Everybody laughed and turned around to look at her. Crimson with embarrassment, Patricia slid as low in her seat as she could, without landing on the floor.
“Ce n’est pas etrange,” Professor Donnell smiled his oily smile as he passed a long white hand over his star-like hair. “Tout le monde parle, et pense, et entende ne que de footballe.”
“Now, boys,” said Coach Tyler on Friday afternoon, at the close of a meeting of the football team, “take the rest of the day off.”
Tyler did not believe in working a team up to the very last minute, and never had his men on the field the day before a big game.
“Take things easy,” he went on. “Drop football out of your minds and conversation. Stay out of doors as much as possible. Don’t do anything exciting, and get to bed early. The train leaves South Street Station at 8:30, and I want you here in the gym at eight sharp!”
“Let’s go for a little spin,” suggested Tut Miller to Jack Dunn as they strolled out onto the campus. “It’s only half past one. Tyler is certainly getting big-hearted.”
“I’ve got a paper to write for—” began Jack.
“Oh, come on!” urged Tut, dragging him toward a yellow roadster parked on the drive. “You’ll have plenty of time to do that later. Some friends of mine want to meet you.”
Reluctantly Jack got into the car, wondering a little at the unusual request. Tut settled himself in the driver’s seat, quickly swung the machine out onto Grover Road, and headed for the country. Jack had never been very chummy with this big blond Soph with the protruding jaw and narrowed eyes which looked at you speculatively, as if you were a bug under a microscope. He was always friendly, almost too friendly; one sometimes wondered if he were laughing scornfully, away down inside of him.
Neither boy spoke until they had turned onto Route 8, one very little traveled at that hour of the day; then Tut began smoothly: “These friends of mine live about ten miles out on this road; some fellows I knew in prep school. They’re awfully keen on football, and like to be able to say they’ve met this or that celebrity. Been at me for some time to bring you out. They run a big roadside stand; have several cabins, and I guess they’re making a pretty good thing of it; always have plenty of dough to spend.”
Jack, for all his popularity, was a modest fellow and hated being shown off. If he had known where they were going, he would have managed to evade the trip; but Tut had trapped him, fairly and squarely. Nothing for it now but to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible.
Tut drove rapidly, and before long drew up at a tourist camp in a grove some feet back from the road. Three fellows a little older than the Granard boys came out to greet them. They were husky, finely built individuals, all with bright red hair, blue eyes, and a strong family resemblance.
“The Holm brothers,” said Tut, with a wave of his hand. “I don’t need to tell you boys who this is!” slapping Jack on the back. “Everybody knows him, at least by sight.”
“Mighty glad to meet you,” said each in turn, as he grasped Jack’s hand in a vise-like grip.
The five stood for a few minutes talking of various unimportant matters; then Seldon, the oldest Holm, proposed showing Jack around the place.
“Some of our cabins are pretty nice,” he said; “and farther back in the grove there is a stream beside which we have built ovens and tables.”
Bernard, the second brother, promptly moved to their side as Jack murmured a polite assent to the proposal.
“I’ll stay here with Vin,” said Tut, “and help keep store.”
After Seldon and Bernard had proudly displayed their property, of which Jack was able to approve quite honestly, they stopped for a moment at a rustic bridge which led back from the picnic grounds to a deep woods.
“We’ve a proposition to make to you, Dunn,” began Seldon abruptly, “somewhat of a surprise to you, and probably not a very agreeable one; but just keep cool and think it over a bit before you decide. Briefly, it’s this: we Huron Prep fellows always hang together, and let nothing stand in the way of promoting the welfare and reputation of our school. We want Tut to have his big chance in the Greystone game. Now, what will you take to stay out of it?”
For a fleeting second, Jack’s impulse was to knock the fellow over into the stream below; but some more cautious instinct immediately urged upon him the wisdom of proceeding carefully.
“Well,” began Jack, as slowly as his fast-beating heart would allow, “naturally, since I’ve never given a thought to such a question, I’m not prepared to answer it on the spur of the moment.”
“Take your time,” urged Bernard, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.
