CHAPTER XVIII--ON THE EVE OF THE CONTEST

So, thus carried kindly by the Swiss farmer and his son, Laura Belding came to the farmhouse on the hillside. It was a comfortable home, with a big tile stove in the sitting room, and shining china arranged in long rows on high shelves all around the kitchen. The Sitzes had kept up many of their old-world customs and made a comfortable living upon a rocky and hilly farm on which most Americans would have starved to death.

Mrs. Sitz was a comfortable looking, kindly woman, by her expression of countenance; but she spoke little English. There was a girl about Laura's age, however, named Evangeline. She was a buxom, flaxen-haired, rosy girl, who was delighted to see the strange girl whom her father had found in the haunted house.

Evangeline took Laura into her own room, removed her shoe and stocking, and bathed the twisted ankle in cold water, and then insisted upon rubbing home-made liniment upon it, and bandaging the member tightly. All the time she was doing this, she was exclaiming "Oh!" and "Ah!" over Laura's adventure as the latter related it.

"I think it was real mean of those other girls to run and leave you," said Evangeline, sympathetically.

"I don't think it mean," laughed Laura--for she could laugh now that the adventure had ended so happily. "There were so many of them that I was not missed, I suppose, in the general stampede."

"But you might have remained there all night."

"No! And that reminds me, your father says you have a telephone. I must call up my father, or brother. And yet--I wonder if I won't scare mother by calling at this time of night? Let me think."

"You can use the telephone if you want to," said Evangeline, hospitably. "It's right here in the corner of the living room."

But Laura had a bright idea about the telephoning. She knew that, by this time, the girls must have arrived home. She did not believe Jess would go right past her house without making inquiries for her. And by this time the household might have been aroused, and her father, or Chet, would be on the way to Robinson's Woods to hunt for her.

So she first called up the hotel at the entrance to the picnic park and told the people there that she was safe, and where she was to be found. She learned that, already, a party of men, and one girl, were out beating the woods for her.

In an hour a motor-car steamed up to the farmhouse door and Chet and Lance, with Jess close behind them, ran into the house.

"Oh, Laura! Laura!" cried her chum, in tears again. "Do forgive me for leaving you to the ghost. And what did it do to you? And how did you get here? And how came your skirt nailed to the floor of that horrid house? And----"

"Dear me! Wait and catch your breath," laughed Laura, kissing her.

"Well, I'm glad you're all right, Sis," said Chet, pretty warmly for a brother, for the big boy was proud of his sister.

Launcelot Darby squeezed Laura's hand tightly, but could say nothing. Lance admired Laura more than any other girl who went to Central High; but he was not able to express his feelings just then.

The farmer and his family--especially Evangeline--invited the girl to remain all night and rest her injured ankle. But Laura would not hear of that, although she appreciated their kindness.

"I want Dr. Agnew to see my ankle. Why! we've got a basket-ball game on for Friday afternoon, you know, Jess, with East High team--and I can't possibly miss that."

"I'll carry you out myself to the car," declared Lance, gruffly. He suddenly picked her up in his arms (and Laura was no light-weight) and managed to place her in the tonneau very comfortably.

"Come again! Ach! Come again!" cried Mrs. Sitz, from the doorway, bobbing them courtesies as they went down the walk.

Evangeline ran out to the car to kiss Laura good-night, and the latter promised that she would ride over soon and see the farmer's daughter again. But Otto took the boys aside and assured them, with much emphasis, that the Robinson house was actually haunted, and that he wouldn't go into it alone, at night or by day, for his father's whole farm!

"But how did you get nailed to the floor, Laura?" demanded Jess, in the tonneau beside her chum, and when the car was speeding back to town.

"Why! foolish little me did that herself, of course," laughed Laura. "That's what I did when I drove the first nail. Then, when you all ran, squealing, and I tried to do the same, the nail held me and pulled me back. I thought something had grabbed me by the skirt--I really did!" and she laughed again.

But Laura was silent about the rest of her adventure--and none of her young companions chanced to ask her why she had not screamed for help. She hid the veil and determined to wait and watch, hoping to get some clue to the owner of the article. She was sure that the figure she had seen for a moment, and which had, of course, bound her wrists and gagged her with the veil, was one of the girls--somebody who bore her a grudge.

"And who that can be, I don't know--for sure," thought Laura, after she was in bed that night and the throbbing of her ankle and the fever in it kept her awake. "But somebody must really hate me--and hate me hard!--to have played such a trick on me."

It was not that Laura was entirely unsuspicious; but she did not voice the vague thought that ever and anon came to her mind regarding the identity of the person who had so treated her. She did not believe it was any trick that the members of the M. O. R. were cognizant of; but to make sure she went to Mary O'Rourke that very Monday and asked her point-blank.

Mary had no knowledge of the affair. She deeply regretted that such a misfortune should have overtaken the candidate.

"No more haunted houses for us!" declared the senior. "We'll hold the initiation in the clubhouse--and it will be a tame one, I guess. The girls were all pretty well scared. Of course, we shouldn't have been frightened--especially we older ones; but we _were_, and that's all there is about it."

But the joke on the M. O. R.'s went the rounds of the school. Jess could not keep still about it, and all the members of the secret society were "ragged"--especially by the boys--over being scared by two farmers with a lantern hunting for a strayed cow!

Chet took his sister to and from school for a couple of days in the car and she walked as little as possible meantime; so that the ankle soon recovered its strength. The basket-ball match, which was to come off on the court belonging to East High, was the main topic of conversation among the girls of Central High all that week.

"Just think! they've got a good court, and we haven't such a thing," commented Josephine Morse to her chum. "I think it is too bad. We need some philanthropist to come here and give us a big prize for our field. When are you going to tackle Colonel Swayne again, Laura?" and she laughed.

"Ah! you don't believe a way to his heart can be opened?" asked her friend, smiling.

"It's a way to his pocket-book I'm speaking about."

"Have patience. I feel that he will be a great help to us----?"

"You've got a 'hunch,' then, as Chet says?"

"I expect that is what they call it. But have patience."

Jess was a member of the basket-ball team, as was Laura. And on the team Hester Grimes played. Hester was a strong girl and could play well if she chose; but her temper was so uncertain that Mrs. Case considered it necessary to watch the butcher's daughter very closely.

"And I wish you all to remember," said the physical instructor, the day before the match at East High, "that we must play fair. Play the game for the game's sake--not so much to win. If one desires, above all things, to win, he or she may forget to be perfectly fair. No foul playing. We are going to an opponent's field. Let us win a name for playing clean basket-ball, whether we win the game or not."

"What's the use of playing if we don't play just as hard as we know how?" demanded Jess.

"Play for all there is in you," agreed Mrs. Case. "I will see that you do not overexert yourselves. But do not lose your tempers. And do not forget to cheer for the opposing team after the game, whether it wins or loses. Be fair, and let the sport be clean."

"Did you watch Hessie while Mrs. Case was talking?" whispered Jess in Laura's ear.

"No."

"She looked so scornful! I hope she won't make us unpopular with the East High girls. But you know how mean she acts sometimes when we play with some of the scrub teams."

"It will be too bad if she makes a scene," said Laura, thoughtfully, "and shames us before our opponents. The girls of Central High will then get a bad name for playing foul--and we can't afford to have _that_ reputation."