anybody who it is we suspect until we make further
+investigations."
+
+"I declare, you are as mysterious as a regular detective! And suppose the
+police do make inquiries?"
+
+"They will, of course,"
+
+"And what will you boys tell them?"
+
+"Pooh!" returned Chet, going on to his room to dress, "they won't ask us
+because they don't know we know anything about it"
+
+"I guess you don't know much!" shouted Laura after him before he closed his
+door.
+
+It was the same when Jess Morse met Lance Darby on the way to Sunday
+School.
+
+"Ho, Launcelot!" she cried. "Tell us all the news--that is a good child.
+Who was that awful person who ran down the man last night? I hear from Dr.
+Agnew that they had to patch the poor victim up a good deal at the
+hospital. Did you boys find the guilty party?"
+
+"I don't know that we did," said Darby. "You see, nobody seemed to see the
+license number of the automobile."
+
+"But didn't Short and Long have suspicions?"
+
+"Well, what are suspicions?" demanded the boy. "We all agreed to say
+nothing about it unless we have proof. And we haven't any proof--as yet."
+
+"Why, I believe you are 'holding out' on your friends, Lance," declared
+Jess, in surprise. "For shame!"
+
+"Aw, ask Chet--if you must know!" exclaimed Lance, hurrying away.
+
+As it chanced it was Bobby Hargrew who attempted to play inquisitor with
+Short and Long, meeting the boy with the youngest Long, Tommy, on the
+slippery hill of Nugent Street Tommy was so bundled up in a "Teddy Bear"
+costume that he could scarcely trudge along, and he held tightly to his
+brother's hand.
+
+"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed Bobby, when she saw Tommy slipping all over
+the icy sidewalk, "what is the matter with that boy?"
+
+"He hasn't got his sea-legs on," grinned Short and Long.
+
+"You mean to tell me he is nearly five years old and can walk no better
+than _that?_" exclaimed Bobby teasingly. "Why, we have a little dog at home
+that isn't even a year old yet, and he can ran right over this ice. He can
+walk twice as good as Tommy does."
+
+"Hoh!" exclaimed that youngster defensively. "That dog's got twice as many
+legs as I have."
+
+"Right you are, Kid!" chuckled his brother. "He got you there, Clara."
+
+"And did you boys get that man who ran the poor fellow down on Market
+Street last night?" demanded Bobby, with interest. "Did you have him
+arrested?"
+
+"No. What do you suppose? We're not going around snitching to the police,"
+growled Short and Long.
+
+"But if that man at the hospital is seriously hurt----"
+
+"Oh, we're not sure it's the right car," said the boy, and evidently did
+not wish to talk about it.
+
+"Billy Long!" exclaimed the girl. "Are you boys trying to defend the guilty
+person?"
+
+"Aw----"
+
+"Suppose that man at the hospital dies?"
+
+"Pshaw! He wasn't hurt as bad as all that."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because I've been to the hospital to find out He's got a broken leg and a
+broken head----"
+
+"Is he conscious yet?" demanded Bobby Hargrew quickly.
+
+"No-o. They say he doesn't know anybody--and nobody knows who he is."
+
+"Now you see!" cried the girl "Maybe he will die! And you boys will let the
+man who did it get away."
+
+"Oh, he won't get away," grumbled Short and Long. "We know where to find
+him when we want to."
+
+"You'd better let the police know where to find him," said Bobby tartly.
+
+"You're not the police, Bobby Hargrew!" returned Short and Long, grinning
+and going on with Tommy.
+
+The girls, of course, got together and compared notes and decided that the
+boys were "real mean, so now!" To pay Chet and Lance and Billy Long for
+being so secretive about the person they suspected of having caused the
+injury to the stranger Saturday evening, the three girls went alone that
+Sunday afternoon to the hospital to inquire after the injured man.
+
+And there they met Janet Steele again. The Red Cross girl had been making
+inquiries, too, about the same case.
+
+"It really is a very serious matter," Janet said to her new friends. "The
+man who knocked him down should be found. Although the doctors think he has
+no internal injuries after all, there is a compound fracture which will
+keep him in bed for a long time, and in addition he seems unable to give
+any satisfactory explanation of who he is or where he comes from."
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Jess Morse. "Do you mean he has lost his mind?"
+
+"Merely mislaid it," said Janet with a smile. "Or, at least, he cannot
+remember his name and address."
+
+"Didn't he have any papers about him that explain those points?" asked
+Laura.
+
+"That seems to be odd, too," said Janet "No. Not a mark on his clothing,
+either. But he was plentifully supplied with money, and all the bills were
+brand new."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Laura. "That reminds me. That funny bill he passed on Chet
+was brand new, too. I wonder if all his money is queer?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Janet, wonderingly. "Is the man a criminal, do
+you think?"
+
+Laura and Jess explained about the peculiarly printed bill, which had given
+the first named so much trouble in making up her father's accounts the
+evening before.
+
+"But that may be all explained in time," said Janet.
+
+"All right," grumbled Bobby Hargrew. "But suppose poor Chet has to lose
+fifty dollars?"
+
+"Father is going to take the bill to the bank to-morrow to see if they can
+explain the mystery," Laura said.
+
+"But that will not explain the mystery of the stranger." said Jess. "Why,
+he is a regular 'man of mystery,' isn't he?"
+
+"Humph!" said Bobby. "And so is the fellow the boys think ran him down. He
+is a man of mystery as well."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SAND IN THE GEARS
+
+
+Since the whole school had taken such a tremendous interest in "the
+profession" at the time Central High blossomed forth in Jess Morse's play,
+the M.O.R.s had given several playlets, and Mrs. Case, the physical
+instructor, had staged folk dances and tableaux in the big hall.
+
+For the Red Cross the association of girls connected with the Girls Branch
+Athletic League that had carried forward these smaller affairs, had
+determined to stage "a real play." Nellie Agnew, the doctor's daughter, and
+secretary of the club, had sent to a publisher for copies of plays that
+could be put on by amateurs, and interest in the affair waxed high already.
+
+The principal point of decision was the identity of the play they were to
+produce. Mr. Sharp and the other members of the school faculty had agreed
+to let the girls act, and the big hall, or auditorium, could be used for
+the production. At noon on Monday the girls interested in the performance
+met in the principals office to decide upon the play.
+
+"And of course," grumbled Bobby Hargrew to the Lockwood twins, Dora and
+Dorothy, "all the teachers have got to come and interfere. We can't do a
+sol-i-ta-ry thing without Gee Gee, or Miss Black, or some of them, poking
+their noses into it."
+
+"You can't say that Professor Dimp pokes his nose into our affairs,"
+laughed Dora.
+
+"No, indeed," said her twin. "Outside of his Latin and physics he doesn't
+seem to have a single idea."
+
+"Doesn't he?" scoffed Bobby. "The boys say he's gone into the dressmaking
+business, or something."
+
+"What is that?" asked Dora, smiling. "What do they mean?"
+
+"Why, the professor's niece is living with him now. He is not much used to
+having a woman in his sitting-room, I guess. She sits and sews with him in
+the evening while he reads or corrects our futile work," said Bobby,
+grinning.
+
+"The other night Ellie Lingard--that's his niece--lost her scissors and she
+said they hunted all over the room for them. The next morning in one of the
+physics classes the professor opened his book, and there were the lost
+scissors, which he had tucked into it for a bookmark while he helped Ellie
+Lingard hunt for her lost property."
+
+"Oh, oh!" laughed the twins.
+
+"The worst of it was," continued Bobby, with an elfish grin, "Old Dimple
+grabbed them up and said right out loud: 'Oh, here they are, Ellie!' The
+boys just hooted, and poor Old Dimp was as mad as a hatter."
+
+"The poor old man," said Dorothy commiseratingly.
+
+It was a fact that, although Professor Dimp did not interfere in this play
+business, most of the other teachers desired to have their opinions
+considered. The girls would not have minded Mr. Sharp. Indeed, they courted
+his advice. But when Miss Grace Gee Carrington stood up to speak, some of
+them audibly groaned.
+
+Miss Carrington was Mr. Sharp's assistant and almost in complete control of
+the girls of the school. At least, the girls came in contact with her much
+more than they did with Mr. Sharp himself.
+
+She was a very stiff and precise woman, with an acrid temper and a sharp
+tongue. She had been teaching unruly girls for so many years that she was
+to a degree quite soured upon the world--especially that world of school
+which she had so much to do with.
+
+Of late, however, Miss Carrington had become interested "quite in a human
+way," her girls said, in a person who had first appeared to the ken of the
+girls of Central High as a Gypsy girl. Margit Salgo's father, a Hungarian
+Gypsy musician, had married Miss Carrington's sister, much against the
+desire of Miss Grace Gee Carrington herself. When the orphaned Margit found
+her way to Centerport she made such an impression upon her aunt's heart
+that the latter finally took the girl into her own home and adopted her as
+"Margaret Carrington."
+
+That, however, could not change Miss Carrington's nature. She was severe
+and (in the opinion of fly-away Bobby Hargrew) she was much inclined to
+interfere in the girls' affairs. On this occasion the girls were not
+disappointed when Miss Carrington "said her little say."
+
+"I approve of any acceptable attempt to raise funds for such a worthy
+object as this we have in mind," said Miss Carrington. "An exhibition which
+will interest the school in general and our parents and friends likewise,
+meets, I am sure, with the approval of us all. Some of our young ladies, I
+feel quite sure, show some talent for playing, and much interest therein.
+Without meaning to pun, I would add that I wish they showed as great talent
+for work as for play."
+
+"She could not help giving us that dig, if she were to be martyred for it,"
+Nellie Agnew whispered to Laura.
+
+"Sh! She'll see your lips move," warned Dora Lockwood, on the other side of
+the doctor's daughter. "I believe she has learned lip reading."
+
+Miss Carrington went on quite calmly: "The first consideration, however, it
+seems to me, is the selection of the play. I should not wish to see the
+standard of Central High lowered by the acting of a play that would cater
+only to the amusement-loving crowd. It should be educational. We should
+achieve in a small way what the Greek players tried to teach--a love of
+beauty, of form, of some great truth that can be inculcated in this way on
+the public mind."
+
+"But, Miss Carrington!" cried Bess Yeager, one of the seniors, almost
+interrupting the staid teacher, "we want to make money for the Red Cross.
+We could not get a room full with a Greek play."
+
+"I beg Miss Yeager's pardon," said Miss Carrington stiffly. "We have our
+standard of education to uphold first of all."
+
+"I hope you will excuse me, Miss Carrington," said Laura, likewise rising
+to object. "Our first object is to give the people something that will
+amuse them so that they will crowd the auditorium. Otherwise our object
+will not have been achieved. This is a purely money-making scheme," added
+the jeweler's daughter with her low, sweet laugh.
+
+"I am amazed to hear you say so!" exclaimed the instructor, quick for
+argument at any time. "Have you young ladies no higher desire than to make
+the rabble laugh?"
+
+"I want you to know," muttered Jess Morse, "that my mother is coming, and
+she isn't 'rabble.'"
+
+Perhaps it was fortunate that Miss Carrington did not hear this comment.
+But she could not fail to hear some of the others made by the girls. There
+was earnest protest in all parts of the room. Mr. Sharp brought them to
+order.
+
+"Miss Carrington has, under ordinary circumstances, made an excellent
+point, and I want you all to notice it," said the principal. "We are an
+educational institution here on the hill. If we were giving a class play,
+or anything like that, I should vote for Miss Carrington's idea. At such a
+time something primarily educational should be in order.
+
+"But as I understand it, you young ladies are going to act for the benefit
+of the Red Cross fund, and what will benefit that fund the most is the
+drawing together of a well-paying crowd to see you act.
+
+"I am afraid we shall have to set aside our own desires, Miss Carrington,"
+he continued, smiling at his assistant. "We must let the actors choose
+their own play--as long as it is a proper one--and abide for once by the
+decision of those of our friends who wish to be amused rather than
+educated."
+
+"He's half backing her up!" complained Dora.
+
+"Well, he has to pour oil on the troubled waters," whispered Laura.
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Bobby Hargrew. "But Gee Gee is determined to throw sand in
+the gears, not oil on the waters. She always does."
+
+Really, Miss Carrington seemed in an interfering mood that day. Nellie had
+a collection of plays from which they were supposed to choose that very
+session the one to be acted. There was but brief time to learn the parts
+and the acting directions. But Mr. Mann, who had directed them in other
+plays, said he thought he would be able to whip the girls into shape for a
+performance in two weeks. Although they were amateurs, they had all had
+some experience.
+
+When the girls themselves got a chance to talk it was shown that their
+desires were all for a parlor comedy with bright lines, some farcical turns
+to the plot, but a play of sufficient weight to gain the approval of
+sober-minded people. It was, however, far from being classic.
+
+"Such a play is preposterous!" ejaculated Miss Carrington, breaking out
+again. "Don't you think so yourself, Mr. Sharp?"
+
+The principal had the book in his hand and was skimming through some of the
+dialogue. If the truth was told he was on a broad grin.
+
+"I don't know about that, Miss Carrington. It--it is really very funny."
+
+"'Funny!'" gasped his assistant, with all the emphasis she dared show in
+the presence of the principal. "As though to make fun should be our
+target!"
+
+"What would you like to have us play?" asked Bobby, daringly. "Julius
+Caesar? If we do, I want to play old Julius. He dies in the first act. The
+rest of us would be killed lingeringly by the audience, I know, before the
+last."
+
+"Miss Hargrew!" snapped the teacher. Then she remembered that this was not
+a recitation and she could not easily punish the girl. She shook her head
+and looked offended during the remainder of the discussion.
+
+"But you know very well," snapped Lily Pendleton, a rather overdressed
+girl, as they all crowded out of the schoolhouse after the meeting, "that
+Gee Gee will do her wickedest to spoil it all."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Laura. "Not when it is for the Red Cross!"
+
+"It wouldn't matter what the object was," said Jess morosely. "She always
+does try to crab the game."
+
+"Goodness, Josephine!" gasped her chum, "you are positively as slangy as
+Chet."
+
+"I guess I catch it from him," admitted Jess Morse. "And she is a crab!"
+
+"Now girls!" called Nellie, a regular Martha for trouble at the present
+moment. "Now girls, remember the 'sides' will be here day after tomorrow,
+and Mr. Mann will look us over and give out the parts that afternoon in the
+small hall. Nobody must be absent. We want this show to be the biggest
+success that ever was."
+
+"It won't be if Gee Gee can help it," growled Bobby Hargrew, shaking her
+curls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BANK-NOTE
+
+
+"There's one sure thing about it," Lance Darby said to Laura when she told
+him of the way in which Miss Carrington had tried to interfere with the
+girls' choice of the play, "she cannot butt into the Ice Carnival
+arrangements. Nobody but your Mrs. Case and our Mr. Haskins has anything to
+say about the Carnival Committee's arrangements."
+
+"Oh! Indeed?" laughed Laura. "There you are mistaken about the far-reaching
+influence of our Miss Carrington."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You forget that our share of the Carnival is under the jurisdiction of the
+Girls Branch League, and in the constitution and by-laws of that
+association it is stated that none of us girls can take part in any
+exhibition without the consent of our teachers, and without, indeed, having
+a certain standing in all branches of study. Miss Carrington can get her
+word in right there."
+
+"Wow, wow! That's so, I presume," admitted Lance.
+
+"But we have gone so far now," said Laura complacently, "that I don't think
+even Bobby will be refused permission to join in the festivities--and Bobby
+is a splendid little skater, Lance."
+
+"Bobby is all right," agreed the youth. "But here comes old Chet--and his
+face is as long as the moral law. He is still worried about that fifty
+dollars he may have to dig down into his jeans for--if your father sticks
+to what he said he'd do."
+
+Chetwood had a cheerful word, however, despite his serious aspect.
+
+"Have you seen the ice, Lance?" he demanded, brightening up.
+
+"Not to-day, old boy."
+
+"It's scrumptious--just!" exclaimed the big fellow. "They have been shaving
+it, and have got it all roped off."
+
+"Better have somebody watch it, too, or the kids from downtown will get in
+there and cut it all up. Just like 'em," growled Lance.
+
+"Don't fret. Old Godey is on guard. Trust him to keep the kids off the
+track," said Chet. "Is father at home, Laura?"
+
+"He's just come in," said his sister. "Has he found out about that
+bank-note yet?"
+
+"That is what I wanted to know," said the worried Chet. "I've been over to
+the hospital this afternoon--before I went down to the lake shore. That,
+chap who was hurt is off his nanny----"
+
+"Chet! Don't let mother hear you," begged Laura, yet laughing.
+
+"I wouldn't want the mater to be shocked," admitted Chet. "But that is
+exactly what is the trouble with that man who gave me the phony bill. The
+doctor told me the crack he got on the head had injured his brain."
+
+"The poor man!" sighed his sister.
+
+"What about 'poor me'?" demanded Chet indignantly. "And they say he carried
+a roll of brand new bills big enough to choke a cow! The doctor says he
+thinks the money is good, too. But he passed that hundred-dollar note on
+me----"
+
+"If it is a hundred," interjected Lance.
+
+"Now you said a forkful," grumbled Chet, shaking his head. "Let's go in and
+see what father has to say about it. He was going to see Mr. Monroe at the
+First National. They say Mr. Monroe knows all about money--knew the fellow
+who invented it, personally, I guess."
+
+The young folks found Mr. Belding in the library, and he welcomed them with
+his customary smile when the three came in.
+
+"The bank-note?" he repeated. "I left it for Mr. Monroe to look at. He was
+out of town. But he will tell me when he returns--if he knows about it. It
+is a curious thing. And I hope it will teach you a lesson, Chetwood."
+
+"Sure!" grumbled Chet, "Of course, there is nothing so important in this
+world as learning lessons. Little thing about me being nicked fifty dollars
+isn't considered."
+
+His father laughed at his rueful countenance. "Well, Son, I can't offer you
+much sympathy. Perhaps the Treasury Department will make it right. And how
+about that man who gave it to you? He can't get far with a broken leg."
+
+"He's gone far enough already," declared Chet. "They say he has lost his
+memory."
+
+"What's that?" cried Mr. Belding.
+
+"Looks fishy, doesn't it?" said Lance. "Lots of folks who owe money lose
+their memories."
+
+"No," said Chet, shaking his head. "This chap really got a hard bang on the
+head, and the doctors say he may never remember who he is."
+
+"Lost his identity?" demanded Mr. Belding.
+
+"Completely. At least, he doesn't know his name or where he came from. He
+remembers a part of his life, they say, for he seems to think he has been
+in Alaska. Asked the nurse, in fact, how long Sitka had had such a hospital
+as this. Thought he was in Sitka, you see."
+
+"Why, isn't it strange?" Laura said. "The poor fellow!"
+
+"He's not poor, I tell you," said the literal Chet.
+
+"He's got a lot of money. But not a card, or a mark about him--not even on
+his clothes--to tell who he is."
+
+"How about his hat?" questioned Lance. "And his suit? The labels, I mean."
+
+"The hat was brand new," said Chet, "and was bought right here in
+Centerport. Oh, the hospital folks have been trying through the police to
+find out something about him. Nothing doing, they say."
+
+"Why," said Mr. Belding thoughtfully, "there must be some way of
+discovering who the unfortunate is, even if he cannot remember himself."
+
+"Who do you mean, Pa, by 'the unfortunate'?" demanded his son. "I should
+think I was the unfortunate. Especially if that bank-note is phony."
+
+"But you did not get a broken leg--and a broken head--out of it," his
+father said dryly.
+
+"That's all right," muttered Chet "But I am likely to have a broken
+pocketbook, all right all right!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING EXCITING
+
+
+Mr. Belding was not unmindful of his son's anxiety regarding the odd
+bank-note that Chet had taken over the counter in the jewelry store.
+Besides, Laura sat herself upon the arm of his big Morris chair after
+dinner that Monday evening, and said:
+
+"You know, dear Pa, Chet is a pretty good boy. And fifty dollars is much
+more money than he can afford to lose--all in one bunch."
+
+"Indeed?" said her father indignantly. "And how about me? With my expensive
+family, do you think I can afford to lose fifty dollars? And the boy is
+careless."
+
+"I deny it," said Laura briskly.
+
+"Chet! not careless?"
+
+"Only thoughtless."
+
+"What is the difference?"
+
+"Academic, or moral?" demanded Mother Wit, looking at him slyly.
+
+"Oh, well, it doesn't pay to split hairs with you," declared her father,
+pinching a warm cheek until it was rosier than ever. "But what's the big
+idea, as Chet himself would say?"
+
+"Why, now, Pa Belding----"
+
+"Out with it! What do you want me to do?"
+
+"I--I thought if you'd make Chet pay only half of the fifty dollars, that
+perhaps you lost----"
+
+"Well?" he growled, in apparent indignation still.
+
+"Why, I would pay the other twenty-five!" burst out Laura hurriedly. "Only
+you must promise not to tell Chet."
+
+"What do you mean? To pay half his fine?"
+
+"Well, you don't need to halloo so about it, Pa dear," she pouted.
+
+"I wouldn't let you!"
+
+"Oh, yes you would. You know it is going to be awfully hard on Chet to take
+that money out of the bank to pay you."
+
+"There, there!" said Mr. Belding gruffly. "We won't talk about it--yet.
+Perhaps we'll find the bank-note is all right."
+
+But he said afterward to his wife that evening: "What are we going to do
+with such children, Mother? You can't punish one without hurting the other
+right to the quick."
+
+"We have been blessed in our children, Henry," said Mrs. Belding proudly.
+"And--really--Chet should not be too much blamed."
+
+"There, there!" exclaimed her husband in a disgusted tone of voice. "You're
+every whit as bad as Laura."
+
+Mr. Monroe did not return to the bank for several days; and meanwhile other
+important and interesting things were happening. The three boys who seemed
+to have secret knowledge about the accident on Market Street refused to
+answer the questions of their girl friends as to the identity of the car
+that had run the victim down.
+
+"You are just the meanest boys!" flared out Bobby Hargrew, as they all
+trooped down to Lake Luna to take almost the last look at the roped-off
+arena before the carnival would twinkle its lights that evening at six
+o'clock.
+
+"I don't know, Bobby," drawled Chet. "I believe we really could be meaner
+if we tried."
+
+"No you couldn't!" snapped Clara Hargrew with finality.
+
+"Oh, girls!" gasped Laura suddenly, "tell me what this is coming up the
+hill? Or am I seeing something that you folks don't?"
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed the slangy Bobby, forgetting her indignation with Chet and
+the other boys. "Is it? Can it be?"
+
+"Pretty Sweet!" ejaculated Jess, beginning to laugh. "And he is in his
+forest green hunting suit. _I_ call it his 'Robin Ridinghood' suit."
+
+"It just matches him, all right," said Lance. "He's verdant green and so is
+the suit. And look how he is carrying that gun, will you?"
+
+The gun was in its case, but the boy in question was carrying the shotgun
+in a most awkward manner. Without a doubt he was half afraid of it.
+
+"And I bet he hasn't had a charge in it all the time he's been out. Who did
+he go with?" asked Chet.
+
+"Some of the East Siders. They cater to him a lot, and you know," said
+Lance, with disgust, "tight as Purt is with money, if you flatter him you
+can pull his leg."
+
+"Dear me!" murmured Laura, "it is not in your province to use such slang,
+Lance. Leave that to Chet and Bobby."
+
+"Hey, Pretty!" Chet shouted to the very dandified lad, as he crossed the
+street toward them. "What luck, old top?"
+
+Although when they had first seen him, Prettyman Sweet was undoubtedly
+footsore, he began to strut now and pride "fairly exuded from his
+countenance," as Jess whispered to her chum.
+
+"Did you get any cottontails?" demanded Lance.
+
+"Oh, a few--a few, muh boy," declared Pretty Sweet airily.
+
+Then they saw that he had a game bag slung over his shoulder in true
+sportsman style.
+
+"I did not suppose you would go out to shoot the poor, innocent little
+rabbits, Mr. Sweet," said Laura, with sober face but dancing eyes. "They
+have never done you any harm."
+
+"I bet a real bad rabbit would make Purt run," muttered Bobby.
+
+"Oh, Miss Belding!" said the school dandy. "You know I'm awf'ly keen on
+sport--awf'ly keen, doncher know. I just _have_ to get a day now and then
+in the woods, when game is in season."
+
+"He's as keen on it as the two Irishmen were, who went hunting for the
+first time," broke in Bobby. "When they sighted a bird sitting on a bush
+Meehan took very careful aim and prepared to fire. Said his friend,
+grabbing him by the arm:
+
+"'Don't fire, Meehan! Shure an' yez haven't loaded yer gun.'
+
+"'That's as it may be, me lad,' retorted Meehan, 'but fire I must. The
+bur-rd won't wait!'"
+
+Prettyman Sweet was used to being laughed at, yet he flushed at the gibe.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "I bring home the game, just the same."
+
+"You 'bring home the bacon,' in other words," said Chet, approaching him.
+"Let's see the bunnies?"
+
+Nothing loath, the overdressed boy opened the bag and displayed his
+plunder. He brought two big hares out of the bag by their ears and held
+them up with pride.
+
+"Bet they were trapped," said Bobby in an undertone.
+
+"They were not trapped!" cried Purt Sweet sharply. "See! That is where one
+was shot! And there is the other--see?"
+
+"Jinks!" said Lance. "Both through the head. _You_ never did it, Purt?"
+
+"I did so!" cried the huntsman angrily. "I shot them both."
+
+Chet was looking them over closely. He shook his head.
+
+"They have been shot all right," he said. "And you shot them over there on
+Cavern Island?"
+
+"I can prove it," said Purt haughtily.
+
+"That's all right," said Chet thoughtfully. "You may have shot them--and on
+Cavern Island. But whose rabbits were they before you bought them?"
+
+"What? I--Oh!"
+
+Bobby and Jess began to giggle. Chet grinned as he added:
+
+"Those are Belgian hares, not rabbits, Pretty. Somebody has put something
+over on you. Belgian hares don't run wild in the woods of Cavern Island--
+that is sure."
+
+"Bet he shot them hanging up on a fence," snapped Short and Long, who thus
+far had said never a word to Prettyman Sweet.
+
+"And I know the market to-day is full of Belgian hares," chuckled Chet.
+"Oh, Purt! you never could pull off anything like that on us in a hundred
+years."
+
+"I don't care--I--I--"
+
+The angry Purt snatched up his game bag and marched away.
+
+"That he's been caught in the trick puts a crimp in him," chuckled Chet
+Belding.
+
+"And that isn't all that ought to happen to him," muttered Short and Long,
+who seemed to have become suddenly very bitter against the dandified Sweet.
+
+"Can it, Billy, can it," advised Lance. "Give a calf rope enough and he
+will hang himself."
+
+"And maybe that fellow ought to be hung," was Short and Long's further
+comment.
+
+"Why, Billy!" exclaimed Laura, "what ever do you mean?"
+
+"Yes, Short and Long," said Jess. "Why the 'orrid hobservation about poor
+Purt?"
+
+Perhaps Billy Long would have blurted out something, had not another
+incident taken place which so excited all the young people that they forgot
+Purt Sweet and his foibles.
+
+The group had reached Lakeside Avenue, which overlooked many shore estates
+and some private docks. This was the residential end of Centerport, and the
+vicinity in summer was lovely. Now the outlook on Lake Luna's sparkling
+surface--frozen in a sheen of ice to the shore of Cavern Island in the
+middle of the lake--was wonderfully attractive.
+
+At the foot of Nugent Street, which they now reached, the girls and boys
+from Central High heard suddenly a great shouting and peals of laughter
+from up the hill. Some snow still lay on the side of Nugent Street; and the
+hill was a glare of ice. Down the steep descent were coming three or four
+heavy sleds loaded with young folks. Many of them were girls and boys of
+Central High.
+
+"Some coasting!" exclaimed Chet. "I had no idea it was so good. We ought to
+get our bob out, Lance."
+
+"Oh, see, Laura!" murmured Jess. "There comes Janet Steele. She must have
+been canvassing for Red Cross members away over here. I wish we had time to
+do some of that work."
+
+The Red Cross girl appeared from around a turn in the avenue, and the
+instant she spied her new friends she waved her gloved hand.
+
+"Is that the girl who gave first-aid to the man on Market Street Saturday
+night?" asked Chet.
+
+"Some little queen, isn't she?" rejoined Lance, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Oh," said Laura placidly, "you needn't think that you can get us girls
+jealous about Janet Steele. She is an awfully sweet girl."
+
+"And she isn't little at all," put in Jess, tossing her head. "She is as
+husky as Eve Sitz."
+
+Before they could say more, or further hail the Red Cross girl, there was a
+crash and terrific rattling around the turn of the avenue. The next instant
+a horse appeared, madly galloping along the roadway, and drawing the
+shattered remains of a grocery wagon after him.
+
+The maddened beast would, so it seemed, cross the foot of Nugent Street
+just as the bobsleds shot down to that point. Across the avenue was a steep
+bank against which the sleds were easily halted. But they could not be
+stopped before they crossed Lakeside Avenue!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FOREFRONT OF TROUBLE
+
+
+The three boys drew Laura and her girl friends into the gateway of a
+residence that faced the lake. The Red Cross girl was on the other side of
+Nugent Street, and the runaway horse was coming along the avenue behind
+her.
+
+Chet would have leaped away to her assistance had not Jess grabbed him by
+the arm and screamed. The sleds were almost at the crossing, and surely
+Chet Belding would have been knocked down.
+
+Janet Steele proved to be perfectly able to look out for herself. And on
+this occasion she could even do more than that.
+
+She whirled and saw the horse coming with the wrecked wagon. She could not
+see up the hill of Nugent Street, for the corner house barred her vision in
+that direction. But without doubt she had heard the eager shouts of the
+coasters and understood what was ahead of them.
+
+The runaway would cross the foot of the hill just in time, perhaps, to
+collide with one or more of the bobsleds.
+
+Almost opposite the foot of Nugent Street and right beside the steep bank
+against which the coasters had been wont to stop their sleds, was a narrow
+lane pitching toward the lakeshore. This lane was near Janet Steele.
+
+Chet saw it and realized how the horse might be turned. But the boy was too
+far away. Even as he shook off Jess Morse's frenzied hold on his arm, the
+runaway was upon Janet Steele.
+
+The latter had whipped off the Red Cross veil she wore. Seizing it by both
+extremes she allowed the veil to float out on the brisk winter breeze,
+darting with it into the street.
+
+The runaway's glaring eyes caught sight of the flapping folds of the veil,
+and he swerved, his hoofs sliding on the slippery drive. The eyes of a
+horse magnify objects tremendously, and the girl's figure and her flowing
+veil probably looked to the frightened animal like some awful and
+threatening bogey.
+
+Scrambling and snorting, he swerved to the side of the road, saw the open
+lane, and the next moment thundered into it, the broken wagon skidding
+across the lane and smashing into a gatepost.
+
+It was at the same instant that the head sled came sweeping down Nugent
+Street, crossed the avenue, and stood almost on end against the bank,
+stopping abruptly in the snow bank.
+
+The other sleds poured down and stopped; but none had been in so much
+danger as that first one. Laura and Chet and their friends started on the
+run for the spot--and for Janet Steele.
+
+"Oh! _Oh! OH!_" shrieked in crescendo one girl who had ridden on the first
+bobsled. "We might have been killed!"
+
+Some of the boys ran after the horse. The rest of the young people
+surrounded Janet Steele.
+
+"How brave you were," murmured Jess Morse admiringly.
+
+"You've got a head on you, sure enough!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew, while the
+Red Cross girl, blushing and with downcast eyes, began hastily to adjust
+her veil again.
+
+"Oh, it was nothing," murmured Janet.
+
+"Tell it to Lily. Here comes Lily Pendleton," said Jess, smiling again.
+"She won't think it was nothing."
+
+The girl who had shrieked so loudly came up quickly to the group of Central
+High girls.
+
+"Did you turn that horse?" she demanded of Janet Steele. "You are a regular
+duck! We might have all been killed! I never will ride down a hill with
+Freddy Brubach again! There should have been somebody down here to signal
+that we were coming!"
+
+"Guess the horse would not have paid much attention to signals, Lil,"
+laughed Laura.
+
+"Only the kind that Miss Steele waved," added Bobby.
+
+"Is that your name?" Lily Pendleton asked the Red Cross girl. "I'm awfully
+glad to know you."
+
+"And much gladder that she was right on the job here when the horse came
+along, aren't you, Lil?" chuckled Bobby.
+
+"She ought to have a medal," declared one of the other girls.
+
+"Let's write to Mr. Carnegie about her," proposed Jess, but good-naturedly,
+and hugged Janet now that she had rearranged her veil.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" gasped Janet Steele, "please don't make so much over so
+little. I shall almost be sorry that I turned the horse into the lane. And
+it was a little thing. I am not afraid of horses."
+
+"A mere medal is nothing to Miss Steele, I bet," said Bobby, the emphatic.
+"I expect she has a trunk full of 'em. Like the German army officer who had
+his chest covered with iron crosses and medals and the like. Somebody asked
+him how he came to get them all.
+
+"'Vell,' he said, pointing to the biggest and shiniest medal, 'I got dot py
+meestake; undt dey gif me de odders pecause I got dot one!'"
+
+"Oh, you and your jokes, Bobby!" said Lily Pendleton, with some scorn.
+"This was a serious business. And there is another very serious matter,
+girls, that I have to call to your attention," she added, turning to Laura
+and Jess.
+
+"What has gone wrong? Nothing about the play, I hope!" cried Jess.
+
+"It is worse, because it is right at hand," said Lily, shaking her head.
+"What do you suppose Miss Carrington has done?"
+
+"Oh, Gee Gee!" groaned Bobby, in despair. "I knew she would break out in a
+fresh spot."
+
+"Do tell us what it is," begged Jess Morse.
+
+"It is about Hessie," said Lily.
+
+"Hester Grimes?" demanded Laura, with a rather grim expression. "What has
+happened to her now?"
+
+"Why!" cried Lily, rather sharply, "you speak as though Hessie was always
+getting into trouble."
+
+"You cannot deny but that she has frequently made a _faux pas,_ as it
+were," said Jess, smiling.
+
+"And what she does wrong," added Laura, with some bitterness, "usually
+affects the rest of us."
+
+"She did not do a thing wrong!" cried Lily stormily. "You girls are just
+too mean!"
+
+"Oh, come on, Lil," said Bobby. "Tell us the worst. We're prepared for
+murder, even."
+
+"You are very rude, Clara Hargrew," declared Lily Pendleton. "Hessie is not
+to blame. She failed in rhetoric, and when Miss Carrington tried to put a
+lot of home work on her she refused to take it."
+
+"What?" gasped Jess.
+
+"Oh! She did refuse, did she?" snapped Bobby. "And a fat lot that would
+help her!"
+
+"Well, I don't care!" cried Lily. "Gee Gee is just as mean----"
+
+"Granted!" agreed Bobby, with emphasis. "But tell us how much Hessie has
+been set back?"
+
+"Of course Miss Carrington has punished her if she was impudent," said
+Laura decidedly.
+
+"She has punished us all!" cried Lily. "She refuses to allow Hessie to
+skate to-night. She's out of it."
+
+"Out of the carnival?" cried several of her listeners in chorus.
+
+"And Hester," cried Bobby, "is in the Dress Parade. What did I tell you?
+Gee Gee was just hoping to queer us."
+
+"It is Hester Grimes who has queered us," Laura said, much more sternly
+than she usually spoke. "And we were all warned to be so careful!"
+
+"Now, don't blame Hessie!" cried Hester's chum angrily.
+
+"I'd like to know who we are to blame, then?" demanded Jess Morse, with
+disgust, "Knowing that Gee Gee is what she is, why couldn't Hester keep her
+own temper?"
+
+"Well! I just guess--"
+
+But after all it was Mother Wit who, though greatly offended, became
+peacemaker.
+
+"There, there!" she said. "Enough is done already. We shall miss Hester.
+But we mustn't get angry with each other and therefore spoil the whole
+Dress Parade. That masquerade should be the most spectacular number on the
+program."
+
+"But who will take Grimes' place?" demanded Bobby.
+
+Laura stood beside Janet Steele, whose eyes were wide open, her cheeks
+glowing, and even her lips ajar with excitement. Laura had a very keen
+mind, and already she had apprehended that Janet was more deeply interested
+in this discussion, and the subject of it, than a stranger naturally would
+be. She turned now to stare into the Red Cross girl's face.
+
+"Oh, Miss Steele!" she said, "didn't you tell us that you loved to skate?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Janet.
+
+"And she's as big as Hessie Grimes!" exclaimed Jess on the other side, and
+catching her chum's idea.
+
+"Would you take Hester's part in the masquerade?" asked Laura pointblank.
+
+"But she doesn't belong to Central High!" wailed Lily Pendleton.
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Jess. "What does it matter? This is all for a show.
+It is no competition with other members of the League."
+
+"Right-o, Jess!" crowed Bobby Hargrew.
+
+"We-ell!" murmured Lily doubtfully.
+
+"Come, Miss Steele--Janet," said Laura, pleadingly. "I know you can help
+us. Hester, being the biggest girl, was to lead in certain figures on the
+ice. You could easily learn them. And you can wear her costume, I know."
+
+"Why--I----"
+
+"You don't know anything of the kind, Laura Belding," snapped Lily,
+interrupting Janet. "I don't believe Hessie would let any other girl wear
+her masquerade suit."
+
+"Sure she wouldn't!" exclaimed Bobby, with disgust. "She'll crab the whole
+game if she can. Hester Grimes always was a nuisance."
+
+But Laura suddenly clapped her hands in real joy. "Oh, no!" she cried. "We
+won't ask Janet to wear any other girl's costume. I know what would be
+fine."
+
+"Let's hear it, Laura dear," said Jess, eagerly. "Of course, you would have
+a bright idea. You always do."
+
+"Why," said the pleased Laura, "if Janet will come and skate with us, she
+need only wear the very cloak and veil she has on now. What could be more
+fitting for a leader of our costume parade? The whole carnival is for the
+Red Cross, and with a Red Cross girl to lead the procession, and Chet in
+his Uncle Sam suit to lead the boys--Why! it will be the best ever."
+
+"Hooray!" shouted Bobby, wild with enthusiasm.
+
+"It is splendid!" agreed Jess.
+
+Everybody in hearing agreed, save, perhaps, Lily Pendleton. Laura turned to
+Janet again and clasped her gloved hands over the new girl's arm.
+
+"Will you, dear? Will you help us out?" she asked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE ICE CARNIVAL
+
+
+"Oh, Miss Laura! Do you really mean it?" murmured Janet Steele, her full
+pink cheeks actually becoming white she was so much in earnest.
+
+"Of course we mean it," Jess Morse said practically. "And glad to have
+you."
+
+"I don't know--"
+
+Janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced Lily Pendleton. Jess
+immediately pulled that young girl forward.
+
+"Why, Lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared Jess, laughing. "This
+is our very particular friend, Janet Steele, Lil. You've got to treat her
+nicely. If you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go
+camping with us girls again as you did last summer. You and your Hester
+Grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves."
+
+Really, Lily Pendleton had improved a good deal since the time Jess
+mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at
+once.
+
+"Well, of course," she said, offering Janet her hand, "I did not mean it
+just that way. You know how cranky Hessie is when she does get mad. But
+Laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. Miss Steele as a Red Cross
+girl and Chet as Uncle Sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates."
+
+So it was decided, and they hurried Janet down to the girls' boathouse,
+which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where Mr. Godey, the watchman,
+stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening
+skates. Laura found a pair of skates for the Red Cross girl, and for an
+hour the latter practiced with the girls of Central High the steps and
+figures of the masquerade parade, which Laura and her friends already had
+worked out to perfection.
+
+"Don't worry a bit about to-night, Janet," Laura told her, when they all
+hurried away from the lakeshore about dusk. "We'll push you through the
+figures. Jess and I will be on either side of you, except when we pair off
+with the boys. And then you will be with my brother Chet. And if he isn't
+nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor.
+
+"Oh, but Laura!" whispered Jess Morse, as they separated from Janet, "Chet
+mustn't be too nice to her. For Janet Steele is an awfully pretty girl."
+
+"Now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient
+jealousy."
+
+With only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls
+were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. That Hester Grimes
+had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by Gee Gee troubled the
+girls of Central High less than they might have been troubled had it been
+almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited.
+For, to tell the truth, Hester Grimes was not well loved.
+
+The daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, Hester had
+in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. With such
+rather shallow schoolmates as Lily Pendleton, Hester was successful. Lily
+toadied to her, to use Bobby Hargrew's expression; nor was Lily alone in
+this.
+
+Upon those whom Hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money
+lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy
+one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she
+lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for
+instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits Hester
+possessed.
+
+Hester antagonized almost everybody--teachers and students alike. Even
+placid, peace-loving Mother Wit, found Hester incompatible. And because
+Laura Belding was a natural leader and was very popular in the school,
+Hester disliked her and showed in every way possible that she would not
+follow in Laura's train. Yet there had been a time when Hester had felt
+under obligation to Laura.
+
+Laura was secretly glad to see Lily Pendleton weaned slowly away from the
+butcher's daughter. The last summer had started Lily in the right
+direction, and although the overdressed girl had still some weaknesses of
+character to overcome, she had greatly improved, as this incident of the
+afternoon revealed.
+
+Lily was not alone in complaining about Miss Carrington's harshness,
+however. It was the principal topic of conversation when the girls gathered
+in the boathouse rooms to prepare for the races and the features that were
+to precede the principal attraction of the carnival--the masquerade grand
+march.
+
+"Sh! She's right here now," whispered Bobby Hargrew sepulchrally, coming
+into the dressing-room. "She's on watch at the door."
+
+"Who?" asked Jess Morse.
+
+"Not Hester?" cried Lily. "She told me she wouldn't come down here!"
+
+"Gee Gee," shot back Bobby, with pursed lips. "She is going to be sure that
+Hester doesn't appear."
+
+"Mean thing!" Nellie Agnew said. And when the doctor's gentle daughter made
+such a statement she had to be fully aroused. "She thinks she has spoiled
+the whole act!"
+
+"I believe you," Bessie Yeager said. "I wonder if Miss Carrington really
+sleeps at night?"
+
+"Why not, Bess?" cried Dora Lockwood.
+
+"I think she lies awake thinking up mean things to do to us."
+
+"Oh, oh!" murmured Nellie.
+
+"I bet you!" exclaimed the slangy Bobby.
+
+"Careful, girls. If she hears you!" warned Laura.
+
+"Then you would be 'perspicuous au grautin,' as the fellow said," chuckled
+Bobby. "There! the whistle has sounded."
+
+"The fete has begun," sighed Jess. "I do hope everything will go off
+right."
+
+"The boys are taking in money all right," Laura said with satisfaction. "I
+believe we shall make a thousand dollars for the Red Cross."
+
+"I hope so," said her chum. "Come on, girls! It's first the fancy skating
+before the ice arena is all cut up."
+
+The effort to make the Ice Carnival of the Central High a success was aided
+by a perfect evening and perfect ice. The latter had been shaved and
+smoothed over every gnarly place. There was not a single crack in which a
+skate could be caught to throw the wearer. The arena roped off from the
+spectators was as smooth as a ballroom floor.
+
+It was about two acres in extent. Around three sides of the roped-off space
+there was a roped-off alley with boards laid upon the ice upon which the
+spectators could stand. Uprights held the strings of colored lights which
+were supplied with electricity from the city lighting company; for this was
+not the first exhibition of the kind that had been staged upon Lake Luna.
+
+Around the alley allotted to the audience, each member of which had to pay
+a half dollar for a ticket, was a guarded space so that those who did not
+pay entrance fee could not get near enough to enjoy the spectacle.
+
+The short-distance races, following the figure skating, were all within the
+oval of the principal arena. Then the ropes were taken down at one end and
+the long-distance races came off, a mile track having been marked with
+staffs upon the ice, staffs which now held the clusters of colored
+lanterns.
+
+For two hours the company was so well amused that few were driven away by
+the cold--and it was an intensely cold night The ringing of the skates on
+the almost adamantine ice revealed the fact that Jack Frost had a tight
+clutch on the waters of Lake Luna.
+
+"I wish my mother could have seen this," Janet Steele murmured to Laura
+Belding. "I think it is like fairyland."
+
+"Isn't it pretty? Now comes the torchlight procession. The boys arranged
+this their own selves. See if it isn't pretty!"
+
+The short end of the oval had been closed again after the long-distance
+races, and now there dashed into the arena from the boys' lane to the
+dressing-rooms a long line of figures in dominos, each bearing a colored
+light. They were the boys that could skate the best--the most sure-footed.
+
+Back and forth, around and around, in and out and across! The swift
+movement of the figures was well nigh bewildering; while the intermingling
+of colored lights, their weaving in and out, made a brilliant pattern that
+brought applause again and again from the spectators.
+
+Then the boys divided, taking stations some distance apart, and the torches
+were tossed from hand to hand, as Indian clubs are tossed in gymnasium
+exercises. The effect was spectacular and seemed a much more difficult
+exercise than it really was.
+
+Meanwhile the girls selected for the masquerade were dressing in the
+boathouse. Their masquerade costumes were as diverse and elaborate as
+though it were a ball they were attending. There was no dress as simple as
+Janet Steele's Red Cross uniform; yet with her glowing face and sparkling
+eyes and white teeth there were few more effective figures in the party.
+
+She had proved herself to be a fine and strong skater. Laura and Jess, who
+sponsored her, were delighted with the new girl's appearance on the ice.
+She had learned, too, her part quite perfectly. When the girls first came
+out and the boys darted back to get into their fancy costumes, the summary
+of the figures the girls wove on the ice were already known to Janet. She
+fulfilled her part.
+
+Then returned the boys, "all rigged out," Bobby said, and the masquerade
+parade began. The crowd standing about the arena cheered and shouted. It
+really was a most attractive grand march, and there chanced, better still,
+to be no accident. Smoothly the young people wended their way about the
+ice, their skates ringing, their supple bodies swaying in time to the
+music, led by those two masks of Uncle Sam and the Red Cross girl.
+
+"It is lovely," Mrs. Belding said to her husband. "What a fine skater our
+Chetwood is, Henry. And it is so near Christmas! I hope that bank-note will
+turn out to be a good one so that he will not lose the money," she finished
+wistfully.
+
+"There, there!" said the jeweler. "I'll go to see Monroe to-morrow. He's at
+home again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BUT WHO IS HE?
+
+
+"Well, Mr. Monroe," the jeweler said, when he was ushered into the banker's
+office the following forenoon by the bank watchman, "I presume that bill is
+a counterfeit of some kind?"