Jack’s brain fairly raced. If he refused, since they strongly outnumbered him, they could readily keep him a prisoner until after the game. Yet to accept was definitely out of the question; he’d be just a plain cur to take a bribe. How could he get away from them without either definitely accepting or refusing? That seemed to be his only chance. What an easy mark he had been!
“How long am I to have to decide?” he asked, finally.
“Until Tut’s ready to go back,” replied Seldon, who, leaning against a big oak tree, was watching Jack closely.
“Let’s go back to where the others are,” suggested Jack; “I’d like to talk to Tut before I decide.”
“No objection to that, I guess,” replied Bernard, looking at his brother. Not a chance of this fellow getting away when there were four of them to prevent such a contingency. Much better for Dunn to accept the bribe (for that meant Tut would have his place for the next two years, as well as at the Greystone game) than it would be to have to keep him prisoner until after Saturday. Why had the fellows urged Tut’s being helped with his course at Granard except so that Huron could have a representative on the big team? Tut had played mighty good football at prep school, but this upstart kept him from his rightful place here. Pity they hadn’t gotten rid of him before. It took the Greystone game to wake them all up. The Greystone supporters would be glad to see Dunn out of the game; they didn’t know how good Tut was.
“Now let’s get down to business,” said Seldon briskly, when they joined the others who were standing at the edge of the grove. “Tut, Dunn wants to talk over the proposition with you before he decides.”
Jack managed to get on the outside of the group, from which point he had a straight and unobstructed path to the yellow car which was parked at the farthest point of the Holm property and headed toward Granard. Tut must have turned it around so as to be ready for a quick get-away if necessary. The Holms probably had a car; but it was not in sight. Wherever they kept it, it would take at least a few minutes to get it started and out. True, Tut could have him arrested for going off with his car, but he’d have to run the risk.
“Well,” Tut was saying, “spill it!”
“If I should decide to take the money, how would you explain my absence?”
“We thought you’d play up sick, and just stay at home,” put in Seldon.
“That would be sheer foolishness,” retorted Jack. “Tyler would send Doc to examine me, and he’d find me perfectly O. K. How would it do for me to go to Greystone, just as if nothing had happened, and start the game; then get hurt and have you put in in my place?”
“That would seem more natural,” answered Tut, looking at Seldon for approval; but that sturdy individual frowned.
“How could you fake that any better than being sick before you went?” he growled.
“Just this way. I’d make a run, stumble, fall, and lie still on the field. When they picked me up, I’d go limp and not be able to stand at all. I could fool anybody who’d never seen me do it before. Let me show you what I mean, and then see if you don’t think it would work out perfectly. When I fall, you come and try to stand me up, Tut.”
Jack looked questioningly at the Holms for permission to stage his act.
“Go ahead,” replied Seldon curtly.
Instead of making directly for the yellow roadster, as he had intended, Jack cleverly ran about a bit, close enough to the others for them to have been able to seize him any moment they chose.
“This is just warming up a bit,” he said, smiling, as he passed the group for the second time. “In a minute or two I’ll put on my act.”
Jack sensed, rather than saw, that the tenseness with which they had watched his start relaxed somewhat as he continued to warm up. Then like a catapult he hurled himself forward and sprinted to the car. With a bound he was in the driver’s seat, the ignition was on, the clutch was thrown in, the car shot out onto the road. Wild shouts from those left behind.
Jack realized that it would be foolhardy to stay on Route 8; so at the first crossroad he turned off into a road which he thought would bring him out at Portersville, a suburb of Granard. The road was a winding one, but he made good time and met no other cars. He kept close watch in the mirror for his pursuers, but the road behind him basked quietly in the afternoon sunshine.
Just as he turned into the road leading into Portersville, a stretch of heavily wooded highway, he saw a big blue car coming toward him. In it were four big fellows wearing blue and green ribbons in their buttonholes—Greystone colors. All this, Jack took in at a glance as he sped onward. The blue car slowed down, turned around, stopped for a moment, then came on with a burst of speed, passed him and swung sharply across the road, directly in his path. It was so unexpected that Jack had to jam on the brakes suddenly to avoid crashing into the larger car.
“What—” he began angrily, when he noticed that the three individuals who had tumbled out of the car and were coming toward him had handkerchiefs tied over the lower part of their faces.
