CHAPTER VI

HOW IT FEELS TO BE A HEROINE

Bess Harley came back to her chair facing Nan's quite full of a brand new subject of conversation.

"Do you know, Nan Sherwood," she cried, "that we've got a real, live heroine aboard this train?"

"Goodness!" exclaimed Nan. "What's she done?"

"They say she saved another girl's life back there where we stopped to take on the new car."

"At the Junction?" murmured Nan.

"Yes."

"Oh!" whispered her chum, and immediately became silent.

"My goodness!" ejaculated Bess. "I never saw such a girl. Aren't you interested at all?"

"I--I don't know," her chum replied in a very small voice.

"I wonder at you, Nan Sherwood!" cried Bess, at last, after staring at Nan for some moments.

"Why?"

"You don't seem at all interested. And this girl was awfully brave. Linda says she ought to have a purse of money given her--or a Carnegie medal--or something. Linda says----"

"Linda?" repeated Nan, in wonder.

"Why, yes," Bess said. "She's not at all a bad girl--nothing at all like what you said she was."

"_I_ said she was, Bess?" asked Nan, gently.

"Well! you don't like her," flared up Bess.

"I certainly do not," confessed Nan.

"You're prejudiced," pouted her chum.

"I certainly am prejudiced against anybody who calls me a thief," Nan declared firmly. "And so would you be, Bess."

"But she didn't know you, Nan."

"And I wish never to know her," said Nan, with spirit.

"But you'll have to," cried Bess. "She's going to the same school we do. She's been there for two years, you see, and she knows everything," declared Bess.

"Everything except how to be kind and polite," suggested Nan.

"There you go again!" cried Bess. "It doesn't sound like you at all, Nan."

"I'm sorry," said her chum. "I thought you knew me pretty well by this time, Bess. But, it seems you know this Linda Riggs better."

"Oh, Nan! I don't," and Bess was almost ready to cry. "She, Linda, was mad when she spoke to you, of course. You ought to hear her speak of this brave girl back in the day coach, who saved the other one from the snake."

Nan was silent; but Bess was full of the topic and the pent up volume of her speech had to find an outlet. She rushed on with:

"It was just great of her, Nan! She reminds me of you when you saved Jacky Newcomb's life in the pond last winter--when he broke through the ice that evening."

Nan still was silent.

"This girl is just as brave as you were," declared Bess, with confidence. "She got off the train when it stopped. And she saw a little girl inside a house there by the railroad track. The little girl was in there and a great, big rattlesnake was coiled all ready to strike the poor little thing," went on Bess, breathlessly.

"The colored porter told Linda and me all about it. This brave girl threw a stone on the horrid snake and killed it before it could strike the child. And then she fainted and they carried her back to the car," pursued Bess. "And the colored man says the passengers are going to get up a memorial to present to this girl. I want to see her--to know her. Don't you, Nan?"

"Why!" gasped her chum, in much confusion, "I hope they won't do anything like _that_."

"Like what?" queried Bess, in amazement.

"Bother her with any memorial--or whatever you call it--about what she did."

"Why, Nan!"

"Well----"

"You--you are perfectly horrid!" her chum declared. "She's a heroine! Think of it! We ought to do something for her, Linda says."

"We ought to let her alone," Nan declared vigorously.

"I--I never knew you to speak so, Nan," gasped Bess. "This brave girl----"

"How do you know she's brave?" snapped Nan, who was really getting cross. "She probably was scared half to death."

"Why! she's a heroine," declared Bess again.

"Well! how do we know how a heroine feels?" Nan asked, exasperated.

"Oh, Nan!"

"One thing I am sure of," went on Nan Sherwood, rather wildly. "She doesn't want a memorial--or a medal--or a purse----"

"Perhaps she's poor," put in Bess, obstinately.

"She's not!"

"Why--do you know who she is?" gasped Bess.