+
+"My dear Belding," said the banker, who was a portly and jolly man, who
+shook a good deal when he chuckled, and who shook now, "I thought you were
+old enough, and experienced enough, to discover the counterfeit from the
+real."
+
+"My son took the bill in over the counter," said the jeweler, rather
+chagrined.
+
+"But haven't you examined it?" said Mr. Monroe, taking the strange
+bank-note from a drawer of his desk.
+
+"Well--yes," was the admission, made grudgingly.
+
+"And are you not yet assured?"
+
+"Neither one way nor the other," frankly confessed the jeweler. "It was
+taken by Chet for a hundred-dollar bill. And it is that on one side!"
+
+"It certainly looks to be," chuckled Mr. Monroe.
+
+"But who ever heard of such a thing?" demanded the exasperated customer of
+the bank. "A hundred printed on one side and a fifty on the other! The
+printers of bank-notes do not make such mistakes."
+
+"Hold on! Nobody is infallible in this world--not even a bank-note
+printer," said the banker, reaching into another drawer and bringing forth
+a large indexed scrapbook.
+
+"Here's a case that happened some years ago. I am a scrapbook fiend,
+Belding," chuckled Mr. Monroe. "There were once two bills issued for a
+Kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. Only this note that
+we have here was printed for the Drovers' Levee Bank of Osage, Ohio, as you
+can easily see. This note went through that bank, was signed by Bedford
+Knox, cashier, and Peyton J. Weld, president, as you can see, and its
+peculiar printing was not discovered.
+
+"Ah, here we have it!" added Mr. Monroe, fluttering the stiff leaves of the
+scrapbook and finally coming to the article in question. "Listen here: 'It
+was found on communication with Washington that a record was held there of
+the bill, and the department was anxious to recall it. With another bill it
+had been printed for a bank in Kansas, and the mistake had been made by the
+printer who had turned the sheet upside down in printing the reverse side.
+The first plate bore the obverse of a fifty-dollar bill at the top and of a
+hundred-dollar bill at the bottom, while the other plate held the reverse
+of both sides. By turning the sheet around for the reverse printing, the
+fifty-dollar impression had been made on the back of the hundred-dollar
+bill.'
+
+"Do you see, now?" laughed the banker. "Quite an easy and simple mistake,
+and one that might often be made, only the printers are very careful men."
+
+Oddly enough, Mr. Belding, although relieved by the probability that the
+Department at Washington would make the strange bill right for him, was
+suddenly attracted by another fact.
+
+"I wonder," he said, "if that man came from Osage, Ohio?"
+
+"What man? The one who passed the bank-note on your son?"
+
+"Yes. You know, he was injured and is now in the hospital."
+
+"I don't know. Go on."
+
+Mr. Belding related the story of the accident and the unfortunate mental
+condition of the injured man. "They tell me all the money he had with him
+was new money--fresh from the Treasury."
+
+"He probably did not make it himself," chuckled the jolly banker. "Poor
+chap! Don't the doctors think he will recover his memory?"
+
+"That I cannot say," the jeweler said, rising. "Then you think I may
+relieve Chet's mind?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I will give you another hundred for this bill, if you want me to.
+I will send this to Washington, where they probably already have a record
+of it. Bills of this denomination are printed by twos, and the other has
+probably turned up--as in the case of the Kansas bank-note."
+
+Aside from the satisfaction this interview of his father's with Mr. Monroe
+accorded Chet Belding, further interest on the part of all the young people
+was aroused in the case of the injured stranger. Oddly enough, when Laura
+and Jess went to the hospital to inquire about the man, they found Janet
+Steele, the Red Cross girl, there on the same errand.
+
+Since the Ice Carnival, that had proved such a money-making affair for the
+Red Cross, the Central High girls had considered Janet almost one of
+themselves. Although nobody seemed to know who or what the Steeles were,
+and they certainly lived very oddly in the old house at the lower end of
+Whiffle Street, Janet was so likable, and her invalid mother was evidently
+so much of a gentlewoman, that Laura and her chum had vouched for Janet and
+declared her to be "all right."
+
+The matron of the hospital was the person whom the girls interviewed on
+this occasion. Mrs. Langworth had some interest in each patient besides the
+doctor's professional concern. She was sympathetic.
+
+"We do not know what to call him," she explained. "He laughs rather grimly
+about it and tells us to call him 'John.' But that, I am sure, is not his
+name. He merely wishes us to have a 'handle' for him. And you cannot tell
+me," added the matron, shaking her head, "that he is one of those rough
+miners right out of Alaska!"
+
+"Does he say he is?" asked Janet, with increased interest.
+
+"He remembers of being in Alaska, he says. He was coming out, he tells us,
+when something happened to him. And that is the last he can remember. He
+believes he 'made his pile,' as he expresses it. Oh, he uses mining
+expressions, and may have lived roughly and in the open, as miners do, at
+some time in his life. But not recently, I am sure."
+
+"And not a thing about him to identify him?" asked Laura.
+
+"Not a thing. Plenty of money. Not much jewelry----"
+
+"Oh! The lavalliere my brother sold him!" cried Laura. "He said it was for
+'a nice little girl he knew.' It was only a ten dollar one--one of those
+French novelties, you know, that we sell so many of at this time of year."
+
+"He had that in an envelope in his pocket," said Mrs. Langworth.
+
+"Then he had not made the presentation of it to 'the nice little girl,'"
+murmured Laura. thoughtfully.
+
+"It almost proves he is a stranger in town, does it not?" asked Jess. "He
+bought the chain in the morning, and he was not hurt until evening. Do you
+know if he had any lodging in Centerport?"
+
+"The police have searched the hotels, I believe," said the matron, "and
+described the poor fellow to the clerks and managers. Nobody seems to know
+him."
+
+"Do--do you suppose we might see him?" Laura asked hesitatingly.
+
+"Oh, Laura! Would you want to?" Jess murmured.
+
+"Why not?" said the matron, smiling. "Not just now, perhaps. But the next
+time you come--in the afternoon, of course. He will be glad to see young
+faces, I have no doubt I will speak to Dr. Agnew when he comes in," for
+Nellie's father was of importance at the Centerport Hospital.
+
+"But who is he, do you suppose?" Jess Morse demanded, when the three girls
+left the hospital and walked uptown again. "He can't be any person who has
+friends in Centerport, or they would look him up."
+
+"That seems to be sure enough," admitted her chum. Then: "Shall we walk
+along with Janet?"
+
+"Of course," said Jess. "Are you going home, Miss Steele?"
+
+"Yes," said the girl in the Red Cross uniform. "I have been on duty at the
+Central Chapter; but mother expects me now."
+
+"How is your mother, dear?" asked Laura, with sympathy.
+
+"She is as well as can be expected," said Janet gravely. "If she had
+nothing to worry her mind she would be better in health," and she sighed.
+
+Janet did not explain what this worry was, and even Jess, blunt-spoken as
+she often was, could not ask pointblank what serious trouble Mrs. Steele
+had on her mind.
+
+Again the Central High girls went in to see the invalid upon Janet's
+invitation. They found Bobby Hargrew there before them. Harum-scarum as
+Bobby was, nobody could accuse her of lack of sympathy; and she had already
+learned that her fun and frolic pleased the invalid. Bobby did not mind
+playing the jester for her friends.
+
+Of course, the strange man at the hospital was the pivot on which the
+conversation turned.
+
+"Were you there, too, to inquire about him?" asked Mrs. Steele of Janet.
+
+Laura noticed a certain wistfulness in the invalid's tone and look; but she
+did not understand it. Merely, Mother Wit noted and pigeonholed the remark.
+Janet said practically:
+
+"I can't help feeling an interest in him, as I helped him that evening he
+was hurt."
+
+"But have they learned nothing about him?"
+
+"Only that the hundred-dollar bill he gave Chet is probably all right,"
+laughed Jess Morse.
+
+"They say he had a big money roll," said Bobby.
+
+"Not a poor man, of course," Laura agreed.
+
+"And Mrs. Langworth says she is sure he has been in Alaska," Jess added.
+
+Laura noted the swift glance that passed between the invalid and her
+daughter.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Steele, "you did not tell me that"
+
+"No," said Janet, shaking her head, "But lots of men go to Alaska, Mamma."
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Mrs. Steele.
+
+"And come back with plenty of money," put in Bobby, smiling. "This poor
+man's money doesn't help him much, does it? He doesn't seem to have any
+friends here in Centerport. He is just as much a stranger as the man they
+tell about who came back to his old home town after a great many years and
+found a lot of changes. As he rode uptown his taxicab stopped to let a
+funeral go by.
+
+"'Who's dead?' asked the returned wanderer of the taxicab driver.
+
+"'Dan Jones,' said the driver.
+
+"'Not Dan Jones that kept the hotel!' cried the man. 'Why, I knew him well.
+Can it be possible that Dan is dead?'
+
+"'I reckon he's dead, Mister,' said the chauffeur, as the hearse went by.
+'What d'you think they're doin'--rehearsin' with him?'"
+
+"How very lonely the poor man must feel," said Mrs. Steele, after laughing
+at Bobby's story.
+
+"We're going in to see him the next time," Jess said.
+
+Mrs. Steele looked again swiftly at her daughter. "You will see him, too,
+won't you, Janet?" she murmured.
+
+Her daughter seemed not to like the idea; but Jess said quickly:
+
+"We will take Janet with us, Mrs. Steele. And Bobby, too. If Mrs. Langworth
+approves, I mean. 'The more the merrier.' Really, I'm awfully interested in
+him myself."
+
+Laura, said nothing; but she wondered why the invalid showed so much
+interest in the injured man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A REHEARSAL
+
+
+The copies of the play chosen for production by the girls of the Central
+High Players Club had arrived, and Mr. Mann, who was to direct the
+production, called the members of the club together in the small hall which
+was just off Mr. Sharp's office.
+
+"And thank goodness!" murmured Bobby Hargrew, "Gee Gee cannot break into
+this session. What do you suppose she has suggested?"
+
+"Mercy! how do you expect us to guess the vagaries of the Carrington mind?"
+returned Lily Pendleton. "Something foolish, I'll be bound."
+
+"Sh! Remember Mr. Mann is an instructor, too," said Nellie Agnew.
+
+"That is all right, Doctress," giggled Lily. "Mr. Mann is a good fellow and
+will not peach."
+
+"Tell us the awful truth, Bobby," drawled Jess. "What is Gee Gee's latest?"
+
+"I understand," said the younger girl, "that she has been to Mr. Sharp and
+begged him to exercise his authority and make us act 'Pyramus and Thisbe'
+instead of 'The Rose Garden.'"
+
+"Goodness! That old thing?" flung out Dora Lockwood.
+
+"There is a burlesque on 'Pyramus and Thisbe' that we might give," chuckled
+Jess. "And it's all in doggerel. Let's!"
+
+"Reckless ones! Would you spoil all our chances?" demanded Laura.
+
+"Aw--well----"
+
+"Remember, we are working for a worthy cause," Dorothy Lockwood mouthed, in
+imitation of the scorned Miss Carrington.
+
+"You are right, Dory," Laura said soberly. "The Red Cross is worth
+suffering for."
+
+"Right-o, my dear girl," declared Jess Morse with conviction. "Let us put
+aside Gee Gee and listen to what Mr. Mann has to say."
+
+They had already talked over the characters of the play. None of them was
+beyond the capabilities of the girls of Central High. But what delighted
+some of them was that there were boys' parts--and girls would fill them!
+
+Of course, Bobby Hargrew had been cast for one of the male parts. Bobby's
+father had always said she should have been a boy, and was wont to call her
+"my eldest son." She had assumed mannish ways--sometimes when the
+assumption was not particularly in good taste.
+
+"But Short and Long," she growled in her very "basest" voice, "says I can't
+walk like a boy. Says anybody will know I'm a girl. I have a mind to get my
+hair cut short"
+
+"Don't you dare, Clara Hargrew!" Laura commanded. "You'd be sorry
+afterward--and so would your father."
+
+Bobby would never do anything to hurt "Father Tom," as she always called
+Mr. Hargrew, so her enthusiasm for this suggested prank subsided. But she
+growled:
+
+"Anyway, it's a sailor suit I am going to wear, and I guess I can walk like
+a sailor, just as well as Short and Long."
+
+"Better," declared Nellie soothingly. "And then, those wide-legged trousers
+sailors wear are quite modest."
+
+At this all the girls laughed. Knickers in their gymnasium and field work
+had become second nature to them.
+
+"But think of me," cried Jess, "in what Chet calls 'the soup to nuts!'
+Really the dress-suit of mankind is awfully silly, after all."
+
+"And uncomfortable!" declared Dora.
+
+"Attention, young ladies!" exclaimed Mr. Mann at that moment.
+
+He was a rotund, beaming little man, with vast enthusiasm and the
+patience--so Nellie declared--of an angel.
+
+"Not a full-sized angel," Bobby had denied seriously. "He is more the size
+of a cherub--one of those you see pictured leaning their elbows on clouds."
+
+But, of course, neither of the girls made this comment within Mr. Mann's
+hearing.
+
+The final decisions regarding the choice of parts were now made. The copies
+of the play were distributed. Mr. Mann even read aloud the first two acts,
+instructing and advising as he went along, so that the girls could gain
+some general idea of what was expected of them.
+
+Before they were finished another point came up. There was a single
+character in the play that had not been accorded to any girl. It was not a
+speaking part; but it was an important part, for the other characters
+talked about it, and the silent character was supposed to appear on several
+occasions in "The Rose Garden."
+
+"We need a tall, dark girl," said Mr. Mann. "One who walks particularly
+well and who win not be overlooked by the audience even when she merely
+crosses the stage. Who----?"
+
+"Margit Salgo!" exclaimed Jess, who had every bit of the new play and its
+needs very close to her heart.
+
+"Of course!" cried Laura and the Lockwood twins. "Margit is just the one,"
+Mother Wit added.
+
+"Oh!" said Mr. Mann at last. "You mean Margaret Carrington?"
+
+"And she walks like a queen," sighed Lily Pendleton. "I wish I could learn
+to walk as she does."
+
+"You know what Mrs. Case says," put in Bobby, in an undertone. "She says
+your feet, Lil, have been bound like a Chinese woman's of the old regime."
+
+"Oh, you!"
+
+"Margit went barefoot and lived in the open for years," said Laura.
+
+"She was 'near to Nature's heart,'" laughed Jess. "Of course, she never
+tried to squeeze a number six foot into narrow twos."
+
+"Never mind the size of her feet," said Mr. Mann good-naturedly. "If she
+can take the part, she will be just the one for it I remember that Miss
+Carrington's niece does have a queenly walk. And that is just what we need.
+But do you think we can get her?"
+
+"She has never joined our club," said Jess thoughtfully.
+
+"I am not sure that she has ever been invited," Laura said. "But she is
+always busy----"
+
+"Gee Gee pretty near works her to death," growled Bobby. "I shouldn't
+wonder if Margit flew the coop some day."
+
+"I am not sure, Miss Hargrew," said Mr. Mann, without a smile, "that I
+ought not to take you to task for your language. It really is inexcusable."
+
+"Oh, dear me, Mr. Mann, don't you begin!" begged the culprit "If I am
+academic in school in my speech, let me be relieved out of sessions, I
+pray."
+
+"But about Margit Salgo?" queried Laura. "Do you suppose she will be able
+to help us? I know she will be willing to, if we ask her."
+
+"Gee Gee will object, you bet," growled Bobby under her breath.
+
+That was not to be known, however, without asking. Laura said she would
+speak to Margaret about it, while Mr. Mann intimated that he would mention
+to Miss Carrington, the elder, that her niece was almost necessary to the
+success of the play.
+
+Margit Salgo was not so straightly kept by Miss Carrington as she was
+engaged from morning to night in her studies. Having been utterly neglected
+as far as mental development went for several years, the half-gypsy girl
+was much behind others of her age at Central High.
+
+Miss Grace Gee Carrington was pushing her protege on as fast as possible.
+She was not yet in the classes of those, girls of her age whom she knew at
+Central High; but she was fast forging ahead and she took much pride in her
+own advancement.
+
+Therefore she did not see Miss Carrington's sternness as Bobby, for
+instance, saw it. She found her aunt kind and considerate, if very firm.
+And the girl who had been half wild when Laura Belding first found her, as
+has been related in "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field," was
+settling into a very sedate and industrious young woman.
+
+What girl, however, does not love to "dress up and act?" Margit Salgo was
+delighted when Laura explained their need to her.
+
+"Just as sure as auntie will let me, I'll act," declared the dark beauty,
+flushing brilliantly and her black eyes aflame with interest. "You are a
+dear, Laura Belding, to think of me," and she hugged Mother Wit heartily.
+
+Two days passed, and then came the first rehearsal. This, of course, could
+be little more than a reading of the parts before Mr. Mann, with the latter
+to advise them as to elocution and stage business. But Bobby declared she
+had been practicing walking like a boy and had succeeded in copying Short
+and Long almost exactly.
+
+"Why me?" demanded Billy sharply, whose usual sweet temper seemed to have
+become dreadfully soured of late.
+
+"Well, why not?" demanded Bobby. "Should I copy Pretty Sweet's strut?"
+
+"Aw--him!" snorted Billy Long, turning away in vexation.
+
+"Now, tell me," said the quick-minded Bobby Hargrew to Laura and Jess, with
+whom she chanced to be walking at the moment, "why it is that Billy has
+taken such a violent dislike to poor Purt of late? Why, he doesn't feel
+kindly enough toward him to send him another dead fish!"
+
+They were going to the rehearsal, which was in the small hall of the
+school. Of course, there was a sight of bustle and talking. Every girl was
+greatly excited over her part. Some were "sure they couldn't do it," while
+there were those who "could not possibly remember cues."
+
+"And I know I shall laugh just at the wrong place," said Lily Pendleton. "I
+always do."
+
+"If you do," growled Bobby, "I'll do something to you that will make you
+feel far from laughing, I assure you."
+
+"How savagely you talk!" sighed Nellie Agnew. "That boy's part you are to
+fill is already affecting you, Clara."
+
+"'Sailor Bob' is going to be terrifically rough, I suppose," Jess said,
+laughing.
+
+Mr. Mann called them to order, and the girls finally rustled into seats and
+prepared to go through "The Rose Garden" for the first time. Everybody knew
+her first speeches, and as Mr. Mann accentuated the cues and advised about
+the business the girls did very well during the first act.
+
+But with the opening of the second act there was a halt. Here was where
+"the dark lady" should come in. Her first appearance marked a flourishing
+period by Jess, who strode about the stage as the hero of the piece.
+
+"And Margit's not here!" cried Dora Lockwood. "Shouldn't she be, Mr. Mann?
+Really, her entrance gives me my cue, not Adrian's speech."
+
+Adrian was Jess Morse. She nodded her head vigorously. "Of course, Margit
+ought to be here to rehearse with us."
+
+"I am afraid," said Mr. Mann, with pursed lips, "that we shall have to give
+up the idea of having Miss Carrington--the younger--for the part."
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" chorused some of the girls. "Can't Margit play?"
+
+"Isn't that just like Gee Gee?" demanded Bobby furiously.
+
+"She wanted to, I am sure," Laura said. "It is not Margit's fault."
+
+"Of course it isn't," snapped Jess. "That old--"
+
+Fortunately she got no farther. The door opened at that instant and Miss
+Grace Gee Carrington entered. She was a very tall woman with grayish hair,
+eyeglasses, and a sallow complexion. Her dignity of carriage and stern
+manner were quite overpowering.
+
+"Young ladies!" she said sharply, having come into the room and closed the
+door, "I have a word to say. I told Mr. Mann I would come here and explain
+why my niece cannot take part in any such foolish and inconsequential
+exhibition as this that you have determined on."
+
+She glared around, and the girls' faces assumed various expressions of
+disturbance. Some, even, were frightened, for Miss Carrington had always
+reigned by power of fear.
+
+"I would not allow Margaret to lower herself by appearing in such a play. I
+disapprove greatly of girls taking boys' parts. The object of the play
+itself is merely to amuse. There is nothing worth while or educational
+about it."
+
+Again silence, and the girls only glanced fearfully at each other.
+
+"I have a proposition to make to you," said the stern teacher. "It is not
+too late to change your plans. I have Mr. Sharp's permission to make the
+suggestion. He will agree to your changing the play and will
+be--er--satisfied, I am sure, if you accept my advice and put on the play
+which I first suggested. This is an old Greek play with real value to it We
+gave it once in my own college days, and it truly made a sensation. I
+should be quite willing for Margaret to appear in that play, and I should,
+in fact, be willing to give Mr. Mann the benefit of my own experience in
+rehearsing the piece."
+
+Mr. Mann actually looked frightened. The stern instructor overpowered him
+exactly as she did many of the girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BUBBLE, BUBBLE
+
+
+"Toot! Toot! Toot-te-toot! Back water!" muttered Bobby Hargrew. "Wouldn't I
+cut a shine acting in a Greek play? Oh, my!"
+
+Her imprudence--and impudence--was fortunately drowned by the general
+murmur of objection that went up from the girls of the club. That Miss
+Carrington's suggestion met with general objection was so plain that even
+the stern woman herself must have realized it.
+
+"Of course," she said, really "cattish," "you girls would prefer something
+silly."
+
+"Perhaps, Miss Carrington," said Laura with more boldness than most of her
+mates possessed, "we prefer something more simple. 'The Rose Garden' does
+not call for more than we can give to it. I am afraid the play you suggest
+would take too much study."
+
+"Ha!" snapped the tall teacher. Then she went on: "I want you all to
+understand that your recitations must be up to the average while you put in
+your time on such a mediocre performance as this you are determined upon.
+Of course, if the play was of an educational nature we might relax our
+school rules a little--"
+
+"Oh! Oh! Bribery!" whispered Jess to Nellie.
+
+"It seems," Mr. Mann finally found voice to say, "that the desire of the
+young ladies is for the piece selected. It is too late, as Miss Belding
+says, to make a change now."
+
+"Then Margaret cannot act!" exclaimed Miss Carrington, and, turning
+angrily, she left the hall in a way that had she been one of the girls, it
+would have been said, "She flounced out."
+
+The rehearsal continued; but most of the girls were in a sober state of
+mind. There was a general desire among them to stand high in all their
+studies. They had learned when first they entered upon the athletic
+contests and exercises of the Girls Branch League that they must keep up in
+studies and in deportment or they could not get into the good times of the
+League.
+
+It was so with the secret society, the M. O. R.'s, and likewise in this
+acting club. "Fun" was merely a reward for good work in school. Not alone
+was Miss Carrington stiff on this point, the principal and the rest of the
+faculty were quite as determined that no outside adventures or activities
+should lower the standard of the girls of Central High.
+
+At the present time the members of the club had a serious fact to
+contemplate. A girl to fill the part of the "dark lady" in the garden must
+be found. As it was not a speaking part, the person filling the character
+must more particularly look as she was described in the play.
+
+"We want a type," said Mr. Mann. "Tall, graceful, brunette, and with
+queenly carriage. You must find her before the next rehearsal. I must have
+plenty of time to train her, for her appearance is of grave importance--as
+you young ladies can yourselves see."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie Agnew, when the rehearsal was finished. "And
+Margit Salgo would have been just the one!"
+
+"And the poor girl certainly would have enjoyed being one of us," Laura
+said.
+
+"Take it from me," said Bobby gruffly, "she's just the meanest--"
+
+"Margit?" cried Jess.
+
+"Gee Gee! I'm good and disgusted with her."
+
+But Bobby, for once in her life, was very circumspect during recitations
+that week. She felt that Gee Gee was watching for a chance to demerit her,
+and the girl did not intend to give the teacher occasion for doing so.
+
+"For once I am going to be so good, and have my lessons so perfect, that
+she cannot find fault."
+
+"But trust Miss Carrington to find fault if she felt like it!" grumbled the
+girl a day or so later.
+
+"Miss Hargrew, do not stride so. And keep your elbows in. Why! you walk
+like a grenadier. And don't sprawl in your seat that way. Are you not a
+lady?"
+
+Ah, but it was hard for saucy Bobby to keep her tongue back of her teeth!
+
+"Have you lost your tongue?" nagged Miss Carrington.
+
+Bobby's eyes flashed a reply. But her lips "ran o'er with honey," as Jess
+Morse quoted, _sotto voce_.
+
+"No, Miss Carrington. I am merely holding it," said the girl softly.
+
+Miss Carrington flushed. She knew she was unfair; and Bobby's unexpected
+reply pilloried the teacher before the whole class. There was a bustle in
+the room and a not-entirely-smothered snicker.
+
+Had there been any way of punishing the girl Miss Carrington would
+certainly have done it. She was neither just nor merciful, but she was
+exact. She could see no crevice in Bobby's armor. The incident had to pass,
+and the girl remained unpunished.
+
+However, it did seem as though Miss Carrington were more watchful each day
+of the girls who belonged to the Players Club. She was evidently expecting
+those who had parts to learn to show some falling off in recitation, or the
+like. Her sharp tongue lashed those who faltered unmercifully. The girls
+began to show the strain. They became nervous.
+
+"I really feel as though I must scream sometimes!" said Nellie Agnew,
+almost in tears, one afternoon as the particular chums of Central High left
+the building for home. "I know my lessons just as well as ever, but Gee Gee
+has got me so worked up that I expect to fail every time I come up to
+recite to her."
+
+"She is too old to teach, anyway," snapped Jess. "My mother says so. She
+ought to have been put on the shelf by the Board of Education long ago."
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Dora Lockwood. "What bliss if she were!"
+
+"She is not so awfully old," said Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"But she is awful!" sniffed Jess.
+
+"She acts like a spoiled child," Nellie said. "If she cannot have her own
+way in everything she gets mad and becomes disagreeable."
+
+This was pretty strong language from the doctor's daughter. At the moment
+Bobby Hargrew appeared, whistling, and with her hands in her coat pockets.
+She was evidently practicing her manly stride. But she did not grin when
+she saw the juniors approaching. Instead, in a most dolorous voice she sang
+out, quoting the witches' chant:
+
+  "'Double, double; toil and trouble;
+  Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'
+
+"Everything's stewing, girls, and it is bound to be some brew. Do you know
+the latest?"
+
+"Couldn't guess," said Jess Morse. "But it is something bad, I warrant."
+
+"Everything's going wrong, girls!" wailed Nellie.
+
+"I just saw Mr. Mann and Lil. Couldn't help overhearing what she was giving
+him. What do you suppose she wants to do?"
+
+"Play the lead instead of Laura," snapped Jess.
+
+"That would not be so strange," Dora Lockwood observed. "Would it,
+Dorothy?"
+
+"Not at all. Lil Pendleton--"
+
+"Wait a minute," proposed Laura Belding. "Let us hear her crime before we
+sentence her to death."
+
+"That's right," agreed Bobby. "Oh, she surely has put her foot in it! She
+told Mr. Mann that Hessie is just the girl to act 'the dark lady' in our
+play. What do you know about that?"
+
+"Ow! Ow! That hurts!" squealed Dora.
+
+"She never _did_?" gasped her twin.
+
+"Hope to die!" exclaimed Bobby recklessly. "That is exactly the game she is
+trying to work."
+
+"Hester Grimes! Of all persons!" groaned Nellie.
+
+"Lil hasn't said a word about it to me," Jess Morse declared.
+
+"No, she is going to get Mr. Mann himself to propose Hester--"
+
+"But Hessie isn't a member of the club!" cried Nellie.
+
+"We have set a precedent there," said Laura thoughtfully. "We took Janet
+Steele into the ice carnival, and she was not a member of the school."
+
+"That was an entirely different thing!" snapped Jess.
+
+"Why, Hester Grimes is no more fit to play that part than I am fit for the
+professional stage!" Nellie Agnew said. "What can Lil mean?"
+
+"I bet a cooky," Bobby growled, "that Hester put Lil up to it. You know,
+Hess is crazy to get her finger into every pie; but she would never come
+straight out and ask to join our club."
+
+"She'd be blackballed," said Dora tartly.
+
+"I believe she would," agreed her twin.
+
+Bobby chuckled. "There would be two black beans against her, and no
+mistake."
+
+"What did you say to Lil, Clara?" demanded Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"How was that?" Jess asked. "You didn't have a sudden attack of lockjaw,
+did you?"
+
+"Don't fret, Jess," said Bobby sharply. "I know when to keep my mouth shut
+on occasion. I came right away from there to find you girls. Something must
+be done about it."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie. "If Margit Salgo had only been allowed to
+take the part!"
+
+"What did I tell you?" almost snarled Bobby. "Gee Gee has managed to queer
+the whole business. This play is going to be a failure."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MOTHER WIT HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+The ice carnival had been such a success in a spectacular as well as a
+monetary way that many of the friends of the Central High girls and boys
+declared they would like to have it repeated. More than a thousand
+dollars--to be exact, one thousand and twenty dollars--had been made for
+the Red Cross.
+
+Centerport was doing its very best to gather its quota for the great
+institution that was doing so much good in the world. Janet Steele
+confessed to Laura that she had gained more than one hundred dollar
+memberships, and that nearly all of these had given something in addition
+to their membership fee.
+
+"I wish we girls could help," said Laura wistfully.
+
+"And you having done so much already!" cried Janet. "Why, you've already
+done more than your share! And doing a play, too!"
+
+"I am afraid the play will not be a great success," Mother Wit sighed, but
+more to herself than to the other girl.
+
+Those who wished to repeat the ice carnival success had to give the idea
+up, for before the end of the week there swept down over the North Woods
+and across frozen Lake Luna such a blizzard as the surrounding country had
+not seen for several years. The street cars stopped running, traffic of all
+sorts was tied up, and even the electricity for lighting purposes was put
+out of commission for twenty-four hours.
+
+Of course, it did not keep many of the girls and boys of Central High at
+home. Snow piled up in the streets did not daunt them at all. But when the
+amateur actors undertook to rehearse they had to do so by the light of
+candles and kerosene lamps.
+
+The rehearsal did not go very well, either. The girls were "snippy" to each
+other--at least, Jess said they were, and Bobby declared she was one of the
+very "snippiest--so there!"
+
+"Girls! Girls!" begged Laura, "when there are so many other people to
+fight, let us not fight each other. 'Little birds should in their nests
+agree,' and so forth."
+
+"Oh, poodle soup!" ejaculated Bobby, under her breath. "Don't anybody dare
+spring old saws and sayings on me in my present mood."
+
+"I believe you'd bite, Bobby," whispered Nellie Agnew.
+
+A cry went up for Lily Pendleton, and then it was found that she was not
+present.
+
+"The only girl who is made of either sugar or salt," declared Josephine
+Morse. "Of course, the snow would keep her away!"
+
+"But where is her friend, Miss Grimes?" asked Mr. Mann, rather tartly. "I
+shall have my work cut out for me in training her, I fear."
+
+"You will, indeed," moaned Laura.
+
+"Now, Mr. Mann!" cried Bobby boldly, "you are not really going to let that
+Hester Grimes act in this play, are you? She is perfectly horrid!"
+
+"Miss Hargrew," was the somewhat sharp answer, "I hope you will not let
+personal dislikes enter into this play. It does not matter who or what Miss
+Grimes may be, if she can take the part--"
+
+"But she'll never be able to do it in the world!"
+
+"That is to be seen," said Mr. Mann firmly. "Remember, we are working for
+the benefit of the Red Cross."
+
+"Hear! Hear!" murmured Laura. "Perhaps Hester will do very well."
+
+"And perhaps she won't!" snapped Bobby.
+
+"Why, she can't possibly _act!"_ Jess Morse said hopelessly.
+
+"You will let me be the judge of that, Miss Morse, if you please," said Mr.
+Mann, speaking rather tartly.
+
+"Mercy, everybody to-day is as crisp as pie-crust--no two ways about it!"
+whispered Bobby to Jess.
+
+The girls plowed home through the deep snow, most of them in no mood for
+amusement. Even Laura Belding had a long face when she entered the house.
+
+"How was the funeral?" asked Chet, who was buried in one of the deep
+library chairs with a book.
+
+"What?" she asked before she caught his meaning.
+
+"You must have buried somebody by the way you look," declared her brother.
+
+"Don't nag, Chettie," sighed his sister. "We are having terrible times."
+
+"I judged so," Chet said dryly. "Don't you always have sich when you girls
+go in for acting?"
+
+"Now--"
+
+"I am sympathetic, Laura--I swear I am!" her brother cried, putting up his
+hands for pardon. "Don't shoot. But of course things always will go wrong.
+Who is it--Bobby? Or Jess? Or Lil?"
+
+"It is Hester Grimes."
+
+"Wow!" exclaimed Chet. "I didn't know she was in it at all."
+
+Laura told him of the emergency that had arisen and how Hester Grimes
+seemed certain to be drawn into the affair.
+
+"Why, that big chunk can't act," said Chet quite impolitely. "She looks
+enough like her father to put on his apron and stand behind one of his
+butcher blocks."
+
+"Oh, that is awful!" Laura objected. "But I know she will spoil our play."
+
+"Humph! Why didn't you, Laura, suggest somebody else for the part, as long
+as Margit couldn't take it?"
+
+"I didn't know of anybody."
+
+"I thought they called you 'Mother Wit,'" scoffed Chet. "You're not even a
+little bit bright."
+
+"No, I guess you are right. I have lost all my brightness," sighed Laura.
+"It has been rubbed off."
+
+"Then you admit it was merely plate," laughed Chet. "But say! why didn't
+you think of the girl who helped you out before?"
+
+"Who? What girl?"
+
+"That Red Cross girl. What's her name?"
+
+"Janet Steele!"
+
+"That's the one. Some pippin," said Chet with enthusiasm. I saw her this
+afternoon and helped her plow home--"
+
+"Chetwood Belding! Wait till Jess Morse hears about it."
+
+"Aw--"
+
+"Jess will spark, old boy; you see if she doesn't"
+
+"Jess is the best girl in the world; and she's got too much sense to object
+to my helping another girl home through the snow."
+
+"All right," chuckled Laura, in a much more cheerful mood. "But don't make
+the mistake of praising Janet to Jess. That is where the crime comes in."
+
+"Oh! Well, I won't," her brother declared thoughtfully.
+
+"And where did you beau Janet from?" Laura asked.
+
+"The hospital."
+
+"Were you there to see that poor man?"
+
+"Rich man, you mean," grinned her brother. "I took him some books and a lot
+of papers. He is able to sit up and read."
+
+"But he doesn't know who he is?"
+
+"He declares his name is John _Something_, and that he ought to be in
+Alaska right now. Says the last he knew he was in Sitka. Something happened
+to him there. Whatever it was, his brain must have been affected at that
+time. For he cannot remember anything about the first part of his life."
+
+"But, Chetwood!" exclaimed Laura earnestly, "that man is not a miner. He is
+not tanned. His hands are not rough. He was as well groomed, the matron
+says, as any gentleman who ever was brought to the Centerport Hospital."
+
+"But he was in Alaska. You should hear him tell about it."
+
+"He has lived two lives, then," said Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"And must be beginning his third now," put in Chet. "What do you know about
+that? And him with a roll of more than two thousand dollars--every bill
+brand-new."
+
+"Oh, Chet!"
+
+"Well, what is it?" her brother asked, looking curiously into Laura's
+suddenly glowing face.
+
+"Does he know he has so much money?"
+
+"Why, yes. I've been telling him to-day all about that funny bill he passed
+on me. He says he is glad he has so fat a purse, as he will be obliged to
+remain in bed long with that leg in a cast."
+
+"But, Chet! has he got the money himself?"
+
+"It is in the hospital safe."
+
+"I wonder! I wonder!" the girl murmured.
+
+"What is it now?" asked Chet
+
+"I wonder if any other bills in his roll are like that hundred-fifty note
+father swapped with Mr. Monroe for you."
+
+"Huh?" ejaculated her brother, quite puzzled.
+
+"It was on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. I wrote it down, and
+the names of the cashier and president of the bank. Do find out, Chet, if
+there are any more of those new bills issued by that bank in his roll."
+
+"What for?" demanded Chet.
+
+That Laura would not tell him, only made him promise to do as she asked.
+Mother Wit had an idea; but she would not explain it to anybody yet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAINS ON HIS WHEELS
+
+
+"How came you to meet Janet?" asked Laura Belding, remembering what her
+brother had first told her about the Red Cross girl.
+
+"She was coming my way, of course."
+
+"Coming your way?" Laura repeated, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Oh!
+I see! You met her at the hospital."
+
+"You said a forkful," declared the slangy youth.
+
+"Dear me, Chet," Laura observed soberly. "I think your slang is becoming
+atrocious. So Janet was down there!"
+
+"She had been calling on our friend with the broken leg, too," said Chet.
+
+"She does seem interested in him, doesn't she?" Laura said thoughtfully. "I
+wonder why?"
+
+"Because her mother's half-brother went to Alaska years ago and they never
+heard of him again," said Chet. "She told me."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Nothing wonderful about that," the brother declared.
+
+"It is interesting."
+
+"To them, I suppose," said Chet "But why don't you ask Miss Steele to join
+you girls in the play you are getting up?"
+
+"I never thought of it," confessed Laura.
+
+"Your thought-works are out of kilter, Sis," declared Chet, laughing again.
+"I'd certainly play Miss Steele off against the menace of Hester Grimes."
+
+There was something besides mere sound in Chet Belding's advice, and his
+sister appreciated the fact. But she did not go bluntly to the other girls
+and suggest the Red Cross girl for the part of "the dark lady." She
+realized that, if the new girl could act, she would amply fill the part in
+the play. But Hester was supposed to have it now, and the very next day Mr.
+Mann gave that candidate an hour's training in the part Hester was supposed
+to fill.
+
+When they all came together for rehearsal again the second day, Hester
+Grimes was present and she showed the effect of Mr. Mann's personal help.
+Yet her work was so stiffly done, and she was so awkward, that it seemed to
+most of the girls that she was bound to hurt and hinder rather than help in
+the production.
+
+"She'd put a crimp in anything," declared Bobby Hargrew, as the Hill girls
+went home that afternoon.
+
+The streets in this residential section had been pretty well cleared of
+snow, and people had their automobiles out once more.
+
+"Say, Jess!" exclaimed Bobby.
+
+"Say it," urged Josephine Morse. "I promise not to bite you."
+
+"If Hester plays that part, what are they going to do with her hands and
+feet?" asked the unkind Bobby.
+
+"Oh, hush!" exclaimed Laura.
+
+"Well, when she's supposed to pick the rose and hold it up to the light,
+and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown lobster--and just
+as red."
+
+"Girls, we must not!" begged Laura. "Somebody will surely tell Hester what
+we say, and then--"
+
+"She'll refuse to play," said Jess.
+
+"Oh, fine, _fine_!" murmured one of the Lockwood twins.
+
+"If we get her mad it will do no good," Nellie Agnew said. "Maybe then she
+will insist on being 'the dark lady.'"
+
+The boys were on the corner of Nugent Street waiting for the girls to come
+along.
+
+"How goes the battle, Laura?" asked Lance Darby. "Have you learned your
+part yet?"
+
+"I thought I had," sighed Laura. "But when I come to take cues and try to
+remember the business of the piece, I forget my lines."
+
+"This being leading lady is pretty tough on Mother Wit," laughed Chet.
+
+"Oh, my!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly. "Here comes Pretty Sweet in his
+car. Why! he's got Lil with him. I thought that was all over."
+
+They gaily hailed the driver of the automobile and his companion as the
+vehicle passed. Short and Long, with gloomy face, watched the car out of
+sight.
+
+"Well," he growled, "he's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all
+right"
+
+"Chains on his wheels, Billy?" asked Bobby. "What do you mean? Doesn't he
+always have them on in winter?"
+
+"Humph! He forgot 'em once, anyway."
+
+"Hey, Billy!" exclaimed Chet Belding, "you are skidding yourself, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Aw----"
+
+"Least said soonest mended," added Lance, likewise giving the smaller boy a
+quick, stern look.
+
+"Oh, I see!" muttered Bobby, searching the flushed face of Short and Long.
+"Say, Billy----"
+
+But Short and Long started on a quick trot for home, and left his friends
+to stare after him. It was Bobby who did most of the staring, however. She
+said to Jess and Laura, after they had parted from the other boys:
+
+"What do you know about that boy? I'm just wise to him. I believe I know
+what is the matter with Short and Long."
+
+"Do you mean," asked Laura, "what makes him act so to Purt?"
+
+"You have guessed my meaning, Mother Wit."
+
+"What is the trouble between them?" demanded Jess. "Although Billy never
+was much in love with Purt Sweet."
+
+"Don't you two girls remember the Saturday night that man was hurt on
+Market Street?"
+
+"I should say I do remember it!" Laura agreed. "He is in the hospital yet,
+and he doesn't know who he is or where he came from."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing to do with his identity," Bobby hastened to say. "It is
+about the car that ran him down. You know the police never have found the
+guilty driver."
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Jess. "You surely don't mean----"
+
+"I mean that the car had no chains on its rear wheels. That is all that was
+noticed about it Nobody got the number. But I heard Short and Long say he
+knew somebody who had been driving a car that day without chains. And the
+boys left us, didn't they, to look up the car?"
+
+"What has that to do with Purt Sweet?" demanded Laura.
+
+"Why, you heard what Billy just said about him and his chains!" cried
+Bobby. "'He's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' Didn't
+you hear him? And he's had a grouch against Pretty Sweet ever since the
+time--about--that the man was hurt."
+
+"Oh, Purt wouldn't have done such a thing. He might have run the man down;
+but he would never have run off and left him in the street!"
+
+"I don't know," Jess said. "He'd be frightened half to death, of course, if
+he did knock the man down."
+
+"I do not believe Prettyman Sweet is heartless," declared Laura warmly.
+"The boys are making a mistake. I'm going to tell Chet so."
+
+But when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get
+Chet to admit a thing. He refused to say anything illuminating about the
+car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys
+suspected anybody in particular.
+
+"If we think we know anything, I can't tell you," Chet declared "Billy?
+Why, he's always sore at Purt Sweet. You can't tell anything by him!"
+
+Just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl
+chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the
+more curious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PIE AND POETRY
+
+
+Laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an
+enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. There was
+flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose.
+
+Out-of-doors old Boreas, Jess said, held sway. Shutters flapped, the
+branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the
+house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made
+one think that the Spirit of the Wind was dying there.
+
+"You certainly are poetic," drawled Bobby, who had come into the Beldings'
+big kitchen, too, and was comfortably seated on the end of the table at
+which Laura had been rolling out piecrust.
+
+"Now, if that crust is only crisp!" murmured Mother Wit.
+
+"If it isn't," chuckled Chet, stamping the snow off his shoes, "we'll make
+you eat it all."
+
+"I'm willing to take the contract of eating it, sight unseen, if Laura made
+the pie," interjected Lance Darby, opening the door suddenly.
+
+"Come in! Come in!" cried Jess. "Want to freeze us all?"
+
+"You would better not be so reckless, Lance," Laura said, smiling. "These
+are mock cherry pies; and I never do know whether I get sugar enough in
+them until they are done. Some cranberries are sourer than others, you
+know."
+
+"M-m! Ah!" sighed Chet ecstatically. "If there is one thing I like----"
+
+Lance began to sing-song:
+
+  "'There was a young woman named Hooker,
+  Who wasn't so much of a looker;
+  But she could build a pie
+  That would knock out your eye!
+  So along came a fellow and took 'er!'"
+
+"Oh! Oh! We're all running to poetry," groaned Chet. "This will never do."
+
+"'Poetry,' indeed!" scoffed Jess Morse. "I want to know how Lance dares
+trespass upon Bobby's domain of limericks?"
+
+"And I wish to know," Laura added haughtily, "how he dares intimate that I
+am not 'a good looker'?"
+
+"'_Peccavi!_"' groaned Lance. "I have sinned! But, anyway, Bobby is off the
+limerick business. Aren't you, Bobby?"
+
+"She hasn't sprung a good one for an age," declared Chet.
+
+"A shortage," sighed Laura.
+
+"Gee Gee says the lowest form of wit is the pun, and the most execrable
+form of rhyme is the limerick," declared Jess soberly.
+
+"Just for that," snapped Bobby, "I'll give you a bunch of them. Only these
+must be written down to be appreciated."
+
+She produced a long slip of paper from her pocket, uncrumpled it, and began
+to read:
+
+  "'There was a fine lady named Cholmondely,
+  In person and manner so colmondely
+  That the people in town
+  From noble to clown
+  Did nothing but gaze at her, dolmondely.'
+
+Now, isn't that refined and beautiful?"
+
+"It is--not!" said Chet. "That is only a play upon pronunciation."
+
+"Carping critics!" exclaimed Lance. "Go ahead, Bobby. Let's hear the
+others."
+
+As Bobby had been saving them up for just such an opportunity as this, she
+proceeded to read:
+
+ "'There lived in the City of Worcester
+ A lively political borcester,
+ Who would sit on his gate
+ When his own candidate
+ Was passing, and crow like a rorcester!"
+
+"Help! Help!" moaned Chet, falling into the cook's rocking chair and making
+it creak tremendously.
+
+"Don't break up the furniture," his sister advised him, as she took a peep
+at the pies in the oven.
+
+"'Pies and poetry'!" exclaimed Jess. "Go ahead, Bobby. Relieve your
+constitution of those sad, sad doggerels."
+
+Nothing loath, the younger girl, and with twinkling eyes, sing-songed the
+following:
+
+  "'There was a young sailor of Gloucester,
+  Who had a sweetheart, but he loucest'er.
+  She bade him good-day,
+  So some people say,
+  Because he too frequently boucest'er.'
+
+Take notice all you 'bossy' youths."
+
+"Isn't English the funny language?" demanded Chet, sitting up again. "And
+spelling! My! Do you wonder foreigners find English so difficult? Here's
+one that I found in an almanac at the drug store," and he fished out a
+clipping and read it to them:
+
+  "'A lady once purchased some myrrh
+  Of a druggist who said unto hyrrh:
+  "For a dose, my dear Miss,
+  Put a few drops of this
+  In a glass with some water, and styrrh."'"
+
+"Do, do stop!" begged Laura.
+
+"I promise not to offend again," said Lance. "Besides, I hope to taste some
+of the pie, and a pie-taster should not be a poetaster."
+
+"Oh! Oh! Awful!" Jess cried.
+
+"I've run out of limericks myself," confessed Chet.
+
+"But one more!" Bobby hastened to say. Then dramatically she mouthed, with
+her black eyes fastened on Chet:
+
+  "'Said Chetwood to young Short and Long,
+  "Just list to my warning in song:
+  If you know of the crime,
+  For both reason and rhyme
+  Betray it--and so ring the gong!"'"