“A hold-up!” thought Jack. “Foolhardy to try to resist them.”
Without a word they seized him, dragged him out of the yellow roadster, then two of them hurried him over to the blue car while the third moved the smaller car over onto the shoulder. A blindfold was tied tightly over Jack’s eyes, he was tumbled into the tonneau, and the big car started off for—somewhere.
At first Jack was too stunned by the suddenness of the transfer to talk, but after a few dizzy miles, he began:
“Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up!” ordered a harsh voice, accompanied by a dig in the ribs; and he shut up.
Not a word did any of his captors exchange, and mile after mile whirled by in utter silence. Where he might be, he had no idea whatever. After endless eons, so it seemed to Jack, the car began to move more slowly and wind about, then came to a sudden stop.
He was hustled out, run across some gravel, up a few steps. A door slammed, footsteps on stone, then up stairs, and stairs, and more stairs. A key turned protestingly. A door creaked; there was a blast of cool air; he was pushed into some place. Then the door closed, and the key grated a second time. The sound of footsteps on stairs sounded more and more faintly; then silence, broken only by a peculiar grating sound from somewhere above him.
Where could he be?
Pulling the bandage from his eyes he discovered that he was in a small square room with slatted walls. It looked like a belfry. Yes, there was a great bell just above his head, almost touching it. If that mass of metal ever moved, it would put him out of business in short order all right. What tower was this anyhow? He tried to peer out between the slats. The only object within his narrow range of vision was the framework of some new building. What big structure was going up now in town, or nearby? He tried hard to think, but he still felt a little dazed. How stupid! Who knew where he was now? They had been riding for a long time; he might be miles and miles from Granard. Still, there was something annoyingly familiar about that naked, orange-colored framework out there, with the big 0032 in black on the top girder. Again he peered at it. It must be—it was! The new forestry building at the University! Then this was the tower of the old chapel. His captors had evidently entered the campus from the alley gate at the back, where no one would be likely to see them. That accounted for the gravel they had crossed. They had driven for miles, first, to throw him off. But how strange of the gang to have brought him here! Who were they, and what was their game anyhow?
Game? Ah, that must be it! He remembered now; there was a lot of money up on the Greystone struggle, not only on the campus but even in the town; and if he were out of the contest, Granard stood to lose—so it was said. Evidently those fellows were Greystone supporters. He remembered now they had worn Greystone colors. Darned clever of them to put him where he would have no evidence, when he got out, and where no one would ever think to look for him.
But how to get out; that was the question.
“Good thing it’s not Sunday, for that big fellow to knock me out!” he thought, looking up at the bell. A horrible thought came to him. The boys were going to have a rouser that night; everybody out in front of the gym before dinner for songs and speeches. They’d ring that bell to call the students together; and the janitor pulled the rope from a little room at the foot of the stairs! What time was it now? Glancing at his wrist he was shocked to find it bare. Where was his watch? Must have come unfastened in the car.
One, two, three, sounded the bell of a clock in the distance. The clock on the college library. Breathlessly, Jack listened. Four. One hour—one little hour of sixty minutes to devise a means of escape. Frantically he shook the door. Only the flutter of wings, as some startled pigeons arose from the roof, answered his plea.
Panting for breath, he paused; then began to batter the slats of one panel with his fists. They were stout, and withstood the blows of even a husky football player.
He must keep his head and work rationally. There were only two means of exit: the door and the four slatted windows. Again he shook the door, not wildly, but listening critically. Perhaps he could pick the lock.
Eagerly he felt in his pockets for his knife and buttonhook. Only a crumpled handkerchief, a pencil, a soft package of butterscotch, and a ball of twine rewarded his efforts. The door was now out of the question. What in heck had become of his knife? Had those fellows purposely stripped him of everything so he couldn’t possibly get out? To do them justice, however, he supposed they didn’t know about the ringing of the bell for the rouser, and probably intended him to be secure until after the game.
One, two; one, two, chimed the library clock. Four-fifteen! Nothing accomplished yet.
“If I could get the slats broken, and then lean out of the window and yell for help,” he said, half aloud.