Nan was silent. She saw she had gone too far. If Bess should suspect----

The door at the rear of the car banged open. The conductor, leading a committee of passengers from the other coach, entered. He was smiling and the ladies and gentlemen with him were smiling, too. When their gaze fell upon Nan they marched directly toward her.

Nan got up. She looked all about for some means of escape. Behind her, coming down the aisle, were several other people headed by Professor Krenner. And with them came the haughty girl, Linda Riggs.

"Oh! what's the matter?" cried Bess, starting up, too.

Nan was speechless, and red with confusion. Professor Krenner was smiling, as though he rather enjoyed Nan Sherwood's position.

"Oh, Miss Harley!" Linda Riggs cried to her new acquaintance. "They say that dear, brave girl is in this car."

"Is she?" asked Bess, feebly. "Oh, Nan! what do all these people want?"

"We want your friend, Miss Harley," Professor Krenner said drily. "I expect Linda did not know that. Nancy Sherwood, does she call herself? Well, Nancy Sherwood is a very brave girl, and we have all come to tell her so."

"Nan!" shrieked Bess, seeing a great light suddenly. "It was _you_! _You_ are the heroine!"

"She most certainly is the girl, Miss," the conductor laughingly said. "And she has been trying to hide her light under a bushel, has she?"

Bess was stunned. The flushed countenance of Linda Riggs was a study. Professor Krenner seemed to be secretly enjoying the unpleasant girl's amazement.

Linda seized Bess by the shoulder with a fierce grip--a grip that made the girl from Tillbury wince.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew her?" she hissed in Bess' ear as the passengers crowded about the much troubled Nan.

"I--I didn't know I knew her," gasped Bess. "How should I know Nan Sherwood was the girl who killed the rattlesnake?"

"I don't care anything about that!" cried the enraged girl. "You knew she was the one who stole my bag----"

"Stole your bag?" repeated Bess, her own wrath rising. "She didn't!"

"She did!"

"Nan Sherwood would not do such a thing. It was all a mistake, Linda, and you know it. She didn't have to steal your bag! She has one of her own quite as good----"

"And where did she get it?" sneered the railroad magnate's daughter, her face deeply flushed and her eyes fairly aflame.

"She bought it," declared Bess.

"Yes--she--did!" sneered Linda.

"She did! she did! I was with her yesterday when she bought it! So there!"

"And who are _you_?" responded the enraged girl. "I don't know why I should believe you any more than that other one. You couldn't pay for your lunch just now, and I had to pay for you----"

"Oh!" gasped Bess, now quite in tears. "I paid you back--you horrid girl!"

"Dear me! did you?" responded Linda, airily.

"Yes, I did! You know I did!" Bess cried stormily.

"Perhaps. I never pay attention to such small matters," and the other tossed her head.

Of course, all this was very foolish, and Bess should not have paid Linda the compliment of attention. But she did, and Linda saw that her words stung--so she went on with her ill-natured tirade:

"There is one matter that I _shall_ pay attention to," and she laughed, sneeringly. "I shall see to it that the girls of Lakeview Hall are informed of the character of you and your friend. One of you stealing my bag----"

"She didn't!" gasped Bess.

"Oh, she was stopped before she got very far, I grant you," laughed Linda, sarcastically. "And the other obliged to borrow forty-five cents to pay for her luncheon in the dining car. It will amuse my friends at the Hall, I assure you."

Nan had heard none of this conversation between her chum and Linda Riggs. Her own ears were actually burning because of the complimentary speeches the conductor and the passengers were making. Poor Nan was backed up against her chair, blushing furiously and almost in tears of confusion, while Bess was carrying on her wordy battle with Linda, a few steps up the aisle.

But suddenly Nan, as well as those about her, were quite startled by Bess Harley's shrill outburst.

"Linda Riggs!" she cried. "You are the very meanest girl I ever saw! If you say another mean thing about Nan Sherwood I'll box your ears for you!" and the superheated Bess advanced upon her antagonist, her hand raised, prepared to put her threat into execution.