+
+The other girls burst out laughing at the expression on the boys' faces.
+Chet and Lance looked much disturbed, and Chet finally scowled upon the
+teasing Bobby and shook his head.
+
+"What do you know about that?" whispered Lance to his chum.
+
+"You are altogether too smart, Bobby," declared Chet. "What do you mean?"
+
+"We know you and Short and Long are trying to hide something from us," said
+Jess quickly.
+
+"You might as well tell us all about it," Laura put in quietly. "What has
+Billy really got against Purt Sweet?"
+
+"I don't admit he has anything against Purt," said Chet quickly.
+
+"Nothing but suspicion," muttered Lance, likewise shaking his head.
+
+"Then there is something in it?" Laura said quickly. "Can it be possible
+that Purt Sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself
+before this?"
+
+"There you've said it, Laura!" cried Lance. "That is what I tell both Chet
+and Billy. If Pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never
+dare go out again in his car."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?"
+
+"Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet.
+
+"Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as
+much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran
+the man down?"
+
+"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I
+suppose."
+
+"Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and
+Lance will want to sample them."
+
+"Go on. Tell 'em, Chet," said Lance.
+
+"Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets' car. You know Purt is
+too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put
+'em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening,
+for he passed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage
+with the radiator blanketed.
+
+"Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man
+down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains
+on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt's."
+
+"Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister.
+
+"So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets'. Purt was out with the car. He
+came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. We
+tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn't tell. We had to
+almost muzzle Billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. And
+Billy has been savage over it ever since."
+
+"Really then," said Laura, "there is nothing sure about it."
+
+"Well, it is sure the car was a Perriton. And since then we have found out
+that Purt's is the only Perriton in town that isn't out of commission for
+the winter. You can talk as you please about it: If the police only knew
+what we know, sure thing Purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+EMBER NIGHT
+
+
+The three girls of Central High and their boy friends had not come together
+on this stormy Saturday morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry."
+
+The ice carnival had made them so much money that Laura and her friends
+desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal.
+They wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the
+Red Cross from day to day.
+
+Fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like Janet Steele
+were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown
+churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being
+tried.
+
+And so Mother Wit had evolved what she called "Ember Night," and the young
+people who helped carry the thing through were delighted with the idea. To
+tell the truth, the idea had been suggested to Laura Belding during the big
+storm when the lighting plant of the city was put out of order for one
+night.
+
+She and her friends laid the plans for the novel fete on this Saturday
+after Laura's pie baking and after they had discussed the possibility of
+Prettyman Sweet being the guilty person whose car had run down the strange
+man now at the Centerport Hospital.
+
+They put pies and poetry, and even Purt Sweet, aside, to discuss Laura's
+idea. Each member of the informal committee meeting in the Beldings'
+kitchen was given his or her part to do.
+
+Laura herself was to see Colonel Swayne, who was the president of the Light
+and Power Company and who was likewise Mother Wit's very good friend. Jess
+agreed to interview the local chief of the Salvation Army. Chet would see
+the Chief of Police to get his permission. Each one had his or her work cut
+put.
+
+"Every cat must catch mice," said Mother Wit.
+
+Plans for Ember Night were swiftly made, and it was arranged to hold the
+fete the next Tuesday evening, providing the weather was clear. Jess, whose
+mother held a position on the Centerport _Clarion_, wrote a piece about
+this street carnival for the Sunday paper, and the idea was popular with
+nearly every one.
+
+Exchange Place was the heart of the city--a wide square on which fronted
+the city hall, the court house, the railroad station, and several other of
+the more important buildings of the place.
+
+In the center of the square a Red Cross booth was built and trimmed with
+Christmas greens, which had just come into market. Members of the several
+city chapters appeared in uniform to take part in the fete. There was a
+platform for speakers, and a bandstand, and before eight o'clock on Tuesday
+evening a great crowd had assembled to take part in the exercises.
+
+That one of the Central High school girls had suggested and really planned
+the affair, made it all the more popular.
+
+"What won't Laura Belding think of next?" asked those who knew her.
+
+But Laura did not put herself forward in the affair. She presided over one
+of the red pots borrowed from the Salvation Army that were slung from their
+tripods at each intersecting corner of the streets radiating from Exchange
+Place, and for a half mile on all sides of the square.
+
+Under each pot was a bundle of resinous and oil-soaked wood that would burn
+brightly for an hour. At the booth in Exchange Place fuel for a much larger
+bonfire was laid.
+
+The crowd gathered more densely as nine o'clock drew near. The mayor
+himself stepped upon the speaker's platform. The police had roped off lanes
+through the crowd from the Red Cross booth to the nearest corners.
+
+Janet Steele came late and she chanced to pass Laura's corner, which was in
+sight of the speaker's stand and the booth. She halted to speak with Laura
+a moment.
+
+"Isn't it just fine?" she said. "I wish mother could see this crowd."
+
+"I imagine you would like to have her see lots of things," returned Laura.
+"Our friend at the hospital, for instance."
+
+"Who--who do you mean?" gasped Janet, evidently disturbed.
+
+"The man who was hurt, I mean."
+
+"Oh! He is quite interesting," said the other girl and slipped away.
+Laura's suggestion had seemingly startled her.
+
+The band played, and then the mayor stepped forward to make his speech. At
+just this moment a motor car moved quietly in beside the curb near which
+Laura Belding stood guarding her red pot. Somebody called her name in a low
+tone, and Laura turned to greet Prettyman Sweet's mother with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Sweet was alone in the tonneau of her car, which Purt himself was
+driving. The school exquisite, who was so often the butt of the boys'
+jokes, but was just now an object of suspicion, admired Laura Belding
+immensely. He got out of the car to come and stand with her on the corner.
+
+"Got your nonskid-chains on, Purt?" asked Laura.
+
+"On the rear wheels? Surely," said Sweet, eyeing the girl in some surprise,
+because of her question.
+
+"My dear Laura!" cried Mrs. Sweet "Won't you come and talk to me while we
+are waiting?"
+
+"Can't now, Mrs. Sweet. I am on duty," laughed Laura.
+
+They could not hear what the mayor said, for they were two blocks away. But
+they had an excellent view of the stand and the Red Cross booth, and the
+crowd that pressed close to the police ropes.
+
+Suddenly the mayor threw up his hand in command, and almost instantly--as
+though he had himself switched off the light--all the street lamps in the
+business section of Centerport went out The arc light over the spot where
+Laura stood blinked, glowed for a moment, and then subsided. Mrs. Sweet
+cried out in alarm.
+
+"This is all right," Laura called to her. "Now watch."
+
+The mayor, in the half-darkness, stepped down from the platform and threw
+into the heart of the big bonfire the combustibles that set it off. The
+flames leaped up, spreading rapidly. The crowd cheered as eight boys,
+dressed in the knee-length dominos they had worn on the night of the ice
+carnival, dashed into the ring with resinous torches. They thrust the
+torches into the flames and the instant the torches were alight, they
+wheeled and dashed away through the lanes the police had kept open.
+
+The red flames dancing before the Red Cross booth, and the sparking,
+flaming torches which the boys swung above their heads as they ran through
+the crowd to the various corners where the red pots hung, made an inspiring
+picture in the unwonted gloom of the streets.
+
+"See how the Red Cross spreads!" cried Laura. "There's Nellie's fire
+going."
+
+They could see the spark of new fire under the pot a block away. A short
+figure with flaming torch was approaching Laura's corner at high speed.
+
+"Here comes Short and Long, I do believe," drawled Prettyman Sweet.
+
+"My pot will soon be boiling," laughed Laura. "What are you going to throw
+in, Purt? And you, Mrs. Sweet? Give all you can--and as often as you can."
+
+"Oh, I'll start you off, Laura," declared Purt, pulling out a handful of
+coins that rang the next moment in the bottom of the iron pot.
+
+"Here's my purse, Prettyman!" called his mother, leaning from the car. "You
+put in my offering."
+
+The few bystanders around Laura's corner began laughingly to contribute
+before the torch reached the spot. But Short and Long arrived the next
+moment. He stooped, thrust the blazing torch into the middle of the fuel
+under Laura's pot, and wheeled to run to his next comer.
+
+The flames crackled, springing up ravenously. The boy's cotton gown flapped
+across the fire and before he could leap away the flames had seized upon
+the domino!
+
+"Oh, Billy!" shrieked Laura Belding. "You are on fire!"
+
+The short boy leaped away; but he could not leave the flames behind him. He
+threw down the torch and tried to tear off the domino. In a moment he was a
+pillar of flame!
+
+"A blanket! A robe! Quick, Purt!" cried Laura, and started toward the
+victim of the accident, bare-handed.
+
+For once Purt Sweet did as he was told, and did it quickly. He ran with the
+robe from the front seat of the automobile. Laura grabbed one end and
+together they wrapped their schoolmate in the heavy folds.
+
+Short and Long was cast to the street and they rolled him in the blanket.
+The fire was smothered, but what injury had it done to the boy?
+
+He was unconscious; for in falling he had struck his head, and the wound
+was bleeding. Mrs. Sweet was crying and wringing her hands.
+
+"Oh, it's awful! Purt! Purt! Take me home!" she sobbed.
+
+"No, Purt!" exclaimed Laura. "Take him to the hospital"
+
+"Of course we will," gasped the youth. "Help me lift him, Laura. Oh, the
+poor kid!"
+
+Only the few people near by had seen the accident. Not even a policeman
+came. Laura and Purt staggered to the car with the wrapped-up body of the
+smaller lad. His face was horribly blackened, but that might be nothing but
+smoke. Just how badly Billy Long was injured they could not guess.
+
+Mrs. Sweet shrank back into the corner of the tonneau seat and begged Laura
+to get in with the injured boy.
+
+"I can't! I can't touch him!" wailed the woman. "It's awful! Suppose he
+should be dead?"
+
+"He's not dead," declared Purt. "We won't let him die--the poor kid! Here,
+mother, you hold his head and we'll lay him down on the seat. Let his head
+and shoulders lie right in your lap."
+
+"Oh, Laura! Do come!" cried the woman.
+
+"I can't, Mrs. Sweet!" returned Laura, sobbing. "I've got to stay and watch
+my pot boil. Do be quick, Purt!"
+
+She stepped out of the car. Purt slammed the tonneau door and leaped to the
+steering wheel. In a moment the self-starter sputtered, and then the car
+wheels began to roll.
+
+Mrs. Sweet was actually forced to do something that she had never done
+before--personally help somebody in trouble. Perhaps the experience would
+do her good, Laura thought.
+
+In tears the latter returned to the corner. The fire was brightly blazing
+underneath her swinging pot. There was already quite a collection of coins
+and a few bills in the bottom of the receptacle. But although Laura stuck
+to the post of duty, her heart was no longer in the ceremonies of Ember
+Night. She wished heartily that she had never suggested the entertainment,
+even if it did benefit the Red Cross.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+It did really prove to be one of the most successful forms of money-raising
+for the Red Cross that had been attempted in Centerport. And later they
+tried Ember Night in Lumberport and Keyport.
+
+Laura Belding was not proud of her success, however, for poor Short and
+Long had been badly burned. Fortunately his face was only blackened, and
+the doctors decided that he had not inhaled any of the scorching flame.
+
+Laura and Purt had wrapped him in the blanket so quickly that the fire was
+smothered almost at once. Yet there were bad burns on his arms and
+body--burns that would leave ineffaceable scars.
+
+The girls of Central High had two interests now to take them to the
+hospital. The stranger who did not know his name and Short and Long both
+came in for a lot of attention.
+
+The latter had never known before how popular with his schoolmates he was.
+Fruit, flowers, candy and the nicest confections from the Hill kitchens
+found their way in profusion to Billy's bedside.
+
+After a day or two the doctors let him see whoever came, and he could talk
+all right. It made him forget the smart of his burns.
+
+Of course his sister Alice came frequently, and she had to bring Tommy, the
+irrepressible, along. Tommy was more interested in the good things to eat
+at his brother's bedside, however, than he was in Billy's bodily condition.
+
+There was so much jelly, and blanc-mange, and other goodies that the
+invalid could not possibly consume all. Tommy sat and ate, and ate, until
+the nurse said:
+
+"Tommy, don't you know that you are distending your stomach with all those
+sweets? It is not good for you."
+
+When Tommy learned that "distending" meant that his stomach was being
+stretched, he was delighted.
+
+"Gimme some more, Allie," he begged his sister. "Please do, Allie dear. I
+want to stwetch my 'tomach. It's never been big 'nough to hold all I want
+to eat."
+
+The interest of Laura and her close friends in the strange man with the
+broken leg did not lag. He talked freely with his visitors; but mostly
+about Alaska and his adventures in the gold mines.
+
+As near as he could guess, he must have come out of the mines with his
+"pile," as he expressed it, almost ten years before.
+
+"What under the canopy I have been doing since, I don't know. But if I've
+got down to two thousand dollars capital, I must have been having an
+awfully good time spending money; for I know I had a poke full of gold dust
+when I struck the coast and went over to Sitka."
+
+"More likely he was robbed," said Chet.
+
+"He looks about as much like a miner as Pa Belding," Laura declared.
+
+There was too much going on just then, however, for Mother Wit to try out
+the thought that had come to her mind regarding this man. All these
+interests had to be sidetracked for school and lessons. And just at this
+time recitations seemed to be particularly hard. With rehearsals for the
+play, and all, mere knowledge was very difficult to acquire.
+
+"I know I'm not half prepared in physics," wailed Nellie Agnew, as she and
+other juniors trooped into school one day, two weeks before Christmas.
+
+"And I," said Jess Morse, "know about as much regarding this political
+economy as I do about sweeping up the Milky Way with a star brush."
+
+"How poetic!" cried Laura, laughing. "I wonder if we all are as well
+prepared?"
+
+"They expect too much of us," declared Dora Lockwood.
+
+"Much too much!" echoed her sister.
+
+"I wonder," said Laura, "if we don't expect too much of the teachers?"
+
+In the physics recitation Nellie Agnew, as she prophesied, came to grief.
+
+Miss Carrington seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of whom to call on at
+such times. She seemed aware that Nellie had not prepared her lesson
+properly. It might be that the wary teacher read her pupils' faces.
+Nellie's was so woebegone that it was scarcely possible to overlook the
+fact that she probably felt her shortcomings in the task at hand.
+
+Miss Carrington called on the doctor's daughter almost the first one in
+physics. To say "unprepared!" to Miss Carrington was to bring upon one's
+head the shattered vials of her wrath. There was no excuse for not trying,
+that strict instructor considered.
+
+So Nellie tried. She stumbled along in her first answer "like a blind man
+in a blind alley," so Jess Morse declared. It was pitiful, and all the
+class sympathized. The gentle Nellie was led to make the most ridiculous
+statements by the silky-voiced teacher.
+
+"And you are a physician's daughter!" Miss Carrington burst out at last.
+"For shame!"
+
+"If I were Nell," said Dora Lockwood to her twin, "I'd cut pills altogether
+after this. I'd rather take math with Mr. Sharp himself."
+
+Miss Grace G. Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit
+down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and
+began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and
+that physics recitation was bound to go badly.
+
+When Jess was called on she rose with blazing cheeks and angry eyes to face
+their tormentor. Miss Carrington saw antagonism writ large upon Jess
+Morse's face.
+
+"I presume, Miss Morse, you think I cannot puzzle you?" said Miss
+Carrington in her very nastiest way.
+
+"You can doubtless puzzle me," said Jess sharply. "But you cannot make me
+cry, Miss Carrington."
+
+"Sit down!" ejaculated the angry teacher. "That goes for a demerit."
+
+"And it is about as fair as your demerits usually are," cried Jess.
+
+"Two, Miss Morse," said the teacher. "One more and you will not act in that
+play next week."
+
+"If I'd been born dumb," sighed Jess afterward, "it would have been money
+in my pocket. I almost had to bite the tip of my tongue off to keep from
+saying something more."
+
+"And so ruin the whole play?" said Laura softly.
+
+"Huh! I guess Hester Grimes will do that," declared Jess. "She moves about
+the stage like an automaton. She is going to get us a big laugh, but in the
+wrong place. Now, you see."
+
+The girls rehearsed every afternoon, and the athletic work was neglected.
+Mrs. Case excused those who were engaged in producing the play. "The Rose
+Garden" was not such an easily acted play as they had at first supposed.
+Mr. Mann was patient with them; but in Hester Grimes' case he could not
+help the feeling of annoyance that took possession of him.
+
+Hester Grimes took offence so easily.
+
+"Every rehearsal I look for her to cut up rusty," Jess cried. "And somebody
+has got to play the part of the dark lady! It is not a part that can be cut
+out of the cast, although it is not a speaking part."
+
+Hester had begun to complain, too, because she had no lines. She considered
+that she was being deprived of her rights, and was of less importance than
+the other girls, because she was dumb on the stage.
+
+"Why! even Bobby Hargrew," she complained, "with her silly sailor part, has
+lines to repeat, besides that sailor's hornpipe in the first act. Of
+course, you girls would wish the least important part onto me."
+
+"What nonsense, Hester!" cried Jess. "If you really understood the play and
+the significance of your part, you would not say such a thing. And do, do
+be less like a wooden image."
+
+"Humph! I guess I know my part, Jess Morse," snapped Hester. "It doesn't
+matter at all what I do on the stage."
+
+"What did I tell you?" groaned Bobby. "'Double! Double!' and-so-forth.
+There is trouble brewing. If we all had measles or chicken-pox, and so
+couldn't give the play, we'd be in luck, I verily believe."
+
+"Oh, don't, Bobby!" begged Dora Lockwood. "You are so reckless."
+
+"Just the same, I feel it in my bones that Hester is going to kick over the
+traces," said Bobby grimly.
+
+"If only Margit Salgo had been allowed to have the part," groaned Dorothy.
+
+"It's Gee Gee's fault if the play is a failure," snapped Bobby.
+
+Never had the disagreeable teacher at Central High been so little liked as
+at this time. They blamed Miss Carrington more than they did Hester.
+
+As the party of troubled girls left the school-house on this particular
+afternoon, Lily Pendleton ran after them.
+
+"What do you think has happened?" she cried.
+
+"It's something bad, of course," groaned Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Who is hurt?" asked Laura.
+
+"It isn't that," said Lily. "But poor Purt Sweet!"
+
+"Now what has he done?" asked Jess.
+
+"It is what they say he has done, not what he really has done," wailed
+Lily. "The police have been to his house. And what do you think?"
+
+"I bet his mother's had a fit!" exclaimed Bobby, in an undertone.
+
+"The police accuse Purt of running down that man on Market Street the other
+Saturday night," said Lily warmly. "And Purt doesn't know anything more
+about it than a baby! Isn't it awful, girls?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WHERE WAS PURT?
+
+
+The police examination of Purt Sweet was no light matter. Two of
+Centerport's detective force had been working on the case ever since the
+stranger had been knocked down on Market Street, and, like Chet Belding and
+his friends, the detectives finally had come to the conclusion that
+Prettyman Sweet's automobile was the only Perriton car in the city that had
+not been in storage on that night.
+
+The detectives' visit to the Sweet residence, and Purt's later call upon
+the Chief of Police at his command, were dreadfully shocking to the boy's
+mother. Purt had to reassure her and insist that he was not going to be
+arrested and sent to jail at once; so he had not much time to be frightened
+himself. Indeed, he came out in rather good colors on this particular
+occasion.
+
+The boy's father had long since died. Purt had been indulged by his mother
+to a ridiculous degree, and as a usual thing Purt's conversation and his
+activities were ridiculed by his schoolmates.
+
+"This disgrace will kill me, Prettyman!" wailed Mrs. Sweet.
+
+"Where does the disgrace come in," pleaded poor Purt, "when I haven't
+really done anything?"
+
+"But they say you have!"
+
+"I can't help what they say."
+
+"You were out that evening with the car. I remember it very well," his
+mother declared.
+
+"What of it? I wasn't on Market Street the whole evening," grumbled the
+boy.
+
+"Where were you then?" she demanded.
+
+It seemed as though everybody else asked Purt Sweet that question, from the
+Chief of Police down; and it was the one question the boy would not answer.
+
+He grew red, and sputtered, and begged the question, every time anybody
+sought to discover just where he was with the automobile on that Saturday
+evening after dinner. Even when Chief Donovan threatened him with arrest,
+Purt said:
+
+"If I should tell you it wouldn't do any good. It would not relieve me of
+suspicion and would maybe only make trouble for other people. I was out
+with our car, and that is all there is to it. But I did not run that man
+down. I was not on Market Street."
+
+He stuck to this. And his honest manner impressed the head of the police
+force. Besides, Mrs. Sweet was very wealthy, and if Purt was arrested she
+would immediately bail him and would engage the best counsel in the county
+to defend her son. It is one thing to accuse a person of a fault. As Chief
+Donovan very well knew, it is an entirely different matter to prove such
+accusation.
+
+The news of Purt's trouble was not long in getting to Short and Long in the
+hospital. Chet and Lance really thought the smaller boy would express some
+satisfaction over Purt's trouble. But to their surprise Billy took up
+cudgels for the dandy as soon as he was told that the police suspected him
+of the offense.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Short?" demanded the big fellow. "You've been
+sure Purt was guilty all the time."
+
+"I don't care!" declared Billy. "He's one of us fellows, isn't he?"
+
+"Admitted he goes to Central High," Chet said.
+
+"But he isn't one of our gang," Lance added.
+
+"I don't care! The police are always too fresh," said Billy, who had reason
+for believing that the Centerport police sometimes made serious mistakes.
+Billy had had his own experience, as related in "The Girls of Central High
+on Lake Luna."
+
+"Then you don't believe Purt did it?" demanded Lance.
+
+"No, I don't. I was mistaken," declared Short and Long. "Purt's all right"
+
+"Wow! Wow!" murmured Chet.
+
+"See how he brought me here in his car when I was hurt. And look at the
+stuff Purt's given me while I've been here," said Billy excitedly. "He'd
+never have hurt that man and run away without seeing what he'd done. No,
+sir!"
+
+"Crackey, Billy!" said Chet, "you've turned square around."
+
+"I know I have. And I ought to be ashamed of myself for ever distrusting
+Purt," said the invalid vigorously.
+
+"Then why won't Purt tell where he was?" demanded Lance doubtfully.
+
+"I don't care where he was," said Billy. "If he says he didn't hit the man,
+he didn't. That's all. And we've got to prove it, boys."
+
+"Some job you suggest," said Chet slowly. "It looks to me as though Pretty
+Sweet was in a bad hole, and no mistake."
+
+Even the most charitable of his schoolmates took this view of Purt Sweet's
+trouble. His denial of guilt did not establish the fact of his innocence.
+His inability, or refusal, to explain where he was at the time of the
+accident on Market Street in front of Mr. Belding's jewelry store made the
+situation very difficult indeed.
+
+"If he could only put forward an alibi," Lance Darby said, when the Hill
+crowd of Central High boys and girls discussed the matter.
+
+"But he won't say a word!" cried Nellie. "I believe he is innocent."
+
+"Then why doesn't he tell where he was at the time?" demanded Laura
+sternly.
+
+"Is he scared to tell the truth?" asked Jess.
+
+"I don't think he is," Chet observed thoughtfully. "Somehow he acts
+differently from usual."
+
+"You're right," Bobby declared, with frank approval of one of whom she had
+never approved before. "I believe there's a big change in old Purt."
+
+"Well, it's strange," Laura remarked. "He never showed such obstinacy
+before."
+
+"He's never shown any particular courage before, either," said her brother.
+"That's what gets me!"
+
+"Where does the courage come in?" demanded Lance.
+
+"I believe Chet is right," Jess said. "Purt is trying to shield somebody."
+
+"From what?" and "Who?" were the chorused demands.
+
+"I don't know," Jess told them. "There is somebody else mixed up in this
+trouble. It stands to reason Purt would not be so obstinate if he had
+nothing to hide. And we are pretty much of the opinion--all of us--that he
+really did not run that man down. Therefore, if he is not shielding some
+other person, what is he about?"
+
+"I've asked him frankly," Chet said, "and all I could get out of him was
+that he 'couldn't tell.' No sense to that," growled the big fellow.
+
+It seemed that Purt Sweet had pretty well succeeded in puzzling his friends
+as well as the police. The latter were evidently waiting to get something
+provable on poor Purt. Then a warrant would be issued for his arrest.
+
+By this time the stranger who had been the start of all the trouble and
+mystery--the man from Alaska, as the hospital force called him--was able to
+be up and wheeled in a chair, although his leg was not yet out of plaster.
+
+Billy Long heard of this, and he grew very anxious to see the man whose
+accident was the beginning of Purt's trouble. Billy had quickly become a
+favorite with both the nurses and doctors of the Centerport Hospital. He
+was brave in bearing pain, and he was as generous as he could be with the
+goodies and fruit and flowers that were brought to him. He divided these
+with the other patients in his ward, and cheered his mates with his lively
+chatter.
+
+At first, however, there had been an hour or so every other day when a
+screen was placed about Billy's bed and the doctor and nurse had a very bad
+time, indeed, dressing the dreadful burns the boy had sustained.
+
+Short and Long could not help screaming at times, and when he did not
+really scream the others in the ward could hear his half-stifled moans and
+sobs. These experiences were hard to bear.
+
+When the dressings were over and his courage was restored the screen was
+removed from about Billy's cot and he would grin ruefully enough at his
+nearer neighbors.
+
+"I'm an awful baby. Too tender-hearted--that's me all over," he said once.
+"I never could stand seeing anybody hurt--and I can see just what they are
+doing to me all the time!"
+
+Billy knew that the man from Alaska was being wheeled up and down the
+corridor, and he begged so hard to speak with him that the nurse went out
+and asked the orderly to wheel the chair in to Billy's cot.
+
+"So you are the brave boy I've heard about, are you?" said the stranger,
+smiling at the bandaged boy from Central High.
+
+"I know how brave you've heard me," said Billy soberly. "I do a lot of
+hollering when they are plastering me up."
+
+The man laughed and said: "Just the same I am glad to know you. My name
+seems to have got away from me for the time being. My mind's slipped a cog,
+as you might say. What do they call you, son?"
+
+Billy told him his name. "And," he added, "I was right there in front of
+Chet Belding's father's jewelry store when that automobile knocked you
+down."
+
+"You don't mean it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I saw the machine. It was a Perriton car all right. It might
+even have been Pretty Sweet's car. But it wasn't Pretty Sweet driving it, I
+am sure."
+
+The boy's earnestness caught the man's full attention. "I guess this Sweet
+boy they tell about is a friend of yours, son?" he said.
+
+"He is a friend all right, all right," said Billy Long. "And I never knew
+it till right here when I got hurt. Purt--that's what we call him--is a
+good fellow. And I am sure he wouldn't do such a thing as to knock you down
+and then run away without finding out if he had hurt you."
+
+"I don't know how that may be," said the man seriously. "But whoever it was
+that ran me down did me a bad turn. I can't find my name--or who I am--or
+where I belong. I tell you what it is, Billy Long, that is a serious
+condition for anybody to be in."
+
+"I guess that's so," admitted the boy. "And you got your leg broken, too,
+in two places."
+
+"I don't mind much about the broken leg," said the man who had lost his
+name. "What I am sore about, Billy Long, is not having any name to use.
+It--it is awfully embarrassing."
+
+"Yes, sir, I guess it is."
+
+"So, you see, I don't feel very kindly toward this Sweet boy, if he was the
+one who knocked me down."
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure he isn't the one."
+
+"Why are you so sure?"
+
+"Because he wouldn't be so mean about it, and lie, and all, if he had done
+it. You see, a boy who has been so nice to me as he has, couldn't really be
+so mean as all that to anybody else."
+
+"Not conclusive," said the man. "You only make a statement. You don't offer
+proof."
+
+"But I--Well!" ejaculated Billy, "I'd do most anything to make you see that
+Purt _couldn't_ be guilty of knocking you down."
+
+"I'll tell you," said the man without a name, smiling again, "I haven't any
+particular hard feelings against your friend. Or I wouldn't have if I could
+get my name and memory back. So you find out some way of helping me recover
+my memory--you and your young friends, Billy Long--and I'll forgive the
+Sweet boy, whether he hurt me or not"
+
+"Suppose the cops arrest him?" asked Billy worriedly.
+
+"I'll do all I can to keep them from annoying Sweet if you boys and girls
+can find out who I am and where I belong," declared the man, laughing
+somewhat ruefully.
+
+And Billy shook hands on that To his mind the task was not impossible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+LAURA LISTENS
+
+
+Laura Belding had evolved an idea regarding "Mr. Nemo of Nowhere," as Bobby
+dubbed the stranger at the hospital. In fact, she had two ideas which were
+entwined in her thought. But up to this point she had found no time to work
+out either.
+
+She had taken nobody into her confidence; for Mother Wit was not one to
+"tell all she knew in a minute." On both points Laura desired to consider
+her way with caution.
+
+She went shopping with her mother to several stores on Market Street one
+afternoon, skipping the rehearsal of "The Rose Garden" for this purpose.
+The Christmas crowds were greater than she had ever seen them before. But
+the enthusiasm for the Red Cross drive had by no means faltered in spite of
+the season.
+
+Ember Night had gathered nearly five thousand dollars for the cause. Laura
+treasured a very nicely worded letter of appreciation from the mayor's
+secretary, thanking the Central High girl for her suggestion, which had
+proved so efficacious in money-raising. Laura was not exhibiting this
+letter to very many people, but she was secretly proud of it.
+
+In every store she entered Laura saw a Red Cross booth, while collectors
+with padlocked boxes were weaving in and out among the shoppers.
+
+"Give Again! Warranted Not to Hurt You!" was the slogan. Wearing a Red
+Cross button did not absolve one from being solicited.
+
+And she saw that the people were giving with a smile. Centerport was still
+enthusiastic over the drive. Laura seriously considered what she and her
+Central High girl friends were trying to do for the fund. Would the play be
+a success? If they only gave one performance and the audience was not
+enthusiastic enough to warrant a second, and then a third, she would
+consider that they had failed.
+
+All of a sudden, while she was thinking of this very serious fact, Laura
+came face to face with Janet Steele.
+
+"You are just the girl I wished most to see, Janet!" cried the Central High
+girl.
+
+"I always want to see you, Laura Belding," declared the Red Cross girl, who
+was evidently off duty and homeward bound.
+
+"Thank you, dear," Laura said. "You must prove that. I want you to do me a
+favor."
+
+"What can I possibly do for you?" laughed Janet. "Hurry and tell me."
+
+"You may not be so willing after you hear what it is."
+
+"You doubt my willingness to prove my friendship?" demanded Janet soberly.
+
+"Not a bit of it! But, listen here." She told Janet swiftly what she
+desired, and from the sparkle in her eyes and the rising flush in her face
+it was easily seen that Laura had not asked a favor that Janet would not
+willingly give.
+
+"Oh, but my dear!" she cried, "I shall have to ask mother."
+
+"I presume you will," said Laura, smiling. "Shall I go along with you and
+see what she says?"
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"I have done all my mother's errands--look at these bundles," said Laura.
+"We might as well have this matter settled at once. Your mother won't mind
+my coming in this way, will she?"
+
+"You may come in any way you wish, and any time you wish, my dear," said
+Janet warmly. "Mother very much approves of you."
+
+"It is sweet of you to say so," returned the girl of Central High. "I shall
+be quite sure she approves of me if she lets you do what I want in this
+case, Janet," and she laughed again as they turned off the busy main street
+into a quieter one.
+
+The invalid was at the long window, and beckoned to Laura to come in before
+she saw that that was the visitor's intention.
+
+"I cannot begin to tell you how delighted we are to have you girls call,"
+Mrs. Steele said, when she had greeted both her daughter and Laura with a
+kiss. "It would be so nice if Janet could go to school; then she might
+bring home a crowd of young folks every afternoon," and the invalid
+laughed.
+
+"But, you see, Miss Belding, I am so trying in the morning. It does seem
+that it is all Aunt Jinny and Janet can do to get me out of my bed, and
+dressed, and fed, and seated here on my throne for the day."
+
+"It seems too bad that the weather is not so you can go out," Laura said.
+
+"Oh, I almost never go out," Mrs. Steele replied. "Though I tell Janet that
+when spring comes, if we can only get the agent to repair that porch, she
+can wheel me back and forth on it in my chair."
+
+"Better than that, dear Mrs. Steele," Laura promised, "we will come with
+our car and take you for a ride all over Centerport, and along the Lakeside
+Drive. It is beautiful in the spring."
+
+"How nice of you!" cried the invalid. "But that, of course, depends upon
+whether we are in Centerport when the pleasant weather comes," said Mrs.
+Steele sadly.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Laura, "do you mean that you think of going away?"
+
+"Now, Mother!" murmured Janet, as though the thought was repugnant to her,
+too.
+
+"How can we tell?" cried the invalid, just a little excitedly. "You know,
+Janet, if we should hear of your uncle----"
+
+"Oh, Mother!" sighed the girl, "I do wish you would give up hope of Uncle
+Jack's ever turning up again."
+
+"Don't talk that way," said her mother sharply. "You do not know Jack as I
+do. He was only my half brother, but the very nicest boy who ever lived.
+Why, he gave up all his share of the income from my father's estate to me,
+and went off to the wilds to seek his own fortune.
+
+"How was he to know that some of the investments poor father made would
+turn out badly, and that our income would be reduced to a mere pittance?
+For I tell you, Miss Belding," added the invalid less vehemently, "that we
+have almost nothing, divided by three, to live on. That is, an income for
+one must support us three. Aunt Jinny is one of us, you know."
+
+"Now, Mother!" begged Janet "Sha'n't I get tea for us?"
+
+"Of course! What am I thinking of?" returned her mother. "Tell Aunt Jinny
+to make it in the flowered teapot I fancy the flowered teapot to-day--and
+the blue-striped cups and saucers.
+
+"Do you know, Miss Belding, what the complete delight of wealth is? It is
+an ability to see variety about one in the home. You need not use the same
+old cups and saucers every day! If I were rich I would have the furniture
+changed in my room every few days. Sameness is my _bete noire_."
+
+"It must be very hard for you, shut in so much," said Laura quietly.
+
+"And poor Janet is shut in a good deal of the time with me, and suffers
+because of my crotchets. Ah, if we could only find Jack Weld--my half
+brother, you know, Miss Belding. He went away to make his fortune, and I
+believe he made it. He has probably settled down somewhere, in good health
+and with plenty, and without an idea as to our situation. He never was a
+letter writer. And he had every reason to suppose that we were well fixed
+for life. Then, we have moved about so much----"
+
+Janet came back with the tea things. Mrs. Steele left the subject of her
+brother, and Laura found opportunity of broaching the matter on which she
+had come. What she wished Janet to do pleased the latter's mother
+immensely. She was, in fact, delighted.
+
+"How nice of you to suggest it, Miss Belding," said Mrs. Steele. "I know
+Janet will be glad to do it. Will you not, Janet?"
+
+"I--I'll try," said her daughter, flushed and excited at the prospect
+Laura's suggestion opened before her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER
+
+
+Scarcely was Bobby Hargrew of a happier disposition and of more volatile
+temperament than the Lockwood twins. Dora and Dorothy, while still chubby
+denizens of the nursery, saw that the world was bound to be full of fun for
+them if they attacked it in the right spirit.
+
+Dora and Dorothy's mother had died when they were very small, and the twins
+had been left to the mercy of relatives and servants, some of whom did not
+understand the needs of the growing girls as their mother would have done.
+Much of this is told in "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna."
+
+Almost as soon as the twins could stagger about in infant explorations of
+the house and grounds, they were wont to exchange the red and blue ribbons
+tied on their dimpled wrists by their nurse to tell them apart. For never
+were two creatures so entirely alike as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood.
+
+And they had grown to maidenhood with, seemingly, the same features, the
+same voices, the same tastes, and with an unbounded love for and confidence
+in each other. As they always dressed alike nobody could be sure which was
+Dora and which Dorothy.
+
+Now that they were well along in high school, the twins had been put on
+their honor not to recite for each other or to help each other in any
+unfair way. There really was a very close tie between them--almost an
+uncanny chord of harmony. Indeed, if one was punished the other wept!
+
+The teachers of Central High were fond of the twins--all save Miss
+Carrington. Her attitude of considering the pupils her deadly enemies
+extended to the happy-go-lucky sisters. She did not believe there was such
+a thing as "school-girl honor." That is why she had such a hard time with
+her pupils.
+
+In the play the girls of Central High were rehearsing, Dora and Dorothy
+played two distinct characters. Makeup and costume made this possible. But
+at the first dress rehearsal the twins pretty nearly broke up the scene in
+which they both appeared on the stage, by reciting each other's parts.
+
+Dora was an old, old woman--a village witch with a cane--while Dorothy was
+a frisky young matron from the city. When they met by the rustic well in
+the rose garden, haunted by that "dark lady" who was giving Mr. Mann so
+much trouble, Dora uttered the sprightly lines of her blooming sister,
+while the latter mouthed the old hag's prophecies.
+
+It was ridiculous, of course, and the girls could not go on with the
+rehearsal for some minutes because of their laughter. But Mr. Mann was not
+so well pleased. Dora and Dorothy promised not to do it again.
+
+"If I'd done anything like that, you'd all have jumped on me," Hester
+Grimes declared with a sniff. "It wouldn't have been considered funny at
+all."
+
+"And it wouldn't have been," murmured Jess to Laura.
+
+"There is one thing about you, Hessie," said Bobby, in her most honeyed
+tone, "that 'precludes,' as Gee Gee would say, your doing such a thing."
+
+"What's that, Miss Smarty?"
+
+"You are not twins," declared Bobby, with gravity. "So you could not very
+well play that trick."
+
+"Oh, my!" murmured Nellie, "what would we do if Hester were twins?"
+
+"Don't mention it!" begged Jess. "The thought is terrifying."
+
+But there proved to be a second thing about Hester which came out
+prominently within the week. This was something that not many of the girls
+of Central High had suspected before the moment of revelation.
+
+The first performance of "The Rose Garden" was set for Friday night. There
+would follow a matinee and evening performance on Saturday--provided, of
+course, the first performance encouraged the managers to go on with the
+production.
+
+"It all depends," sighed Jess, bearing a deal of the responsibility for the
+success of the piece on her young shoulders. "If we are punk, then nobody
+will come back to see the show a second time, or advise other folks to see
+it. And if we don't make a heap of money for the Red Cross, after all the
+advertising we've had, what will folks think of us?"
+
+They were really all worried by the fear of failure. All but Hester. She
+did not appear to care. And it did seem as though every time she rehearsed
+she made the "dark lady" of the rose garden more wooden and impossible than
+before.
+
+At length Mr. Mann had given her up as hopeless. It seemed impossible to
+make Hester act like a human being even, let alone like a graceful lady.
+
+"So you see, now that he lets me alone, I do very well," asserted Hester,
+with vast assurance and a characteristic toss of her head. "I knew I was
+right all the time. Now, finally, Mr. Mann admits it."
+
+When she said this to Lily, even Lily had her doubts. When Bobby heard her
+say it, she fairly hooted her scorn.
+
+Of course, Hester instantly flew into a rage with Bobby. This was only two
+days before the fateful Friday and before recitations in the morning. The
+girls had gathered in the main lower corridor of Central High. The bell for
+classes had not yet rung.
+
+"I'll show you how smart you are, Clara Hargrew!" Hester almost screamed.
+"I've a good mind to slap you!"
+
+"That might make me smart, Hess," drawled the smaller girl coolly. "But it
+would not change the facts in the case at all. You are spoiling the whole
+play--the most effective scenes in it, too--by your obstinacy. Mr. Mann has
+given you up as a bad egg, that's all. If the play is a failure, it will be
+your fault."
+
+And for once Laura Belding did not interfere to stop Bobby's tart tongue.
+Perhaps the bell for assembly rang too quickly for Mother Wit to interfere.
+At any rate, before Hester could make any rejoinder, they were hurrying in
+to their seats.
+
+But the big girl was in a towering rage. She was fairly pale, she was so
+angry. Her teeth were clenched. Her eyes sparkled wrathfully. She was in no
+mood to face Miss Grace G. Harrington, who chanced to have the juniors
+before her for mediaeval history during the first period on this Wednesday
+morning.
+
+Naturally, with the first performance of the play but two days away, those
+girls who were to act in it could not give their undivided attention to
+recitations. But Miss Carrington had determined to make no concessions.
+
+She was firmly convinced that Central High should support no such farcical
+production as "The Rose Garden." Anything classical--especially if it were
+beyond the acting ability of the girls--would have pleased the obstinate
+woman.
+
+"Something," as Nellie said, "in which we would all be draped in Greek
+style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from
+neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. That is the
+sort of a performance to satisfy Miss Carrington."
+
+"Amen!" agreed Bobby.
+
+"Wait till she sees Bobby's knickers," chuckled Dora Lockwood. "You know
+Gee Gee always looks as though she wanted to put on blinders when she comes
+into the girls' gym."
+
+Of course, these remarks were not passed in history class. But Dora was
+somehow inattentive just the same on this morning. She sat on one side of
+Hester Grimes and Dorothy on the other. The angry girl between the twins
+looked like a vengeful high priestess of Trouble--and Trouble appeared.
+
+Miss Carrington asked Dora a direct question, speaking her name as she
+always did, and glaring at the twin in question near-sightedly, in an
+endeavor to see the girl's lips move when she answered. She was sure of
+Dora's seat; but, of course, she could not be sure whether Dora or Dorothy
+was sitting in it. Her refusal to accept the fact that the twins were on
+their honor kept Miss Carrington in doubt.
+
+"Relate some incident, with date, in the life of Saladin, Dora," the
+teacher commanded.
+
+Dora hesitated. This was a "jump question," as the pupils called it. Miss
+Carrington, as she frequently did, had gone back several lessons for this
+query, and Dora was hazy about Saladin.
+
+"Come, Dora!" ejaculated the teacher harshly. "Have you no answer?"
+
+Dorothy leaned forward to look across Hester's desk at her sister. She was
+anxious that Dora should not fail. She would have imparted, could she have
+done so, her knowledge of Saladin to her twin. But there was only nervous
+anxiety in her look and manner.
+
+The moment Dora's lips opened and she began her reply, Hester turned
+sharply and stared at Dorothy. It was a despicable trick--a mean and
+contemptible attempt to get the twins into trouble. And Hester did it
+deliberately.
+
+She knew that Miss Carrington was much more near-sighted than she was
+willing to acknowledge. Seeing Hester look at Dorothy caused the teacher to
+believe that Dorothy was answering for her sister.
+
+"Stop!" commanded Miss Carrington, rising quickly from her seat on the
+platform.
+
+Dora, who had begun very well at last, halted in her answer and looked
+surprised. Miss Carrington was glaring now at Dorothy.
+
+"How dare you, Dorothy Lockwood?" she demanded, her face quite red with
+anger. "There is no trusting any of you girls. Cheat!"
+
+There was a sudden intake of breath all over the room. Some of the girls
+looked positively horror-stricken. For the teacher to use such an
+expression shocked Laura, and Jess, and Nellie for an instant, as though
+the word had been addressed to them personally.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Jess.
+
+The. teacher flashed her a glance. "Silence, Miss Morse!"
+
+Dorothy had risen slowly to her feet. "What--what do you mean, Miss
+Carrington?" she whispered. "Do you say I--I have _cheated?"_
+
+"Cheat!" repeated the teacher, with an index finger pointing Dorothy down.
+"I saw you. I heard you. You started to answer for your sister."
+
+"I did not!" cried the accused girl.
+
+"She certainly did not, Miss Carrington!" repeated Dora, rising likewise.
+
+"Silence!" exclaimed Miss Carrington. "I would not believe either of you.
+You are both disgracing your classmates and Central High."
+
+A sibilant hiss rose in the back of the room. The girls were more angry at
+this outburst of the teacher than all of them dared show.
+
+Dorothy burst into a fit of weeping. She covered her face with her hands
+and ran out of the room. Dora, defying Miss Carrington, muttered:
+
+"Ugly, mean thing!"
+
+Then she ran after her sister. The room was in tense excitement. Miss
+Carrington saw suddenly that she positively had nobody on her side. She
+began to question the girls immediately surrounding the twins' seats.
+
+"You saw her answer for her sister, Miss Morse?"
+
+"I did not," declared Jess icily.
+
+"Were you not looking at Dorothy, Laura?" asked the teacher.
+
+"No, Miss Carrington. I was looking at Dora."
+
+"And Dora answered!" cried the usually gentle and retiring Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Why----Miss Grimes!" exclaimed the disturbed teacher. "You know that
+Dorothy was answering for her sister?"
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Carrington," denied Hester.
+
+"But you looked at her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What for?" snapped the teacher.
+
+"Why," drawled Hester, "that pin Dorothy wears in her blouse was on crooked
+and it attracted my attention."
+
+That was the second thing about Hester Grimes. She was not alone a dunce
+when it came to acting, she was a prevaricator as well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+AND A THIRD THING
+
+
+What might have happened following this explosion of bad temper and
+ill-feeling, had Mr. Sharp himself not entered the room, nobody will ever
+know. Miss Carrington had been led into a most unjust and unkind criticism
+of the Lockwood twins. She had been deliberately led into it by Hester
+Grimes. She knew Hester had done this.
+
+The other girls knew it, too; and they all, the young folks, believed that
+the teacher had been most cruel and unfair.
+
+Mr. Sharp could not have failed to appreciate the fact that there was a
+tense feeling in the room that never arose from an ordinary recitation in
+mediaeval history. But he smilingly overlooked anything of the kind.
+
+"Pardon me, Miss Carrington--and you, young ladies," he said, bowing and
+smiling. "I have been in the senior classes, and now I am here to make the
+same statement I made there, and that I shall make to the sophomores later.
+May I speak to your class, Miss Carrington?"
+
+Miss Carrington could not find her voice, but she bowed her permission for
+the principal to go on.
+
+"Several of you young ladies," said Mr. Sharp, "are to take part in the
+play on Friday evening. Your work, in school, I fear, is being scamped a
+bit. Do the best you can; give your interest and attention as well as you
+may to the recitations.
+
+"But I wish to announce that, until after this week, we teachers will
+excuse such failures as you may make in your work; only, of course, all
+faults will have to be made up after the holidays. We want you to give the
+play in a way to bring honor upon the school as a whole.
+
+"I have enjoyed your last two rehearsals, and feel confident that, with a
+few raw spots smoothed over, you will produce 'The Rose Garden' in a way to
+please your friends and satisfy your critics. The faculty as a whole feel
+as I do about it. Go in and win!"