A squeak on the stairs outside of the door caught his ear. “Wonder if they left a guard around,” he thought. “If I yelled, they would only come in and gag me; and that would make things worse than they are now. My only hope, a forlorn one at that, is to attract the attention of someone in order to let the fellows know where I am, and come to rescue me.”
But how?
Covering his face with his hands, he crouched on the floor, in deep thought.
One, chimed the library clock, marking the half hour. Anxiously Jack glanced up at the heavy bell above him. Perhaps he could unfasten the clapper, and flatten himself on the floor so that the bell would only graze him as it swung to and fro. Then, when no sound came from the belfry, somebody might investigate. But no; old Jake, who attended to the bell ringing, was too lazy to climb all those stairs to repair the bell for a mere rally. He’d just let it go until some time tomorrow. By that time, the team would have left without him!
The tickets he had promised Patricia were lying home on his desk. Wonder what she thought when he failed to keep his promise to give them to her in Shakespeare class.
Tut’s friends would probably pass around the word that Jack had taken the bribe and disappeared. That would be his finish in athletics. Jack groaned aloud, and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the cold perspiration which dampened his face. Tut had always been jealous of him; and since he had refused, a few weeks ago, to work for Jim’s election as Chairman of the Soph Hop, Tut had positively disliked him. Jack did not approve of the bargaining for honors, which went on at the college, but doggedly supported whatever man he thought best fitted for the job, politics notwithstanding—a practice which had not made him any too popular with certain ambitious ringleaders.
The sight of his handkerchief gave him a sudden inspiration. Quickly tearing it in half, he scrawled on one part of it, in large letters, “HELP! QUICK!” Knotting one end of the ball of twine to it, he painstakingly worked the bit of linen between the slats of the window which faced the observatory, and played out the cord as far as it would go. Fastening the end of it securely to one of the shutters, he took the other half of the handkerchief, slipped it through between the slats, and tied it about in the center of the window.
“Now I’ve done all I can,” he muttered. “It’s on the laps of the gods, for better or worse.”
The part of the campus on which the chapel stood was deserted during the week. In a rather out-of-the-way place, beyond the other buildings, it was in the least frequented corner of the campus. Jack’s captors planned all too well when they chose the belfry for his prison.
One, two, one, two, chimed the library clock. A quarter to five! Wouldnobodyfind his message or see his poor little flag? If he could only have stood up and tramped around a bit, it would have relieved Jack’s feelings somewhat; but the belfry was large enough only for the moving of the single bell. Would he be safer flat on the floor, directly under the bell, or as far to one side as he could get, when it began to swing?
One, two, three, four, chimed the clock. A door slammed somewhere downstairs; the bell rope trembled; the bell quivered; Jack stretched out on the floor as flat as he could, and waited for the first blow of the iron mass.
Swift steps on the stairs, the turning of a key, hands dragging him quickly out of the way, just as the first clang of the big bell sounded deafeningly through the little room. Jack found himself in the hall with Pat and Ted bending over him.
“Just in the nick of time, old man!” cried Ted, grinning cheerfully.
“Don’t stop to talk!” ordered Patricia frantically. “Let’s get out of here right away!”
Down the stairs they rushed, while the bell clanged and clanged overhead. Pat’s car, with all shades drawn, was waiting close to the doorway.
“Get in back,” directed Ted; “crawl behind those cartons and don’t breathe.”
For a second time that day, Jack was driven off, he knew not where.
“Hi there, Ted,” called Joe Leonard, as they stopped for lights at the corner of College Avenue and Elizabeth Street. “Come on to the meeting!”
“See you later,” replied Ted; “got to deliver these fruit jars for my mother first.”
“Wonder if he’s onto us,” whispered Patricia, as they started forward with a jerk.
Ted only shrugged his shoulders and drove as rapidly as possible to the apartment he and his mother shared on Winton Street. At the side entrance, where Mrs. Carter was waiting to admit them, Ted hustled Jack into the house and up a back stairway to his own room; meanwhile, Patricia drove her car farther back into the yard.
“Going to keep you here tonight, old fellow,” said Ted, slapping Jack on the back. “Nobody’ll ever think of looking for you here; and we’ll see you safe on the train in the morning. No college people in this house, and we have a back apartment. We’ll keep the shades drawn as an extra precaution. Right across the hall from this room is the door to the attic. If anybody comes tonight to call, just beat it for the loft and slip in behind the big dresser which is near the chimney.”
“But—” began Jack.
“Pat will tell you all about it later; for Mother asked her to stay to dinner. Wash a bit if you want to, and then go out to the living room. I’ll have to show up at the meeting for a while, I suppose, in case Jim takes a notion to look for me. Don’t want to arouse any suspicions.”
Still in somewhat of a daze, Jack made himself tidy and then went out to the living room. Aunt Betsy was busy in the kitchen, and Patricia sat alone by the bay window which overhung the side door by which they had entered. The girl smiled a bit shyly as Jack came in and crossed the room to her side.
“Have I you to thank for my rescue?” he asked, taking her hands in both of his.
“Well, partly,” she admitted. “But Ted helped a lot. He’s always been my stand-by in moments of difficulty.
“When you didn’t show up in Shakespeare class,” she continued, as Jack dropped down at the other end of the davenport, “I knew right away something must have happened. You see,” her head dropped a bit, “I heard something this morning about the possibility of your being out of the game; and, oh, it seemed only a joking reference, but I was too stupid, I guess, to have attached enough importance to it. Ididwonder if I should say anything to you about it, put you on your guard; and now, oh, how I wish I had!”
“Don’t get all steamed up over it,” urged Jack; “it came out all right.”
“But itmightn’thave. If I hadn’t happened to go to the observatory perhaps nobody would have seen your flag; and—and then, if you’d been struck by that old bell, it would have been all my fault!”
“Nonsense!” cried Jack, laying his arm gently around her shoulders. He was distressed beyond measure by the girl’s self-accusation. “I was lying so flat that the bell probably would only have grazed me.”
Determinedly Pat pulled herself together and sat up very straight, winking hard and fast to keep back the tears which, much to her embarrassment, had welled up in her eyes.
“After Shakespeare class,” she continued, “I got away from the rest of the girls—I always want to be alone if I have anything to work out in my mind—and wandered about the most deserted parts of the campus trying to decide what to do. I don’t know all the ins and outs of college affairs yet, and I was afraid of telling my suspicions to the wrong person. As I passed the observatory, I remembered having left my fountain pen in the lecture room; so I ran up to get it. Nobody was in there, and I sat down by the window thinking that was a good place to be quiet. The sun shone full on the side of the chapel, and it was no time at all before I caught sight of the white flag waving in the breeze.
“I nearly broke all records running down the stairs and along the path toward the chapel. Not far from the building, I found your appeal for help. I felt sure itwasyour appeal. I tore off the cloth, so nobody else would find it, and ran for Ted. I knew he was in the library. I hadn’t thought about the meeting; but Ted did, right away, and realized what danger you were in. Ted grabbed up a couple of empty cartons that stood in the hall, ready to be thrown out, dumped them and ourselves into my car (which, fortunately, was standing in front of the library) and we just rushed to your rescue. Luckily, all the students were swarming over the front campus, waiting for the meeting; so no one, so far as we know, saw us.”
“But how did you get the key?” inquired Jack, still somewhat in the dark as to details.
“Oh, Ted has a master key. He has to get into Forestry Hall at all sorts of odd times. He was sure his key could be used on the belfry door, and he was right. If it hadn’t fitted, he would have had to let Jake in on the rescue, but it was better not; the fewer people knew about it, the safer we were.”
“I wonder how I can get hold of those tickets for you. I might telephone—”
“Oh, no! No!” protested Patricia.
“What the deuce does he want you to do, Pat?” inquired Ted, strolling in just in time to hear his cousin’s vigorous refusal.
“Why, I could go over to your room in the morning and get them,” offered Ted, when Patricia had excitedly explained the subject of their discussion; “after the train goes, that is, for I’m not letting you out of my sight before that.”
“Dinner’s ready,” announced Mrs. Carter, appearing in the dining room doorway.
“And we’re ready for it, Auntie,” replied Patricia, jumping up.
“It’s no end good of you all to take me in like this,” began Jack, as they seated themselves at the little round table.
“For dear old Granard, I’ll live and die!” carolled Ted. “Now tell us all about the great abduction.”