+
+The little speech cleared the atmosphere of the class-room immediately. It
+did not please Miss Carrington, of course; but the girls felt that they
+could even forgive her after what Mr. Sharp had said.
+
+Dora and Dorothy Lockwood had been insulted and maligned. They did not
+appear again at that recitation.
+
+"But do you think old Gee Gee would say that she was wrong, and beg their
+pardon?" demanded Bobby, at recess. "Not on your life!"
+
+"I don't know that a teacher in her situation could publicly acknowledge
+she was utterly in the wrong," Laura observed thoughtfully.
+
+"I would like to know why not?" demanded Jess Morse.
+
+"Why, you see, the fault really lies upon the conscience of one of us
+girls," said Laura, looking significantly at Hester.
+
+The latter turned furiously, as though she had been waiting for and
+expecting just this criticism. But surely she had not expected it from this
+source. All the girls were amazed to hear Laura speak so harshly.
+
+"Oh, Laura!" murmured Jess. "Now you have done it! She's going to blow up!"
+
+"And she'll leave us flat on the play business," groaned Bobby.
+
+Hester came across the reception room to Laura with flashing eyes and her
+face mottled with rage.
+
+"What is that you say, Laura Belding?" she demanded.
+
+"I will repeat it," said Laura firmly. "The whole trouble is on your
+conscience. You deliberately led Miss Carrington astray."
+
+"Oh! I did, did I?"
+
+"You most certainly did. Miss Carrington was both cruel to Dora and Dorothy
+and unfair. But you knew her failing, and you led her to believe that
+Dorothy was answering the question she put to Dora. No wonder Miss
+Carrington was angered."
+
+"Is that so?" sneered Hester. "And who are you, to tell me when I'm wrong?"
+
+"Somebody has to tell you, Hester," said Jess sweetly, for she was bound to
+take up cudgels for her chum.
+
+"And you can mind your business, too, Jess Morse!" snarled Hester.
+
+"Dear, dear!" Nellie begged. "Let us not quarrel."
+
+Yet for once Mother Wit seemed determined upon making trouble. Usually
+acting as peacemaker, the girls around her were amazed to hear her say:
+
+"You are quite in the wrong, Hester. And you know it. You should beg Miss
+Carrington's pardon; and you should ask pardon of all of us, as well as of
+Dora and Dorothy, for disgracing the class."
+
+"What do you mean?" screamed Hester Grimes. "Do you suppose I would tell
+old Gee Gee that it was my fault?"
+
+"You deliberately prevaricated--to her and to us," said Laura calmly.
+
+"Call me a story-teller, do you?" cried the butcher's daughter. "How dare
+you! I'll get even with you, Laura Belding!"
+
+"It is the truth," Laura said, slowly and firmly.
+
+"I'll fix you for this, Laura Belding!" pursued Hester, trembling with
+rage. She turned to sweep them all with her angry glance. "I'll fix you
+all! I won't have anything to do with any of you out of school--so there!
+And I won't act in your hateful old play!"
+
+She ran out of the room as she said this and left the girls--at least, most
+of them--in a state of blank despair. The bell rang for the next session
+before anybody could speak.
+
+Laura seemed quite calm and unruffled. The others got through their
+recitations as best they could until lunch hour. Jess and Bobby caught up
+with Laura on the street when the latter went out for her customary walk.
+
+"Oh, Laura! What shall we do?" almost wept Jess. "Only two days! Nobody can
+learn that part--not even as good as Hester knew it--before Friday night."
+
+At that moment Chet Belding appeared from around the corner. He was red and
+almost breathless--in a high state of excitement, and no mistake.
+
+"What do you think, girls?" he cried, "We got a line on Purt Sweet's
+automobile and why he has been hiding about where it was that Saturday
+night the man from Alaska was hurt."
+
+"What is it? Tell us?" asked Laura.
+
+"I met Dan Smith. He goes to the East High, you know, and he lives across
+the street from the Grimes' place. You know?"
+
+"Hester Grimes?" cried Jess.
+
+"Yes. Your dear friend. Well, Dan was up all night that night with a raging
+toothache. He said the Grimes' had a party. Purt was there with his car.
+Dan knows the car was taken away from the house and was gone more than an
+hour that evening, and that Purt did not go with the car.
+
+"See? He's shielding somebody--the poor fish!" added Chet. "That is what
+Short and Long has been saying. Now, what do you know about that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PURT
+
+
+The news Chet had divulged was so exciting that the girls quite forgot for
+the time being the wreck that Hester Grimes seemed to have made of the
+forthcoming performance of "The Rose Garden."
+
+Their chattering tongues mentioned Hester more than once, however, as they
+discussed Chet's news. Whether Purt Sweet's car had run down the man from
+Alaska or not, what did Hester know about it?
+
+"Can it be possible that Purt is shielding Hester in this matter?" Laura
+queried gravely.
+
+"Oh, it couldn't be! She wasn't in that car that knocked down Mr. Nemo of
+Nowhere," Bobby declared emphatically;
+
+"He has always favored Hester and Lil," Jess
+
+"Pooh!" again put in the irrepressible. "That's only because Pretty Sweet
+thinks there is nothing in this world so good or great as money; and both
+the Grimes and the Pendleton families have got oodles of it."
+
+"I don't know about that," Chet said quite as thoughtfully as his sister.
+"It may not be their folks' money that attracts Purt to those two girls."
+
+"What then?" demanded Bobby.
+
+"They flatter him. He can lap that up like our cat laps cream."
+
+"That is true," agreed Jess Morse.
+
+"Certainly we don't flatter, him," Bobby said bluntly.
+
+"It may be that we have never given Purt a fair deal," Laura observed.
+"Hester and Lil do not make fun of him."
+
+"And is he paying Hester back by shouldering something for her?" Jess
+asked.
+
+"Oh, she never was in that car when it was taken away from where Purt had
+it parked before the Grimes' house," Chet hastened to declare with
+assurance. "I got all the facts from Dan Smith. He'd swear to them."
+
+"Let us hear the particulars," begged Laura.
+
+"Why, Dan says he was up at his window on the third floor of their house
+watching the lights in the Grimes' house. It was a big party. Dancing on
+the lower floor, and a crowd of folks. He saw two men--or maybe boys--run
+out of the side door and down to the gate, as though they were sneaking
+away from some of the others, you know."
+
+"Well?" his sister responded. "Go on."
+
+"Dan didn't know the fellows. Fact was, he couldn't see their faces very
+well, and so he could not be sure of their identity in any case."
+
+"The street is pretty wide there, it's a fact," murmured Bobby.
+
+"Those two fellows looked back as though they expected to be spied upon.
+But they went to the car, found it was all right (Purt had the radiator
+blanketed) and got in. The starter worked, and she got into action as slick
+as a whistle, Dan said. He thought it was all right or he would have raised
+the window and halloaed at 'em. There were no girls with them. The two
+fellows went off alone in the car."
+
+"There were two men in the car that struck Mr. Nemo of Nowhere," murmured
+Bobby.
+
+"Purt appeared, Dan says, after a little while and looked for the car. He
+got quite excited. Asked everybody that came along if they had seen it. He
+was in a stew for fair. And while he was running up and down, popping off
+like an engine exhaust, back came the car with only one of the fellows in
+it."
+
+"Ha! The mystery deepens," said Jess, in mock tragic tones. "What became of
+the other villain?"
+
+"You answer that question," grinned Chet. "You asked it!"
+
+"But what happened then?" asked Laura interestedly.
+
+"There was a row between Purt and the fellow who brought back the car. Purt
+pointed to the mudguard on the off side, as though it had been bent, or
+scraped in some way----"
+
+"That's what struck the man as he fell on Market Street," interrupted Bobby
+with confidence. "I saw it hit him."
+
+"It was blood on the guard," said Laura.
+
+"Oh, my!" gasped Jess. "Do you suppose so?"
+
+"Like enough," Chet agreed. "But it was too far away for Dan to see. And
+finally Purt drove off without returning to the house with the other
+fellow."
+
+"But who was he?" Jess asked.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The fellow Purt quarreled with for taking the car."
+
+"Give it up," said Chet, shaking his head.
+
+"And what became of the other man?" Laura queried.
+
+"There were two in the car when it hit the man from Alaska," Jess declared.
+
+"Gee!" ejaculated Bobby. "There's the nine-ten express west"
+
+"Who----What do you mean, young one?" demanded Chet.
+
+"'Young one' yourself!" snapped Clara Hargrew, immediately on her dignity.
+"There are no medals on you for age, Chet Belding."
+
+"Or whiskers, either," laughed Laura, slyly eyeing her brother, for she was
+aware that he had a safety razor hidden away in his bureau drawer.
+
+"Come, come!" said Jess, "What about this nine-ten express Bobby spoke of?"
+
+"Why," said the younger girl, "I noticed Mr. Belding's clock--the big
+chronometer in the show window--as we came out of the store that Saturday
+evening. It was just nine o'clock when we stood there and saw Mr. Nemo of
+Nowhere run down by the car. Anybody driving that car could have made the
+railroad station just about in time for the ten minutes' past nine
+express--the Cannon Ball, don't they call it?"
+
+"That is the train," admitted Laura. "But why----"
+
+"Just wait a minute. Give me time," advised Bobby. "That car that did the
+damage was headed for the station."
+
+"True," murmured Jess. "At least, it was going in that direction."
+
+"And when Purt's car came back to the Grimes' house after those two fellows
+Dan Smith saw run away with it, there was only one person in the car. The
+second individual had been dropped."
+
+"At the station!" exclaimed Chet, catching the idea. "That is why they
+stole Purt's car."
+
+"I declare," Laura said. "Your idea sounds very reasonable, Bobby."
+
+"Bobby is right there with the brainworks," said Chet, with admiration.
+
+"Oh," said Bobby, "I'm not altogether 'non compos mend-us,' as the fellow
+said."
+
+Chet was very serious, after all. "I tell you what," he blurted out, "if
+Purt won't help himself with the police, maybe we can get him out of the
+muss in spite of all."
+
+"Why does he want to act the donkey?" demanded Jess.
+
+"Are you sure he is?" asked Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"I tell you," said the excited Chet, "we can find out who had to leave
+Hester Grimes' party to catch that express. It ought to be a good lead.
+What do you think, Laura?"
+
+"I am wondering," said Mother Wit, "if we have always been fair to
+Prettyman Sweet? Of course, he is silly in some ways, and dresses
+ridiculously, and is not much of a sport. But if he is keeping still about
+this matter so as not to make trouble for Hester, or any of her folks,
+there is something fine in his action, don't you think?"
+
+"Well--yes," admitted Jess. "It would seem so."
+
+"I never thought of poor Purt as a chivalrous knight," said Bobby.
+
+"Maybe Laura is right," remarked Chet, rather grudgingly.
+
+"He is much more of a gentleman, perhaps, than we have given him credit for
+being," Laura concluded. "I hope it is proved so in the end."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE LAST REHEARSAL
+
+
+That afternoon, when the girls gathered for rehearsal, Hester, nor anybody
+else, appeared to play "the dark lady of the roses." Mr. Mann made no
+comment upon this fact, but he looked very serious, indeed.
+
+The play was acted from the first entrance to the final curtain. The other
+characters had to speak of, and even to, the important and missing
+character, and it was plain to all as the play progressed that the absence
+of "the dark lady" was going to be a fatal hindrance to the success of the
+piece.
+
+Even Lily Pendleton, Hester's last lingering friend, showed a good deal of
+spleen at Hester's action.
+
+"I never will forgive Hessie," Lily said, almost in tears. And the other
+girls had to urge her over and over again to be sure and come herself on
+Thursday for the last dress rehearsal.
+
+"If the piece is wrecked, let us be castaways together," begged Jess.
+"Don't anybody else fail. Promise, girls!"
+
+They promised sadly. Mr. Mann had hurried away as soon as the last words
+were said.
+
+"Too disgusted to even speak to us," Nellie said sadly. "I am real sorry
+for him, girls. He has tried so hard."
+
+"He deserves a leather medal," said Bobby emphatically.
+
+"And what do we deserve?" demanded one of the twins.
+
+"I know what Hester Grimes deserves," said Bobby darkly.
+
+It was not likely, however, that Hester Grimes would get her deserts. They
+were all agreed on that point, if on no other.
+
+That Wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping
+spirits--all but Laura Belding, at least. Perhaps it was because she always
+had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young
+shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers.
+
+At least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital
+before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She
+carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's
+ward.
+
+The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital
+by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in
+which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear
+on his spirits.
+
+"Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with
+both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this
+side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as
+they used to be?"
+
+"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in
+each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."
+
+"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back
+the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you
+different."
+
+But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble.
+What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested
+the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.
+
+"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding
+somebody for Hester. That's it!"
+
+"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the
+one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester
+has no brothers----"
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there
+at the party, so was Lil Pendleton."
+
+"Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her."
+
+"And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are,"
+Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends
+or relatives. Let me tell you that!"
+
+"I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to
+everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the
+other girls of Central High."
+
+"Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt
+cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we
+could find some way of giving him the right steer."
+
+"You mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?"
+
+"Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it
+all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!"
+
+"I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."
+
+"You're always full of ideas, Laura," the boy said admiringly. "I've been
+raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer
+of an idea how to help him. He says if we can show him how to find his
+memory, he'll do all he can for Purt," Billy added wistfully.
+
+"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?"
+suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.
+
+"You bet I am."
+
+"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."
+
+Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never
+gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or
+Lance, or Reddy Butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts
+to Purt."
+
+"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"
+
+"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I
+always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in
+bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy
+gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after
+all."
+
+"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said,
+squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.
+
+"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it,"
+Billy cried.
+
+"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.
+
+By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped
+her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now
+established with his particular nurse. He hailed the girl's appearance
+almost as gladly as Billy Long had done.
+
+"Your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of
+course--as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I
+get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I
+can't get a grip on what and who I am----"
+
+"I have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected
+Laura. "You know, you must have been doing something all these years since
+you won your fortune in Alaska."
+
+"Surely! But what became of my wealth? That is a hard question."
+
+"Perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. Then you will
+gradually remember it all. Have you those bank-notes they say you carried
+in your pocket when you were brought in?"
+
+"Why, they are in the hospital safe. I haven't had to use much of my money
+yet," he said, puzzled.
+
+"I want to look at that money--all of it," said Laura. "It is too late
+to-night, but to-morrow afternoon I will come with my brother, and I wish
+you would have those bank-notes here. I have an idea."
+
+"I'll do just as you say, Miss Laura," said the man. "But I don't
+understand----"
+
+"You will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away.
+
+There was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that
+night--and Laura Belding was partly at fault. She retained all her usual
+placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the
+other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their
+prophecies of ill.
+
+This was the day of the last rehearsal. Mr. Mann had told them that he
+wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public
+performance of "The Rose Garden" on the following evening.
+
+"I just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed Jess, before Mr. Mann
+called the rise of the curtain.
+
+Everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. The curtain
+was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the
+other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit.
+
+The girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly
+to Miss Carrington's disapproval. Since her "run-in" with the Lockwood
+twins, as Bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting,
+although quite as stern-looking as ever.
+
+Dora and Dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement
+over the incident in history class, and were so much interested in their
+parts in the play now that they forgot all about Gee Gee's ill treatment.
+
+Indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state
+of excitement. Although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark
+lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most
+telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with
+vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant.
+
+Bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done
+credit to any "garby" in the Navy. Jess, as the swashbuckling hero,
+swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as
+the author intended the part to be played.
+
+Then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "Adrian" turned to
+point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the
+rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs.
+
+Jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the
+shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander.
+With incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than Jess could
+possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady
+as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as
+she lightly trod the fictitious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the
+rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant
+eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience.
+
+It was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or
+Jess Morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her
+amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE
+
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Can it be Margit Salgo?"
+
+"How very, very wonderful!"
+
+These were some of the ejaculations of the girls behind the scenes.
+
+At just the right moment the figure of the dark lady had glided from the
+dressing-rooms to the wings and gone on at the cue. Her acting gave just
+the needed touch to the pretty scene. Her appearance had been most
+charming. And, above all, the surprise had been "such a relief!"
+
+"I'm so glad Hester got mad with us and refused to act," sighed Bessie
+Yeager. "Whoever this girl is, she is fine."
+
+"Is it a professional Mr. Mann has engaged?" somebody wanted to know.
+
+"Laura Belding! Laura Belding!" cried Dora. "What do you know about it?"
+
+"I warrant Laura knows all about it," said Jess, recovered from her
+amazement. "It is just like Mother Wit to have saved us. And I believe I
+recognize that very charming Lady Mystery--do I not?"
+
+"Isn't she splendid?" cried Laura, enthusiastically, "I knew she could do
+it. And Mr. Mann has been giving her an hour's training every day for a
+week."
+
+"Goodness!" drawled Lily Pendleton, "how did you know Hester would cut up
+so mean?"
+
+"Doesn't she always do something to queer us if she can?" snapped Bobby.
+"Laura, you are a wonder!"
+
+"It is Janet Steele," declared Jess. "Of course! I should have thought of
+her myself. She is all right--just the one we needed."
+
+And it took some courage on Jess' part for her to say this, for she knew
+that Chet Belding had expressed very warm admiration indeed of Janet
+Steele.
+
+The rehearsal went off splendidly after that. Everybody was encouraged. The
+rotund little Mr. Mann beamed--"more than ever like a cherub," Bobby
+declared. They came to the final curtain with tremendous applause from the
+back benches where some of the faculty sat in the dark.
+
+"And I do believe," said Nellie Agnew, in almost a scared voice, "that Gee
+Gee applauded! Can it be possible, girls? Do you suppose that for once she
+gives us credit for knowing a little something?"
+
+"If she applauded, her hands slipped by mistake!" grumbled Bobby. "You know
+very well that nothing would change Gee Gee's opinion. Not even an
+earthquake."
+
+It was late when the rehearsal was over, and Laura knew that Chet would be
+waiting outside with their car. She hurried Jess and Bobby, and even Janet,
+into their outer wraps as quickly as possible.
+
+"For you might as well go along with us, Janet," Laura said to the new girl
+"We're going to the hospital first, but we'll drop you at your home coming
+back."
+
+Just what they were to do at the hospital nobody knew save Laura and Chet,
+and they refused to explain. When they arrived at the institution they went
+directly to the private room now occupied by Mr. Nemo of Nowhere.
+
+Billy Long, up in a chair for the first time, was present to greet the
+girls of Central High. And the man from Alaska seemed particularly glad to
+see them.
+
+"Here is the money, Miss Laura," he said, producing a packet of crisp
+bank-notes. "I'd give it all to know just who I am. I seem to be right on
+the verge of discovering it to-day; yet something balks me."
+
+"Oh, look at all that money!" crowed Billy, as Laura accepted the bills,
+while Chet, with the help of the interested nurse, arranged the bed-table
+and gave the man a pad and a fountain pen.
+
+The head surgeon, who had taken a great interest in the case and with whom
+Laura had already conferred, tiptoed into the room and stood to look on.
+
+"You bankers," said Laura, laughing, and speaking to the patient, "are
+always so much better off than ordinary folks. You pass out any old kind of
+money to your customers; but you never see a banker with anything but new
+bank-notes in his pocket."
+
+The man listened to her sharply. A sudden quickened interest appeared in
+his countenance. The others heard Mother Wit's speech with growing
+excitement.
+
+"See," said the girl of Central High, extracting one of the bank-notes from
+the packet "Here is another bill on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage,
+Ohio. Did you notice that? Doesn't it sound familiar to you?"
+
+She repeated the name of the bank and its locality slowly. "You have more
+bills of that same bank. But none like the one you gave Chet when you
+bought that lavalliere for 'the nice little girl' you told him you expected
+to give it to."
+
+The man stared at her. He seemed enthralled by what she said. Laura
+proceeded in her quiet way:
+
+"Just write this name, please: 'Bedford Knox.' Thanks. Now write it again.
+He is cashier of your bank in Osage, Ohio."
+
+Jess barely stifled a cry with her handkerchief. But everybody else was
+silent, watching the man laboriously writing the name as requested by
+Laura.
+
+It was a disappointment. No doubt of that The man did not write the name as
+though he were familiar with it at all. But Laura was still smiling when he
+looked up at her, almost childishly, for further directions.
+
+"Now try this other, please," said the girl firmly. "Two men always sign
+bank-notes to make them legal tender. The cashier and the president The
+president of the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio, is----"
+
+She hesitated. The man poised his pen over the paper expectantly. Said
+Laura, briskly:
+
+"Write 'Peyton J. Weld.'"
+
+At her words Janet Steele uttered a startled exclamation. The man did not
+notice this. He wrote the name as Laura requested. Chet, looking over his
+shoulder and with one of the Osage bank-notes in his hand for comparison,
+watched the signature dashed off in almost perfect imitation of that upon
+the bank-note.
+
+"You guessed it, Mother Wit!" the big boy cried. "Write it again, Mr. Weld.
+That is your name as sure as you live!"
+
+The surgeon stepped quickly to the bedside and his sharp eyes darted from
+the bank-note in the boy's hand to the signature his patient had written.
+The man looked wonderingly about the room, his puzzled gaze drifting from
+one to another of his visitors until it finally fastened upon the pale
+countenance of Janet Steele.
+
+Catching his eye, the girl stepped forward impulsively, her hands clasped.
+
+"Uncle Jack!" she breathed.
+
+"You--you look quite like your mother used to, my dear," the man in bed
+said in rather a strange voice.
+
+The surgeon eased him back upon the pillows, and at a nod the nurse sent
+the visitors out of the room. In the corridor they all stood amazed,
+staring at Janet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IT IS ALL ROUNDED UP
+
+
+"Of course," Lily Pendleton confessed, "I was at Hester's party,"
+
+"And Purt Sweet was there?" queried Laura earnestly.
+
+"Mr. Sweet certainly was present, too," said the other girl. "You girls
+need not be so jealous if we are the only two from Central High that got
+invited,"
+
+"You can have my share and welcome," said Bobby.
+
+"And mine, too," confessed Jess.
+
+"These interrogations are not inspired by jealousy," laughed Mother Wit.
+
+It was on Friday as the girls gathered for recitations that this
+conversation occurred. Lily Pendleton was inclined to object to having her
+intimacy with Hester Grimes inquired into.
+
+"Do you remember what night that party was held, Lily?" asked Laura.
+
+"Why, no. On a Saturday night, I believe."
+
+"Quite so. And on a particular Saturday night," said Laura.
+
+"You said it!" murmured Bobby.
+
+"I don't know what you mean!" cried Lily Pendleton.
+
+"But you will before I get through with you," said Laura. "Now, listen! You
+know about that man who had his leg broken on Market Street?"
+
+"The one the police say Purt ran down with his car?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Of course I do," Lily cried. "And Purt is as innocent as you are!"
+
+"Granted," said Laura. "Therefore you will help us explain the mystery, and
+so relieve Purt Sweet of suspicion. For he refuses to say anything himself
+to the police."
+
+"Why--why----What do I know about it?" demanded Lily.
+
+"Do you know that the party was held the very Saturday night the man was
+hurt?"
+
+"No! Was it?"
+
+"It was. And Purt had his car up there at the Grimes' house."
+
+"Did he? I didn't know. He went away early, I believe."
+
+"And earlier still a couple of boys, or men, borrowed Purt's car without
+his knowing it--until afterward," Laura declared earnestly. "One of those
+fellows had to catch a train."
+
+"Why, that was Hester's cousin, Jeff Rounds! He lives at Norridge. Don't
+you know?"
+
+"Who was the other fellow?" asked Laura sharply.
+
+"Why--I----Oh! it must have been Tom Langley. He lives next door to
+Hester. Do you know," said Lily, preening a little, "I think Tom is kind of
+sweet on Hessie."
+
+"Good night!" moaned Bobby. "What is the matter with him? Is he blind?"
+
+"He must have had very bad eyesight or he would not have run down that poor
+Mr. Weld on Market Street!" exclaimed Jess tartly.
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Lily. "Tom Langley has gone away for the winter
+anyway. He went suddenly----"
+
+"Right after that party, I bet a cooky," cried Bobby.
+
+"Well--ye-es," admitted Lily.
+
+"Scared!" exclaimed Jess.
+
+"The coward!" cried Laura.
+
+"And left poor Purt to face the music," Bobby observed. "Well, old Purt is
+better than we ever gave him credit for. Now we'll make him square himself
+with the police."
+
+It was Mr. Nemo of Nowhere, now Mr. Peyton J. Weld, who had the most to do
+with settling the police end of Purt Sweet's trouble. It was some weeks
+before he could do this, for the shock of his mental recovery racked the
+man greatly. For some days the surgeon would not let the young folk see
+their friend whose mind had been so twisted.
+
+"I don't know but we did more harm than good, Laura," Chet Belding said
+anxiously, when they discussed Mr. Weld's condition.
+
+"I don't believe so," his sister said. "At any rate, we revealed him as
+Janet's Uncle Jack, and the discovery has done Mrs. Steele a world of good
+already."
+
+That the man who, for a time, had forgotten who he was and had forgotten a
+number of years of his life, finally recovered completely, can safely be
+stated. His very first outing from the hospital was in Purt Sweet's car,
+and the boy drove him first of all to the office of the Chief of Police.
+
+Purt had refused utterly to make trouble for either Hester Grimes' cousin
+Jeff or for Tom Langley. Mr. Weld assured the Chief of Police that,
+although it was Purt's car that had struck him down on the icy street, Purt
+had not been in the car at the time.
+
+Nor did the boy of Central High have anything to do with the accident. His
+car had been borrowed without permission by "parties unknown," as far as
+Mr. Weld was concerned, and to this day the police of Centerport are rather
+hazy as to just who it was that stole Purt Sweet's car and committed the
+assault.
+
+"And I feel sort of hazy myself," Jess Morse said, when they were all
+talking it over at one time. "Mostly hazy about this Man from Nowhere. How
+did he so suddenly become Janet Steele's Uncle Jack?"
+
+"And his name 'Peyton'?" added Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Why, his middle name was John--they always called him by it at home,"
+explained Laura Belding. "And, of course, Janet and her mother knew nothing
+about the name written on those Osage bank bills. I didn't suspect the
+relationship myself.
+
+"But I began to be quite sure that he must have had something to do with
+the bank for which those bills were issued. And it seemed probable that, as
+he had so much money with him when he landed in Centerport, that he must be
+somebody in Osage of wealth and prominence. I wrote secretly to the
+postmaster at Osage and learned that the president of the Drovers' Levee
+Bank had gone East on a vacation--presumably to hunt up some relatives that
+he had not seen for some time."
+
+"Sly Mother Wit!" cried Jess.
+
+"Not such a wonderful thing to do," laughed Laura.
+
+"Not half so wonderful," put in the irrepressible Bobby Hargrew, "as it
+seemed to the countryman who came to town and stood gazing up at the tall
+steeple of the cathedral. As he gazed the bell began to toll The hick
+stopped a passer-by and said:
+
+"'Tell me, why does the bell ring at this time of day?'
+
+"The other man studied the hick for a moment and then said: 'That's easy.
+There's somebody pulling on the rope.'"
+
+"Well," said Nellie, when the laugh had subsided, "I guess Janet and her
+mother are glad our Laura had such a bright idea."
+
+"Of course! They are going back to Osage with Mr. Weld when he has fully
+recovered. And so we shall lose an awfully nice girl friend," Laura
+declared.
+
+"Gee!" sighed Chet. "And such a pretty girl!"
+
+Jess said not a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course, all twisted threads must be straightened out at the end of the
+story; but our tale really ends with the performance of "The Rose Garden."
+That on Friday night was most enthusiastically received by the friends and
+parents of the girls of Central High.
+
+It was a worthy production, and the girls deserved all the applause they
+received. It encouraged them to give two further performances, and
+altogether the three netted a large sum for the Red Cross. The play, in
+fact, was the means of raising more money for the fund than any other
+single method used for that object in Centerport.
+
+The city "went over the top" in its quota of both memberships and funds,
+and that before Christmas. The girls of Central High could rest on their
+laurels over the holidays, knowing that they had done well.
+
+"But wait till Gee Gee gets after us after New Year's," prophesied Bobby.
+
+"Don't be so pessimistic," said Jess. "Maybe she won't."
+
+"Why won't she?" demanded Dora Lockwood.
+
+"Nothing will change her," sighed Dora's twin.
+
+"Say!" gasped Bobby, stricken with a sudden thought, "maybe she'll get the
+pip, or something, and not be able to teach. That is our only hope!"
+
+"Suppose we turn over a new leaf, as Miss Carrington won't," suggested
+Laura in her placid way.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Bobby suspiciously.
+
+"Suppose we agree not to annoy her any more than we can help for the rest
+of the school year?"
+
+"There! Isn't that just like you, Laura Belding?" demanded Jess.
+"Suggesting the impossible."
+
+This was said in the wings of the school stage during the last performance
+of "The Rose Garden." The curtain went up on the last act and the girls
+became quiet They watched Janet Steele, as the dark lady of the roses, move
+again across the stage. She was very graceful and very pretty. The boys out
+front applauded her enthusiastically.
+
+Laura pinched Jess's arm. "Janet certainly has made a hit," she whispered.
+
+"Well," admitted Jess, "she deserves their applause. And she just about
+saved our play, Laura. There is no getting around that."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girls of Central High Aiding the
+Red Cross, by Gertrude W. Morrison
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red
+Cross, by Gertrude W. Morrison
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross
+       Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause
+
+Author: Gertrude W. Morrison
+
+Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8137]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 17, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIRLS AIDING THE RED CROSS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kevin Handy, Joshua Hutchinson, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross
+
+OR
+
+AMATEUR THEATRICALS FOR A WORTHY CAUSE
+
+BY
+
+GERTRUDE W. MORRISON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+I THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
+II THE RED CROSS GIRL
+III ODD!
+IV THE MYSTERY MAN
+V SAND IN THE GEARS
+VI THE BANK-NOTE
+VII SOMETHING EXCITING
+VIII THE FOREFRONT OF TROUBLE
+IX THE ICE CARNIVAL
+X BUT WHO IS HE?
+XI A REHEARSAL
+XII BUBBLE, BUBBLE
+XIII MOTHER WIT HAS AN IDEA
+XIV CHAINS ON HIS WHEELS
+XV PIE AND POETRY
+XVI EMBER NIGHT
+XVII A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+XVIII WHERE WAS PURT?
+XIX LAURA LISTENS
+XX TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER
+XXI AND A THIRD THING
+XXII THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PURT
+XXIII THE LAST REHEARSAL
+XXIV MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE
+XXV IT IS ALL ROUNDED UP
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
+
+
+"Well, if that isn't the oddest thing that ever happened!" murmured Laura
+Belding, sitting straight up on the stool before the high desk in her
+father's glass-enclosed office, from which elevation she could look down
+the long aisles of his jewelry store and out into Market Street,
+Centerport's main business thoroughfare.
+
+But Laura was not looking down the vista of the electrically lighted shop
+and into the icy street. Instead, she gave her attention to that which lay
+right under her eyes upon the desk top. She looked first at the neat
+figures she had written upon the page of the day ledger, after carefully
+proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of coin on the
+desk at her right hand.
+
+"It is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in
+answer to her own first declaration.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and it was always Laura's duty to straighten out
+her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high school
+girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she could give
+the books proper attention weekly. Laura had taken a course in bookkeeping
+and she was quite familiar with the business of keeping a simple set of
+books like these.
+
+She never let the day ledger and the cash get far apart. It was her custom
+to strike a balance weekly, and this she was doing at this time. Or she was
+trying to! But there seemed to be something entirely wrong with the cash
+itself.
+
+She knew that the figures on the ledger were correct. She had asked her
+father, and even Chet, her brother, who was helping in the store this
+evening, if either of them had taken out any cash without setting the sum
+down in the proper record.
+
+"It is an even fifty dollars--neither more nor less," she had told them,
+with a puzzled little frown corrugating her pretty forehead.
+
+They had both denied any such act--Chet, of course, vigorously.
+
+"What kind of hardware are you trying to hang on me, Mother Wit?" he
+demanded of his sister. "I know Christmas will soon be on top of us, and a
+fellow needs all the money there is in the world to buy even one girl a
+decent present. But I assure you I haven't taken to nicking papa's cash
+drawer."
+
+"I don't know but mother is right," Laura sighed. "Your language is
+becoming something to listen to with fear and trembling. And I am not
+accusing you, Chetwood. I'm only asking you!"
+
+"And I'm only answering you--emphatically," chuckled her brother.
+
+"It is no laughing matter when you cannot find fifty dollars," she told
+him.
+
+"You'd better stir your wits a little, then, Sis," he advised. "You know
+Jess and Lance will be along soon and we were all going shopping together,
+and skating afterward. Lance and I want to practice our grapevine whirl."
+
+But being advised to hurry did not help. For half an hour since Chet had
+last spoken the girl had sat in a web of mystery that fairly made her head
+spin! Her ledger figures were proved over and over again. But the cash!
+Then once more she bent to her task.
+
+The piles of coin were all right she finally decided. She counted them over
+and over again, and they came to the same penny exactly. So she pushed the
+coin aside.
+
+Then she slowly and carefully counted again the bank-notes, turning them
+one by one face down from left to right. The amount, added to the sum of
+the coins, was equal to the figures on the ledger. Then she did what she
+had already done ten or a dozen times. She recounted the bills, turning
+them from right to left.
+
+She was fifty dollars short!
+
+Christmas was approaching, and the Belding jewelry store was, of course,
+rather busier than at other seasons. That was why Chet Belding was helping
+out behind the counters. Out there, he kept a closer watch on the front
+door than Laura, with her financial trouble, could.
+
+Suddenly he darted down the long room to welcome a group of young people
+who pushed open the jewelry-store door. They burst in with a hail of merry
+voices and a clatter of tongues that drowned every other sound in the store
+for a minute, although there were but four of them.
+
+"Easy! Easy!" begged Mr. Belding, who was giving his attention to a
+customer near the front of the store. "Take your friends back to Laura's
+coop, Chetwood."
+
+Hushed for the moment, the party drifted back toward Laura's desk. The
+young girl was still too deeply engaged with the ledger and cash to look up
+at first.
+
+"What is the matter, Mother Wit?" demanded the taller of the two girls who
+had just come in--a most attractive-looking maiden, whom Chet had at once
+taken on his arm.
+
+"Engine trouble," chuckled Laura's brother. "The old thing just won't
+budge! Isn't that it, Laura?"
+
+The tall youth--dark and delightfully romantic-looking, any girl would have
+told you--went around into the little office and looked over Laura's
+shoulder.
+
+"What's gone wrong, Laura?" he asked, with sympathy in his voice and
+manner.
+
+"You want to get a move on, Mother Wit!" cried the youngest girl of the
+troop, saucy looking, and with ruddy cheeks and flyaway curls. This was
+Clara Hargrew, whom her friends called Bobby, and whose father kept the big
+grocery store just a block away from the Belding jewelry store. "Everybody
+will have picked over the presents in all the stores and got the best of
+everything before we get there."
+
+"That's right," said the last member of the group; and this was a short and
+sturdy boy who had the same mischievous twinkle in his eye that Bobby
+Hargrew displayed.
+
+His name was Long, and because he was short, everybody at Central High
+(save the teachers, of course) called him "Short and Long." He and Bobby
+Hargrew were what hopeless grown folk called "a team!" When they were not
+hatching up some ridiculous trick together, they were separately in
+mischief.
+
+"But you say Short and Long has done some of his Christmas shopping
+already," Jess Morse, the tall visitor, said. "Just think, Laura! He has
+sent Purt Sweet his annual present."
+
+"So soon?" said Laura Belding, but with her mind scarcely on what her
+friends were saying. "And Thanksgiving is only just passed!"
+
+"I thought I'd better be early," said Short and Long, with solemn
+countenance. "I wrote 'Not to be opened till Christmas' upon the package."
+
+Bobby and Jess and Lance burst into giggles. "Let's have the joke!"
+demanded Chet. "What did you send the poor fish, Short?"
+
+"You guessed it! You guessed it, Chet Belding!" cried Bobby. "Aren't you a
+clever lad?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Laura, now becoming more seriously interested.
+
+"Why," Jess Morse said, "he got a codfish down at the market and wrapped it
+up in a lot of paper and put it in a long, beautifully decorated Christmas
+box. If Purt Sweet keeps that box without opening it until Christmas, I am
+afraid the Board of Health will be making inquiries about the Sweet
+premises."
+
+"You scamp!" exclaimed Laura sternly, to Short and Long.
+
+"He's all right!" declared Bobby warmly. "You know just how mean and stingy
+Purt Sweet is--and his mother has more money than anybody else in
+Centerport. Last Christmas, d'you know what Purt did?"
+
+"Something silly, of course," Laura said.
+
+"I don't know what you call silly. I call it mean," declared the smaller
+girl. "Purt got it noised abroad that he was going to give a present to
+every fellow in his class--didn't he, Short?"
+
+"That's what he did," said Billy Long, taking up the story. "And the day
+before Christmas he got us all over to his house and offered each of us a
+drink of ice-water! And some of the kids had been foolish enough to buy him
+things--and give 'em to him ahead of time, too!"
+
+"Serves you right for being so piggish," commented Chet.
+
+"It was a mean trick," agreed Laura, "for some of the boys in Purt's grade
+are much younger than he is. But this idea of giving Christmas presents
+because you expect something in return----"
+
+"Is pretty small potatoes," finished Lance Darby, the dark youth. "But
+what's the matter here, Laura?" he added. "I've counted these bills and
+they are just exactly right by those figures you have set down there."
+
+"You turned them from left to right as you counted, Lance," cried Laura.
+
+"Sure! I counted the face of each bill," was the answer.
+
+"Now count them the other way!" exclaimed Laura in despair.
+
+Her friends gathered around while Laura did this. Even Chet gave some
+attention to his sister's trouble now. From right to left the packet of
+bank-notes came to fifty dollars less than the sum accredited to them on
+the ledger.
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" breathed Lance.
+
+"That's the strangest thing!" declared Jess Morse.
+
+"Why," said Bobby of the quick mind, "must be some of the bills are not
+printed right."
+
+"Nonsense!" ejaculated Chet.
+
+"Who ever heard of such a thing as a banknote being printed wrong unless it
+was a counterfeit?" demanded Laura.
+
+Mr. Belding, having finished with his customer, came back to the little
+office and heard this. "I am quite sure we have taken in no counterfeits--
+eh, Chet?" he said, smiling.
+
+"And there's only one big bill--this hundred," said Chet, who had taken the
+package of bills and was flirting them through his fingers. "I took that in
+myself when I sold that lavallière to the man I told you about, Father. You
+remember? He was a stranger, and he said he wanted to give it to a young
+girl. I------"
+
+"Let's see that bill, Chet!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly.
+
+Chet slipped the hundred-dollar note out of the packet and handed it to the
+grocer's daughter. But she immediately cried:
+
+"I want to see the hundred-dollar bill, Chet. Not this one."
+
+"Why, that's the hundred------"
+
+"This is a fifty," interrupted Bobby. "Can't you see?"
+
+She displayed the face of a fifty-dollar bank-note to their wondering eyes.
+Their exclamations drowned Mr. Belding's voice, and he had to speak twice
+before Bobby heard him.
+
+"Turn it over!"
+
+The grocer's daughter did so. The other side of the bill was the face of a
+hundred-dollar bank-note! At this there certainly was a hullabaloo in and
+around the office. Mr. Belding could scarcely make himself heard again. He
+was annoyed.
+
+"What is the matter with that bank-note? Whether it is counterfeit or not,
+you took it in over the counter, Chetwood," he said coldly.
+
+"This very day," admitted his oldest son.
+
+"Then, my boy, it is up to you," said the jeweler grimly.
+
+"What----Just what do you mean?" asked Chet, somewhat troubled by his
+father's sternness.
+
+"In a jewelry store," said Mr. Belding seriously, "as I have often told
+you, a clerk must keep his eyes open. You admit taking in this bill. If the
+Treasury Department says it is worth only fifty dollars, I shall expect you
+to make good the other fifty."
+
+The young people stared at each other in awed silence as the jeweler turned
+away. They could feel how annoyed he was.
+
+"Gee!" gasped Chet, "if I'm nicked fifty dollars, how shall I ever be able
+to buy Christmas presents, or even give anything for the Red Cross drive?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry, Chet!" Jess Morse murmured.
+
+"Looks as if hard times had camped on your trail, old boy," declared Lance.
+
+"But maybe it is a hundred-dollar bill," Laura said.
+
+"It's tough," Short and Long muttered.
+
+"Try to pass it on somebody else," chuckled Bobby, who was not very
+sympathetic at that moment.
+
+"Got it all locked up, Laura?" Jess asked. "Well, let us go then. You can't
+make that bill right by looking at it, Chet."
+
+"I--I wish I could get hold of the man who passed it on me," murmured the
+big fellow.
+
+"Would you know him again?" Lance asked.
+
+"Sure," returned his chum, getting his own coat and hat while his sister
+put on her outdoor clothing. "All ready? We're going, Pa."
+
+"Remember what I said about that bill, Chetwood," Mr. Belding admonished
+him. "You will learn after this, I guess, to look at both sides of a
+hundred-dollar bill--or any other--when it is offered to you."
+
+"Aw, it's a good hundred, I bet," grumbled Chet.
+
+"If it is, I'll add an extra fifty to my Red Cross subscription," rejoined
+his father with some tartness.
+
+"Well, that's something!" Bobby Hargrew said quickly. "We want to boost the
+fund all we can. And what do you think?"
+
+"My brain has stopped functioning entirely since I got so bothered by that
+bank-note," declared Laura Belding, shaking her head. "I can't think."
+
+"Mr. Sharp and the rest of the faculty have agreed that we shall give a
+show for the Red Cross," declared Bobby, with enthusiasm. "Just what we
+wanted them to do!"
+
+"Oh, joy!" cried Jess, clasping her hands in delight.
+
+"Miss Josephine Morse, leading lady, impressarioess, and so forth," laughed
+Lance Darby, "will surely be in on the theatricals."
+
+"Maybe they will let you write the play, Jess," said Chet admiringly.
+
+They reached the door and stepped into the street. There had been rain and
+a freeze. The sidewalks, as well as the highway itself, were slippery.
+Bobby suddenly screamed:
+
+"See there! Oh! He'll be killed!"
+
+A rapidly-driven automobile turned the corner by the Belding store. A man
+was crossing Market Street, coming toward the group of young people.
+
+The careless driver had not put on his chains. The car skidded. The next
+instant the pedestrian was knocked down, and at least one wheel ran over
+his prostrate body.
+
+Instead of stopping, the car went into high speed and dashed up the street
+and was quickly out of sight. The young people ran to the prostrate man.
+Nobody for the moment thought of the automobile driver who was responsible
+for the affair.
+
+The victim had blood on his face from a cut high up on his crown. He was
+unconscious. It was Chet Belding who stood up and spoke, first of all.
+
+"I thought so! I thought so!" he gasped. "Do you know who this is?"
+
+"Who?" asked Jess, clinging to his arm as the crowd gathered.
+
+"This is the man who passed that phony hundred-dollar bill on me. The very
+one!"
+
+"Is he dead?" whispered Bobby Hargrew, looking under Chefs elbow down at
+the crimson-streaked face of the unfortunate man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE RED CROSS GIRL
+
+
+Market street was well lighted, but it was not well policed. That last fact
+could not be denied, or the recklessly driven automobile that had knocked
+down the stranger would never have got away so easily. People from both
+sides of the street and from the stores near by ran to the spot; but no
+policeman appeared until long after the automobile was out of sight.
+
+The exciting statement that Chet Belding had made so interested and
+surprised his friends that for a few moments they gave the victim of the
+injury little of their attention. Meanwhile a figure glided into the group
+and knelt beside the injured man who lay upon the ice-covered street. It
+was a girl, not older than Laura and Jess, but one who was dressed in the
+veil and cloak of the Red Cross.
+
+She was not the only Red Cross worker on Market Street that Saturday
+evening, for the drive for the big Red Cross fund had begun, and many
+workers were collecting. This girl, however seemed to have a practical
+knowledge of first-aid work. She drew forth a small case, wiped the blood
+away from the man's face with cotton, and then began to bandage the wound
+as his head rested against her knee.
+
+"Somebody send for the ambulance," she commanded, in a clear and pleasant
+voice. "I think he has a fractured leg, and he may be hurt otherwise."
+
+Her request brought the three girls of Central High to their senses. Bobby
+darted away to telephone to the hospital from her father's store. The older
+girls offered the Red Cross worker their aid.
+
+For a year and a half the girls of Central High had been interested in the
+Girls' Branch League athletics; and with their training under Mrs. Case,
+the athletic instructor, they had all learned something about first-aid
+work.
+
+The girls of Centerport had changed in character without a doubt since the
+three high schools of the city had become interested so deeply in girls'
+athletics. With the high schools of Keyport and Lumberport, an association
+of league units had been formed, and the girls of the five educational
+institutions were rivals to a proper degree in many games and sports.
+
+How all this had begun and how Laura Belding by her individual efforts had
+made possible the Central High's beautiful gymnasium and athletic field, is
+told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "The Girls of Central
+High; Or, Rivals for All Honors." This story served to introduce this party
+of young people who have met in the jewelry store, as well as a number of
+other characters, to the reader.
+
+In "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna; Or, The Crew That Won," the
+enthusiasm in sports among the girls of the five high schools reaches a
+high point.
+
+As the three cities in the league are all situated upon the beautiful lake
+named above, aquatic games hold a high place in the estimation of the rival
+associations in the league. Fun and sports fill this second volume.
+
+"The Girls of Central High at Basket Ball; Or, The Great Gymnasium
+Mystery," the third book, tells of several very exciting games in which the
+basket-ball team of Central High takes part, and the reader learns, as
+well, a good deal more about the individual characters of the girls
+themselves and of some very exciting adventures they have.
+
+"The Girls of Central High on the Stage; Or, The Play That Took the Prize,"
+the fourth volume in the series, is really Jess Morse's story, although
+Laura and their other close friends have much to do in the book and take
+part in the play which Jess wrote, and which was acted in the school
+auditorium. It was proved that Jess Morse had considerable talent for play
+writing, and the professional production of her school play aided the girl
+and her mother over a most trying financial experience.
+
+The fifth volume, "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field; Or, The
+Champions of the School League," is an all around athletic story in which
+rivalries for place in school athletics, excitement and interest of plot,
+and stories of character building are woven into a tale calculated to hold
+the attention of any reader interested in high school doings.