Jack was in the middle of the story of his capture, when the telephone rang sharply.
Ted sprang to answer the call.
“Yes. Ted. Yes, she is. Who is it, please? Just a minute.”
He turned, putting his hand over the transmitter: “Pat, Norman Young wants to speak to you.”
“Good Heavens!” responded his cousin, getting up so suddenly that her chair toppled over backwards and fell to the floor with a loud crash.
“He’ll think I’m throwing you to the phone,” commented Ted with a grin.
“Hush! You wanted to speak to me? What? He is? Why, how should I know?”
Pat was nervously clenching and unclenching her left hand as she talked, and frowning heavily.
“Certainly not! He’s probably out for the evening, and I don’t see that you or anybody else has a right to meddle with his things.”
“Don’t burn up, Pat,” advised her cousin.
“Well, perhaps,” she admitted grudgingly to the man at the other end of the telephone. “Certainly. No, you may not; my cousin will take me home. Goodbye.”
Patricia hung up the receiver with a bang, threw herself into the chair which Jack had meanwhile righted, leaned her elbows on the table and announced explosively: “If there’s anybody in this college whom I cordially dislike, it’s Norman Young!”
“Why, what did he have to say?” inquired Ted, calmly helping himself to another piece of beefsteak.
“He told me that Jack was missing, and wanted to know if I knew where he was. The nerve of him! Somebody sent him to Jack’s room, looking for Jack, and our smart Norman found an envelope on the desk addressed to me.”
“The tickets,” interpolated Jack.
“And he wanted to know,” went on Patricia, “if he should bring it to me!”
“Quite a meddler,” said Ted.
“After I put him in his place, he apologized; and then wanted to know if he couldn’t call for me and take me home when I was ready to go. How did he know I was here, anyhow?”
“That fellow smells a rat!” announced Ted.
“I’m terribly afraid so,” admitted Patricia. “Still I think I had better go back to the dorm right after we finish dinner—”
“Oh,” began Jack in protest.
“I really think it’s wiser,” said Patricia, looking at him with a worried expression.
The telephone rang sharply a second time.
“Don’t tell me it’s that pest again!” cried Patricia, as Ted took off the receiver.
“Yes. Oh, hello, Anne. Well, spill it. You heard what? The deuce he did! Of all the rot I ever—To be sure it will. Thanks a lot for telling me. I’ll see what can be done right away. Goodbye.”
“Well, what’s happened now?” demanded Patricia.
“No use in my trying to break the news gently. Anne says there is a rumor around college tonight that Jack was offered a big bribe to stay out of the Greystone game; that he took it, and has disappeared. Can you beat that?”
Patricia, speechless with distress, simply twisted her napkin into a mere rope.
“The curs! The contemptible curs!” exploded Jack. “I might have known they’d get even with me some way!”
“Don’t tell me there’s a foundation for that rumor!” cried Ted sharply.
“There is,” replied Jack shortly. “I didn’t mean to tell this; but listen.” Rapidly, yet omitting no important detail, he related the story of the afternoon previous to his imprisonment in the belfry. “And the worst of it is, I haven’t a single witness. They can say pretty nearly what they choose, and go unchallenged.”
“Tut’s responsible for the rumor, of course,” decided Ted; “if we could only corner him some way.”
“We will!” declared Patricia, with vehemence.
“And make him eat crow!” concluded her cousin.
“But how?” asked Jack, with a short laugh. “Tut’s pretty hard-boiled, and who—”
“I shall,” announced Mrs. Carter firmly, getting up from the table.
“Aunt Betsy!”
“Mother!”
“Mrs. Carter!”
“No use objecting. I’m going to find him right now, and I’ll promise you to be back with his scalp before the evening’s over. I won’t give any of you away. He doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“Eve, you mean, Mother,” laughed her son.
“And, now where will I be most likely to find him?” she asked, slipping on her coat and perching a hat on the back of her head.
Jack looked at the clock. “Probably in his room at No. 9 Craig Street. It’s on the second floor, a single, right opposite the stairs; but at least let one of us take you as far as the house.”
“I won’t. You stay quietly here until I come back, all of you.” With a slam of the door, she was gone.
The three young people looked at one another in speechless astonishment. Finally, Ted laughed.
“I feel kind of sorry for old Tut, much as I dislike him. Mother will have the truth out of him if she has to stand him on his head. He’ll do what she says, or she’ll know why.”
The tension was broken, and they all laughed.
When the table was cleared, Ted announced that he was going to do the dishes.
“We’ll help,” said Patricia.
“No, you won’t. You two sit in the living room and chatter.”
Patricia shrugged her shoulders, and led the way into the next room; extinguished all but one of the lamps, turned on the gas log, and sat down before the fire. Jack threw himself on the hearth rug and propped his back against the big chair in which Patricia was sitting.
“Will—will this do you much harm, do you suppose?” she asked, after a moment’s silence.
“Hard to tell. Of course if I can’t be cleared, it will mean my finish as far as sports are concerned—that’s all Tut thinks of, naturally. But, as I told you once before, I think, there is a special reason why I must make good here; and if my reputation comes into question, well—”
Jack broke off abruptly, and frowned at the fire. In a moment he continued:
“I haven’t told anyone else about this, but I’d like you to know; and I’m sure it won’t go any farther.”
“Of course not.”
“On the tenth of last August, I received a special delivery letter,” began Jack slowly, gazing steadily at the fire.
Patricia leaned forward, breathless with surprise.
“In that letter,” continued the boy, “was a cashier’s check for One Thousand Dollars; and on a slip of paper, the words, ‘For John Dunn, to be spent on a year at Granard College.’ We tried in every way to find out where it came from, but when all of our efforts were fruitless we decided that the only thing to do was to use the money as requested. So you see why I feel under such heavy obligations to make good.”
“Jack,” whispered Patricia, with a little excited catch in her throat. “I’ve never told anybody, either—not even my aunt or cousin; but that’s exactly what happened to me.”
“You mean,” cried the boy, twisting around to look up into her face, “that you got money that same way—to come here?”
Patricia nodded.
“How very, very queer!”
The strangeness of the situation silenced them completely for a time. Then Jack murmured: “This should make us better friends than ever, shouldn’t it?”
Patricia smiled, but she did not withdraw the hand that Jack imprisoned in both of his.
“Doesn’t it seem sometimes as if you justmustfind out who sent the check?” asked Jack, a moment later.
“Yes; and sometimes I feel really nervous over it, as if somebody whom I couldn’t see were watching me all the time, to make sure that I behaved properly.”
The door flew open at that moment, and Aunt Betsy darted into the room just as Ted came in from the kitchen.
“Well,” she exclaimed, sinking down in a big chair and throwing off her coat, “I’ve settledhishash! He’s going around now contradicting the rumor he started, and he’ll never botheryouagain.”
“Hurrah for you, Mother!” cried Ted. “But tell us the whole story. How did you ever—”
“I knew that young man’s father; used to go to school with him. Got him out of an awful scrape once, and he promised he’d do anything I asked him to pay up for it. Never had any occasion to before. Told the young fellow about his dad’s promise (though of course not the reason for it) and said I was now about to ask him to redeem it. I said I knew what a contemptible thing he was up to, and that I stood ready right now to telephone the whole affair to his dad. Then I just lit into him, told him what a cad and a coward he is. Told him I’d start a public investigation and testify against him. Like all conceited blowbags, he collapsed when under fire; asked what I wanted him to do, begged me not to tell his father; for he’d take him out of college and put him to work in the store. Made him tell me just where and to whom he’d told that abominable lie, and told him I’d go with him while he corrected it. ‘You can call it a joke,’ I said, ‘if you must save your face.’”
Aunt Betsy laughed contemptuously.
“The boy fairly groveled, and swore he’d go; that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to accompany him. I waited while he put on his coat, and started out with him. Watched him go to two places, and on his way to the third before I left him.”
“Mrs. Carter,” began Jack, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t try. I hate to be thanked.”
“Aunt Betsy, you’re just wonderful!” cried Patricia gleefully, while Ted shook his mother’s hand violently.
Conversation for the rest of the evening was general, concerned principally with the prospects of Granard in the morrow’s game. Patricia apparently forgot her resolution to leave right after dinner, for it was half past nine when she drove back to the dorm alone, having decidedly refused Ted’s offer to go with her.