+
+During the summer previous to the opening of the present story in the
+series, these friends spent a most enjoyable time camping on Acorn Island,
+and the sixth tale, "The Girls of Central High in Camp; Or, The Old
+Professor's Secret," is as full of mystery, adventure, and fun as it can
+be. Since the end of the long vacation the Girls of Central High, as well
+as the boys who are their friends, had settled down to hard work both in
+studies and athletics. Ice had come early this year and already Lake Luna
+was frozen near the shore and most of the steamboat traffic between the
+lake cities had ceased.
+
+The great pre-holiday Red Cross drive had now enthralled the girls of
+Central High, as well as the bulk of Centerport's population. Everybody
+wanted to put the city "over the top" with more than its quota subscribed
+to the fund.
+
+In the first place, the boys' and girls' athletic associations of Central
+High were planning an Ice Carnival to raise funds for the cause, and it was
+because of that exhibition that Chet Belding and Lance Darby wished to get
+down to the ice that evening and try their own particular turn, after the
+shopping expedition that also had been planned.
+
+As it happened, however, neither the shopping nor the skating was done on
+this particular Saturday night.
+
+As Bobby Hargrew ran to telephone to the hospital, Short and Long had
+grabbed the wrists of his two older and taller boy friends and led them out
+of the crowd in a very mysterious way.
+
+"Did you get a good look at that car?" he whispered to Chet and Lance.
+
+"Of course I didn't," said the latter. "It went up the street like the
+wind. Didn't it, Chet?"
+
+"That rascal was going some when he turned the corner of Rapidan Street. I
+wonder he did not skid again and smash his car to pieces against the
+hydrant. Served him right if he had," Chet said.
+
+"There were no chains on his wheels," said Short and Long, in the same
+mysterious way.
+
+"You said it," agreed Lance. "What then?"
+
+"There are not many cars in Centerport right now without chains on. The
+streets have been icy for more than twenty-four hours."
+
+"Your statement is irrefutable," said Chet, grinning.
+
+"Get it off your chest, Short and Long," begged Lance. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," said the earnest lad, "that I know a car that was out this
+afternoon without chains, and it was a seven-seater Perriton car--just as
+this one that knocked down Chet's friend was."
+
+"It was a Perriton, I believe," murmured Lance.
+
+But Chetwood Belding said: "I don't know whether that poor fellow is a
+friend of mine or not. If I have to give Pa fifty dollars--Whew!"
+
+"But the car?" urged Lance Darby. "Who has a Perriton car, Short and Long?"
+
+"And without chains?" added Chet, waking up to the main topic.
+
+"Come along, fellows," said the younger lad. "I won't tell you. But I'll
+take you to where you can see the car I mean. If it still is without chains
+on the wheels, and has just been used--Well, we can talk about it then!"
+
+"All right," said Chet. "We can't do any good here. Here comes the
+ambulance. That poor fellow is going to be in the hospital for some time, I
+bet."
+
+There was such a crowd around the spot where the victim of the accident lay
+that the boys could not see the Central High girls, save Bobby Hargrew, who
+came running back from her father's store just as the clanging of the
+ambulance gong warned the crowd that the hospital had responded in its
+usual prompt fashion.
+
+The boys hailed the smaller girl and told her they were off to hunt for the
+car that had knocked down the victim. Then the three hurried away.
+
+Meanwhile, in the center of the crowd Laura Belding and Jess Morse had been
+aiding the girl in the Red Cross uniform as best they could to care for the
+man who was hurt. The latter had not opened his eyes when the ambulance
+worked its way into the crowd and halted beside the three girls on their
+knees in the street.
+
+"What have you there?" asked the young doctor, who swung himself off the
+rear of the truck.
+
+Laura and Jess told him. The third girl, the one who had done the most for
+the unfortunate man, did not at first say a word.
+
+The driver brought the rolled stretcher and blanket. He laid it down beside
+the victim. When the doctor had finished his brief notes he helped his aid
+lift the man to the stretcher. They picked it up and shoved it carefully
+into the ambulance.
+
+"I know you, Miss Belding," said the doctor. "And this is Miss Morse, isn't
+it? Do you mind giving me your name and address?" he asked the third girl.
+
+Was there a moment's hesitation on the part of the Red Cross girl? Laura
+thought there was; yet almost instantly the stranger replied:
+
+"My name is Janet Steele."
+
+"Ah! Your address?" repeated the doctor.
+
+This time there was no doubt that the girl flushed, and more than a few
+seconds passed before she made answer:
+
+"Thirty-seven Whiffle Street."
+
+At the same moment somebody exclaimed: "Here comes Fatty Morehead, the cop.
+Better late than never," and a general laugh went up from the crowd.
+
+Jess seized Laura's wrist, exclaiming: "Oh, Laura! he will want to take
+down our names and addresses, too. Let's get away."
+
+The Red Cross girl uttered an ejaculation of chagrin. She began pushing her
+way out of the press, and in an opposite direction from that in which the
+portly policeman was coming.
+
+Jess whispered swiftly in Laura's ear: "Come on! Let's follow her! I'm
+awfully interested in that Red Cross girl, Laura!"
+
+"Why should you be?" asked her chum. "Although she looks like a nice girl,
+I never saw her before."
+
+"Neither did I," said Jess. "But did you hear the address she gave? That is
+the poor end of Whiffle Street, as you very well know, and mother and I
+used to live right across the street from that house. I did not know
+anybody lived in the old Eaton place. It has been empty for a long, long
+time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ODD!
+
+
+Bobby Hargrew met Laura and Jess on the edge of the crowd, for she had been
+unable to worm herself into the middle of it again, and told them swiftly
+of the boys' departure to hunt for the car that had done the damage.
+
+"And that's just like the boys!" exclaimed Jess Morse, with some
+exasperation. "To run away and desert us!"
+
+"I don't know but I'm glad," said Laura. "I don't feel much like shopping
+after seeing that poor man hurt."
+
+"Or skating, either," complained Jess.
+
+Presently the three overtook the strange girl. Bobby, whom Chet had said
+was "just as friendly with strangers as a pup with a waggy tail,"
+immediately got into conversation with her.
+
+"Say! was he hurt badly?" she asked.
+
+"I think his right leg was broken," the Red Cross girl replied. "And his
+head was badly hurt. Your friends, here, could see that."
+
+"He bled dreadfully," sighed Laura. "But you had the bandage on so nicely
+that the doctor did not even disturb it, my dear."
+
+"Thank you," said the Red Cross girl. She hesitated on the corner of the
+side street. "I fear I must leave you here. I am going home."
+
+"Oh," cried Jess, who was enormously curious, "we can go your way just as
+well as not, Miss Steele! We live at the other end of Whiffle Street--up on
+the hill, you know."
+
+"All but me," put in Bobby. "But I can run right through Laura's yard to my
+house."
+
+She indicated Laura as she spoke. The Red Cross girl looked at Mother Wit
+with some expectancy. Jess came to the rescue.
+
+"Let's get acquainted," she said. "Why not? We'll never meet again under
+more thrilling circumstances," and she laughed. "This is Miss Laura
+Belding, Miss Steele. On your other hand is Miss Hargrew--Miss Clara
+Hargrew. I am Josephine Morse. I used to live across the street from the
+old Eaton place where you live now."
+
+"You are a stranger in town, are you not?" Laura asked, taking the new
+girl's hand.
+
+"Yes, Miss Belding. We have only been here four weeks. But I have worked in
+the Red Cross before--and one must do something, you know."
+
+"Do something!" burst forth Bobby. "If you went to Central High and had Gee
+Gee for one of your teachers, you'd have plenty to do."
+
+"We are all three Central High girls," said Laura gently. "Have you
+finished school, Miss Steele?"
+
+"I have not been able to attend school regularly for two years," admitted
+the new girl. "I am afraid," and she smiled apologetically, "that you are
+all much further advanced in your education than I am. You see, my mother
+is an invalid and I must give her a great deal of my time. It does not
+interfere, however, with my doing a little for the Red Cross."
+
+"I am sorry your mother is ill," said Laura.
+
+"We were advised to come up here for her sake," said Janet Steele hastily.
+"We have been living in a coast town. The doctors thought an inland
+climate--a drier climate--would be beneficial."
+
+"I hope it will prove so," said Laura.
+
+"It seems a shame you can't get out with the other girls," Jess added.
+
+"And come to school and let Gee Gee get after you," joined in Bobby grimly.
+
+"Is she such a very strict disciplinarian?" asked Miss Steele, smiling down
+at the irrepressible one as they walked through the side street toward
+Whiffle.
+
+"She's the limit," declared Bobby.
+
+"Oh," said Laura mildly, "I think Miss Carrington is nowhere near so strict
+as she used to be. Margit Salgo really has made her quite human, you know."
+
+"Say!" grumbled Bobby, "she can hand out demerits just as easy as ever. And
+she had her sense of humor extracted years ago."
+
+"Has that fault cropped up lately, my dear?" asked Laura, laughing. "It
+must be so. What happened, Bobby?"
+
+The younger girl, who was a sophomore, whereas Laura and Jess were juniors,
+came directly under Miss Carrington's attention in several classes. Bobby
+was forever getting into trouble with the strict teacher.
+
+"Why, look, now," said Bobby, warmly, "just what happened yesterday!
+English class. You know, that's nuts for Gee Gee. I was bothered enough, I
+can tell you, trying to correct a paper she had handed back to me, and she
+kept right on talking and asking questions, and the recitation period was
+almost ended. I didn't want to hang around there to correct that paper--"
+
+"You know very well you should have taken it home to correct," Laura put
+in.
+
+"Oh, don't tell me that! I take so much extra work home as it is, that
+Father Tom Hargrew asks me if I don't do anything at all in school. And,
+anyway, I didn't think Gee Gee saw me. But, of course, she did."
+
+"And then what?" Jess asked.
+
+"Why, she shot a question at me, and I didn't get it at first. 'Miss
+Hargrew! Pay attention!' she went on. Of course, that brought me up
+standing. 'What is a pseudonym?' she wanted to know. How silly! You know
+the trouble we've been having with that car Father Tom bought. 'I don't
+know what it is, Miss Carrington,' I told her. 'But if it is something that
+belongs to an automobile, father will have to buy a new one pretty soon,
+I'm sure.'"
+
+"And she docked you for that!" exclaimed Jess, as though wildly amazed.
+"How cruel!"
+
+"Really, I am afraid we are sometimes cruel to our dear teachers," laughed
+Laura. "But if they are too serious they are such a temptation to us witty
+ones."
+
+"Now, don't be sarcastic, Mother Wit," said Jess, shaking her chum a little
+by the elbow. "You know very well you enjoy nagging the teachers a bit
+yourself, now and then. And Professor Dimp!"
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped Bobby suddenly. "Did you hear the latest about Old
+Dimple?"
+
+"Now, girls," said Laura, quite sternly, "I refuse to hear of Professor
+Dimp being made a goose of."
+
+"Gander, dear! Gander!" exclaimed Jess, _sotto voce_.
+
+"He's an old dear," declared Laura, quite as earnestly. "We found that out,
+I am sure, when we went camping on Acorn Island last summer."
+
+"True! True!" admitted her chum.
+
+"Oh, nobody wants to hurt the old fellow," chuckled Bobby. "But one day
+this week there was a bunch of the boys down at the post-office, and
+Professor Dimp came in to mail a letter. You know he is always reading on
+the street when he walks; never sees anybody, and goes stumbling about
+blindly with a book under his nose. He got into the revolving door and
+Short and Long declares Old Dimple went around ten times before he knew
+enough to come out--and then he was on the street again and had failed to
+mail the letter."
+
+"Oh, Bobby!" cried Jess, while Miss Steele was quite convulsed by the
+statement.
+
+"He's so absent-minded," said Laura sympathetically. "Why didn't Short and
+Long tell him he was in the revolving door?"
+
+"Humph!" chuckled Bobby, "I guess Short thought the old fellow needed the
+exercise."
+
+Just then the girls came to the corner of Whiffle Street The street was
+narrow and crooked in an elbow here. The houses were mostly small, and were
+out of repair. It was, indeed, the poor end of Whiffle Street. On the hill
+end were some of the best residences in Centerport.
+
+"There's the Eaton place across the street," said Jess briskly. "I see
+there is a light, Miss Steele."
+
+"That is mother's room on the first floor--right off the piazza. You know,
+we could not begin to use all the house," the girl added frankly. "There
+are only mother and I and Aunt Jinny."
+
+"Oh! Your aunt?" asked Jess.
+
+"She is mother's old nurse. She has come with us--to help do the housework,
+you know," Miss Steele said frankly, yet again flushing a little. "I--I
+guess I have never lived just as you girls do. We have moved around a great
+deal. I have got such education as I have by fits and starts, you see. I
+suppose you three girls have a perfectly delightful time at your Central
+High?"
+
+"Especially when Gee Gee gets after us with a sharp stick," grumbled Bobby.
+
+"Don't mind Bobby," said Laura, laughing. "She is dreadfully slangy, and
+sometimes quite impossible. We do have fine times at Central High.
+Especially in our games and athletic work."
+
+"Miss Steele must be sure and come to our Ice Carnival next week," said
+Jess.
+
+"'Ice Carnival'?" cried the Red Cross girl. "And I just love to skate!"
+
+There came a sudden tapping on the window of the lighted room in the old
+Eaton house. The girls had crossed the street and were standing at the
+gate. Janet Steele wheeled quickly and waved her hand. A sitting figure was
+dimly outlined at the long, French window.
+
+"Oh!" Janet said. "Mother wants us to come in. She doesn't see many
+people--and she enjoys young folk. Won't you come in? It will be a pleasure
+for us both."
+
+Jess and Bobby looked at Laura. They allowed Mother Wit to decide the
+question, and she was but a few seconds in doing so.
+
+"Why, of course! It's not late," she said. "We shall stay but a minute this
+time, Miss Steele."
+
+"Call me Janet," whispered the Red Cross girl, squeezing Laura's arm as
+they went through the sagging gate.
+
+The quartette climbed the steep steps to the piazza. That the Eaton house
+was in bad repair was proved by the broken boards in steps and piazza floor
+and the dilapidated condition of the railing. Even the lock of the front
+door was broken. Janet turned the knob and ushered them into the dimly-lit
+hall.
+
+This was neatly if sparsely furnished. And everything seemed scrupulously
+clean. Their young hostess opened the door into her mother's room, which
+was that originally intended for the parlor.
+
+The eager and curious girls of Central High saw first of all the figure of
+the woman in the wheel chair by the window. She had pulled down the shade
+now and dropped the curtains into place. The whole room was warm and well
+lighted. There was a gas chandelier lighted to the full and an open grate
+heaped with red coals. There was a good rug, comfortable chairs, and a
+canopied bed set in a corner. A tea-table with furnishings was drawn up
+near the fireplace. If one was obliged to spend one's time in a single
+room, this apartment seemed amply furnished for such a condition.
+
+Mrs. Steele herself was no wan and hopeless-looking invalid. She was as
+buxom as Janet, and Janet was as well built a girl, even, as Laura Belding.
+The invalid had shrunken none in body or limbs. She owned, too, a very
+attractive smile, and she held out both hands to greet her young visitors.
+
+"I am delighted!" she said in a strong, quick voice, which matched her
+smile and bright glance perfectly. "Why, Janey, you may go out every
+evening, if you will only bring back with you such a bevy of fresh, sweet
+faces. Introduce me--do!"
+
+The introductions were made amid considerable gaiety. Mother Wit took the
+lead in telling Mrs. Steele who they were. Later Janet related the accident
+on Market Street, which had led to her acquaintance with the three girls of
+Central High.
+
+Laura's keen eyes were not alone fixed upon Mrs. Steele while they talked.
+She took into consideration everything in the house. There was no mark of
+poverty; yet the Steeles lived in a house in a poor neighborhood and one
+that was positively out of repair, and they occupied only a small part of
+it.
+
+When the three girls came out again and Janet had gone in and closed the
+door, Laura was in a brown study.
+
+"Wake up, Mother Wit!" commanded Jess. "What do you think of the Steeles--
+and all?"
+
+All Laura Belding could say in comment, was:
+
+"Odd!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERY MAN
+
+
+The three boys who had set off to find the car that had knocked down the
+stranger on the icy street were as mysterious the next day as they could
+be. At least, so their girl friends declared.
+
+Being Sunday, there was no general gathering of the Central High girls and
+boys, but Laura, naturally, saw her brother early. He was coming from his
+shower in bathrobe and slippers when Laura looked out of her own door.
+
+"What sort of fox-and-goose chase did Short and Long take you and Lance
+away on?" she demanded.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that he was altogether foolish," said Chet doubtfully.
+
+"Then did you really find some trace of the car?" cried Laura, eagerly.
+
+"Well, we found a car. Yes."
+
+"'Goodness to gracious!' as poor Lizzie Bean says. You are
+noncommunicative, Chetwood Belding. What do you mean--you found a car?"
+
+"Laura," said her brother, "I don't know--nor does Lance, or Short and
+Long--whether the fellow we suspect had anything to do with that accident
+or not."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And we don't want to get him in wrong."
+
+"Who is it?" demanded his sister, bluntly.
+
+"No. We won't tell anybody who it is we suspect until we make further
+investigations."
+
+"I declare, you are as mysterious as a regular detective! And suppose the
+police do make inquiries?"
+
+"They will, of course,"
+
+"And what will you boys tell them?"
+
+"Pooh!" returned Chet, going on to his room to dress, "they won't ask us
+because they don't know we know anything about it"
+
+"I guess you don't know much!" shouted Laura after him before he closed his
+door.
+
+It was the same when Jess Morse met Lance Darby on the way to Sunday
+School.
+
+"Ho, Launcelot!" she cried. "Tell us all the news--that is a good child.
+Who was that awful person who ran down the man last night? I hear from Dr.
+Agnew that they had to patch the poor victim up a good deal at the
+hospital. Did you boys find the guilty party?"
+
+"I don't know that we did," said Darby. "You see, nobody seemed to see the
+license number of the automobile."
+
+"But didn't Short and Long have suspicions?"
+
+"Well, what are suspicions?" demanded the boy. "We all agreed to say
+nothing about it unless we have proof. And we haven't any proof--as yet."
+
+"Why, I believe you are 'holding out' on your friends, Lance," declared
+Jess, in surprise. "For shame!"
+
+"Aw, ask Chet--if you must know!" exclaimed Lance, hurrying away.
+
+As it chanced it was Bobby Hargrew who attempted to play inquisitor with
+Short and Long, meeting the boy with the youngest Long, Tommy, on the
+slippery hill of Nugent Street Tommy was so bundled up in a "Teddy Bear"
+costume that he could scarcely trudge along, and he held tightly to his
+brother's hand.
+
+"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed Bobby, when she saw Tommy slipping all over
+the icy sidewalk, "what is the matter with that boy?"
+
+"He hasn't got his sea-legs on," grinned Short and Long.
+
+"You mean to tell me he is nearly five years old and can walk no better
+than _that?_" exclaimed Bobby teasingly. "Why, we have a little dog at home
+that isn't even a year old yet, and he can ran right over this ice. He can
+walk twice as good as Tommy does."
+
+"Hoh!" exclaimed that youngster defensively. "That dog's got twice as many
+legs as I have."
+
+"Right you are, Kid!" chuckled his brother. "He got you there, Clara."
+
+"And did you boys get that man who ran the poor fellow down on Market
+Street last night?" demanded Bobby, with interest. "Did you have him
+arrested?"
+
+"No. What do you suppose? We're not going around snitching to the police,"
+growled Short and Long.
+
+"But if that man at the hospital is seriously hurt----"
+
+"Oh, we're not sure it's the right car," said the boy, and evidently did
+not wish to talk about it.
+
+"Billy Long!" exclaimed the girl. "Are you boys trying to defend the guilty
+person?"
+
+"Aw----"
+
+"Suppose that man at the hospital dies?"
+
+"Pshaw! He wasn't hurt as bad as all that."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because I've been to the hospital to find out He's got a broken leg and a
+broken head----"
+
+"Is he conscious yet?" demanded Bobby Hargrew quickly.
+
+"No-o. They say he doesn't know anybody--and nobody knows who he is."
+
+"Now you see!" cried the girl "Maybe he will die! And you boys will let the
+man who did it get away."
+
+"Oh, he won't get away," grumbled Short and Long. "We know where to find
+him when we want to."
+
+"You'd better let the police know where to find him," said Bobby tartly.
+
+"You're not the police, Bobby Hargrew!" returned Short and Long, grinning
+and going on with Tommy.
+
+The girls, of course, got together and compared notes and decided that the
+boys were "real mean, so now!" To pay Chet and Lance and Billy Long for
+being so secretive about the person they suspected of having caused the
+injury to the stranger Saturday evening, the three girls went alone that
+Sunday afternoon to the hospital to inquire after the injured man.
+
+And there they met Janet Steele again. The Red Cross girl had been making
+inquiries, too, about the same case.
+
+"It really is a very serious matter," Janet said to her new friends. "The
+man who knocked him down should be found. Although the doctors think he has
+no internal injuries after all, there is a compound fracture which will
+keep him in bed for a long time, and in addition he seems unable to give
+any satisfactory explanation of who he is or where he comes from."
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Jess Morse. "Do you mean he has lost his mind?"
+
+"Merely mislaid it," said Janet with a smile. "Or, at least, he cannot
+remember his name and address."
+
+"Didn't he have any papers about him that explain those points?" asked
+Laura.
+
+"That seems to be odd, too," said Janet "No. Not a mark on his clothing,
+either. But he was plentifully supplied with money, and all the bills were
+brand new."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Laura. "That reminds me. That funny bill he passed on Chet
+was brand new, too. I wonder if all his money is queer?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Janet, wonderingly. "Is the man a criminal, do
+you think?"
+
+Laura and Jess explained about the peculiarly printed bill, which had given
+the first named so much trouble in making up her father's accounts the
+evening before.
+
+"But that may be all explained in time," said Janet.
+
+"All right," grumbled Bobby Hargrew. "But suppose poor Chet has to lose
+fifty dollars?"
+
+"Father is going to take the bill to the bank to-morrow to see if they can
+explain the mystery," Laura said.
+
+"But that will not explain the mystery of the stranger." said Jess. "Why,
+he is a regular 'man of mystery,' isn't he?"
+
+"Humph!" said Bobby. "And so is the fellow the boys think ran him down. He
+is a man of mystery as well."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SAND IN THE GEARS
+
+
+Since the whole school had taken such a tremendous interest in "the
+profession" at the time Central High blossomed forth in Jess Morse's play,
+the M.O.R.s had given several playlets, and Mrs. Case, the physical
+instructor, had staged folk dances and tableaux in the big hall.
+
+For the Red Cross the association of girls connected with the Girls Branch
+Athletic League that had carried forward these smaller affairs, had
+determined to stage "a real play." Nellie Agnew, the doctor's daughter, and
+secretary of the club, had sent to a publisher for copies of plays that
+could be put on by amateurs, and interest in the affair waxed high already.
+
+The principal point of decision was the identity of the play they were to
+produce. Mr. Sharp and the other members of the school faculty had agreed
+to let the girls act, and the big hall, or auditorium, could be used for
+the production. At noon on Monday the girls interested in the performance
+met in the principals office to decide upon the play.
+
+"And of course," grumbled Bobby Hargrew to the Lockwood twins, Dora and
+Dorothy, "all the teachers have got to come and interfere. We can't do a
+sol-i-ta-ry thing without Gee Gee, or Miss Black, or some of them, poking
+their noses into it."
+
+"You can't say that Professor Dimp pokes his nose into our affairs,"
+laughed Dora.
+
+"No, indeed," said her twin. "Outside of his Latin and physics he doesn't
+seem to have a single idea."
+
+"Doesn't he?" scoffed Bobby. "The boys say he's gone into the dressmaking
+business, or something."
+
+"What is that?" asked Dora, smiling. "What do they mean?"
+
+"Why, the professor's niece is living with him now. He is not much used to
+having a woman in his sitting-room, I guess. She sits and sews with him in
+the evening while he reads or corrects our futile work," said Bobby,
+grinning.
+
+"The other night Ellie Lingard--that's his niece--lost her scissors and she
+said they hunted all over the room for them. The next morning in one of the
+physics classes the professor opened his book, and there were the lost
+scissors, which he had tucked into it for a bookmark while he helped Ellie
+Lingard hunt for her lost property."
+
+"Oh, oh!" laughed the twins.
+
+"The worst of it was," continued Bobby, with an elfish grin, "Old Dimple
+grabbed them up and said right out loud: 'Oh, here they are, Ellie!' The
+boys just hooted, and poor Old Dimp was as mad as a hatter."
+
+"The poor old man," said Dorothy commiseratingly.
+
+It was a fact that, although Professor Dimp did not interfere in this play
+business, most of the other teachers desired to have their opinions
+considered. The girls would not have minded Mr. Sharp. Indeed, they courted
+his advice. But when Miss Grace Gee Carrington stood up to speak, some of
+them audibly groaned.
+
+Miss Carrington was Mr. Sharp's assistant and almost in complete control of
+the girls of the school. At least, the girls came in contact with her much
+more than they did with Mr. Sharp himself.
+
+She was a very stiff and precise woman, with an acrid temper and a sharp
+tongue. She had been teaching unruly girls for so many years that she was
+to a degree quite soured upon the world--especially that world of school
+which she had so much to do with.
+
+Of late, however, Miss Carrington had become interested "quite in a human
+way," her girls said, in a person who had first appeared to the ken of the
+girls of Central High as a Gypsy girl. Margit Salgo's father, a Hungarian
+Gypsy musician, had married Miss Carrington's sister, much against the
+desire of Miss Grace Gee Carrington herself. When the orphaned Margit found
+her way to Centerport she made such an impression upon her aunt's heart
+that the latter finally took the girl into her own home and adopted her as
+"Margaret Carrington."
+
+That, however, could not change Miss Carrington's nature. She was severe
+and (in the opinion of fly-away Bobby Hargrew) she was much inclined to
+interfere in the girls' affairs. On this occasion the girls were not
+disappointed when Miss Carrington "said her little say."
+
+"I approve of any acceptable attempt to raise funds for such a worthy
+object as this we have in mind," said Miss Carrington. "An exhibition which
+will interest the school in general and our parents and friends likewise,
+meets, I am sure, with the approval of us all. Some of our young ladies, I
+feel quite sure, show some talent for playing, and much interest therein.
+Without meaning to pun, I would add that I wish they showed as great talent
+for work as for play."
+
+"She could not help giving us that dig, if she were to be martyred for it,"
+Nellie Agnew whispered to Laura.
+
+"Sh! She'll see your lips move," warned Dora Lockwood, on the other side of
+the doctor's daughter. "I believe she has learned lip reading."
+
+Miss Carrington went on quite calmly: "The first consideration, however, it
+seems to me, is the selection of the play. I should not wish to see the
+standard of Central High lowered by the acting of a play that would cater
+only to the amusement-loving crowd. It should be educational. We should
+achieve in a small way what the Greek players tried to teach--a love of
+beauty, of form, of some great truth that can be inculcated in this way on
+the public mind."
+
+"But, Miss Carrington!" cried Bess Yeager, one of the seniors, almost
+interrupting the staid teacher, "we want to make money for the Red Cross.
+We could not get a room full with a Greek play."
+
+"I beg Miss Yeager's pardon," said Miss Carrington stiffly. "We have our
+standard of education to uphold first of all."
+
+"I hope you will excuse me, Miss Carrington," said Laura, likewise rising
+to object. "Our first object is to give the people something that will
+amuse them so that they will crowd the auditorium. Otherwise our object
+will not have been achieved. This is a purely money-making scheme," added
+the jeweler's daughter with her low, sweet laugh.
+
+"I am amazed to hear you say so!" exclaimed the instructor, quick for
+argument at any time. "Have you young ladies no higher desire than to make
+the rabble laugh?"
+
+"I want you to know," muttered Jess Morse, "that my mother is coming, and
+she isn't 'rabble.'"
+
+Perhaps it was fortunate that Miss Carrington did not hear this comment.
+But she could not fail to hear some of the others made by the girls. There
+was earnest protest in all parts of the room. Mr. Sharp brought them to
+order.
+
+"Miss Carrington has, under ordinary circumstances, made an excellent
+point, and I want you all to notice it," said the principal. "We are an
+educational institution here on the hill. If we were giving a class play,
+or anything like that, I should vote for Miss Carrington's idea. At such a
+time something primarily educational should be in order.
+
+"But as I understand it, you young ladies are going to act for the benefit
+of the Red Cross fund, and what will benefit that fund the most is the
+drawing together of a well-paying crowd to see you act.
+
+"I am afraid we shall have to set aside our own desires, Miss Carrington,"
+he continued, smiling at his assistant. "We must let the actors choose
+their own play--as long as it is a proper one--and abide for once by the
+decision of those of our friends who wish to be amused rather than
+educated."
+
+"He's half backing her up!" complained Dora.
+
+"Well, he has to pour oil on the troubled waters," whispered Laura.
+
+"Huh!" grumbled Bobby Hargrew. "But Gee Gee is determined to throw sand in
+the gears, not oil on the waters. She always does."
+
+Really, Miss Carrington seemed in an interfering mood that day. Nellie had
+a collection of plays from which they were supposed to choose that very
+session the one to be acted. There was but brief time to learn the parts
+and the acting directions. But Mr. Mann, who had directed them in other
+plays, said he thought he would be able to whip the girls into shape for a
+performance in two weeks. Although they were amateurs, they had all had
+some experience.
+
+When the girls themselves got a chance to talk it was shown that their
+desires were all for a parlor comedy with bright lines, some farcical turns
+to the plot, but a play of sufficient weight to gain the approval of
+sober-minded people. It was, however, far from being classic.
+
+"Such a play is preposterous!" ejaculated Miss Carrington, breaking out
+again. "Don't you think so yourself, Mr. Sharp?"
+
+The principal had the book in his hand and was skimming through some of the
+dialogue. If the truth was told he was on a broad grin.
+
+"I don't know about that, Miss Carrington. It--it is really very funny."
+
+"'Funny!'" gasped his assistant, with all the emphasis she dared show in
+the presence of the principal. "As though to make fun should be our
+target!"
+
+"What would you like to have us play?" asked Bobby, daringly. "Julius
+Caesar? If we do, I want to play old Julius. He dies in the first act. The
+rest of us would be killed lingeringly by the audience, I know, before the
+last."
+
+"Miss Hargrew!" snapped the teacher. Then she remembered that this was not
+a recitation and she could not easily punish the girl. She shook her head
+and looked offended during the remainder of the discussion.
+
+"But you know very well," snapped Lily Pendleton, a rather overdressed
+girl, as they all crowded out of the schoolhouse after the meeting, "that
+Gee Gee will do her wickedest to spoil it all."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Laura. "Not when it is for the Red Cross!"
+
+"It wouldn't matter what the object was," said Jess morosely. "She always
+does try to crab the game."
+
+"Goodness, Josephine!" gasped her chum, "you are positively as slangy as
+Chet."
+
+"I guess I catch it from him," admitted Jess Morse. "And she is a crab!"
+
+"Now girls!" called Nellie, a regular Martha for trouble at the present
+moment. "Now girls, remember the 'sides' will be here day after tomorrow,
+and Mr. Mann will look us over and give out the parts that afternoon in the
+small hall. Nobody must be absent. We want this show to be the biggest
+success that ever was."
+
+"It won't be if Gee Gee can help it," growled Bobby Hargrew, shaking her
+curls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BANK-NOTE
+
+
+"There's one sure thing about it," Lance Darby said to Laura when she told
+him of the way in which Miss Carrington had tried to interfere with the
+girls' choice of the play, "she cannot butt into the Ice Carnival
+arrangements. Nobody but your Mrs. Case and our Mr. Haskins has anything to
+say about the Carnival Committee's arrangements."
+
+"Oh! Indeed?" laughed Laura. "There you are mistaken about the far-reaching
+influence of our Miss Carrington."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You forget that our share of the Carnival is under the jurisdiction of the
+Girls Branch League, and in the constitution and by-laws of that
+association it is stated that none of us girls can take part in any
+exhibition without the consent of our teachers, and without, indeed, having
+a certain standing in all branches of study. Miss Carrington can get her
+word in right there."
+
+"Wow, wow! That's so, I presume," admitted Lance.
+
+"But we have gone so far now," said Laura complacently, "that I don't think
+even Bobby will be refused permission to join in the festivities--and Bobby
+is a splendid little skater, Lance."
+
+"Bobby is all right," agreed the youth. "But here comes old Chet--and his
+face is as long as the moral law. He is still worried about that fifty
+dollars he may have to dig down into his jeans for--if your father sticks
+to what he said he'd do."
+
+Chetwood had a cheerful word, however, despite his serious aspect.
+
+"Have you seen the ice, Lance?" he demanded, brightening up.
+
+"Not to-day, old boy."
+
+"It's scrumptious--just!" exclaimed the big fellow. "They have been shaving
+it, and have got it all roped off."
+
+"Better have somebody watch it, too, or the kids from downtown will get in
+there and cut it all up. Just like 'em," growled Lance.
+
+"Don't fret. Old Godey is on guard. Trust him to keep the kids off the
+track," said Chet. "Is father at home, Laura?"
+
+"He's just come in," said his sister. "Has he found out about that
+bank-note yet?"
+
+"That is what I wanted to know," said the worried Chet. "I've been over to
+the hospital this afternoon--before I went down to the lake shore. That,
+chap who was hurt is off his nanny----"
+
+"Chet! Don't let mother hear you," begged Laura, yet laughing.
+
+"I wouldn't want the mater to be shocked," admitted Chet. "But that is
+exactly what is the trouble with that man who gave me the phony bill. The
+doctor told me the crack he got on the head had injured his brain."
+
+"The poor man!" sighed his sister.
+
+"What about 'poor me'?" demanded Chet indignantly. "And they say he carried
+a roll of brand new bills big enough to choke a cow! The doctor says he
+thinks the money is good, too. But he passed that hundred-dollar note on
+me----"
+
+"If it is a hundred," interjected Lance.
+
+"Now you said a forkful," grumbled Chet, shaking his head. "Let's go in and
+see what father has to say about it. He was going to see Mr. Monroe at the
+First National. They say Mr. Monroe knows all about money--knew the fellow
+who invented it, personally, I guess."
+
+The young folks found Mr. Belding in the library, and he welcomed them with
+his customary smile when the three came in.
+
+"The bank-note?" he repeated. "I left it for Mr. Monroe to look at. He was
+out of town. But he will tell me when he returns--if he knows about it. It
+is a curious thing. And I hope it will teach you a lesson, Chetwood."
+
+"Sure!" grumbled Chet, "Of course, there is nothing so important in this
+world as learning lessons. Little thing about me being nicked fifty dollars
+isn't considered."
+
+His father laughed at his rueful countenance. "Well, Son, I can't offer you
+much sympathy. Perhaps the Treasury Department will make it right. And how
+about that man who gave it to you? He can't get far with a broken leg."
+
+"He's gone far enough already," declared Chet. "They say he has lost his
+memory."
+
+"What's that?" cried Mr. Belding.
+
+"Looks fishy, doesn't it?" said Lance. "Lots of folks who owe money lose
+their memories."
+
+"No," said Chet, shaking his head. "This chap really got a hard bang on the
+head, and the doctors say he may never remember who he is."
+
+"Lost his identity?" demanded Mr. Belding.
+
+"Completely. At least, he doesn't know his name or where he came from. He
+remembers a part of his life, they say, for he seems to think he has been
+in Alaska. Asked the nurse, in fact, how long Sitka had had such a hospital
+as this. Thought he was in Sitka, you see."
+
+"Why, isn't it strange?" Laura said. "The poor fellow!"
+
+"He's not poor, I tell you," said the literal Chet.
+
+"He's got a lot of money. But not a card, or a mark about him--not even on
+his clothes--to tell who he is."
+
+"How about his hat?" questioned Lance. "And his suit? The labels, I mean."
+
+"The hat was brand new," said Chet, "and was bought right here in
+Centerport. Oh, the hospital folks have been trying through the police to
+find out something about him. Nothing doing, they say."
+
+"Why," said Mr. Belding thoughtfully, "there must be some way of
+discovering who the unfortunate is, even if he cannot remember himself."
+
+"Who do you mean, Pa, by 'the unfortunate'?" demanded his son. "I should
+think I was the unfortunate. Especially if that bank-note is phony."
+
+"But you did not get a broken leg--and a broken head--out of it," his
+father said dryly.
+
+"That's all right," muttered Chet "But I am likely to have a broken
+pocketbook, all right all right!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING EXCITING
+
+
+Mr. Belding was not unmindful of his son's anxiety regarding the odd
+bank-note that Chet had taken over the counter in the jewelry store.
+Besides, Laura sat herself upon the arm of his big Morris chair after
+dinner that Monday evening, and said:
+
+"You know, dear Pa, Chet is a pretty good boy. And fifty dollars is much
+more money than he can afford to lose--all in one bunch."
+
+"Indeed?" said her father indignantly. "And how about me? With my expensive
+family, do you think I can afford to lose fifty dollars? And the boy is
+careless."
+
+"I deny it," said Laura briskly.
+
+"Chet! not careless?"
+
+"Only thoughtless."
+
+"What is the difference?"
+
+"Academic, or moral?" demanded Mother Wit, looking at him slyly.
+
+"Oh, well, it doesn't pay to split hairs with you," declared her father,
+pinching a warm cheek until it was rosier than ever. "But what's the big
+idea, as Chet himself would say?"
+
+"Why, now, Pa Belding----"
+
+"Out with it! What do you want me to do?"
+
+"I--I thought if you'd make Chet pay only half of the fifty dollars, that
+perhaps you lost----"
+
+"Well?" he growled, in apparent indignation still.
+
+"Why, I would pay the other twenty-five!" burst out Laura hurriedly. "Only
+you must promise not to tell Chet."
+
+"What do you mean? To pay half his fine?"
+
+"Well, you don't need to halloo so about it, Pa dear," she pouted.
+
+"I wouldn't let you!"
+
+"Oh, yes you would. You know it is going to be awfully hard on Chet to take
+that money out of the bank to pay you."
+
+"There, there!" said Mr. Belding gruffly. "We won't talk about it--yet.
+Perhaps we'll find the bank-note is all right."
+
+But he said afterward to his wife that evening: "What are we going to do
+with such children, Mother? You can't punish one without hurting the other
+right to the quick."
+
+"We have been blessed in our children, Henry," said Mrs. Belding proudly.
+"And--really--Chet should not be too much blamed."
+
+"There, there!" exclaimed her husband in a disgusted tone of voice. "You're
+every whit as bad as Laura."
+
+Mr. Monroe did not return to the bank for several days; and meanwhile other
+important and interesting things were happening. The three boys who seemed
+to have secret knowledge about the accident on Market Street refused to
+answer the questions of their girl friends as to the identity of the car
+that had run the victim down.
+
+"You are just the meanest boys!" flared out Bobby Hargrew, as they all
+trooped down to Lake Luna to take almost the last look at the roped-off
+arena before the carnival would twinkle its lights that evening at six
+o'clock.
+
+"I don't know, Bobby," drawled Chet. "I believe we really could be meaner
+if we tried."
+
+"No you couldn't!" snapped Clara Hargrew with finality.
+
+"Oh, girls!" gasped Laura suddenly, "tell me what this is coming up the
+hill? Or am I seeing something that you folks don't?"
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed the slangy Bobby, forgetting her indignation with Chet and
+the other boys. "Is it? Can it be?"
+
+"Pretty Sweet!" ejaculated Jess, beginning to laugh. "And he is in his
+forest green hunting suit. _I_ call it his 'Robin Ridinghood' suit."
+
+"It just matches him, all right," said Lance. "He's verdant green and so is
+the suit. And look how he is carrying that gun, will you?"
+
+The gun was in its case, but the boy in question was carrying the shotgun
+in a most awkward manner. Without a doubt he was half afraid of it.
+
+"And I bet he hasn't had a charge in it all the time he's been out. Who did
+he go with?" asked Chet.
+
+"Some of the East Siders. They cater to him a lot, and you know," said
+Lance, with disgust, "tight as Purt is with money, if you flatter him you
+can pull his leg."
+
+"Dear me!" murmured Laura, "it is not in your province to use such slang,
+Lance. Leave that to Chet and Bobby."
+
+"Hey, Pretty!" Chet shouted to the very dandified lad, as he crossed the
+street toward them. "What luck, old top?"
+
+Although when they had first seen him, Prettyman Sweet was undoubtedly
+footsore, he began to strut now and pride "fairly exuded from his
+countenance," as Jess whispered to her chum.
+
+"Did you get any cottontails?" demanded Lance.
+
+"Oh, a few--a few, muh boy," declared Pretty Sweet airily.
+
+Then they saw that he had a game bag slung over his shoulder in true
+sportsman style.
+
+"I did not suppose you would go out to shoot the poor, innocent little
+rabbits, Mr. Sweet," said Laura, with sober face but dancing eyes. "They
+have never done you any harm."
+
+"I bet a real bad rabbit would make Purt run," muttered Bobby.
+
+"Oh, Miss Belding!" said the school dandy. "You know I'm awf'ly keen on
+sport--awf'ly keen, doncher know. I just _have_ to get a day now and then
+in the woods, when game is in season."
+
+"He's as keen on it as the two Irishmen were, who went hunting for the
+first time," broke in Bobby. "When they sighted a bird sitting on a bush
+Meehan took very careful aim and prepared to fire. Said his friend,
+grabbing him by the arm:
+
+"'Don't fire, Meehan! Shure an' yez haven't loaded yer gun.'
+
+"'That's as it may be, me lad,' retorted Meehan, 'but fire I must. The
+bur-rd won't wait!'"
+
+Prettyman Sweet was used to being laughed at, yet he flushed at the gibe.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "I bring home the game, just the same."
+
+"You 'bring home the bacon,' in other words," said Chet, approaching him.
+"Let's see the bunnies?"
+
+Nothing loath, the overdressed boy opened the bag and displayed his
+plunder. He brought two big hares out of the bag by their ears and held
+them up with pride.
+
+"Bet they were trapped," said Bobby in an undertone.
+
+"They were not trapped!" cried Purt Sweet sharply. "See! That is where one
+was shot! And there is the other--see?"
+
+"Jinks!" said Lance. "Both through the head. _You_ never did it, Purt?"
+
+"I did so!" cried the huntsman angrily. "I shot them both."
+
+Chet was looking them over closely. He shook his head.
+
+"They have been shot all right," he said. "And you shot them over there on
+Cavern Island?"
+
+"I can prove it," said Purt haughtily.
+
+"That's all right," said Chet thoughtfully. "You may have shot them--and on
+Cavern Island. But whose rabbits were they before you bought them?"
+
+"What? I--Oh!"
+
+Bobby and Jess began to giggle. Chet grinned as he added:
+
+"Those are Belgian hares, not rabbits, Pretty. Somebody has put something
+over on you. Belgian hares don't run wild in the woods of Cavern Island--
+that is sure."
+
+"Bet he shot them hanging up on a fence," snapped Short and Long, who thus
+far had said never a word to Prettyman Sweet.
+
+"And I know the market to-day is full of Belgian hares," chuckled Chet.
+"Oh, Purt! you never could pull off anything like that on us in a hundred
+years."
+
+"I don't care--I--I--"
+
+The angry Purt snatched up his game bag and marched away.
+
+"That he's been caught in the trick puts a crimp in him," chuckled Chet
+Belding.
+
+"And that isn't all that ought to happen to him," muttered Short and Long,
+who seemed to have become suddenly very bitter against the dandified Sweet.
+
+"Can it, Billy, can it," advised Lance. "Give a calf rope enough and he
+will hang himself."
+
+"And maybe that fellow ought to be hung," was Short and Long's further
+comment.
+
+"Why, Billy!" exclaimed Laura, "what ever do you mean?"
+
+"Yes, Short and Long," said Jess. "Why the 'orrid hobservation about poor
+Purt?"
+
+Perhaps Billy Long would have blurted out something, had not another
+incident taken place which so excited all the young people that they forgot
+Purt Sweet and his foibles.
+
+The group had reached Lakeside Avenue, which overlooked many shore estates
+and some private docks. This was the residential end of Centerport, and the
+vicinity in summer was lovely. Now the outlook on Lake Luna's sparkling
+surface--frozen in a sheen of ice to the shore of Cavern Island in the
+middle of the lake--was wonderfully attractive.
+
+At the foot of Nugent Street, which they now reached, the girls and boys
+from Central High heard suddenly a great shouting and peals of laughter
+from up the hill. Some snow still lay on the side of Nugent Street; and the
+hill was a glare of ice. Down the steep descent were coming three or four
+heavy sleds loaded with young folks. Many of them were girls and boys of
+Central High.
+
+"Some coasting!" exclaimed Chet. "I had no idea it was so good. We ought to
+get our bob out, Lance."
+
+"Oh, see, Laura!" murmured Jess. "There comes Janet Steele. She must have
+been canvassing for Red Cross members away over here. I wish we had time to
+do some of that work."
+
+The Red Cross girl appeared from around a turn in the avenue, and the
+instant she spied her new friends she waved her gloved hand.
+
+"Is that the girl who gave first-aid to the man on Market Street Saturday
+night?" asked Chet.
+
+"Some little queen, isn't she?" rejoined Lance, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Oh," said Laura placidly, "you needn't think that you can get us girls
+jealous about Janet Steele. She is an awfully sweet girl."
+
+"And she isn't little at all," put in Jess, tossing her head. "She is as
+husky as Eve Sitz."
+
+Before they could say more, or further hail the Red Cross girl, there was a
+crash and terrific rattling around the turn of the avenue. The next instant
+a horse appeared, madly galloping along the roadway, and drawing the
+shattered remains of a grocery wagon after him.
+
+The maddened beast would, so it seemed, cross the foot of Nugent Street
+just as the bobsleds shot down to that point. Across the avenue was a steep
+bank against which the sleds were easily halted. But they could not be
+stopped before they crossed Lakeside Avenue!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FOREFRONT OF TROUBLE
+
+
+The three boys drew Laura and her girl friends into the gateway of a
+residence that faced the lake. The Red Cross girl was on the other side of
+Nugent Street, and the runaway horse was coming along the avenue behind
+her.
+
+Chet would have leaped away to her assistance had not Jess grabbed him by
+the arm and screamed. The sleds were almost at the crossing, and surely
+Chet Belding would have been knocked down.
+
+Janet Steele proved to be perfectly able to look out for herself. And on
+this occasion she could even do more than that.