“I’d feel lots better if you stayed home and kept guard,” she whispered to him as he protestingly let her out. “I’ll be all right.”
She did not know that Norman Young had inspected the interior of the car as it stood in the back yard; nor that, hidden behind a pillar on the porch next to the apartment house, he had watched her come out alone and start for Arnold Hall.
“Oh, come on, Pats!” urged Betty, impatiently.
“It’s heaps of fun to hear the tryouts,” added Anne; “more than seeing the plays themselves, sometimes.”
The football season was over. The Greystone game had resulted in a close victory for Granard, in a hard-fought battle. Jack had covered himself with glory and made the final score for his college in the last few minutes of play. Tut had come down with a heavy cold—so it was said—and had gone home for the Thanksgiving recess a few days early; so he was absent not only from the line-up, but also from the game. All rumors regarding Jack had died a natural death, and now were nearly forgotten; so rapidly does one event follow another, and a fresh excitement take the place of its predecessor, in college life. The present and the future are the only tenses the college student knows anything about.
Dramatics now held the center of the stage.
The Alley Gang was standing on the corner of Wentworth Street and College Avenue after leaving Horton Hall, and were discussing a coming production of the dramatic club.
“And we’ll all go to ‘Vans’ afterward and get something decent to eat,” proposed Frances enthusiastically. “That dinner we just had was fierce!”
“Dinner, did you say?” inquired Hazel scornfully.
“Why won’t you go, Pat?” asked Jane, clasping Patricia’s arm affectionately.
“Because my theme for English III is due tomorrow, and—”
“But not until afternoon,” objected Hazel. “You’ll have plenty of time to—”
“That’s just what I won’t have,” contradicted Patricia. “French test and History review both in the morning; and with Yates’ lab period early in the afternoon. I don’t know when you people do all your work, I’m sure.”
“We don’t do it,” laughed Mary, shifting rapidly from one foot to the other to keep warm; for the night was cold.
“Well, let’s go somewhere,” grumbled Lucile, sinking her head deeper into her big fur collar, “before we all freeze.”
Patricia bit her tongue to keep back an angry response to Lucile’s unpleasant tones. She and Lucile had never hit it off very well, and she had wondered more than once how the other girls managed so nonchalantly to put up with Lu’s uncertain moods. Clarice, the “black sheep,” was noisy and indiscreet, but at least she was accommodating and good-natured.
“You’ll be all alone in the alley, except for Clarice,” warned Anne. “It’s her night on the Black Book.”
“I can work in peace and quiet, then,” replied Patricia; “with all of you ‘hyenas’ out of the way.”
Dodging a threatened blow from Katharine’s sturdy arm, Patricia ran quickly down Wentworth Street, while the rest of the crowd started for the auditorium. It was hard to leave the girls and go back alone to work in the lonely dormitory; only a strong sense of obligation to her unknown benefactor saved Patricia from giving in to the pleas of her pals and let the theme slide. When she entered the hall she was surprised to find Rhoda still on duty.
“Why, where’s Clarice?” she asked.
“She hasn’t come in yet,” replied the maid, looking up from some fancy work she was doing.
“You’ll be awfully late for your dinner, Rhoda. You’d better go. I’ll stay here until Clarice comes.”
“That’s very kind of you,” responded the girl gratefully, beginning to fold up the long scarf and lay aside her silks. “The chef is always so put out when the help come in late.”
“I suppose he wants to get his work finished, and go somewhere; we all do. It is only stern necessity for work on an essay that brought me back here tonight. The others have all gone to the tryouts.”
Patricia slipped into the chair which Rhoda vacated, and watched the maid put on her hat and coat, thinking how little, after all, they really knew about her in spite of their association with her, day after day.
“Good night, and thank you,” said the girl softly, as she opened the door.
“Good night, and you’re welcome,” laughed Patricia.
A couple of minutes later, the telephone rang.
“Yes?” answered Patricia.
“Rhoda?” demanded a thin, sharp voice.
“No; she has just gone. Is there any message?”
“There is not,” was the curt response, as the woman at the other end of the line hung up noisily.