+
+She whirled and saw the horse coming with the wrecked wagon. She could not
+see up the hill of Nugent Street, for the corner house barred her vision in
+that direction. But without doubt she had heard the eager shouts of the
+coasters and understood what was ahead of them.
+
+The runaway would cross the foot of the hill just in time, perhaps, to
+collide with one or more of the bobsleds.
+
+Almost opposite the foot of Nugent Street and right beside the steep bank
+against which the coasters had been wont to stop their sleds, was a narrow
+lane pitching toward the lakeshore. This lane was near Janet Steele.
+
+Chet saw it and realized how the horse might be turned. But the boy was too
+far away. Even as he shook off Jess Morse's frenzied hold on his arm, the
+runaway was upon Janet Steele.
+
+The latter had whipped off the Red Cross veil she wore. Seizing it by both
+extremes she allowed the veil to float out on the brisk winter breeze,
+darting with it into the street.
+
+The runaway's glaring eyes caught sight of the flapping folds of the veil,
+and he swerved, his hoofs sliding on the slippery drive. The eyes of a
+horse magnify objects tremendously, and the girl's figure and her flowing
+veil probably looked to the frightened animal like some awful and
+threatening bogey.
+
+Scrambling and snorting, he swerved to the side of the road, saw the open
+lane, and the next moment thundered into it, the broken wagon skidding
+across the lane and smashing into a gatepost.
+
+It was at the same instant that the head sled came sweeping down Nugent
+Street, crossed the avenue, and stood almost on end against the bank,
+stopping abruptly in the snow bank.
+
+The other sleds poured down and stopped; but none had been in so much
+danger as that first one. Laura and Chet and their friends started on the
+run for the spot--and for Janet Steele.
+
+"Oh! _Oh! OH!_" shrieked in crescendo one girl who had ridden on the first
+bobsled. "We might have been killed!"
+
+Some of the boys ran after the horse. The rest of the young people
+surrounded Janet Steele.
+
+"How brave you were," murmured Jess Morse admiringly.
+
+"You've got a head on you, sure enough!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew, while the
+Red Cross girl, blushing and with downcast eyes, began hastily to adjust
+her veil again.
+
+"Oh, it was nothing," murmured Janet.
+
+"Tell it to Lily. Here comes Lily Pendleton," said Jess, smiling again.
+"She won't think it was nothing."
+
+The girl who had shrieked so loudly came up quickly to the group of Central
+High girls.
+
+"Did you turn that horse?" she demanded of Janet Steele. "You are a regular
+duck! We might have all been killed! I never will ride down a hill with
+Freddy Brubach again! There should have been somebody down here to signal
+that we were coming!"
+
+"Guess the horse would not have paid much attention to signals, Lil,"
+laughed Laura.
+
+"Only the kind that Miss Steele waved," added Bobby.
+
+"Is that your name?" Lily Pendleton asked the Red Cross girl. "I'm awfully
+glad to know you."
+
+"And much gladder that she was right on the job here when the horse came
+along, aren't you, Lil?" chuckled Bobby.
+
+"She ought to have a medal," declared one of the other girls.
+
+"Let's write to Mr. Carnegie about her," proposed Jess, but good-naturedly,
+and hugged Janet now that she had rearranged her veil.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" gasped Janet Steele, "please don't make so much over so
+little. I shall almost be sorry that I turned the horse into the lane. And
+it was a little thing. I am not afraid of horses."
+
+"A mere medal is nothing to Miss Steele, I bet," said Bobby, the emphatic.
+"I expect she has a trunk full of 'em. Like the German army officer who had
+his chest covered with iron crosses and medals and the like. Somebody asked
+him how he came to get them all.
+
+"'Vell,' he said, pointing to the biggest and shiniest medal, 'I got dot py
+meestake; undt dey gif me de odders pecause I got dot one!'"
+
+"Oh, you and your jokes, Bobby!" said Lily Pendleton, with some scorn.
+"This was a serious business. And there is another very serious matter,
+girls, that I have to call to your attention," she added, turning to Laura
+and Jess.
+
+"What has gone wrong? Nothing about the play, I hope!" cried Jess.
+
+"It is worse, because it is right at hand," said Lily, shaking her head.
+"What do you suppose Miss Carrington has done?"
+
+"Oh, Gee Gee!" groaned Bobby, in despair. "I knew she would break out in a
+fresh spot."
+
+"Do tell us what it is," begged Jess Morse.
+
+"It is about Hessie," said Lily.
+
+"Hester Grimes?" demanded Laura, with a rather grim expression. "What has
+happened to her now?"
+
+"Why!" cried Lily, rather sharply, "you speak as though Hessie was always
+getting into trouble."
+
+"You cannot deny but that she has frequently made a _faux pas,_ as it
+were," said Jess, smiling.
+
+"And what she does wrong," added Laura, with some bitterness, "usually
+affects the rest of us."
+
+"She did not do a thing wrong!" cried Lily stormily. "You girls are just
+too mean!"
+
+"Oh, come on, Lil," said Bobby. "Tell us the worst. We're prepared for
+murder, even."
+
+"You are very rude, Clara Hargrew," declared Lily Pendleton. "Hessie is not
+to blame. She failed in rhetoric, and when Miss Carrington tried to put a
+lot of home work on her she refused to take it."
+
+"What?" gasped Jess.
+
+"Oh! She did refuse, did she?" snapped Bobby. "And a fat lot that would
+help her!"
+
+"Well, I don't care!" cried Lily. "Gee Gee is just as mean----"
+
+"Granted!" agreed Bobby, with emphasis. "But tell us how much Hessie has
+been set back?"
+
+"Of course Miss Carrington has punished her if she was impudent," said
+Laura decidedly.
+
+"She has punished us all!" cried Lily. "She refuses to allow Hessie to
+skate to-night. She's out of it."
+
+"Out of the carnival?" cried several of her listeners in chorus.
+
+"And Hester," cried Bobby, "is in the Dress Parade. What did I tell you?
+Gee Gee was just hoping to queer us."
+
+"It is Hester Grimes who has queered us," Laura said, much more sternly
+than she usually spoke. "And we were all warned to be so careful!"
+
+"Now, don't blame Hessie!" cried Hester's chum angrily.
+
+"I'd like to know who we are to blame, then?" demanded Jess Morse, with
+disgust, "Knowing that Gee Gee is what she is, why couldn't Hester keep her
+own temper?"
+
+"Well! I just guess--"
+
+But after all it was Mother Wit who, though greatly offended, became
+peacemaker.
+
+"There, there!" she said. "Enough is done already. We shall miss Hester.
+But we mustn't get angry with each other and therefore spoil the whole
+Dress Parade. That masquerade should be the most spectacular number on the
+program."
+
+"But who will take Grimes' place?" demanded Bobby.
+
+Laura stood beside Janet Steele, whose eyes were wide open, her cheeks
+glowing, and even her lips ajar with excitement. Laura had a very keen
+mind, and already she had apprehended that Janet was more deeply interested
+in this discussion, and the subject of it, than a stranger naturally would
+be. She turned now to stare into the Red Cross girl's face.
+
+"Oh, Miss Steele!" she said, "didn't you tell us that you loved to skate?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Janet.
+
+"And she's as big as Hessie Grimes!" exclaimed Jess on the other side, and
+catching her chum's idea.
+
+"Would you take Hester's part in the masquerade?" asked Laura pointblank.
+
+"But she doesn't belong to Central High!" wailed Lily Pendleton.
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Jess. "What does it matter? This is all for a show.
+It is no competition with other members of the League."
+
+"Right-o, Jess!" crowed Bobby Hargrew.
+
+"We-ell!" murmured Lily doubtfully.
+
+"Come, Miss Steele--Janet," said Laura, pleadingly. "I know you can help
+us. Hester, being the biggest girl, was to lead in certain figures on the
+ice. You could easily learn them. And you can wear her costume, I know."
+
+"Why--I----"
+
+"You don't know anything of the kind, Laura Belding," snapped Lily,
+interrupting Janet. "I don't believe Hessie would let any other girl wear
+her masquerade suit."
+
+"Sure she wouldn't!" exclaimed Bobby, with disgust. "She'll crab the whole
+game if she can. Hester Grimes always was a nuisance."
+
+But Laura suddenly clapped her hands in real joy. "Oh, no!" she cried. "We
+won't ask Janet to wear any other girl's costume. I know what would be
+fine."
+
+"Let's hear it, Laura dear," said Jess, eagerly. "Of course, you would have
+a bright idea. You always do."
+
+"Why," said the pleased Laura, "if Janet will come and skate with us, she
+need only wear the very cloak and veil she has on now. What could be more
+fitting for a leader of our costume parade? The whole carnival is for the
+Red Cross, and with a Red Cross girl to lead the procession, and Chet in
+his Uncle Sam suit to lead the boys--Why! it will be the best ever."
+
+"Hooray!" shouted Bobby, wild with enthusiasm.
+
+"It is splendid!" agreed Jess.
+
+Everybody in hearing agreed, save, perhaps, Lily Pendleton. Laura turned to
+Janet again and clasped her gloved hands over the new girl's arm.
+
+"Will you, dear? Will you help us out?" she asked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE ICE CARNIVAL
+
+
+"Oh, Miss Laura! Do you really mean it?" murmured Janet Steele, her full
+pink cheeks actually becoming white she was so much in earnest.
+
+"Of course we mean it," Jess Morse said practically. "And glad to have
+you."
+
+"I don't know--"
+
+Janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced Lily Pendleton. Jess
+immediately pulled that young girl forward.
+
+"Why, Lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared Jess, laughing. "This
+is our very particular friend, Janet Steele, Lil. You've got to treat her
+nicely. If you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go
+camping with us girls again as you did last summer. You and your Hester
+Grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves."
+
+Really, Lily Pendleton had improved a good deal since the time Jess
+mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at
+once.
+
+"Well, of course," she said, offering Janet her hand, "I did not mean it
+just that way. You know how cranky Hessie is when she does get mad. But
+Laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. Miss Steele as a Red Cross
+girl and Chet as Uncle Sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates."
+
+So it was decided, and they hurried Janet down to the girls' boathouse,
+which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where Mr. Godey, the watchman,
+stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening
+skates. Laura found a pair of skates for the Red Cross girl, and for an
+hour the latter practiced with the girls of Central High the steps and
+figures of the masquerade parade, which Laura and her friends already had
+worked out to perfection.
+
+"Don't worry a bit about to-night, Janet," Laura told her, when they all
+hurried away from the lakeshore about dusk. "We'll push you through the
+figures. Jess and I will be on either side of you, except when we pair off
+with the boys. And then you will be with my brother Chet. And if he isn't
+nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor.
+
+"Oh, but Laura!" whispered Jess Morse, as they separated from Janet, "Chet
+mustn't be too nice to her. For Janet Steele is an awfully pretty girl."
+
+"Now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient
+jealousy."
+
+With only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls
+were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. That Hester Grimes
+had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by Gee Gee troubled the
+girls of Central High less than they might have been troubled had it been
+almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited.
+For, to tell the truth, Hester Grimes was not well loved.
+
+The daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, Hester had
+in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. With such
+rather shallow schoolmates as Lily Pendleton, Hester was successful. Lily
+toadied to her, to use Bobby Hargrew's expression; nor was Lily alone in
+this.
+
+Upon those whom Hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money
+lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy
+one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she
+lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for
+instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits Hester
+possessed.
+
+Hester antagonized almost everybody--teachers and students alike. Even
+placid, peace-loving Mother Wit, found Hester incompatible. And because
+Laura Belding was a natural leader and was very popular in the school,
+Hester disliked her and showed in every way possible that she would not
+follow in Laura's train. Yet there had been a time when Hester had felt
+under obligation to Laura.
+
+Laura was secretly glad to see Lily Pendleton weaned slowly away from the
+butcher's daughter. The last summer had started Lily in the right
+direction, and although the overdressed girl had still some weaknesses of
+character to overcome, she had greatly improved, as this incident of the
+afternoon revealed.
+
+Lily was not alone in complaining about Miss Carrington's harshness,
+however. It was the principal topic of conversation when the girls gathered
+in the boathouse rooms to prepare for the races and the features that were
+to precede the principal attraction of the carnival--the masquerade grand
+march.
+
+"Sh! She's right here now," whispered Bobby Hargrew sepulchrally, coming
+into the dressing-room. "She's on watch at the door."
+
+"Who?" asked Jess Morse.
+
+"Not Hester?" cried Lily. "She told me she wouldn't come down here!"
+
+"Gee Gee," shot back Bobby, with pursed lips. "She is going to be sure that
+Hester doesn't appear."
+
+"Mean thing!" Nellie Agnew said. And when the doctor's gentle daughter made
+such a statement she had to be fully aroused. "She thinks she has spoiled
+the whole act!"
+
+"I believe you," Bessie Yeager said. "I wonder if Miss Carrington really
+sleeps at night?"
+
+"Why not, Bess?" cried Dora Lockwood.
+
+"I think she lies awake thinking up mean things to do to us."
+
+"Oh, oh!" murmured Nellie.
+
+"I bet you!" exclaimed the slangy Bobby.
+
+"Careful, girls. If she hears you!" warned Laura.
+
+"Then you would be 'perspicuous au grautin,' as the fellow said," chuckled
+Bobby. "There! the whistle has sounded."
+
+"The fête has begun," sighed Jess. "I do hope everything will go off
+right."
+
+"The boys are taking in money all right," Laura said with satisfaction. "I
+believe we shall make a thousand dollars for the Red Cross."
+
+"I hope so," said her chum. "Come on, girls! It's first the fancy skating
+before the ice arena is all cut up."
+
+The effort to make the Ice Carnival of the Central High a success was aided
+by a perfect evening and perfect ice. The latter had been shaved and
+smoothed over every gnarly place. There was not a single crack in which a
+skate could be caught to throw the wearer. The arena roped off from the
+spectators was as smooth as a ballroom floor.
+
+It was about two acres in extent. Around three sides of the roped-off space
+there was a roped-off alley with boards laid upon the ice upon which the
+spectators could stand. Uprights held the strings of colored lights which
+were supplied with electricity from the city lighting company; for this was
+not the first exhibition of the kind that had been staged upon Lake Luna.
+
+Around the alley allotted to the audience, each member of which had to pay
+a half dollar for a ticket, was a guarded space so that those who did not
+pay entrance fee could not get near enough to enjoy the spectacle.
+
+The short-distance races, following the figure skating, were all within the
+oval of the principal arena. Then the ropes were taken down at one end and
+the long-distance races came off, a mile track having been marked with
+staffs upon the ice, staffs which now held the clusters of colored
+lanterns.
+
+For two hours the company was so well amused that few were driven away by
+the cold--and it was an intensely cold night The ringing of the skates on
+the almost adamantine ice revealed the fact that Jack Frost had a tight
+clutch on the waters of Lake Luna.
+
+"I wish my mother could have seen this," Janet Steele murmured to Laura
+Belding. "I think it is like fairyland."
+
+"Isn't it pretty? Now comes the torchlight procession. The boys arranged
+this their own selves. See if it isn't pretty!"
+
+The short end of the oval had been closed again after the long-distance
+races, and now there dashed into the arena from the boys' lane to the
+dressing-rooms a long line of figures in dominos, each bearing a colored
+light. They were the boys that could skate the best--the most sure-footed.
+
+Back and forth, around and around, in and out and across! The swift
+movement of the figures was well nigh bewildering; while the intermingling
+of colored lights, their weaving in and out, made a brilliant pattern that
+brought applause again and again from the spectators.
+
+Then the boys divided, taking stations some distance apart, and the torches
+were tossed from hand to hand, as Indian clubs are tossed in gymnasium
+exercises. The effect was spectacular and seemed a much more difficult
+exercise than it really was.
+
+Meanwhile the girls selected for the masquerade were dressing in the
+boathouse. Their masquerade costumes were as diverse and elaborate as
+though it were a ball they were attending. There was no dress as simple as
+Janet Steele's Red Cross uniform; yet with her glowing face and sparkling
+eyes and white teeth there were few more effective figures in the party.
+
+She had proved herself to be a fine and strong skater. Laura and Jess, who
+sponsored her, were delighted with the new girl's appearance on the ice.
+She had learned, too, her part quite perfectly. When the girls first came
+out and the boys darted back to get into their fancy costumes, the summary
+of the figures the girls wove on the ice were already known to Janet. She
+fulfilled her part.
+
+Then returned the boys, "all rigged out," Bobby said, and the masquerade
+parade began. The crowd standing about the arena cheered and shouted. It
+really was a most attractive grand march, and there chanced, better still,
+to be no accident. Smoothly the young people wended their way about the
+ice, their skates ringing, their supple bodies swaying in time to the
+music, led by those two masks of Uncle Sam and the Red Cross girl.
+
+"It is lovely," Mrs. Belding said to her husband. "What a fine skater our
+Chetwood is, Henry. And it is so near Christmas! I hope that bank-note will
+turn out to be a good one so that he will not lose the money," she finished
+wistfully.
+
+"There, there!" said the jeweler. "I'll go to see Monroe to-morrow. He's at
+home again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BUT WHO IS HE?
+
+
+"Well, Mr. Monroe," the jeweler said, when he was ushered into the banker's
+office the following forenoon by the bank watchman, "I presume that bill is
+a counterfeit of some kind?"
+
+"My dear Belding," said the banker, who was a portly and jolly man, who
+shook a good deal when he chuckled, and who shook now, "I thought you were
+old enough, and experienced enough, to discover the counterfeit from the
+real."
+
+"My son took the bill in over the counter," said the jeweler, rather
+chagrined.
+
+"But haven't you examined it?" said Mr. Monroe, taking the strange
+bank-note from a drawer of his desk.
+
+"Well--yes," was the admission, made grudgingly.
+
+"And are you not yet assured?"
+
+"Neither one way nor the other," frankly confessed the jeweler. "It was
+taken by Chet for a hundred-dollar bill. And it is that on one side!"
+
+"It certainly looks to be," chuckled Mr. Monroe.
+
+"But who ever heard of such a thing?" demanded the exasperated customer of
+the bank. "A hundred printed on one side and a fifty on the other! The
+printers of bank-notes do not make such mistakes."
+
+"Hold on! Nobody is infallible in this world--not even a bank-note
+printer," said the banker, reaching into another drawer and bringing forth
+a large indexed scrapbook.
+
+"Here's a case that happened some years ago. I am a scrapbook fiend,
+Belding," chuckled Mr. Monroe. "There were once two bills issued for a
+Kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. Only this note that
+we have here was printed for the Drovers' Levee Bank of Osage, Ohio, as you
+can easily see. This note went through that bank, was signed by Bedford
+Knox, cashier, and Peyton J. Weld, president, as you can see, and its
+peculiar printing was not discovered.
+
+"Ah, here we have it!" added Mr. Monroe, fluttering the stiff leaves of the
+scrapbook and finally coming to the article in question. "Listen here: 'It
+was found on communication with Washington that a record was held there of
+the bill, and the department was anxious to recall it. With another bill it
+had been printed for a bank in Kansas, and the mistake had been made by the
+printer who had turned the sheet upside down in printing the reverse side.
+The first plate bore the obverse of a fifty-dollar bill at the top and of a
+hundred-dollar bill at the bottom, while the other plate held the reverse
+of both sides. By turning the sheet around for the reverse printing, the
+fifty-dollar impression had been made on the back of the hundred-dollar
+bill.'
+
+"Do you see, now?" laughed the banker. "Quite an easy and simple mistake,
+and one that might often be made, only the printers are very careful men."
+
+Oddly enough, Mr. Belding, although relieved by the probability that the
+Department at Washington would make the strange bill right for him, was
+suddenly attracted by another fact.
+
+"I wonder," he said, "if that man came from Osage, Ohio?"
+
+"What man? The one who passed the bank-note on your son?"
+
+"Yes. You know, he was injured and is now in the hospital."
+
+"I don't know. Go on."
+
+Mr. Belding related the story of the accident and the unfortunate mental
+condition of the injured man. "They tell me all the money he had with him
+was new money--fresh from the Treasury."
+
+"He probably did not make it himself," chuckled the jolly banker. "Poor
+chap! Don't the doctors think he will recover his memory?"
+
+"That I cannot say," the jeweler said, rising. "Then you think I may
+relieve Chet's mind?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I will give you another hundred for this bill, if you want me to.
+I will send this to Washington, where they probably already have a record
+of it. Bills of this denomination are printed by twos, and the other has
+probably turned up--as in the case of the Kansas bank-note."
+
+Aside from the satisfaction this interview of his father's with Mr. Monroe
+accorded Chet Belding, further interest on the part of all the young people
+was aroused in the case of the injured stranger. Oddly enough, when Laura
+and Jess went to the hospital to inquire about the man, they found Janet
+Steele, the Red Cross girl, there on the same errand.
+
+Since the Ice Carnival, that had proved such a money-making affair for the
+Red Cross, the Central High girls had considered Janet almost one of
+themselves. Although nobody seemed to know who or what the Steeles were,
+and they certainly lived very oddly in the old house at the lower end of
+Whiffle Street, Janet was so likable, and her invalid mother was evidently
+so much of a gentlewoman, that Laura and her chum had vouched for Janet and
+declared her to be "all right."
+
+The matron of the hospital was the person whom the girls interviewed on
+this occasion. Mrs. Langworth had some interest in each patient besides the
+doctor's professional concern. She was sympathetic.
+
+"We do not know what to call him," she explained. "He laughs rather grimly
+about it and tells us to call him 'John.' But that, I am sure, is not his
+name. He merely wishes us to have a 'handle' for him. And you cannot tell
+me," added the matron, shaking her head, "that he is one of those rough
+miners right out of Alaska!"
+
+"Does he say he is?" asked Janet, with increased interest.
+
+"He remembers of being in Alaska, he says. He was coming out, he tells us,
+when something happened to him. And that is the last he can remember. He
+believes he 'made his pile,' as he expresses it. Oh, he uses mining
+expressions, and may have lived roughly and in the open, as miners do, at
+some time in his life. But not recently, I am sure."
+
+"And not a thing about him to identify him?" asked Laura.
+
+"Not a thing. Plenty of money. Not much jewelry----"
+
+"Oh! The lavallière my brother sold him!" cried Laura. "He said it was for
+'a nice little girl he knew.' It was only a ten dollar one--one of those
+French novelties, you know, that we sell so many of at this time of year."
+
+"He had that in an envelope in his pocket," said Mrs. Langworth.
+
+"Then he had not made the presentation of it to 'the nice little girl,'"
+murmured Laura. thoughtfully.
+
+"It almost proves he is a stranger in town, does it not?" asked Jess. "He
+bought the chain in the morning, and he was not hurt until evening. Do you
+know if he had any lodging in Centerport?"
+
+"The police have searched the hotels, I believe," said the matron, "and
+described the poor fellow to the clerks and managers. Nobody seems to know
+him."
+
+"Do--do you suppose we might see him?" Laura asked hesitatingly.
+
+"Oh, Laura! Would you want to?" Jess murmured.
+
+"Why not?" said the matron, smiling. "Not just now, perhaps. But the next
+time you come--in the afternoon, of course. He will be glad to see young
+faces, I have no doubt I will speak to Dr. Agnew when he comes in," for
+Nellie's father was of importance at the Centerport Hospital.
+
+"But who is he, do you suppose?" Jess Morse demanded, when the three girls
+left the hospital and walked uptown again. "He can't be any person who has
+friends in Centerport, or they would look him up."
+
+"That seems to be sure enough," admitted her chum. Then: "Shall we walk
+along with Janet?"
+
+"Of course," said Jess. "Are you going home, Miss Steele?"
+
+"Yes," said the girl in the Red Cross uniform. "I have been on duty at the
+Central Chapter; but mother expects me now."
+
+"How is your mother, dear?" asked Laura, with sympathy.
+
+"She is as well as can be expected," said Janet gravely. "If she had
+nothing to worry her mind she would be better in health," and she sighed.
+
+Janet did not explain what this worry was, and even Jess, blunt-spoken as
+she often was, could not ask pointblank what serious trouble Mrs. Steele
+had on her mind.
+
+Again the Central High girls went in to see the invalid upon Janet's
+invitation. They found Bobby Hargrew there before them. Harum-scarum as
+Bobby was, nobody could accuse her of lack of sympathy; and she had already
+learned that her fun and frolic pleased the invalid. Bobby did not mind
+playing the jester for her friends.
+
+Of course, the strange man at the hospital was the pivot on which the
+conversation turned.
+
+"Were you there, too, to inquire about him?" asked Mrs. Steele of Janet.
+
+Laura noticed a certain wistfulness in the invalid's tone and look; but she
+did not understand it. Merely, Mother Wit noted and pigeonholed the remark.
+Janet said practically:
+
+"I can't help feeling an interest in him, as I helped him that evening he
+was hurt."
+
+"But have they learned nothing about him?"
+
+"Only that the hundred-dollar bill he gave Chet is probably all right,"
+laughed Jess Morse.
+
+"They say he had a big money roll," said Bobby.
+
+"Not a poor man, of course," Laura agreed.
+
+"And Mrs. Langworth says she is sure he has been in Alaska," Jess added.
+
+Laura noted the swift glance that passed between the invalid and her
+daughter.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Steele, "you did not tell me that"
+
+"No," said Janet, shaking her head, "But lots of men go to Alaska, Mamma."
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Mrs. Steele.
+
+"And come back with plenty of money," put in Bobby, smiling. "This poor
+man's money doesn't help him much, does it? He doesn't seem to have any
+friends here in Centerport. He is just as much a stranger as the man they
+tell about who came back to his old home town after a great many years and
+found a lot of changes. As he rode uptown his taxicab stopped to let a
+funeral go by.
+
+"'Who's dead?' asked the returned wanderer of the taxicab driver.
+
+"'Dan Jones,' said the driver.
+
+"'Not Dan Jones that kept the hotel!' cried the man. 'Why, I knew him well.
+Can it be possible that Dan is dead?'
+
+"'I reckon he's dead, Mister,' said the chauffeur, as the hearse went by.
+'What d'you think they're doin'--rehearsin' with him?'"
+
+"How very lonely the poor man must feel," said Mrs. Steele, after laughing
+at Bobby's story.
+
+"We're going in to see him the next time," Jess said.
+
+Mrs. Steele looked again swiftly at her daughter. "You will see him, too,
+won't you, Janet?" she murmured.
+
+Her daughter seemed not to like the idea; but Jess said quickly:
+
+"We will take Janet with us, Mrs. Steele. And Bobby, too. If Mrs. Langworth
+approves, I mean. 'The more the merrier.' Really, I'm awfully interested in
+him myself."
+
+Laura, said nothing; but she wondered why the invalid showed so much
+interest in the injured man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A REHEARSAL
+
+
+The copies of the play chosen for production by the girls of the Central
+High Players Club had arrived, and Mr. Mann, who was to direct the
+production, called the members of the club together in the small hall which
+was just off Mr. Sharp's office.
+
+"And thank goodness!" murmured Bobby Hargrew, "Gee Gee cannot break into
+this session. What do you suppose she has suggested?"
+
+"Mercy! how do you expect us to guess the vagaries of the Carrington mind?"
+returned Lily Pendleton. "Something foolish, I'll be bound."
+
+"Sh! Remember Mr. Mann is an instructor, too," said Nellie Agnew.
+
+"That is all right, Doctress," giggled Lily. "Mr. Mann is a good fellow and
+will not peach."
+
+"Tell us the awful truth, Bobby," drawled Jess. "What is Gee Gee's latest?"
+
+"I understand," said the younger girl, "that she has been to Mr. Sharp and
+begged him to exercise his authority and make us act 'Pyramus and Thisbe'
+instead of 'The Rose Garden.'"
+
+"Goodness! That old thing?" flung out Dora Lockwood.
+
+"There is a burlesque on 'Pyramus and Thisbe' that we might give," chuckled
+Jess. "And it's all in doggerel. Let's!"
+
+"Reckless ones! Would you spoil all our chances?" demanded Laura.
+
+"Aw--well----"
+
+"Remember, we are working for a worthy cause," Dorothy Lockwood mouthed, in
+imitation of the scorned Miss Carrington.
+
+"You are right, Dory," Laura said soberly. "The Red Cross is worth
+suffering for."
+
+"Right-o, my dear girl," declared Jess Morse with conviction. "Let us put
+aside Gee Gee and listen to what Mr. Mann has to say."
+
+They had already talked over the characters of the play. None of them was
+beyond the capabilities of the girls of Central High. But what delighted
+some of them was that there were boys' parts--and girls would fill them!
+
+Of course, Bobby Hargrew had been cast for one of the male parts. Bobby's
+father had always said she should have been a boy, and was wont to call her
+"my eldest son." She had assumed mannish ways--sometimes when the
+assumption was not particularly in good taste.
+
+"But Short and Long," she growled in her very "basest" voice, "says I can't
+walk like a boy. Says anybody will know I'm a girl. I have a mind to get my
+hair cut short"
+
+"Don't you dare, Clara Hargrew!" Laura commanded. "You'd be sorry
+afterward--and so would your father."
+
+Bobby would never do anything to hurt "Father Tom," as she always called
+Mr. Hargrew, so her enthusiasm for this suggested prank subsided. But she
+growled:
+
+"Anyway, it's a sailor suit I am going to wear, and I guess I can walk like
+a sailor, just as well as Short and Long."
+
+"Better," declared Nellie soothingly. "And then, those wide-legged trousers
+sailors wear are quite modest."
+
+At this all the girls laughed. Knickers in their gymnasium and field work
+had become second nature to them.
+
+"But think of me," cried Jess, "in what Chet calls 'the soup to nuts!'
+Really the dress-suit of mankind is awfully silly, after all."
+
+"And uncomfortable!" declared Dora.
+
+"Attention, young ladies!" exclaimed Mr. Mann at that moment.
+
+He was a rotund, beaming little man, with vast enthusiasm and the
+patience--so Nellie declared--of an angel.
+
+"Not a full-sized angel," Bobby had denied seriously. "He is more the size
+of a cherub--one of those you see pictured leaning their elbows on clouds."
+
+But, of course, neither of the girls made this comment within Mr. Mann's
+hearing.
+
+The final decisions regarding the choice of parts were now made. The copies
+of the play were distributed. Mr. Mann even read aloud the first two acts,
+instructing and advising as he went along, so that the girls could gain
+some general idea of what was expected of them.
+
+Before they were finished another point came up. There was a single
+character in the play that had not been accorded to any girl. It was not a
+speaking part; but it was an important part, for the other characters
+talked about it, and the silent character was supposed to appear on several
+occasions in "The Rose Garden."
+
+"We need a tall, dark girl," said Mr. Mann. "One who walks particularly
+well and who win not be overlooked by the audience even when she merely
+crosses the stage. Who----?"
+
+"Margit Salgo!" exclaimed Jess, who had every bit of the new play and its
+needs very close to her heart.
+
+"Of course!" cried Laura and the Lockwood twins. "Margit is just the one,"
+Mother Wit added.
+
+"Oh!" said Mr. Mann at last. "You mean Margaret Carrington?"
+
+"And she walks like a queen," sighed Lily Pendleton. "I wish I could learn
+to walk as she does."
+
+"You know what Mrs. Case says," put in Bobby, in an undertone. "She says
+your feet, Lil, have been bound like a Chinese woman's of the old regime."
+
+"Oh, you!"
+
+"Margit went barefoot and lived in the open for years," said Laura.
+
+"She was 'near to Nature's heart,'" laughed Jess. "Of course, she never
+tried to squeeze a number six foot into narrow twos."
+
+"Never mind the size of her feet," said Mr. Mann good-naturedly. "If she
+can take the part, she will be just the one for it I remember that Miss
+Carrington's niece does have a queenly walk. And that is just what we need.
+But do you think we can get her?"
+
+"She has never joined our club," said Jess thoughtfully.
+
+"I am not sure that she has ever been invited," Laura said. "But she is
+always busy----"
+
+"Gee Gee pretty near works her to death," growled Bobby. "I shouldn't
+wonder if Margit flew the coop some day."
+
+"I am not sure, Miss Hargrew," said Mr. Mann, without a smile, "that I
+ought not to take you to task for your language. It really is inexcusable."
+
+"Oh, dear me, Mr. Mann, don't you begin!" begged the culprit "If I am
+academic in school in my speech, let me be relieved out of sessions, I
+pray."
+
+"But about Margit Salgo?" queried Laura. "Do you suppose she will be able
+to help us? I know she will be willing to, if we ask her."
+
+"Gee Gee will object, you bet," growled Bobby under her breath.
+
+That was not to be known, however, without asking. Laura said she would
+speak to Margaret about it, while Mr. Mann intimated that he would mention
+to Miss Carrington, the elder, that her niece was almost necessary to the
+success of the play.
+
+Margit Salgo was not so straightly kept by Miss Carrington as she was
+engaged from morning to night in her studies. Having been utterly neglected
+as far as mental development went for several years, the half-gypsy girl
+was much behind others of her age at Central High.
+
+Miss Grace Gee Carrington was pushing her protégé on as fast as possible.
+She was not yet in the classes of those, girls of her age whom she knew at
+Central High; but she was fast forging ahead and she took much pride in her
+own advancement.
+
+Therefore she did not see Miss Carrington's sternness as Bobby, for
+instance, saw it. She found her aunt kind and considerate, if very firm.
+And the girl who had been half wild when Laura Belding first found her, as
+has been related in "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field," was
+settling into a very sedate and industrious young woman.
+
+What girl, however, does not love to "dress up and act?" Margit Salgo was
+delighted when Laura explained their need to her.
+
+"Just as sure as auntie will let me, I'll act," declared the dark beauty,
+flushing brilliantly and her black eyes aflame with interest. "You are a
+dear, Laura Belding, to think of me," and she hugged Mother Wit heartily.
+
+Two days passed, and then came the first rehearsal. This, of course, could
+be little more than a reading of the parts before Mr. Mann, with the latter
+to advise them as to elocution and stage business. But Bobby declared she
+had been practicing walking like a boy and had succeeded in copying Short
+and Long almost exactly.
+
+"Why me?" demanded Billy sharply, whose usual sweet temper seemed to have
+become dreadfully soured of late.
+
+"Well, why not?" demanded Bobby. "Should I copy Pretty Sweet's strut?"
+
+"Aw--him!" snorted Billy Long, turning away in vexation.
+
+"Now, tell me," said the quick-minded Bobby Hargrew to Laura and Jess, with
+whom she chanced to be walking at the moment, "why it is that Billy has
+taken such a violent dislike to poor Purt of late? Why, he doesn't feel
+kindly enough toward him to send him another dead fish!"
+
+They were going to the rehearsal, which was in the small hall of the
+school. Of course, there was a sight of bustle and talking. Every girl was
+greatly excited over her part. Some were "sure they couldn't do it," while
+there were those who "could not possibly remember cues."
+
+"And I know I shall laugh just at the wrong place," said Lily Pendleton. "I
+always do."
+
+"If you do," growled Bobby, "I'll do something to you that will make you
+feel far from laughing, I assure you."
+
+"How savagely you talk!" sighed Nellie Agnew. "That boy's part you are to
+fill is already affecting you, Clara."
+
+"'Sailor Bob' is going to be terrifically rough, I suppose," Jess said,
+laughing.
+
+Mr. Mann called them to order, and the girls finally rustled into seats and
+prepared to go through "The Rose Garden" for the first time. Everybody knew
+her first speeches, and as Mr. Mann accentuated the cues and advised about
+the business the girls did very well during the first act.
+
+But with the opening of the second act there was a halt. Here was where
+"the dark lady" should come in. Her first appearance marked a flourishing
+period by Jess, who strode about the stage as the hero of the piece.
+
+"And Margit's not here!" cried Dora Lockwood. "Shouldn't she be, Mr. Mann?
+Really, her entrance gives me my cue, not Adrian's speech."
+
+Adrian was Jess Morse. She nodded her head vigorously. "Of course, Margit
+ought to be here to rehearse with us."
+
+"I am afraid," said Mr. Mann, with pursed lips, "that we shall have to give
+up the idea of having Miss Carrington--the younger--for the part."
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" chorused some of the girls. "Can't Margit play?"
+
+"Isn't that just like Gee Gee?" demanded Bobby furiously.
+
+"She wanted to, I am sure," Laura said. "It is not Margit's fault."
+
+"Of course it isn't," snapped Jess. "That old--"
+
+Fortunately she got no farther. The door opened at that instant and Miss
+Grace Gee Carrington entered. She was a very tall woman with grayish hair,
+eyeglasses, and a sallow complexion. Her dignity of carriage and stern
+manner were quite overpowering.
+
+"Young ladies!" she said sharply, having come into the room and closed the
+door, "I have a word to say. I told Mr. Mann I would come here and explain
+why my niece cannot take part in any such foolish and inconsequential
+exhibition as this that you have determined on."
+
+She glared around, and the girls' faces assumed various expressions of
+disturbance. Some, even, were frightened, for Miss Carrington had always
+reigned by power of fear.
+
+"I would not allow Margaret to lower herself by appearing in such a play. I
+disapprove greatly of girls taking boys' parts. The object of the play
+itself is merely to amuse. There is nothing worth while or educational
+about it."
+
+Again silence, and the girls only glanced fearfully at each other.
+
+"I have a proposition to make to you," said the stern teacher. "It is not
+too late to change your plans. I have Mr. Sharp's permission to make the
+suggestion. He will agree to your changing the play and will
+be--er--satisfied, I am sure, if you accept my advice and put on the play
+which I first suggested. This is an old Greek play with real value to it We
+gave it once in my own college days, and it truly made a sensation. I
+should be quite willing for Margaret to appear in that play, and I should,
+in fact, be willing to give Mr. Mann the benefit of my own experience in
+rehearsing the piece."
+
+Mr. Mann actually looked frightened. The stern instructor overpowered him
+exactly as she did many of the girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BUBBLE, BUBBLE
+
+
+"Toot! Toot! Toot-te-toot! Back water!" muttered Bobby Hargrew. "Wouldn't I
+cut a shine acting in a Greek play? Oh, my!"
+
+Her imprudence--and impudence--was fortunately drowned by the general
+murmur of objection that went up from the girls of the club. That Miss
+Carrington's suggestion met with general objection was so plain that even
+the stern woman herself must have realized it.
+
+"Of course," she said, really "cattish," "you girls would prefer something
+silly."
+
+"Perhaps, Miss Carrington," said Laura with more boldness than most of her
+mates possessed, "we prefer something more simple. 'The Rose Garden' does
+not call for more than we can give to it. I am afraid the play you suggest
+would take too much study."
+
+"Ha!" snapped the tall teacher. Then she went on: "I want you all to
+understand that your recitations must be up to the average while you put in
+your time on such a mediocre performance as this you are determined upon.
+Of course, if the play was of an educational nature we might relax our
+school rules a little--"
+
+"Oh! Oh! Bribery!" whispered Jess to Nellie.
+
+"It seems," Mr. Mann finally found voice to say, "that the desire of the
+young ladies is for the piece selected. It is too late, as Miss Belding
+says, to make a change now."
+
+"Then Margaret cannot act!" exclaimed Miss Carrington, and, turning
+angrily, she left the hall in a way that had she been one of the girls, it
+would have been said, "She flounced out."
+
+The rehearsal continued; but most of the girls were in a sober state of
+mind. There was a general desire among them to stand high in all their
+studies. They had learned when first they entered upon the athletic
+contests and exercises of the Girls Branch League that they must keep up in
+studies and in deportment or they could not get into the good times of the
+League.
+
+It was so with the secret society, the M. O. R.'s, and likewise in this
+acting club. "Fun" was merely a reward for good work in school. Not alone
+was Miss Carrington stiff on this point, the principal and the rest of the
+faculty were quite as determined that no outside adventures or activities
+should lower the standard of the girls of Central High.
+
+At the present time the members of the club had a serious fact to
+contemplate. A girl to fill the part of the "dark lady" in the garden must
+be found. As it was not a speaking part, the person filling the character
+must more particularly look as she was described in the play.
+
+"We want a type," said Mr. Mann. "Tall, graceful, brunette, and with
+queenly carriage. You must find her before the next rehearsal. I must have
+plenty of time to train her, for her appearance is of grave importance--as
+you young ladies can yourselves see."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie Agnew, when the rehearsal was finished. "And
+Margit Salgo would have been just the one!"
+
+"And the poor girl certainly would have enjoyed being one of us," Laura
+said.
+
+"Take it from me," said Bobby gruffly, "she's just the meanest--"
+
+"Margit?" cried Jess.
+
+"Gee Gee! I'm good and disgusted with her."
+
+But Bobby, for once in her life, was very circumspect during recitations
+that week. She felt that Gee Gee was watching for a chance to demerit her,
+and the girl did not intend to give the teacher occasion for doing so.
+
+"For once I am going to be so good, and have my lessons so perfect, that
+she cannot find fault."
+
+"But trust Miss Carrington to find fault if she felt like it!" grumbled the
+girl a day or so later.
+
+"Miss Hargrew, do not stride so. And keep your elbows in. Why! you walk
+like a grenadier. And don't sprawl in your seat that way. Are you not a
+lady?"
+
+Ah, but it was hard for saucy Bobby to keep her tongue back of her teeth!
+
+"Have you lost your tongue?" nagged Miss Carrington.
+
+Bobby's eyes flashed a reply. But her lips "ran o'er with honey," as Jess
+Morse quoted, _sotto voce_.
+
+"No, Miss Carrington. I am merely holding it," said the girl softly.
+
+Miss Carrington flushed. She knew she was unfair; and Bobby's unexpected
+reply pilloried the teacher before the whole class. There was a bustle in
+the room and a not-entirely-smothered snicker.
+
+Had there been any way of punishing the girl Miss Carrington would
+certainly have done it. She was neither just nor merciful, but she was
+exact. She could see no crevice in Bobby's armor. The incident had to pass,
+and the girl remained unpunished.
+
+However, it did seem as though Miss Carrington were more watchful each day
+of the girls who belonged to the Players Club. She was evidently expecting
+those who had parts to learn to show some falling off in recitation, or the
+like. Her sharp tongue lashed those who faltered unmercifully. The girls
+began to show the strain. They became nervous.
+
+"I really feel as though I must scream sometimes!" said Nellie Agnew,
+almost in tears, one afternoon as the particular chums of Central High left
+the building for home. "I know my lessons just as well as ever, but Gee Gee
+has got me so worked up that I expect to fail every time I come up to
+recite to her."
+
+"She is too old to teach, anyway," snapped Jess. "My mother says so. She
+ought to have been put on the shelf by the Board of Education long ago."
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Dora Lockwood. "What bliss if she were!"
+
+"She is not so awfully old," said Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"But she is awful!" sniffed Jess.
+
+"She acts like a spoiled child," Nellie said. "If she cannot have her own
+way in everything she gets mad and becomes disagreeable."
+
+This was pretty strong language from the doctor's daughter. At the moment
+Bobby Hargrew appeared, whistling, and with her hands in her coat pockets.
+She was evidently practicing her manly stride. But she did not grin when
+she saw the juniors approaching. Instead, in a most dolorous voice she sang
+out, quoting the witches' chant:
+
+  "'Double, double; toil and trouble;
+  Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'
+
+"Everything's stewing, girls, and it is bound to be some brew. Do you know
+the latest?"
+
+"Couldn't guess," said Jess Morse. "But it is something bad, I warrant."
+
+"Everything's going wrong, girls!" wailed Nellie.
+
+"I just saw Mr. Mann and Lil. Couldn't help overhearing what she was giving
+him. What do you suppose she wants to do?"
+
+"Play the lead instead of Laura," snapped Jess.
+
+"That would not be so strange," Dora Lockwood observed. "Would it,
+Dorothy?"
+
+"Not at all. Lil Pendleton--"
+
+"Wait a minute," proposed Laura Belding. "Let us hear her crime before we
+sentence her to death."
+
+"That's right," agreed Bobby. "Oh, she surely has put her foot in it! She
+told Mr. Mann that Hessie is just the girl to act 'the dark lady' in our
+play. What do you know about that?"
+
+"Ow! Ow! That hurts!" squealed Dora.
+
+"She never _did_?" gasped her twin.
+
+"Hope to die!" exclaimed Bobby recklessly. "That is exactly the game she is
+trying to work."
+
+"Hester Grimes! Of all persons!" groaned Nellie.
+
+"Lil hasn't said a word about it to me," Jess Morse declared.
+
+"No, she is going to get Mr. Mann himself to propose Hester--"
+
+"But Hessie isn't a member of the club!" cried Nellie.
+
+"We have set a precedent there," said Laura thoughtfully. "We took Janet
+Steele into the ice carnival, and she was not a member of the school."
+
+"That was an entirely different thing!" snapped Jess.
+
+"Why, Hester Grimes is no more fit to play that part than I am fit for the
+professional stage!" Nellie Agnew said. "What can Lil mean?"
+
+"I bet a cooky," Bobby growled, "that Hester put Lil up to it. You know,
+Hess is crazy to get her finger into every pie; but she would never come
+straight out and ask to join our club."
+
+"She'd be blackballed," said Dora tartly.
+
+"I believe she would," agreed her twin.
+
+Bobby chuckled. "There would be two black beans against her, and no
+mistake."
+
+"What did you say to Lil, Clara?" demanded Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"How was that?" Jess asked. "You didn't have a sudden attack of lockjaw,
+did you?"
+
+"Don't fret, Jess," said Bobby sharply. "I know when to keep my mouth shut
+on occasion. I came right away from there to find you girls. Something must
+be done about it."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" groaned Nellie. "If Margit Salgo had only been allowed to
+take the part!"
+
+"What did I tell you?" almost snarled Bobby. "Gee Gee has managed to queer
+the whole business. This play is going to be a failure."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MOTHER WIT HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+The ice carnival had been such a success in a spectacular as well as a
+monetary way that many of the friends of the Central High girls and boys
+declared they would like to have it repeated. More than a thousand
+dollars--to be exact, one thousand and twenty dollars--had been made for
+the Red Cross.
+
+Centerport was doing its very best to gather its quota for the great
+institution that was doing so much good in the world. Janet Steele
+confessed to Laura that she had gained more than one hundred dollar
+memberships, and that nearly all of these had given something in addition
+to their membership fee.
+
+"I wish we girls could help," said Laura wistfully.
+
+"And you having done so much already!" cried Janet. "Why, you've already
+done more than your share! And doing a play, too!"
+
+"I am afraid the play will not be a great success," Mother Wit sighed, but
+more to herself than to the other girl.
+
+Those who wished to repeat the ice carnival success had to give the idea
+up, for before the end of the week there swept down over the North Woods
+and across frozen Lake Luna such a blizzard as the surrounding country had
+not seen for several years. The street cars stopped running, traffic of all
+sorts was tied up, and even the electricity for lighting purposes was put
+out of commission for twenty-four hours.
+
+Of course, it did not keep many of the girls and boys of Central High at
+home. Snow piled up in the streets did not daunt them at all. But when the
+amateur actors undertook to rehearse they had to do so by the light of
+candles and kerosene lamps.
+
+The rehearsal did not go very well, either. The girls were "snippy" to each
+other--at least, Jess said they were, and Bobby declared she was one of the
+very "snippiest--so there!"
+
+"Girls! Girls!" begged Laura, "when there are so many other people to
+fight, let us not fight each other. 'Little birds should in their nests
+agree,' and so forth."
+
+"Oh, poodle soup!" ejaculated Bobby, under her breath. "Don't anybody dare
+spring old saws and sayings on me in my present mood."
+
+"I believe you'd bite, Bobby," whispered Nellie Agnew.
+
+A cry went up for Lily Pendleton, and then it was found that she was not
+present.
+
+"The only girl who is made of either sugar or salt," declared Josephine
+Morse. "Of course, the snow would keep her away!"
+
+"But where is her friend, Miss Grimes?" asked Mr. Mann, rather tartly. "I
+shall have my work cut out for me in training her, I fear."
+
+"You will, indeed," moaned Laura.
+
+"Now, Mr. Mann!" cried Bobby boldly, "you are not really going to let that
+Hester Grimes act in this play, are you? She is perfectly horrid!"
+
+"Miss Hargrew," was the somewhat sharp answer, "I hope you will not let
+personal dislikes enter into this play. It does not matter who or what Miss
+Grimes may be, if she can take the part--"
+
+"But she'll never be able to do it in the world!"
+
+"That is to be seen," said Mr. Mann firmly. "Remember, we are working for
+the benefit of the Red Cross."
+
+"Hear! Hear!" murmured Laura. "Perhaps Hester will do very well."
+
+"And perhaps she won't!" snapped Bobby.
+
+"Why, she can't possibly _act!"_ Jess Morse said hopelessly.
+
+"You will let me be the judge of that, Miss Morse, if you please," said Mr.
+Mann, speaking rather tartly.
+
+"Mercy, everybody to-day is as crisp as pie-crust--no two ways about it!"
+whispered Bobby to Jess.
+
+The girls plowed home through the deep snow, most of them in no mood for
+amusement. Even Laura Belding had a long face when she entered the house.
+
+"How was the funeral?" asked Chet, who was buried in one of the deep
+library chairs with a book.
+
+"What?" she asked before she caught his meaning.
+
+"You must have buried somebody by the way you look," declared her brother.
+
+"Don't nag, Chettie," sighed his sister. "We are having terrible times."
+
+"I judged so," Chet said dryly. "Don't you always have sich when you girls
+go in for acting?"
+
+"Now--"
+
+"I am sympathetic, Laura--I swear I am!" her brother cried, putting up his
+hands for pardon. "Don't shoot. But of course things always will go wrong.
+Who is it--Bobby? Or Jess? Or Lil?"
+
+"It is Hester Grimes."
+
+"Wow!" exclaimed Chet. "I didn't know she was in it at all."
+
+Laura told him of the emergency that had arisen and how Hester Grimes
+seemed certain to be drawn into the affair.
+
+"Why, that big chunk can't act," said Chet quite impolitely. "She looks
+enough like her father to put on his apron and stand behind one of his
+butcher blocks."
+
+"Oh, that is awful!" Laura objected. "But I know she will spoil our play."
+
+"Humph! Why didn't you, Laura, suggest somebody else for the part, as long
+as Margit couldn't take it?"
+
+"I didn't know of anybody."
+
+"I thought they called you 'Mother Wit,'" scoffed Chet. "You're not even a
+little bit bright."
+
+"No, I guess you are right. I have lost all my brightness," sighed Laura.
+"It has been rubbed off."
+
+"Then you admit it was merely plate," laughed Chet. "But say! why didn't
+you think of the girl who helped you out before?"
+
+"Who? What girl?"
+
+"That Red Cross girl. What's her name?"
+
+"Janet Steele!"
+
+"That's the one. Some pippin," said Chet with enthusiasm. I saw her this
+afternoon and helped her plow home--"
+
+"Chetwood Belding! Wait till Jess Morse hears about it."
+
+"Aw--"
+
+"Jess will spark, old boy; you see if she doesn't"
+
+"Jess is the best girl in the world; and she's got too much sense to object
+to my helping another girl home through the snow."
+
+"All right," chuckled Laura, in a much more cheerful mood. "But don't make
+the mistake of praising Janet to Jess. That is where the crime comes in."
+
+"Oh! Well, I won't," her brother declared thoughtfully.
+
+"And where did you beau Janet from?" Laura asked.
+
+"The hospital."
+
+"Were you there to see that poor man?"
+
+"Rich man, you mean," grinned her brother. "I took him some books and a lot
+of papers. He is able to sit up and read."
+
+"But he doesn't know who he is?"
+
+"He declares his name is John _Something_, and that he ought to be in
+Alaska right now. Says the last he knew he was in Sitka. Something happened
+to him there. Whatever it was, his brain must have been affected at that
+time. For he cannot remember anything about the first part of his life."
+
+"But, Chetwood!" exclaimed Laura earnestly, "that man is not a miner. He is
+not tanned. His hands are not rough. He was as well groomed, the matron
+says, as any gentleman who ever was brought to the Centerport Hospital."
+
+"But he was in Alaska. You should hear him tell about it."
+
+"He has lived two lives, then," said Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"And must be beginning his third now," put in Chet. "What do you know about
+that? And him with a roll of more than two thousand dollars--every bill
+brand-new."
+
+"Oh, Chet!"
+
+"Well, what is it?" her brother asked, looking curiously into Laura's
+suddenly glowing face.
+
+"Does he know he has so much money?"
+
+"Why, yes. I've been telling him to-day all about that funny bill he passed
+on me. He says he is glad he has so fat a purse, as he will be obliged to
+remain in bed long with that leg in a cast."
+
+"But, Chet! has he got the money himself?"
+
+"It is in the hospital safe."
+
+"I wonder! I wonder!" the girl murmured.
+
+"What is it now?" asked Chet
+
+"I wonder if any other bills in his roll are like that hundred-fifty note
+father swapped with Mr. Monroe for you."
+
+"Huh?" ejaculated her brother, quite puzzled.
+
+"It was on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. I wrote it down, and
+the names of the cashier and president of the bank. Do find out, Chet, if
+there are any more of those new bills issued by that bank in his roll."
+
+"What for?" demanded Chet.
+
+That Laura would not tell him, only made him promise to do as she asked.
+Mother Wit had an idea; but she would not explain it to anybody yet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAINS ON HIS WHEELS
+
+
+"How came you to meet Janet?" asked Laura Belding, remembering what her
+brother had first told her about the Red Cross girl.
+
+"She was coming my way, of course."
+
+"Coming your way?" Laura repeated, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Oh!
+I see! You met her at the hospital."
+
+"You said a forkful," declared the slangy youth.
+
+"Dear me, Chet," Laura observed soberly. "I think your slang is becoming
+atrocious. So Janet was down there!"
+
+"She had been calling on our friend with the broken leg, too," said Chet.
+
+"She does seem interested in him, doesn't she?" Laura said thoughtfully. "I
+wonder why?"
+
+"Because her mother's half-brother went to Alaska years ago and they never
+heard of him again," said Chet. "She told me."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Nothing wonderful about that," the brother declared.
+
+"It is interesting."
+
+"To them, I suppose," said Chet "But why don't you ask Miss Steele to join
+you girls in the play you are getting up?"
+
+"I never thought of it," confessed Laura.
+
+"Your thought-works are out of kilter, Sis," declared Chet, laughing again.
+"I'd certainly play Miss Steele off against the menace of Hester Grimes."
+
+There was something besides mere sound in Chet Belding's advice, and his
+sister appreciated the fact. But she did not go bluntly to the other girls
+and suggest the Red Cross girl for the part of "the dark lady." She
+realized that, if the new girl could act, she would amply fill the part in
+the play. But Hester was supposed to have it now, and the very next day Mr.
+Mann gave that candidate an hour's training in the part Hester was supposed
+to fill.
+
+When they all came together for rehearsal again the second day, Hester
+Grimes was present and she showed the effect of Mr. Mann's personal help.
+Yet her work was so stiffly done, and she was so awkward, that it seemed to
+most of the girls that she was bound to hurt and hinder rather than help in
+the production.
+
+"She'd put a crimp in anything," declared Bobby Hargrew, as the Hill girls
+went home that afternoon.
+
+The streets in this residential section had been pretty well cleared of
+snow, and people had their automobiles out once more.
+
+"Say, Jess!" exclaimed Bobby.
+
+"Say it," urged Josephine Morse. "I promise not to bite you."
+
+"If Hester plays that part, what are they going to do with her hands and
+feet?" asked the unkind Bobby.
+
+"Oh, hush!" exclaimed Laura.
+
+"Well, when she's supposed to pick the rose and hold it up to the light,
+and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown lobster--and just
+as red."
+
+"Girls, we must not!" begged Laura. "Somebody will surely tell Hester what
+we say, and then--"
+
+"She'll refuse to play," said Jess.
+
+"Oh, fine, _fine_!" murmured one of the Lockwood twins.
+
+"If we get her mad it will do no good," Nellie Agnew said. "Maybe then she
+will insist on being 'the dark lady.'"
+
+The boys were on the corner of Nugent Street waiting for the girls to come
+along.
+
+"How goes the battle, Laura?" asked Lance Darby. "Have you learned your
+part yet?"
+
+"I thought I had," sighed Laura. "But when I come to take cues and try to
+remember the business of the piece, I forget my lines."
+
+"This being leading lady is pretty tough on Mother Wit," laughed Chet.
+
+"Oh, my!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly. "Here comes Pretty Sweet in his
+car. Why! he's got Lil with him. I thought that was all over."
+
+They gaily hailed the driver of the automobile and his companion as the
+vehicle passed. Short and Long, with gloomy face, watched the car out of
+sight.
+
+"Well," he growled, "he's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all
+right"
+
+"Chains on his wheels, Billy?" asked Bobby. "What do you mean? Doesn't he
+always have them on in winter?"
+
+"Humph! He forgot 'em once, anyway."
+
+"Hey, Billy!" exclaimed Chet Belding, "you are skidding yourself, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Aw----"
+
+"Least said soonest mended," added Lance, likewise giving the smaller boy a
+quick, stern look.
+
+"Oh, I see!" muttered Bobby, searching the flushed face of Short and Long.
+"Say, Billy----"
+
+But Short and Long started on a quick trot for home, and left his friends
+to stare after him. It was Bobby who did most of the staring, however. She
+said to Jess and Laura, after they had parted from the other boys:
+
+"What do you know about that boy? I'm just wise to him. I believe I know
+what is the matter with Short and Long."
+
+"Do you mean," asked Laura, "what makes him act so to Purt?"
+
+"You have guessed my meaning, Mother Wit."
+
+"What is the trouble between them?" demanded Jess. "Although Billy never
+was much in love with Purt Sweet."
+
+"Don't you two girls remember the Saturday night that man was hurt on
+Market Street?"
+
+"I should say I do remember it!" Laura agreed. "He is in the hospital yet,
+and he doesn't know who he is or where he came from."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing to do with his identity," Bobby hastened to say. "It is
+about the car that ran him down. You know the police never have found the
+guilty driver."
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Jess. "You surely don't mean----"
+
+"I mean that the car had no chains on its rear wheels. That is all that was
+noticed about it Nobody got the number. But I heard Short and Long say he
+knew somebody who had been driving a car that day without chains. And the
+boys left us, didn't they, to look up the car?"
+
+"What has that to do with Purt Sweet?" demanded Laura.
+
+"Why, you heard what Billy just said about him and his chains!" cried
+Bobby. "'He's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' Didn't
+you hear him? And he's had a grouch against Pretty Sweet ever since the
+time--about--that the man was hurt."
+
+"Oh, Purt wouldn't have done such a thing. He might have run the man down;
+but he would never have run off and left him in the street!"
+
+"I don't know," Jess said. "He'd be frightened half to death, of course, if
+he did knock the man down."
+
+"I do not believe Prettyman Sweet is heartless," declared Laura warmly.
+"The boys are making a mistake. I'm going to tell Chet so."
+
+But when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get
+Chet to admit a thing. He refused to say anything illuminating about the
+car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys
+suspected anybody in particular.
+
+"If we think we know anything, I can't tell you," Chet declared "Billy?
+Why, he's always sore at Purt Sweet. You can't tell anything by him!"
+
+Just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl
+chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the
+more curious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PIE AND POETRY
+
+
+Laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an
+enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. There was
+flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose.
+
+Out-of-doors old Boreas, Jess said, held sway. Shutters flapped, the
+branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the
+house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made
+one think that the Spirit of the Wind was dying there.
+
+"You certainly are poetic," drawled Bobby, who had come into the Beldings'
+big kitchen, too, and was comfortably seated on the end of the table at
+which Laura had been rolling out piecrust.
+
+"Now, if that crust is only crisp!" murmured Mother Wit.
+
+"If it isn't," chuckled Chet, stamping the snow off his shoes, "we'll make
+you eat it all."
+
+"I'm willing to take the contract of eating it, sight unseen, if Laura made
+the pie," interjected Lance Darby, opening the door suddenly.
+
+"Come in! Come in!" cried Jess. "Want to freeze us all?"
+
+"You would better not be so reckless, Lance," Laura said, smiling. "These
+are mock cherry pies; and I never do know whether I get sugar enough in
+them until they are done. Some cranberries are sourer than others, you
+know."
+
+"M-m! Ah!" sighed Chet ecstatically. "If there is one thing I like----"
+
+Lance began to sing-song:
+
+  "'There was a young woman named Hooker,
+  Who wasn't so much of a looker;
+  But she could build a pie
+  That would knock out your eye!
+  So along came a fellow and took 'er!'"
+
+"Oh! Oh! We're all running to poetry," groaned Chet. "This will never do."
+
+"'Poetry,' indeed!" scoffed Jess Morse. "I want to know how Lance dares
+trespass upon Bobby's domain of limericks?"
+
+"And I wish to know," Laura added haughtily, "how he dares intimate that I
+am not 'a good looker'?"
+
+"'_Peccavi!_"' groaned Lance. "I have sinned! But, anyway, Bobby is off the
+limerick business. Aren't you, Bobby?"
+
+"She hasn't sprung a good one for an age," declared Chet.
+
+"A shortage," sighed Laura.
+
+"Gee Gee says the lowest form of wit is the pun, and the most execrable
+form of rhyme is the limerick," declared Jess soberly.
+
+"Just for that," snapped Bobby, "I'll give you a bunch of them. Only these
+must be written down to be appreciated."
+
+She produced a long slip of paper from her pocket, uncrumpled it, and began
+to read:
+
+  "'There was a fine lady named Cholmondely,
+  In person and manner so colmondely
+  That the people in town
+  From noble to clown
+  Did nothing but gaze at her, dolmondely.'
+
+Now, isn't that refined and beautiful?"
+
+"It is--not!" said Chet. "That is only a play upon pronunciation."
+
+"Carping critics!" exclaimed Lance. "Go ahead, Bobby. Let's hear the
+others."
+
+As Bobby had been saving them up for just such an opportunity as this, she
+proceeded to read:
+
+ "'There lived in the City of Worcester
+ A lively political borcester,
+ Who would sit on his gate
+ When his own candidate
+ Was passing, and crow like a rorcester!"
+
+"Help! Help!" moaned Chet, falling into the cook's rocking chair and making
+it creak tremendously.
+
+"Don't break up the furniture," his sister advised him, as she took a peep
+at the pies in the oven.
+
+"'Pies and poetry'!" exclaimed Jess. "Go ahead, Bobby. Relieve your
+constitution of those sad, sad doggerels."
+
+Nothing loath, the younger girl, and with twinkling eyes, sing-songed the
+following:
+
+  "'There was a young sailor of Gloucester,
+  Who had a sweetheart, but he loucest'er.
+  She bade him good-day,
+  So some people say,
+  Because he too frequently boucest'er.'
+
+Take notice all you 'bossy' youths."
+
+"Isn't English the funny language?" demanded Chet, sitting up again. "And
+spelling! My! Do you wonder foreigners find English so difficult? Here's
+one that I found in an almanac at the drug store," and he fished out a
+clipping and read it to them:
+
+  "'A lady once purchased some myrrh
+  Of a druggist who said unto hyrrh:
+  "For a dose, my dear Miss,
+  Put a few drops of this
+  In a glass with some water, and styrrh."'"
+
+"Do, do stop!" begged Laura.
+
+"I promise not to offend again," said Lance. "Besides, I hope to taste some
+of the pie, and a pie-taster should not be a poetaster."
+
+"Oh! Oh! Awful!" Jess cried.
+
+"I've run out of limericks myself," confessed Chet.
+
+"But one more!" Bobby hastened to say. Then dramatically she mouthed, with
+her black eyes fastened on Chet:
+
+  "'Said Chetwood to young Short and Long,
+  "Just list to my warning in song:
+  If you know of the crime,
+  For both reason and rhyme
+  Betray it--and so ring the gong!"'"
+
+The other girls burst out laughing at the expression on the boys' faces.
+Chet and Lance looked much disturbed, and Chet finally scowled upon the
+teasing Bobby and shook his head.
+
+"What do you know about that?" whispered Lance to his chum.
+
+"You are altogether too smart, Bobby," declared Chet. "What do you mean?"
+
+"We know you and Short and Long are trying to hide something from us," said
+Jess quickly.
+
+"You might as well tell us all about it," Laura put in quietly. "What has
+Billy really got against Purt Sweet?"
+
+"I don't admit he has anything against Purt," said Chet quickly.
+
+"Nothing but suspicion," muttered Lance, likewise shaking his head.
+
+"Then there is something in it?" Laura said quickly. "Can it be possible
+that Purt Sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself
+before this?"
+
+"There you've said it, Laura!" cried Lance. "That is what I tell both Chet
+and Billy. If Pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never
+dare go out again in his car."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?"
+
+"Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet.
+
+"Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as
+much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran
+the man down?"
+
+"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I
+suppose."
+
+"Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and
+Lance will want to sample them."
+
+"Go on. Tell 'em, Chet," said Lance.
+
+"Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets' car. You know Purt is
+too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put
+'em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening,
+for he passed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage
+with the radiator blanketed.
+
+"Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man
+down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains
+on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt's."
+
+"Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister.
+
+"So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets'. Purt was out with the car. He
+came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. We
+tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn't tell. We had to
+almost muzzle Billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. And
+Billy has been savage over it ever since."
+
+"Really then," said Laura, "there is nothing sure about it."
+
+"Well, it is sure the car was a Perriton. And since then we have found out
+that Purt's is the only Perriton in town that isn't out of commission for
+the winter. You can talk as you please about it: If the police only knew
+what we know, sure thing Purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+EMBER NIGHT
+
+
+The three girls of Central High and their boy friends had not come together
+on this stormy Saturday morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry."
+
+The ice carnival had made them so much money that Laura and her friends
+desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal.
+They wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the
+Red Cross from day to day.
+
+Fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like Janet Steele
+were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown
+churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being
+tried.
+
+And so Mother Wit had evolved what she called "Ember Night," and the young
+people who helped carry the thing through were delighted with the idea. To
+tell the truth, the idea had been suggested to Laura Belding during the big
+storm when the lighting plant of the city was put out of order for one
+night.
+
+She and her friends laid the plans for the novel fête on this Saturday
+after Laura's pie baking and after they had discussed the possibility of
+Prettyman Sweet being the guilty person whose car had run down the strange
+man now at the Centerport Hospital.
+
+They put pies and poetry, and even Purt Sweet, aside, to discuss Laura's
+idea. Each member of the informal committee meeting in the Beldings'
+kitchen was given his or her part to do.
+
+Laura herself was to see Colonel Swayne, who was the president of the Light
+and Power Company and who was likewise Mother Wit's very good friend. Jess
+agreed to interview the local chief of the Salvation Army. Chet would see
+the Chief of Police to get his permission. Each one had his or her work cut
+put.
+
+"Every cat must catch mice," said Mother Wit.
+
+Plans for Ember Night were swiftly made, and it was arranged to hold the
+fête the next Tuesday evening, providing the weather was clear. Jess, whose
+mother held a position on the Centerport _Clarion_, wrote a piece about
+this street carnival for the Sunday paper, and the idea was popular with
+nearly every one.
+
+Exchange Place was the heart of the city--a wide square on which fronted
+the city hall, the court house, the railroad station, and several other of
+the more important buildings of the place.
+
+In the center of the square a Red Cross booth was built and trimmed with
+Christmas greens, which had just come into market. Members of the several
+city chapters appeared in uniform to take part in the fête. There was a
+platform for speakers, and a bandstand, and before eight o'clock on Tuesday
+evening a great crowd had assembled to take part in the exercises.
+
+That one of the Central High school girls had suggested and really planned
+the affair, made it all the more popular.
+
+"What won't Laura Belding think of next?" asked those who knew her.
+
+But Laura did not put herself forward in the affair. She presided over one
+of the red pots borrowed from the Salvation Army that were slung from their
+tripods at each intersecting corner of the streets radiating from Exchange
+Place, and for a half mile on all sides of the square.
+
+Under each pot was a bundle of resinous and oil-soaked wood that would burn
+brightly for an hour. At the booth in Exchange Place fuel for a much larger
+bonfire was laid.
+
+The crowd gathered more densely as nine o'clock drew near. The mayor
+himself stepped upon the speaker's platform. The police had roped off lanes
+through the crowd from the Red Cross booth to the nearest corners.
+
+Janet Steele came late and she chanced to pass Laura's corner, which was in
+sight of the speaker's stand and the booth. She halted to speak with Laura
+a moment.
+
+"Isn't it just fine?" she said. "I wish mother could see this crowd."
+
+"I imagine you would like to have her see lots of things," returned Laura.
+"Our friend at the hospital, for instance."
+
+"Who--who do you mean?" gasped Janet, evidently disturbed.
+
+"The man who was hurt, I mean."
+
+"Oh! He is quite interesting," said the other girl and slipped away.
+Laura's suggestion had seemingly startled her.
+
+The band played, and then the mayor stepped forward to make his speech. At
+just this moment a motor car moved quietly in beside the curb near which
+Laura Belding stood guarding her red pot. Somebody called her name in a low
+tone, and Laura turned to greet Prettyman Sweet's mother with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Sweet was alone in the tonneau of her car, which Purt himself was
+driving. The school exquisite, who was so often the butt of the boys'
+jokes, but was just now an object of suspicion, admired Laura Belding
+immensely. He got out of the car to come and stand with her on the corner.
+
+"Got your nonskid-chains on, Purt?" asked Laura.
+
+"On the rear wheels? Surely," said Sweet, eyeing the girl in some surprise,
+because of her question.
+
+"My dear Laura!" cried Mrs. Sweet "Won't you come and talk to me while we
+are waiting?"
+
+"Can't now, Mrs. Sweet. I am on duty," laughed Laura.
+
+They could not hear what the mayor said, for they were two blocks away. But
+they had an excellent view of the stand and the Red Cross booth, and the
+crowd that pressed close to the police ropes.
+
+Suddenly the mayor threw up his hand in command, and almost instantly--as
+though he had himself switched off the light--all the street lamps in the
+business section of Centerport went out The arc light over the spot where
+Laura stood blinked, glowed for a moment, and then subsided. Mrs. Sweet
+cried out in alarm.
+
+"This is all right," Laura called to her. "Now watch."
+
+The mayor, in the half-darkness, stepped down from the platform and threw
+into the heart of the big bonfire the combustibles that set it off. The
+flames leaped up, spreading rapidly. The crowd cheered as eight boys,
+dressed in the knee-length dominos they had worn on the night of the ice
+carnival, dashed into the ring with resinous torches. They thrust the
+torches into the flames and the instant the torches were alight, they
+wheeled and dashed away through the lanes the police had kept open.
+
+The red flames dancing before the Red Cross booth, and the sparking,
+flaming torches which the boys swung above their heads as they ran through
+the crowd to the various corners where the red pots hung, made an inspiring
+picture in the unwonted gloom of the streets.
+
+"See how the Red Cross spreads!" cried Laura. "There's Nellie's fire
+going."
+
+They could see the spark of new fire under the pot a block away. A short
+figure with flaming torch was approaching Laura's corner at high speed.
+
+"Here comes Short and Long, I do believe," drawled Prettyman Sweet.
+
+"My pot will soon be boiling," laughed Laura. "What are you going to throw
+in, Purt? And you, Mrs. Sweet? Give all you can--and as often as you can."
+
+"Oh, I'll start you off, Laura," declared Purt, pulling out a handful of
+coins that rang the next moment in the bottom of the iron pot.
+
+"Here's my purse, Prettyman!" called his mother, leaning from the car. "You
+put in my offering."
+
+The few bystanders around Laura's corner began laughingly to contribute
+before the torch reached the spot. But Short and Long arrived the next
+moment. He stooped, thrust the blazing torch into the middle of the fuel
+under Laura's pot, and wheeled to run to his next comer.
+
+The flames crackled, springing up ravenously. The boy's cotton gown flapped
+across the fire and before he could leap away the flames had seized upon
+the domino!
+
+"Oh, Billy!" shrieked Laura Belding. "You are on fire!"
+
+The short boy leaped away; but he could not leave the flames behind him. He
+threw down the torch and tried to tear off the domino. In a moment he was a
+pillar of flame!
+
+"A blanket! A robe! Quick, Purt!" cried Laura, and started toward the
+victim of the accident, bare-handed.
+
+For once Purt Sweet did as he was told, and did it quickly. He ran with the
+robe from the front seat of the automobile. Laura grabbed one end and
+together they wrapped their schoolmate in the heavy folds.
+
+Short and Long was cast to the street and they rolled him in the blanket.
+The fire was smothered, but what injury had it done to the boy?
+
+He was unconscious; for in falling he had struck his head, and the wound
+was bleeding. Mrs. Sweet was crying and wringing her hands.
+
+"Oh, it's awful! Purt! Purt! Take me home!" she sobbed.
+
+"No, Purt!" exclaimed Laura. "Take him to the hospital"
+
+"Of course we will," gasped the youth. "Help me lift him, Laura. Oh, the
+poor kid!"
+
+Only the few people near by had seen the accident. Not even a policeman
+came. Laura and Purt staggered to the car with the wrapped-up body of the
+smaller lad. His face was horribly blackened, but that might be nothing but
+smoke. Just how badly Billy Long was injured they could not guess.
+
+Mrs. Sweet shrank back into the corner of the tonneau seat and begged Laura
+to get in with the injured boy.
+
+"I can't! I can't touch him!" wailed the woman. "It's awful! Suppose he
+should be dead?"
+
+"He's not dead," declared Purt. "We won't let him die--the poor kid! Here,
+mother, you hold his head and we'll lay him down on the seat. Let his head
+and shoulders lie right in your lap."
+
+"Oh, Laura! Do come!" cried the woman.
+
+"I can't, Mrs. Sweet!" returned Laura, sobbing. "I've got to stay and watch
+my pot boil. Do be quick, Purt!"
+
+She stepped out of the car. Purt slammed the tonneau door and leaped to the
+steering wheel. In a moment the self-starter sputtered, and then the car
+wheels began to roll.
+
+Mrs. Sweet was actually forced to do something that she had never done
+before--personally help somebody in trouble. Perhaps the experience would
+do her good, Laura thought.
+
+In tears the latter returned to the corner. The fire was brightly blazing
+underneath her swinging pot. There was already quite a collection of coins
+and a few bills in the bottom of the receptacle. But although Laura stuck
+to the post of duty, her heart was no longer in the ceremonies of Ember
+Night. She wished heartily that she had never suggested the entertainment,
+even if it did benefit the Red Cross.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+It did really prove to be one of the most successful forms of money-raising
+for the Red Cross that had been attempted in Centerport. And later they
+tried Ember Night in Lumberport and Keyport.
+
+Laura Belding was not proud of her success, however, for poor Short and
+Long had been badly burned. Fortunately his face was only blackened, and
+the doctors decided that he had not inhaled any of the scorching flame.
+
+Laura and Purt had wrapped him in the blanket so quickly that the fire was
+smothered almost at once. Yet there were bad burns on his arms and
+body--burns that would leave ineffaceable scars.
+
+The girls of Central High had two interests now to take them to the
+hospital. The stranger who did not know his name and Short and Long both
+came in for a lot of attention.
+
+The latter had never known before how popular with his schoolmates he was.
+Fruit, flowers, candy and the nicest confections from the Hill kitchens
+found their way in profusion to Billy's bedside.
+
+After a day or two the doctors let him see whoever came, and he could talk
+all right. It made him forget the smart of his burns.
+
+Of course his sister Alice came frequently, and she had to bring Tommy, the
+irrepressible, along. Tommy was more interested in the good things to eat
+at his brother's bedside, however, than he was in Billy's bodily condition.
+
+There was so much jelly, and blanc-mange, and other goodies that the
+invalid could not possibly consume all. Tommy sat and ate, and ate, until
+the nurse said:
+
+"Tommy, don't you know that you are distending your stomach with all those
+sweets? It is not good for you."
+
+When Tommy learned that "distending" meant that his stomach was being
+stretched, he was delighted.
+
+"Gimme some more, Allie," he begged his sister. "Please do, Allie dear. I
+want to stwetch my 'tomach. It's never been big 'nough to hold all I want
+to eat."
+
+The interest of Laura and her close friends in the strange man with the
+broken leg did not lag. He talked freely with his visitors; but mostly
+about Alaska and his adventures in the gold mines.
+
+As near as he could guess, he must have come out of the mines with his
+"pile," as he expressed it, almost ten years before.
+
+"What under the canopy I have been doing since, I don't know. But if I've
+got down to two thousand dollars capital, I must have been having an
+awfully good time spending money; for I know I had a poke full of gold dust
+when I struck the coast and went over to Sitka."
+
+"More likely he was robbed," said Chet.
+
+"He looks about as much like a miner as Pa Belding," Laura declared.
+
+There was too much going on just then, however, for Mother Wit to try out
+the thought that had come to her mind regarding this man. All these
+interests had to be sidetracked for school and lessons. And just at this
+time recitations seemed to be particularly hard. With rehearsals for the
+play, and all, mere knowledge was very difficult to acquire.
+
+"I know I'm not half prepared in physics," wailed Nellie Agnew, as she and
+other juniors trooped into school one day, two weeks before Christmas.
+
+"And I," said Jess Morse, "know about as much regarding this political
+economy as I do about sweeping up the Milky Way with a star brush."
+
+"How poetic!" cried Laura, laughing. "I wonder if we all are as well
+prepared?"
+
+"They expect too much of us," declared Dora Lockwood.
+
+"Much too much!" echoed her sister.
+
+"I wonder," said Laura, "if we don't expect too much of the teachers?"
+
+In the physics recitation Nellie Agnew, as she prophesied, came to grief.
+
+Miss Carrington seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of whom to call on at
+such times. She seemed aware that Nellie had not prepared her lesson
+properly. It might be that the wary teacher read her pupils' faces.
+Nellie's was so woebegone that it was scarcely possible to overlook the
+fact that she probably felt her shortcomings in the task at hand.
+
+Miss Carrington called on the doctor's daughter almost the first one in
+physics. To say "unprepared!" to Miss Carrington was to bring upon one's
+head the shattered vials of her wrath. There was no excuse for not trying,
+that strict instructor considered.
+
+So Nellie tried. She stumbled along in her first answer "like a blind man
+in a blind alley," so Jess Morse declared. It was pitiful, and all the
+class sympathized. The gentle Nellie was led to make the most ridiculous
+statements by the silky-voiced teacher.
+
+"And you are a physician's daughter!" Miss Carrington burst out at last.
+"For shame!"
+
+"If I were Nell," said Dora Lockwood to her twin, "I'd cut pills altogether
+after this. I'd rather take math with Mr. Sharp himself."
+
+Miss Grace G. Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit
+down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and
+began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and
+that physics recitation was bound to go badly.
+
+When Jess was called on she rose with blazing cheeks and angry eyes to face
+their tormentor. Miss Carrington saw antagonism writ large upon Jess
+Morse's face.
+
+"I presume, Miss Morse, you think I cannot puzzle you?" said Miss
+Carrington in her very nastiest way.
+
+"You can doubtless puzzle me," said Jess sharply. "But you cannot make me
+cry, Miss Carrington."
+
+"Sit down!" ejaculated the angry teacher. "That goes for a demerit."
+
+"And it is about as fair as your demerits usually are," cried Jess.
+
+"Two, Miss Morse," said the teacher. "One more and you will not act in that
+play next week."
+
+"If I'd been born dumb," sighed Jess afterward, "it would have been money
+in my pocket. I almost had to bite the tip of my tongue off to keep from
+saying something more."
+
+"And so ruin the whole play?" said Laura softly.
+
+"Huh! I guess Hester Grimes will do that," declared Jess. "She moves about
+the stage like an automaton. She is going to get us a big laugh, but in the
+wrong place. Now, you see."
+
+The girls rehearsed every afternoon, and the athletic work was neglected.
+Mrs. Case excused those who were engaged in producing the play. "The Rose
+Garden" was not such an easily acted play as they had at first supposed.
+Mr. Mann was patient with them; but in Hester Grimes' case he could not
+help the feeling of annoyance that took possession of him.
+
+Hester Grimes took offence so easily.
+
+"Every rehearsal I look for her to cut up rusty," Jess cried. "And somebody
+has got to play the part of the dark lady! It is not a part that can be cut
+out of the cast, although it is not a speaking part."
+
+Hester had begun to complain, too, because she had no lines. She considered
+that she was being deprived of her rights, and was of less importance than
+the other girls, because she was dumb on the stage.
+
+"Why! even Bobby Hargrew," she complained, "with her silly sailor part, has
+lines to repeat, besides that sailor's hornpipe in the first act. Of
+course, you girls would wish the least important part onto me."
+
+"What nonsense, Hester!" cried Jess. "If you really understood the play and
+the significance of your part, you would not say such a thing. And do, do
+be less like a wooden image."
+
+"Humph! I guess I know my part, Jess Morse," snapped Hester. "It doesn't
+matter at all what I do on the stage."
+
+"What did I tell you?" groaned Bobby. "'Double! Double!' and-so-forth.
+There is trouble brewing. If we all had measles or chicken-pox, and so
+couldn't give the play, we'd be in luck, I verily believe."
+
+"Oh, don't, Bobby!" begged Dora Lockwood. "You are so reckless."
+
+"Just the same, I feel it in my bones that Hester is going to kick over the
+traces," said Bobby grimly.
+
+"If only Margit Salgo had been allowed to have the part," groaned Dorothy.
+
+"It's Gee Gee's fault if the play is a failure," snapped Bobby.
+
+Never had the disagreeable teacher at Central High been so little liked as
+at this time. They blamed Miss Carrington more than they did Hester.
+
+As the party of troubled girls left the school-house on this particular
+afternoon, Lily Pendleton ran after them.
+
+"What do you think has happened?" she cried.
+
+"It's something bad, of course," groaned Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Who is hurt?" asked Laura.
+
+"It isn't that," said Lily. "But poor Purt Sweet!"
+
+"Now what has he done?" asked Jess.
+
+"It is what they say he has done, not what he really has done," wailed
+Lily. "The police have been to his house. And what do you think?"
+
+"I bet his mother's had a fit!" exclaimed Bobby, in an undertone.
+
+"The police accuse Purt of running down that man on Market Street the other
+Saturday night," said Lily warmly. "And Purt doesn't know anything more
+about it than a baby! Isn't it awful, girls?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WHERE WAS PURT?
+
+
+The police examination of Purt Sweet was no light matter. Two of
+Centerport's detective force had been working on the case ever since the
+stranger had been knocked down on Market Street, and, like Chet Belding and
+his friends, the detectives finally had come to the conclusion that
+Prettyman Sweet's automobile was the only Perriton car in the city that had
+not been in storage on that night.
+
+The detectives' visit to the Sweet residence, and Purt's later call upon
+the Chief of Police at his command, were dreadfully shocking to the boy's
+mother. Purt had to reassure her and insist that he was not going to be
+arrested and sent to jail at once; so he had not much time to be frightened
+himself. Indeed, he came out in rather good colors on this particular
+occasion.
+
+The boy's father had long since died. Purt had been indulged by his mother
+to a ridiculous degree, and as a usual thing Purt's conversation and his
+activities were ridiculed by his schoolmates.
+
+"This disgrace will kill me, Prettyman!" wailed Mrs. Sweet.
+
+"Where does the disgrace come in," pleaded poor Purt, "when I haven't
+really done anything?"
+
+"But they say you have!"
+
+"I can't help what they say."
+
+"You were out that evening with the car. I remember it very well," his
+mother declared.
+
+"What of it? I wasn't on Market Street the whole evening," grumbled the
+boy.
+
+"Where were you then?" she demanded.
+
+It seemed as though everybody else asked Purt Sweet that question, from the
+Chief of Police down; and it was the one question the boy would not answer.
+
+He grew red, and sputtered, and begged the question, every time anybody
+sought to discover just where he was with the automobile on that Saturday
+evening after dinner. Even when Chief Donovan threatened him with arrest,
+Purt said:
+
+"If I should tell you it wouldn't do any good. It would not relieve me of
+suspicion and would maybe only make trouble for other people. I was out
+with our car, and that is all there is to it. But I did not run that man
+down. I was not on Market Street."
+
+He stuck to this. And his honest manner impressed the head of the police
+force. Besides, Mrs. Sweet was very wealthy, and if Purt was arrested she
+would immediately bail him and would engage the best counsel in the county
+to defend her son. It is one thing to accuse a person of a fault. As Chief
+Donovan very well knew, it is an entirely different matter to prove such
+accusation.
+
+The news of Purt's trouble was not long in getting to Short and Long in the
+hospital. Chet and Lance really thought the smaller boy would express some
+satisfaction over Purt's trouble. But to their surprise Billy took up
+cudgels for the dandy as soon as he was told that the police suspected him
+of the offense.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Short?" demanded the big fellow. "You've been
+sure Purt was guilty all the time."
+
+"I don't care!" declared Billy. "He's one of us fellows, isn't he?"
+
+"Admitted he goes to Central High," Chet said.
+
+"But he isn't one of our gang," Lance added.
+
+"I don't care! The police are always too fresh," said Billy, who had reason
+for believing that the Centerport police sometimes made serious mistakes.
+Billy had had his own experience, as related in "The Girls of Central High
+on Lake Luna."
+
+"Then you don't believe Purt did it?" demanded Lance.
+
+"No, I don't. I was mistaken," declared Short and Long. "Purt's all right"
+
+"Wow! Wow!" murmured Chet.
+
+"See how he brought me here in his car when I was hurt. And look at the
+stuff Purt's given me while I've been here," said Billy excitedly. "He'd
+never have hurt that man and run away without seeing what he'd done. No,
+sir!"
+
+"Crackey, Billy!" said Chet, "you've turned square around."
+
+"I know I have. And I ought to be ashamed of myself for ever distrusting
+Purt," said the invalid vigorously.
+
+"Then why won't Purt tell where he was?" demanded Lance doubtfully.
+
+"I don't care where he was," said Billy. "If he says he didn't hit the man,
+he didn't. That's all. And we've got to prove it, boys."
+
+"Some job you suggest," said Chet slowly. "It looks to me as though Pretty
+Sweet was in a bad hole, and no mistake."
+
+Even the most charitable of his schoolmates took this view of Purt Sweet's
+trouble. His denial of guilt did not establish the fact of his innocence.
+His inability, or refusal, to explain where he was at the time of the
+accident on Market Street in front of Mr. Belding's jewelry store made the
+situation very difficult indeed.
+
+"If he could only put forward an alibi," Lance Darby said, when the Hill
+crowd of Central High boys and girls discussed the matter.
+
+"But he won't say a word!" cried Nellie. "I believe he is innocent."
+
+"Then why doesn't he tell where he was at the time?" demanded Laura
+sternly.
+
+"Is he scared to tell the truth?" asked Jess.
+
+"I don't think he is," Chet observed thoughtfully. "Somehow he acts
+differently from usual."
+
+"You're right," Bobby declared, with frank approval of one of whom she had
+never approved before. "I believe there's a big change in old Purt."
+
+"Well, it's strange," Laura remarked. "He never showed such obstinacy
+before."
+
+"He's never shown any particular courage before, either," said her brother.
+"That's what gets me!"
+
+"Where does the courage come in?" demanded Lance.
+
+"I believe Chet is right," Jess said. "Purt is trying to shield somebody."
+
+"From what?" and "Who?" were the chorused demands.
+
+"I don't know," Jess told them. "There is somebody else mixed up in this
+trouble. It stands to reason Purt would not be so obstinate if he had
+nothing to hide. And we are pretty much of the opinion--all of us--that he
+really did not run that man down. Therefore, if he is not shielding some
+other person, what is he about?"
+
+"I've asked him frankly," Chet said, "and all I could get out of him was
+that he 'couldn't tell.' No sense to that," growled the big fellow.
+
+It seemed that Purt Sweet had pretty well succeeded in puzzling his friends
+as well as the police. The latter were evidently waiting to get something
+provable on poor Purt. Then a warrant would be issued for his arrest.
+
+By this time the stranger who had been the start of all the trouble and
+mystery--the man from Alaska, as the hospital force called him--was able to
+be up and wheeled in a chair, although his leg was not yet out of plaster.
+
+Billy Long heard of this, and he grew very anxious to see the man whose
+accident was the beginning of Purt's trouble. Billy had quickly become a
+favorite with both the nurses and doctors of the Centerport Hospital. He
+was brave in bearing pain, and he was as generous as he could be with the
+goodies and fruit and flowers that were brought to him. He divided these
+with the other patients in his ward, and cheered his mates with his lively
+chatter.
+
+At first, however, there had been an hour or so every other day when a
+screen was placed about Billy's bed and the doctor and nurse had a very bad
+time, indeed, dressing the dreadful burns the boy had sustained.
+
+Short and Long could not help screaming at times, and when he did not
+really scream the others in the ward could hear his half-stifled moans and
+sobs. These experiences were hard to bear.
+
+When the dressings were over and his courage was restored the screen was
+removed from about Billy's cot and he would grin ruefully enough at his
+nearer neighbors.
+
+"I'm an awful baby. Too tender-hearted--that's me all over," he said once.
+"I never could stand seeing anybody hurt--and I can see just what they are
+doing to me all the time!"
+
+Billy knew that the man from Alaska was being wheeled up and down the
+corridor, and he begged so hard to speak with him that the nurse went out
+and asked the orderly to wheel the chair in to Billy's cot.
+
+"So you are the brave boy I've heard about, are you?" said the stranger,
+smiling at the bandaged boy from Central High.
+
+"I know how brave you've heard me," said Billy soberly. "I do a lot of
+hollering when they are plastering me up."
+
+The man laughed and said: "Just the same I am glad to know you. My name
+seems to have got away from me for the time being. My mind's slipped a cog,
+as you might say. What do they call you, son?"
+
+Billy told him his name. "And," he added, "I was right there in front of
+Chet Belding's father's jewelry store when that automobile knocked you
+down."
+
+"You don't mean it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I saw the machine. It was a Perriton car all right. It might
+even have been Pretty Sweet's car. But it wasn't Pretty Sweet driving it, I
+am sure."
+
+The boy's earnestness caught the man's full attention. "I guess this Sweet
+boy they tell about is a friend of yours, son?" he said.
+
+"He is a friend all right, all right," said Billy Long. "And I never knew
+it till right here when I got hurt. Purt--that's what we call him--is a
+good fellow. And I am sure he wouldn't do such a thing as to knock you down
+and then run away without finding out if he had hurt you."
+
+"I don't know how that may be," said the man seriously. "But whoever it was
+that ran me down did me a bad turn. I can't find my name--or who I am--or
+where I belong. I tell you what it is, Billy Long, that is a serious
+condition for anybody to be in."
+
+"I guess that's so," admitted the boy. "And you got your leg broken, too,
+in two places."
+
+"I don't mind much about the broken leg," said the man who had lost his
+name. "What I am sore about, Billy Long, is not having any name to use.
+It--it is awfully embarrassing."
+
+"Yes, sir, I guess it is."
+
+"So, you see, I don't feel very kindly toward this Sweet boy, if he was the
+one who knocked me down."
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure he isn't the one."
+
+"Why are you so sure?"
+
+"Because he wouldn't be so mean about it, and lie, and all, if he had done
+it. You see, a boy who has been so nice to me as he has, couldn't really be
+so mean as all that to anybody else."
+
+"Not conclusive," said the man. "You only make a statement. You don't offer
+proof."
+
+"But I--Well!" ejaculated Billy, "I'd do most anything to make you see that
+Purt _couldn't_ be guilty of knocking you down."
+
+"I'll tell you," said the man without a name, smiling again, "I haven't any
+particular hard feelings against your friend. Or I wouldn't have if I could
+get my name and memory back. So you find out some way of helping me recover
+my memory--you and your young friends, Billy Long--and I'll forgive the
+Sweet boy, whether he hurt me or not"
+
+"Suppose the cops arrest him?" asked Billy worriedly.
+
+"I'll do all I can to keep them from annoying Sweet if you boys and girls
+can find out who I am and where I belong," declared the man, laughing
+somewhat ruefully.
+
+And Billy shook hands on that To his mind the task was not impossible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+LAURA LISTENS
+
+
+Laura Belding had evolved an idea regarding "Mr. Nemo of Nowhere," as Bobby
+dubbed the stranger at the hospital. In fact, she had two ideas which were
+entwined in her thought. But up to this point she had found no time to work
+out either.
+
+She had taken nobody into her confidence; for Mother Wit was not one to
+"tell all she knew in a minute." On both points Laura desired to consider
+her way with caution.
+
+She went shopping with her mother to several stores on Market Street one
+afternoon, skipping the rehearsal of "The Rose Garden" for this purpose.
+The Christmas crowds were greater than she had ever seen them before. But
+the enthusiasm for the Red Cross drive had by no means faltered in spite of
+the season.
+
+Ember Night had gathered nearly five thousand dollars for the cause. Laura
+treasured a very nicely worded letter of appreciation from the mayor's
+secretary, thanking the Central High girl for her suggestion, which had
+proved so efficacious in money-raising. Laura was not exhibiting this
+letter to very many people, but she was secretly proud of it.
+
+In every store she entered Laura saw a Red Cross booth, while collectors
+with padlocked boxes were weaving in and out among the shoppers.
+
+"Give Again! Warranted Not to Hurt You!" was the slogan. Wearing a Red
+Cross button did not absolve one from being solicited.
+
+And she saw that the people were giving with a smile. Centerport was still
+enthusiastic over the drive. Laura seriously considered what she and her
+Central High girl friends were trying to do for the fund. Would the play be
+a success? If they only gave one performance and the audience was not
+enthusiastic enough to warrant a second, and then a third, she would
+consider that they had failed.
+
+All of a sudden, while she was thinking of this very serious fact, Laura
+came face to face with Janet Steele.
+
+"You are just the girl I wished most to see, Janet!" cried the Central High
+girl.
+
+"I always want to see you, Laura Belding," declared the Red Cross girl, who
+was evidently off duty and homeward bound.
+
+"Thank you, dear," Laura said. "You must prove that. I want you to do me a
+favor."
+
+"What can I possibly do for you?" laughed Janet. "Hurry and tell me."
+
+"You may not be so willing after you hear what it is."
+
+"You doubt my willingness to prove my friendship?" demanded Janet soberly.
+
+"Not a bit of it! But, listen here." She told Janet swiftly what she
+desired, and from the sparkle in her eyes and the rising flush in her face
+it was easily seen that Laura had not asked a favor that Janet would not
+willingly give.
+
+"Oh, but my dear!" she cried, "I shall have to ask mother."
+
+"I presume you will," said Laura, smiling. "Shall I go along with you and
+see what she says?"
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"I have done all my mother's errands--look at these bundles," said Laura.
+"We might as well have this matter settled at once. Your mother won't mind
+my coming in this way, will she?"
+
+"You may come in any way you wish, and any time you wish, my dear," said
+Janet warmly. "Mother very much approves of you."
+
+"It is sweet of you to say so," returned the girl of Central High. "I shall
+be quite sure she approves of me if she lets you do what I want in this
+case, Janet," and she laughed again as they turned off the busy main street
+into a quieter one.
+
+The invalid was at the long window, and beckoned to Laura to come in before
+she saw that that was the visitor's intention.
+
+"I cannot begin to tell you how delighted we are to have you girls call,"
+Mrs. Steele said, when she had greeted both her daughter and Laura with a
+kiss. "It would be so nice if Janet could go to school; then she might
+bring home a crowd of young folks every afternoon," and the invalid
+laughed.
+
+"But, you see, Miss Belding, I am so trying in the morning. It does seem
+that it is all Aunt Jinny and Janet can do to get me out of my bed, and
+dressed, and fed, and seated here on my throne for the day."
+
+"It seems too bad that the weather is not so you can go out," Laura said.
+
+"Oh, I almost never go out," Mrs. Steele replied. "Though I tell Janet that
+when spring comes, if we can only get the agent to repair that porch, she
+can wheel me back and forth on it in my chair."
+
+"Better than that, dear Mrs. Steele," Laura promised, "we will come with
+our car and take you for a ride all over Centerport, and along the Lakeside
+Drive. It is beautiful in the spring."
+
+"How nice of you!" cried the invalid. "But that, of course, depends upon
+whether we are in Centerport when the pleasant weather comes," said Mrs.
+Steele sadly.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Laura, "do you mean that you think of going away?"
+
+"Now, Mother!" murmured Janet, as though the thought was repugnant to her,
+too.
+
+"How can we tell?" cried the invalid, just a little excitedly. "You know,
+Janet, if we should hear of your uncle----"
+
+"Oh, Mother!" sighed the girl, "I do wish you would give up hope of Uncle
+Jack's ever turning up again."
+
+"Don't talk that way," said her mother sharply. "You do not know Jack as I
+do. He was only my half brother, but the very nicest boy who ever lived.
+Why, he gave up all his share of the income from my father's estate to me,
+and went off to the wilds to seek his own fortune.
+
+"How was he to know that some of the investments poor father made would
+turn out badly, and that our income would be reduced to a mere pittance?
+For I tell you, Miss Belding," added the invalid less vehemently, "that we
+have almost nothing, divided by three, to live on. That is, an income for
+one must support us three. Aunt Jinny is one of us, you know."
+
+"Now, Mother!" begged Janet "Sha'n't I get tea for us?"
+
+"Of course! What am I thinking of?" returned her mother. "Tell Aunt Jinny
+to make it in the flowered teapot I fancy the flowered teapot to-day--and
+the blue-striped cups and saucers.
+
+"Do you know, Miss Belding, what the complete delight of wealth is? It is
+an ability to see variety about one in the home. You need not use the same
+old cups and saucers every day! If I were rich I would have the furniture
+changed in my room every few days. Sameness is my _bête noire_."
+
+"It must be very hard for you, shut in so much," said Laura quietly.
+
+"And poor Janet is shut in a good deal of the time with me, and suffers
+because of my crotchets. Ah, if we could only find Jack Weld--my half
+brother, you know, Miss Belding. He went away to make his fortune, and I
+believe he made it. He has probably settled down somewhere, in good health
+and with plenty, and without an idea as to our situation. He never was a
+letter writer. And he had every reason to suppose that we were well fixed
+for life. Then, we have moved about so much----"
+
+Janet came back with the tea things. Mrs. Steele left the subject of her
+brother, and Laura found opportunity of broaching the matter on which she
+had come. What she wished Janet to do pleased the latter's mother
+immensely. She was, in fact, delighted.
+
+"How nice of you to suggest it, Miss Belding," said Mrs. Steele. "I know
+Janet will be glad to do it. Will you not, Janet?"
+
+"I--I'll try," said her daughter, flushed and excited at the prospect
+Laura's suggestion opened before her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER
+
+
+Scarcely was Bobby Hargrew of a happier disposition and of more volatile
+temperament than the Lockwood twins. Dora and Dorothy, while still chubby
+denizens of the nursery, saw that the world was bound to be full of fun for
+them if they attacked it in the right spirit.
+
+Dora and Dorothy's mother had died when they were very small, and the twins
+had been left to the mercy of relatives and servants, some of whom did not
+understand the needs of the growing girls as their mother would have done.
+Much of this is told in "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna."
+
+Almost as soon as the twins could stagger about in infant explorations of
+the house and grounds, they were wont to exchange the red and blue ribbons
+tied on their dimpled wrists by their nurse to tell them apart. For never
+were two creatures so entirely alike as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood.
+
+And they had grown to maidenhood with, seemingly, the same features, the
+same voices, the same tastes, and with an unbounded love for and confidence
+in each other. As they always dressed alike nobody could be sure which was
+Dora and which Dorothy.
+
+Now that they were well along in high school, the twins had been put on
+their honor not to recite for each other or to help each other in any
+unfair way. There really was a very close tie between them--almost an
+uncanny chord of harmony. Indeed, if one was punished the other wept!
+
+The teachers of Central High were fond of the twins--all save Miss
+Carrington. Her attitude of considering the pupils her deadly enemies
+extended to the happy-go-lucky sisters. She did not believe there was such
+a thing as "school-girl honor." That is why she had such a hard time with
+her pupils.
+
+In the play the girls of Central High were rehearsing, Dora and Dorothy
+played two distinct characters. Makeup and costume made this possible. But
+at the first dress rehearsal the twins pretty nearly broke up the scene in
+which they both appeared on the stage, by reciting each other's parts.
+
+Dora was an old, old woman--a village witch with a cane--while Dorothy was
+a frisky young matron from the city. When they met by the rustic well in
+the rose garden, haunted by that "dark lady" who was giving Mr. Mann so
+much trouble, Dora uttered the sprightly lines of her blooming sister,
+while the latter mouthed the old hag's prophecies.
+
+It was ridiculous, of course, and the girls could not go on with the
+rehearsal for some minutes because of their laughter. But Mr. Mann was not
+so well pleased. Dora and Dorothy promised not to do it again.
+
+"If I'd done anything like that, you'd all have jumped on me," Hester
+Grimes declared with a sniff. "It wouldn't have been considered funny at
+all."
+
+"And it wouldn't have been," murmured Jess to Laura.
+
+"There is one thing about you, Hessie," said Bobby, in her most honeyed
+tone, "that 'precludes,' as Gee Gee would say, your doing such a thing."
+
+"What's that, Miss Smarty?"
+
+"You are not twins," declared Bobby, with gravity. "So you could not very
+well play that trick."
+
+"Oh, my!" murmured Nellie, "what would we do if Hester were twins?"
+
+"Don't mention it!" begged Jess. "The thought is terrifying."
+
+But there proved to be a second thing about Hester which came out
+prominently within the week. This was something that not many of the girls
+of Central High had suspected before the moment of revelation.
+
+The first performance of "The Rose Garden" was set for Friday night. There
+would follow a matinee and evening performance on Saturday--provided, of
+course, the first performance encouraged the managers to go on with the
+production.
+
+"It all depends," sighed Jess, bearing a deal of the responsibility for the
+success of the piece on her young shoulders. "If we are punk, then nobody
+will come back to see the show a second time, or advise other folks to see
+it. And if we don't make a heap of money for the Red Cross, after all the
+advertising we've had, what will folks think of us?"
+
+They were really all worried by the fear of failure. All but Hester. She
+did not appear to care. And it did seem as though every time she rehearsed
+she made the "dark lady" of the rose garden more wooden and impossible than
+before.
+
+At length Mr. Mann had given her up as hopeless. It seemed impossible to
+make Hester act like a human being even, let alone like a graceful lady.
+
+"So you see, now that he lets me alone, I do very well," asserted Hester,
+with vast assurance and a characteristic toss of her head. "I knew I was
+right all the time. Now, finally, Mr. Mann admits it."
+
+When she said this to Lily, even Lily had her doubts. When Bobby heard her
+say it, she fairly hooted her scorn.
+
+Of course, Hester instantly flew into a rage with Bobby. This was only two
+days before the fateful Friday and before recitations in the morning. The
+girls had gathered in the main lower corridor of Central High. The bell for
+classes had not yet rung.
+
+"I'll show you how smart you are, Clara Hargrew!" Hester almost screamed.
+"I've a good mind to slap you!"
+
+"That might make me smart, Hess," drawled the smaller girl coolly. "But it
+would not change the facts in the case at all. You are spoiling the whole
+play--the most effective scenes in it, too--by your obstinacy. Mr. Mann has
+given you up as a bad egg, that's all. If the play is a failure, it will be
+your fault."
+
+And for once Laura Belding did not interfere to stop Bobby's tart tongue.
+Perhaps the bell for assembly rang too quickly for Mother Wit to interfere.
+At any rate, before Hester could make any rejoinder, they were hurrying in
+to their seats.
+
+But the big girl was in a towering rage. She was fairly pale, she was so
+angry. Her teeth were clenched. Her eyes sparkled wrathfully. She was in no
+mood to face Miss Grace G. Harrington, who chanced to have the juniors
+before her for mediæval history during the first period on this Wednesday
+morning.
+
+Naturally, with the first performance of the play but two days away, those
+girls who were to act in it could not give their undivided attention to
+recitations. But Miss Carrington had determined to make no concessions.
+
+She was firmly convinced that Central High should support no such farcical
+production as "The Rose Garden." Anything classical--especially if it were
+beyond the acting ability of the girls--would have pleased the obstinate
+woman.
+
+"Something," as Nellie said, "in which we would all be draped in Greek
+style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from
+neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. That is the
+sort of a performance to satisfy Miss Carrington."
+
+"Amen!" agreed Bobby.
+
+"Wait till she sees Bobby's knickers," chuckled Dora Lockwood. "You know
+Gee Gee always looks as though she wanted to put on blinders when she comes
+into the girls' gym."
+
+Of course, these remarks were not passed in history class. But Dora was
+somehow inattentive just the same on this morning. She sat on one side of
+Hester Grimes and Dorothy on the other. The angry girl between the twins
+looked like a vengeful high priestess of Trouble--and Trouble appeared.
+
+Miss Carrington asked Dora a direct question, speaking her name as she
+always did, and glaring at the twin in question near-sightedly, in an
+endeavor to see the girl's lips move when she answered. She was sure of
+Dora's seat; but, of course, she could not be sure whether Dora or Dorothy
+was sitting in it. Her refusal to accept the fact that the twins were on
+their honor kept Miss Carrington in doubt.
+
+"Relate some incident, with date, in the life of Saladin, Dora," the
+teacher commanded.
+
+Dora hesitated. This was a "jump question," as the pupils called it. Miss
+Carrington, as she frequently did, had gone back several lessons for this
+query, and Dora was hazy about Saladin.
+
+"Come, Dora!" ejaculated the teacher harshly. "Have you no answer?"
+
+Dorothy leaned forward to look across Hester's desk at her sister. She was
+anxious that Dora should not fail. She would have imparted, could she have
+done so, her knowledge of Saladin to her twin. But there was only nervous
+anxiety in her look and manner.
+
+The moment Dora's lips opened and she began her reply, Hester turned
+sharply and stared at Dorothy. It was a despicable trick--a mean and
+contemptible attempt to get the twins into trouble. And Hester did it
+deliberately.
+
+She knew that Miss Carrington was much more near-sighted than she was
+willing to acknowledge. Seeing Hester look at Dorothy caused the teacher to
+believe that Dorothy was answering for her sister.
+
+"Stop!" commanded Miss Carrington, rising quickly from her seat on the
+platform.
+
+Dora, who had begun very well at last, halted in her answer and looked
+surprised. Miss Carrington was glaring now at Dorothy.
+
+"How dare you, Dorothy Lockwood?" she demanded, her face quite red with
+anger. "There is no trusting any of you girls. Cheat!"
+
+There was a sudden intake of breath all over the room. Some of the girls
+looked positively horror-stricken. For the teacher to use such an
+expression shocked Laura, and Jess, and Nellie for an instant, as though
+the word had been addressed to them personally.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Jess.
+
+The. teacher flashed her a glance. "Silence, Miss Morse!"
+
+Dorothy had risen slowly to her feet. "What--what do you mean, Miss
+Carrington?" she whispered. "Do you say I--I have _cheated?"_
+
+"Cheat!" repeated the teacher, with an index finger pointing Dorothy down.
+"I saw you. I heard you. You started to answer for your sister."
+
+"I did not!" cried the accused girl.
+
+"She certainly did not, Miss Carrington!" repeated Dora, rising likewise.
+
+"Silence!" exclaimed Miss Carrington. "I would not believe either of you.
+You are both disgracing your classmates and Central High."
+
+A sibilant hiss rose in the back of the room. The girls were more angry at
+this outburst of the teacher than all of them dared show.
+
+Dorothy burst into a fit of weeping. She covered her face with her hands
+and ran out of the room. Dora, defying Miss Carrington, muttered:
+
+"Ugly, mean thing!"
+
+Then she ran after her sister. The room was in tense excitement. Miss
+Carrington saw suddenly that she positively had nobody on her side. She
+began to question the girls immediately surrounding the twins' seats.
+
+"You saw her answer for her sister, Miss Morse?"
+
+"I did not," declared Jess icily.
+
+"Were you not looking at Dorothy, Laura?" asked the teacher.
+
+"No, Miss Carrington. I was looking at Dora."
+
+"And Dora answered!" cried the usually gentle and retiring Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Why----Miss Grimes!" exclaimed the disturbed teacher. "You know that
+Dorothy was answering for her sister?"
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Carrington," denied Hester.
+
+"But you looked at her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What for?" snapped the teacher.
+
+"Why," drawled Hester, "that pin Dorothy wears in her blouse was on crooked
+and it attracted my attention."
+
+That was the second thing about Hester Grimes. She was not alone a dunce
+when it came to acting, she was a prevaricator as well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+AND A THIRD THING
+
+
+What might have happened following this explosion of bad temper and
+ill-feeling, had Mr. Sharp himself not entered the room, nobody will ever
+know. Miss Carrington had been led into a most unjust and unkind criticism
+of the Lockwood twins. She had been deliberately led into it by Hester
+Grimes. She knew Hester had done this.
+
+The other girls knew it, too; and they all, the young folks, believed that
+the teacher had been most cruel and unfair.
+
+Mr. Sharp could not have failed to appreciate the fact that there was a
+tense feeling in the room that never arose from an ordinary recitation in
+mediæval history. But he smilingly overlooked anything of the kind.
+
+"Pardon me, Miss Carrington--and you, young ladies," he said, bowing and
+smiling. "I have been in the senior classes, and now I am here to make the
+same statement I made there, and that I shall make to the sophomores later.
+May I speak to your class, Miss Carrington?"
+
+Miss Carrington could not find her voice, but she bowed her permission for
+the principal to go on.
+
+"Several of you young ladies," said Mr. Sharp, "are to take part in the
+play on Friday evening. Your work, in school, I fear, is being scamped a
+bit. Do the best you can; give your interest and attention as well as you
+may to the recitations.
+
+"But I wish to announce that, until after this week, we teachers will
+excuse such failures as you may make in your work; only, of course, all
+faults will have to be made up after the holidays. We want you to give the
+play in a way to bring honor upon the school as a whole.
+
+"I have enjoyed your last two rehearsals, and feel confident that, with a
+few raw spots smoothed over, you will produce 'The Rose Garden' in a way to
+please your friends and satisfy your critics. The faculty as a whole feel
+as I do about it. Go in and win!"
+
+The little speech cleared the atmosphere of the class-room immediately. It
+did not please Miss Carrington, of course; but the girls felt that they
+could even forgive her after what Mr. Sharp had said.
+
+Dora and Dorothy Lockwood had been insulted and maligned. They did not
+appear again at that recitation.
+
+"But do you think old Gee Gee would say that she was wrong, and beg their
+pardon?" demanded Bobby, at recess. "Not on your life!"
+
+"I don't know that a teacher in her situation could publicly acknowledge
+she was utterly in the wrong," Laura observed thoughtfully.
+
+"I would like to know why not?" demanded Jess Morse.
+
+"Why, you see, the fault really lies upon the conscience of one of us
+girls," said Laura, looking significantly at Hester.
+
+The latter turned furiously, as though she had been waiting for and
+expecting just this criticism. But surely she had not expected it from this
+source. All the girls were amazed to hear Laura speak so harshly.
+
+"Oh, Laura!" murmured Jess. "Now you have done it! She's going to blow up!"
+
+"And she'll leave us flat on the play business," groaned Bobby.
+
+Hester came across the reception room to Laura with flashing eyes and her
+face mottled with rage.
+
+"What is that you say, Laura Belding?" she demanded.
+
+"I will repeat it," said Laura firmly. "The whole trouble is on your
+conscience. You deliberately led Miss Carrington astray."
+
+"Oh! I did, did I?"
+
+"You most certainly did. Miss Carrington was both cruel to Dora and Dorothy
+and unfair. But you knew her failing, and you led her to believe that
+Dorothy was answering the question she put to Dora. No wonder Miss
+Carrington was angered."
+
+"Is that so?" sneered Hester. "And who are you, to tell me when I'm wrong?"
+
+"Somebody has to tell you, Hester," said Jess sweetly, for she was bound to
+take up cudgels for her chum.
+
+"And you can mind your business, too, Jess Morse!" snarled Hester.
+
+"Dear, dear!" Nellie begged. "Let us not quarrel."
+
+Yet for once Mother Wit seemed determined upon making trouble. Usually
+acting as peacemaker, the girls around her were amazed to hear her say:
+
+"You are quite in the wrong, Hester. And you know it. You should beg Miss
+Carrington's pardon; and you should ask pardon of all of us, as well as of
+Dora and Dorothy, for disgracing the class."
+
+"What do you mean?" screamed Hester Grimes. "Do you suppose I would tell
+old Gee Gee that it was my fault?"
+
+"You deliberately prevaricated--to her and to us," said Laura calmly.
+
+"Call me a story-teller, do you?" cried the butcher's daughter. "How dare
+you! I'll get even with you, Laura Belding!"
+
+"It is the truth," Laura said, slowly and firmly.
+
+"I'll fix you for this, Laura Belding!" pursued Hester, trembling with
+rage. She turned to sweep them all with her angry glance. "I'll fix you
+all! I won't have anything to do with any of you out of school--so there!
+And I won't act in your hateful old play!"
+
+She ran out of the room as she said this and left the girls--at least, most
+of them--in a state of blank despair. The bell rang for the next session
+before anybody could speak.
+
+Laura seemed quite calm and unruffled. The others got through their
+recitations as best they could until lunch hour. Jess and Bobby caught up
+with Laura on the street when the latter went out for her customary walk.
+
+"Oh, Laura! What shall we do?" almost wept Jess. "Only two days! Nobody can
+learn that part--not even as good as Hester knew it--before Friday night."
+
+At that moment Chet Belding appeared from around the corner. He was red and
+almost breathless--in a high state of excitement, and no mistake.
+
+"What do you think, girls?" he cried, "We got a line on Purt Sweet's
+automobile and why he has been hiding about where it was that Saturday
+night the man from Alaska was hurt."
+
+"What is it? Tell us?" asked Laura.
+
+"I met Dan Smith. He goes to the East High, you know, and he lives across
+the street from the Grimes' place. You know?"
+
+"Hester Grimes?" cried Jess.
+
+"Yes. Your dear friend. Well, Dan was up all night that night with a raging
+toothache. He said the Grimes' had a party. Purt was there with his car.
+Dan knows the car was taken away from the house and was gone more than an
+hour that evening, and that Purt did not go with the car.
+
+"See? He's shielding somebody--the poor fish!" added Chet. "That is what
+Short and Long has been saying. Now, what do you know about that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PURT
+
+
+The news Chet had divulged was so exciting that the girls quite forgot for
+the time being the wreck that Hester Grimes seemed to have made of the
+forthcoming performance of "The Rose Garden."
+
+Their chattering tongues mentioned Hester more than once, however, as they
+discussed Chet's news. Whether Purt Sweet's car had run down the man from
+Alaska or not, what did Hester know about it?
+
+"Can it be possible that Purt is shielding Hester in this matter?" Laura
+queried gravely.
+
+"Oh, it couldn't be! She wasn't in that car that knocked down Mr. Nemo of
+Nowhere," Bobby declared emphatically;
+
+"He has always favored Hester and Lil," Jess
+
+"Pooh!" again put in the irrepressible. "That's only because Pretty Sweet
+thinks there is nothing in this world so good or great as money; and both
+the Grimes and the Pendleton families have got oodles of it."
+
+"I don't know about that," Chet said quite as thoughtfully as his sister.
+"It may not be their folks' money that attracts Purt to those two girls."
+
+"What then?" demanded Bobby.
+
+"They flatter him. He can lap that up like our cat laps cream."
+
+"That is true," agreed Jess Morse.
+
+"Certainly we don't flatter, him," Bobby said bluntly.
+
+"It may be that we have never given Purt a fair deal," Laura observed.
+"Hester and Lil do not make fun of him."
+
+"And is he paying Hester back by shouldering something for her?" Jess
+asked.
+
+"Oh, she never was in that car when it was taken away from where Purt had
+it parked before the Grimes' house," Chet hastened to declare with
+assurance. "I got all the facts from Dan Smith. He'd swear to them."
+
+"Let us hear the particulars," begged Laura.
+
+"Why, Dan says he was up at his window on the third floor of their house
+watching the lights in the Grimes' house. It was a big party. Dancing on
+the lower floor, and a crowd of folks. He saw two men--or maybe boys--run
+out of the side door and down to the gate, as though they were sneaking
+away from some of the others, you know."
+
+"Well?" his sister responded. "Go on."
+
+"Dan didn't know the fellows. Fact was, he couldn't see their faces very
+well, and so he could not be sure of their identity in any case."
+
+"The street is pretty wide there, it's a fact," murmured Bobby.
+
+"Those two fellows looked back as though they expected to be spied upon.
+But they went to the car, found it was all right (Purt had the radiator
+blanketed) and got in. The starter worked, and she got into action as slick
+as a whistle, Dan said. He thought it was all right or he would have raised
+the window and halloaed at 'em. There were no girls with them. The two
+fellows went off alone in the car."
+
+"There were two men in the car that struck Mr. Nemo of Nowhere," murmured
+Bobby.
+
+"Purt appeared, Dan says, after a little while and looked for the car. He
+got quite excited. Asked everybody that came along if they had seen it. He
+was in a stew for fair. And while he was running up and down, popping off
+like an engine exhaust, back came the car with only one of the fellows in
+it."
+
+"Ha! The mystery deepens," said Jess, in mock tragic tones. "What became of
+the other villain?"
+
+"You answer that question," grinned Chet. "You asked it!"
+
+"But what happened then?" asked Laura interestedly.
+
+"There was a row between Purt and the fellow who brought back the car. Purt
+pointed to the mudguard on the off side, as though it had been bent, or
+scraped in some way----"
+
+"That's what struck the man as he fell on Market Street," interrupted Bobby
+with confidence. "I saw it hit him."
+
+"It was blood on the guard," said Laura.
+
+"Oh, my!" gasped Jess. "Do you suppose so?"
+
+"Like enough," Chet agreed. "But it was too far away for Dan to see. And
+finally Purt drove off without returning to the house with the other
+fellow."
+
+"But who was he?" Jess asked.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The fellow Purt quarreled with for taking the car."
+
+"Give it up," said Chet, shaking his head.
+
+"And what became of the other man?" Laura queried.
+
+"There were two in the car when it hit the man from Alaska," Jess declared.
+
+"Gee!" ejaculated Bobby. "There's the nine-ten express west"
+
+"Who----What do you mean, young one?" demanded Chet.
+
+"'Young one' yourself!" snapped Clara Hargrew, immediately on her dignity.
+"There are no medals on you for age, Chet Belding."
+
+"Or whiskers, either," laughed Laura, slyly eyeing her brother, for she was
+aware that he had a safety razor hidden away in his bureau drawer.
+
+"Come, come!" said Jess, "What about this nine-ten express Bobby spoke of?"
+
+"Why," said the younger girl, "I noticed Mr. Belding's clock--the big
+chronometer in the show window--as we came out of the store that Saturday
+evening. It was just nine o'clock when we stood there and saw Mr. Nemo of
+Nowhere run down by the car. Anybody driving that car could have made the
+railroad station just about in time for the ten minutes' past nine
+express--the Cannon Ball, don't they call it?"
+
+"That is the train," admitted Laura. "But why----"
+
+"Just wait a minute. Give me time," advised Bobby. "That car that did the
+damage was headed for the station."
+
+"True," murmured Jess. "At least, it was going in that direction."
+
+"And when Purt's car came back to the Grimes' house after those two fellows
+Dan Smith saw run away with it, there was only one person in the car. The
+second individual had been dropped."
+
+"At the station!" exclaimed Chet, catching the idea. "That is why they
+stole Purt's car."
+
+"I declare," Laura said. "Your idea sounds very reasonable, Bobby."
+
+"Bobby is right there with the brainworks," said Chet, with admiration.
+
+"Oh," said Bobby, "I'm not altogether 'non compos mend-us,' as the fellow
+said."
+
+Chet was very serious, after all. "I tell you what," he blurted out, "if
+Purt won't help himself with the police, maybe we can get him out of the
+muss in spite of all."
+
+"Why does he want to act the donkey?" demanded Jess.
+
+"Are you sure he is?" asked Laura thoughtfully.
+
+"I tell you," said the excited Chet, "we can find out who had to leave
+Hester Grimes' party to catch that express. It ought to be a good lead.
+What do you think, Laura?"
+
+"I am wondering," said Mother Wit, "if we have always been fair to
+Prettyman Sweet? Of course, he is silly in some ways, and dresses
+ridiculously, and is not much of a sport. But if he is keeping still about
+this matter so as not to make trouble for Hester, or any of her folks,
+there is something fine in his action, don't you think?"
+
+"Well--yes," admitted Jess. "It would seem so."
+
+"I never thought of poor Purt as a chivalrous knight," said Bobby.
+
+"Maybe Laura is right," remarked Chet, rather grudgingly.
+
+"He is much more of a gentleman, perhaps, than we have given him credit for
+being," Laura concluded. "I hope it is proved so in the end."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE LAST REHEARSAL
+
+
+That afternoon, when the girls gathered for rehearsal, Hester, nor anybody
+else, appeared to play "the dark lady of the roses." Mr. Mann made no
+comment upon this fact, but he looked very serious, indeed.
+
+The play was acted from the first entrance to the final curtain. The other
+characters had to speak of, and even to, the important and missing
+character, and it was plain to all as the play progressed that the absence
+of "the dark lady" was going to be a fatal hindrance to the success of the
+piece.
+
+Even Lily Pendleton, Hester's last lingering friend, showed a good deal of
+spleen at Hester's action.
+
+"I never will forgive Hessie," Lily said, almost in tears. And the other
+girls had to urge her over and over again to be sure and come herself on
+Thursday for the last dress rehearsal.
+
+"If the piece is wrecked, let us be castaways together," begged Jess.
+"Don't anybody else fail. Promise, girls!"
+
+They promised sadly. Mr. Mann had hurried away as soon as the last words
+were said.
+
+"Too disgusted to even speak to us," Nellie said sadly. "I am real sorry
+for him, girls. He has tried so hard."
+
+"He deserves a leather medal," said Bobby emphatically.
+
+"And what do we deserve?" demanded one of the twins.
+
+"I know what Hester Grimes deserves," said Bobby darkly.
+
+It was not likely, however, that Hester Grimes would get her deserts. They
+were all agreed on that point, if on no other.
+
+That Wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping
+spirits--all but Laura Belding, at least. Perhaps it was because she always
+had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young
+shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers.
+
+At least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital
+before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She
+carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's
+ward.
+
+The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital
+by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in
+which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear
+on his spirits.
+
+"Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with
+both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this
+side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as
+they used to be?"
+
+"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in
+each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."
+
+"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back
+the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you
+different."
+
+But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble.
+What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested
+the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.
+
+"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding
+somebody for Hester. That's it!"
+
+"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the
+one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester
+has no brothers----"
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there
+at the party, so was Lil Pendleton."
+
+"Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her."
+
+"And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are,"
+Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends
+or relatives. Let me tell you that!"
+
+"I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to
+everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the
+other girls of Central High."
+
+"Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt
+cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we
+could find some way of giving him the right steer."
+
+"You mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?"
+
+"Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it
+all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!"
+
+"I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."
+
+"You're always full of ideas, Laura," the boy said admiringly. "I've been
+raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer
+of an idea how to help him. He says if we can show him how to find his
+memory, he'll do all he can for Purt," Billy added wistfully.
+
+"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?"
+suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.
+
+"You bet I am."
+
+"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."
+
+Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never
+gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or
+Lance, or Reddy Butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts
+to Purt."
+
+"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"
+
+"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I
+always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in
+bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy
+gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after
+all."
+
+"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said,
+squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.
+
+"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it,"
+Billy cried.
+
+"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.
+
+By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped
+her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now
+established with his particular nurse. He hailed the girl's appearance
+almost as gladly as Billy Long had done.
+
+"Your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of
+course--as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I
+get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I
+can't get a grip on what and who I am----"
+
+"I have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected
+Laura. "You know, you must have been doing something all these years since
+you won your fortune in Alaska."
+
+"Surely! But what became of my wealth? That is a hard question."
+
+"Perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. Then you will
+gradually remember it all. Have you those bank-notes they say you carried
+in your pocket when you were brought in?"
+
+"Why, they are in the hospital safe. I haven't had to use much of my money
+yet," he said, puzzled.
+
+"I want to look at that money--all of it," said Laura. "It is too late
+to-night, but to-morrow afternoon I will come with my brother, and I wish
+you would have those bank-notes here. I have an idea."
+
+"I'll do just as you say, Miss Laura," said the man. "But I don't
+understand----"
+
+"You will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away.
+
+There was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that
+night--and Laura Belding was partly at fault. She retained all her usual
+placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the
+other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their
+prophecies of ill.
+
+This was the day of the last rehearsal. Mr. Mann had told them that he
+wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public
+performance of "The Rose Garden" on the following evening.
+
+"I just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed Jess, before Mr. Mann
+called the rise of the curtain.
+
+Everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. The curtain
+was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the
+other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit.
+
+The girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly
+to Miss Carrington's disapproval. Since her "run-in" with the Lockwood
+twins, as Bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting,
+although quite as stern-looking as ever.
+
+Dora and Dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement
+over the incident in history class, and were so much interested in their
+parts in the play now that they forgot all about Gee Gee's ill treatment.
+
+Indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state
+of excitement. Although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark
+lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most
+telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with
+vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant.
+
+Bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done
+credit to any "garby" in the Navy. Jess, as the swashbuckling hero,
+swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as
+the author intended the part to be played.
+
+Then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "Adrian" turned to
+point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the
+rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs.
+
+Jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the
+shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander.
+With incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than Jess could
+possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady
+as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as
+she lightly trod the fictitious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the
+rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant
+eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience.
+
+It was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or
+Jess Morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her
+amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE
+
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Can it be Margit Salgo?"
+
+"How very, very wonderful!"
+
+These were some of the ejaculations of the girls behind the scenes.
+
+At just the right moment the figure of the dark lady had glided from the
+dressing-rooms to the wings and gone on at the cue. Her acting gave just
+the needed touch to the pretty scene. Her appearance had been most
+charming. And, above all, the surprise had been "such a relief!"
+
+"I'm so glad Hester got mad with us and refused to act," sighed Bessie
+Yeager. "Whoever this girl is, she is fine."
+
+"Is it a professional Mr. Mann has engaged?" somebody wanted to know.
+
+"Laura Belding! Laura Belding!" cried Dora. "What do you know about it?"
+
+"I warrant Laura knows all about it," said Jess, recovered from her
+amazement. "It is just like Mother Wit to have saved us. And I believe I
+recognize that very charming Lady Mystery--do I not?"
+
+"Isn't she splendid?" cried Laura, enthusiastically, "I knew she could do
+it. And Mr. Mann has been giving her an hour's training every day for a
+week."
+
+"Goodness!" drawled Lily Pendleton, "how did you know Hester would cut up
+so mean?"
+
+"Doesn't she always do something to queer us if she can?" snapped Bobby.
+"Laura, you are a wonder!"
+
+"It is Janet Steele," declared Jess. "Of course! I should have thought of
+her myself. She is all right--just the one we needed."
+
+And it took some courage on Jess' part for her to say this, for she knew
+that Chet Belding had expressed very warm admiration indeed of Janet
+Steele.
+
+The rehearsal went off splendidly after that. Everybody was encouraged. The
+rotund little Mr. Mann beamed--"more than ever like a cherub," Bobby
+declared. They came to the final curtain with tremendous applause from the
+back benches where some of the faculty sat in the dark.
+
+"And I do believe," said Nellie Agnew, in almost a scared voice, "that Gee
+Gee applauded! Can it be possible, girls? Do you suppose that for once she
+gives us credit for knowing a little something?"
+
+"If she applauded, her hands slipped by mistake!" grumbled Bobby. "You know
+very well that nothing would change Gee Gee's opinion. Not even an
+earthquake."
+
+It was late when the rehearsal was over, and Laura knew that Chet would be
+waiting outside with their car. She hurried Jess and Bobby, and even Janet,
+into their outer wraps as quickly as possible.
+
+"For you might as well go along with us, Janet," Laura said to the new girl
+"We're going to the hospital first, but we'll drop you at your home coming
+back."
+
+Just what they were to do at the hospital nobody knew save Laura and Chet,
+and they refused to explain. When they arrived at the institution they went
+directly to the private room now occupied by Mr. Nemo of Nowhere.
+
+Billy Long, up in a chair for the first time, was present to greet the
+girls of Central High. And the man from Alaska seemed particularly glad to
+see them.
+
+"Here is the money, Miss Laura," he said, producing a packet of crisp
+bank-notes. "I'd give it all to know just who I am. I seem to be right on
+the verge of discovering it to-day; yet something balks me."
+
+"Oh, look at all that money!" crowed Billy, as Laura accepted the bills,
+while Chet, with the help of the interested nurse, arranged the bed-table
+and gave the man a pad and a fountain pen.
+
+The head surgeon, who had taken a great interest in the case and with whom
+Laura had already conferred, tiptoed into the room and stood to look on.
+
+"You bankers," said Laura, laughing, and speaking to the patient, "are
+always so much better off than ordinary folks. You pass out any old kind of
+money to your customers; but you never see a banker with anything but new
+bank-notes in his pocket."
+
+The man listened to her sharply. A sudden quickened interest appeared in
+his countenance. The others heard Mother Wit's speech with growing
+excitement.
+
+"See," said the girl of Central High, extracting one of the bank-notes from
+the packet "Here is another bill on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage,
+Ohio. Did you notice that? Doesn't it sound familiar to you?"
+
+She repeated the name of the bank and its locality slowly. "You have more
+bills of that same bank. But none like the one you gave Chet when you
+bought that lavallière for 'the nice little girl' you told him you expected
+to give it to."
+
+The man stared at her. He seemed enthralled by what she said. Laura
+proceeded in her quiet way:
+
+"Just write this name, please: 'Bedford Knox.' Thanks. Now write it again.
+He is cashier of your bank in Osage, Ohio."
+
+Jess barely stifled a cry with her handkerchief. But everybody else was
+silent, watching the man laboriously writing the name as requested by
+Laura.
+
+It was a disappointment. No doubt of that The man did not write the name as
+though he were familiar with it at all. But Laura was still smiling when he
+looked up at her, almost childishly, for further directions.
+
+"Now try this other, please," said the girl firmly. "Two men always sign
+bank-notes to make them legal tender. The cashier and the president The
+president of the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio, is----"
+
+She hesitated. The man poised his pen over the paper expectantly. Said
+Laura, briskly:
+
+"Write 'Peyton J. Weld.'"
+
+At her words Janet Steele uttered a startled exclamation. The man did not
+notice this. He wrote the name as Laura requested. Chet, looking over his
+shoulder and with one of the Osage bank-notes in his hand for comparison,
+watched the signature dashed off in almost perfect imitation of that upon
+the bank-note.
+
+"You guessed it, Mother Wit!" the big boy cried. "Write it again, Mr. Weld.
+That is your name as sure as you live!"
+
+The surgeon stepped quickly to the bedside and his sharp eyes darted from
+the bank-note in the boy's hand to the signature his patient had written.
+The man looked wonderingly about the room, his puzzled gaze drifting from
+one to another of his visitors until it finally fastened upon the pale
+countenance of Janet Steele.
+
+Catching his eye, the girl stepped forward impulsively, her hands clasped.
+
+"Uncle Jack!" she breathed.
+
+"You--you look quite like your mother used to, my dear," the man in bed
+said in rather a strange voice.
+
+The surgeon eased him back upon the pillows, and at a nod the nurse sent
+the visitors out of the room. In the corridor they all stood amazed,
+staring at Janet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IT IS ALL ROUNDED UP
+
+
+"Of course," Lily Pendleton confessed, "I was at Hester's party,"
+
+"And Purt Sweet was there?" queried Laura earnestly.
+
+"Mr. Sweet certainly was present, too," said the other girl. "You girls
+need not be so jealous if we are the only two from Central High that got
+invited,"
+
+"You can have my share and welcome," said Bobby.
+
+"And mine, too," confessed Jess.
+
+"These interrogations are not inspired by jealousy," laughed Mother Wit.
+
+It was on Friday as the girls gathered for recitations that this
+conversation occurred. Lily Pendleton was inclined to object to having her
+intimacy with Hester Grimes inquired into.
+
+"Do you remember what night that party was held, Lily?" asked Laura.
+
+"Why, no. On a Saturday night, I believe."
+
+"Quite so. And on a particular Saturday night," said Laura.
+
+"You said it!" murmured Bobby.
+
+"I don't know what you mean!" cried Lily Pendleton.
+
+"But you will before I get through with you," said Laura. "Now, listen! You
+know about that man who had his leg broken on Market Street?"
+
+"The one the police say Purt ran down with his car?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Of course I do," Lily cried. "And Purt is as innocent as you are!"
+
+"Granted," said Laura. "Therefore you will help us explain the mystery, and
+so relieve Purt Sweet of suspicion. For he refuses to say anything himself
+to the police."
+
+"Why--why----What do I know about it?" demanded Lily.
+
+"Do you know that the party was held the very Saturday night the man was
+hurt?"
+
+"No! Was it?"
+
+"It was. And Purt had his car up there at the Grimes' house."
+
+"Did he? I didn't know. He went away early, I believe."
+
+"And earlier still a couple of boys, or men, borrowed Purt's car without
+his knowing it--until afterward," Laura declared earnestly. "One of those
+fellows had to catch a train."
+
+"Why, that was Hester's cousin, Jeff Rounds! He lives at Norridge. Don't
+you know?"
+
+"Who was the other fellow?" asked Laura sharply.
+
+"Why--I----Oh! it must have been Tom Langley. He lives next door to
+Hester. Do you know," said Lily, preening a little, "I think Tom is kind of
+sweet on Hessie."
+
+"Good night!" moaned Bobby. "What is the matter with him? Is he blind?"
+
+"He must have had very bad eyesight or he would not have run down that poor
+Mr. Weld on Market Street!" exclaimed Jess tartly.
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Lily. "Tom Langley has gone away for the winter
+anyway. He went suddenly----"
+
+"Right after that party, I bet a cooky," cried Bobby.
+
+"Well--ye-es," admitted Lily.
+
+"Scared!" exclaimed Jess.
+
+"The coward!" cried Laura.
+
+"And left poor Purt to face the music," Bobby observed. "Well, old Purt is
+better than we ever gave him credit for. Now we'll make him square himself
+with the police."
+
+It was Mr. Nemo of Nowhere, now Mr. Peyton J. Weld, who had the most to do
+with settling the police end of Purt Sweet's trouble. It was some weeks
+before he could do this, for the shock of his mental recovery racked the
+man greatly. For some days the surgeon would not let the young folk see
+their friend whose mind had been so twisted.
+
+"I don't know but we did more harm than good, Laura," Chet Belding said
+anxiously, when they discussed Mr. Weld's condition.
+
+"I don't believe so," his sister said. "At any rate, we revealed him as
+Janet's Uncle Jack, and the discovery has done Mrs. Steele a world of good
+already."
+
+That the man who, for a time, had forgotten who he was and had forgotten a
+number of years of his life, finally recovered completely, can safely be
+stated. His very first outing from the hospital was in Purt Sweet's car,
+and the boy drove him first of all to the office of the Chief of Police.
+
+Purt had refused utterly to make trouble for either Hester Grimes' cousin
+Jeff or for Tom Langley. Mr. Weld assured the Chief of Police that,
+although it was Purt's car that had struck him down on the icy street, Purt
+had not been in the car at the time.
+
+Nor did the boy of Central High have anything to do with the accident. His
+car had been borrowed without permission by "parties unknown," as far as
+Mr. Weld was concerned, and to this day the police of Centerport are rather
+hazy as to just who it was that stole Purt Sweet's car and committed the
+assault.
+
+"And I feel sort of hazy myself," Jess Morse said, when they were all
+talking it over at one time. "Mostly hazy about this Man from Nowhere. How
+did he so suddenly become Janet Steele's Uncle Jack?"
+
+"And his name 'Peyton'?" added Nellie Agnew.
+
+"Why, his middle name was John--they always called him by it at home,"
+explained Laura Belding. "And, of course, Janet and her mother knew nothing
+about the name written on those Osage bank bills. I didn't suspect the
+relationship myself.
+
+"But I began to be quite sure that he must have had something to do with
+the bank for which those bills were issued. And it seemed probable that, as
+he had so much money with him when he landed in Centerport, that he must be
+somebody in Osage of wealth and prominence. I wrote secretly to the
+postmaster at Osage and learned that the president of the Drovers' Levee
+Bank had gone East on a vacation--presumably to hunt up some relatives that
+he had not seen for some time."
+
+"Sly Mother Wit!" cried Jess.
+
+"Not such a wonderful thing to do," laughed Laura.
+
+"Not half so wonderful," put in the irrepressible Bobby Hargrew, "as it
+seemed to the countryman who came to town and stood gazing up at the tall
+steeple of the cathedral. As he gazed the bell began to toll The hick
+stopped a passer-by and said:
+
+"'Tell me, why does the bell ring at this time of day?'
+
+"The other man studied the hick for a moment and then said: 'That's easy.
+There's somebody pulling on the rope.'"
+
+"Well," said Nellie, when the laugh had subsided, "I guess Janet and her
+mother are glad our Laura had such a bright idea."
+
+"Of course! They are going back to Osage with Mr. Weld when he has fully
+recovered. And so we shall lose an awfully nice girl friend," Laura
+declared.
+
+"Gee!" sighed Chet. "And such a pretty girl!"
+
+Jess said not a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course, all twisted threads must be straightened out at the end of the
+story; but our tale really ends with the performance of "The Rose Garden."
+That on Friday night was most enthusiastically received by the friends and
+parents of the girls of Central High.
+
+It was a worthy production, and the girls deserved all the applause they
+received. It encouraged them to give two further performances, and
+altogether the three netted a large sum for the Red Cross. The play, in
+fact, was the means of raising more money for the fund than any other
+single method used for that object in Centerport.
+
+The city "went over the top" in its quota of both memberships and funds,
+and that before Christmas. The girls of Central High could rest on their
+laurels over the holidays, knowing that they had done well.
+
+"But wait till Gee Gee gets after us after New Year's," prophesied Bobby.
+
+"Don't be so pessimistic," said Jess. "Maybe she won't."
+
+"Why won't she?" demanded Dora Lockwood.
+
+"Nothing will change her," sighed Dora's twin.
+
+"Say!" gasped Bobby, stricken with a sudden thought, "maybe she'll get the
+pip, or something, and not be able to teach. That is our only hope!"
+
+"Suppose we turn over a new leaf, as Miss Carrington won't," suggested
+Laura in her placid way.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Bobby suspiciously.
+
+"Suppose we agree not to annoy her any more than we can help for the rest
+of the school year?"
+
+"There! Isn't that just like you, Laura Belding?" demanded Jess.
+"Suggesting the impossible."
+
+This was said in the wings of the school stage during the last performance
+of "The Rose Garden." The curtain went up on the last act and the girls
+became quiet They watched Janet Steele, as the dark lady of the roses, move
+again across the stage. She was very graceful and very pretty. The boys out
+front applauded her enthusiastically.
+
+Laura pinched Jess's arm. "Janet certainly has made a hit," she whispered.
+
+"Well," admitted Jess, "she deserves their applause. And she just about
+saved our play, Laura. There is no getting around that."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girls of Central High Aiding the
+Red Cross, by Gertrude W. Morrison
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