CHAPTER XVI

Arden's Adventure

The moon looked down upon a strange party of girls a moment later, for they had all rushed out of the gymnasium after the ringing of the alarm bell. Blackened faces and slicked-back hair, some in tattered garments and others in borrowed finery, sophomores and freshmen crowded forward to that side of the building where hung the bell.

But when they reached the spot nothing was to be seen. The bell rope was still swaying as though recently tugged at, but the hands that had done it were not in evidence. The bell itself still faintly vibrated from the recent violent clanging.

"Well, at least here's something they can't blame us for," said Sim to the curious Arden and Terry. "We have perfect alibis and dozens of witnesses. This time somebody else can be campused."

"Of course, Sim," Terry agreed. "But the point is--who did it? It's rather a childish thing to do--going about pulling bells and then running away. It doesn't frighten anyone in the least, if that's what it was intended for."

"It was silly, that's true, Terry; but listen to this." Arden motioned for her two chums to come closer to her. "Come over here where the others won't hear. We don't want to have Tiddy blaming us for any more alarming stories."

"Arden! You have something to tell us, I know!" Terry was pulling Sim away from a group of chattering girls. "Come over here, Sim. Arden knows something!"

The three from 513 separated from the main crowd of disguised girls, and Arden began.

"I was dancing with Jane Randall when something made me look up at one of the high gym windows, and there I saw a strange, white face staring in at me."

"Arden--you didn't!" gasped Sim quickly. "Do you mean directly at you the face was staring?"

"It seemed so."

"Do you think that was the person who rang the bell?"

"That, my dear Watson, is just the point. It was such a short time after I saw the face that the bell rang, it couldn't have been done by the person who looked in at me through the window."

"How thrilling! For Pete's sake, don't let anyone know what you saw, Arden. If you do we'll be in more trouble!" Terry said.

"She's right," Sim agreed. "We'll keep it under our hats until we find out something more. The others are going back in, now. We'd better go in."

The sophomores and freshmen, so rudely disturbed at their reconciliation party, having investigated as best they could in the uncertain moonlight, and having discovered nothing more than that the evidence of the swaying rope indicated the bell had rung (which evidence their ears already testified to), were returning to the gymnasium.

But before they went in, though just how it started no one appeared to know, they were all doing a sort of snake dance in the silvery sheen of the moonlight.

Twisting and turning, the line of masquerading girls in fantastic figures circled beneath the old alarm bell that hung on a projecting beam out from the side of the building. It thus projected to allow the sound of its alarm to vibrate freely in all directions. Above their heads and out of reach of the hands of the tallest of the girls, dangled the weathered rope attached to the bell.

"It must have been a very tall person who could reach that rope!" panted Terry as she circled with Sim.

"A veritable giant," was the answer. "None of the girls could have done it."

"No. That's what I thought."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Terry, who had been caught in the human maelstrom by some strange girl and whirled about.

"We don't quite know," said Arden.

Screaming and laughing, the sophomores in the lead took the freshmen running across the campus and stopped in front of the dormitory.

"Good-night, freshies!" cried Toots and some of the leaders. "And happy dreams!"

"That means the end of hazing," said Arden. "It's always done this way."

"Thank goodness for that!" murmured Terry.

The party was over. Then the girls, sophomores and freshmen, formed a friendly circle and sang "Autumn Leaves," the alma mater song. The girls' voices carried softly through the moonlit night and even the most unromantic was impressed with the beauty of the words and melody.

Then, bidding one another good-night, the happy students hurried to their respective rooms, talking excitedly. And the dean and her helpers settled more comfortably in their beds, knowing that for another term this affair was successfully over.

The door of 513 shut on Arden, Sim, and Terry. For a moment they stood looking at one another, and then, as if by agreement, they began to laugh; hysterical laughs but none the less hearty.

"Oh, you do look such a sight, Sim!" Terry gasped.

"Why bring that up?" Sim chuckled.

"But we had a lovely time," Arden said. "Even if there was a mysterious bell ringing and a face----"

"Tell us more about that," begged Sim.

"I've told you all I know. I saw a face--an old man's, I'm sure, staring in at me from the window. Then the bell rang."

"But why?" demanded Terry.

"If we could find out, perhaps we could solve the mystery of several other things that have happened around Cedar Ridge," Arden said.

"But that bell," went on Sim. "I heard some of the girls talking. It seems it is an old alarm bell, to be rung in case of fires. But when the telephone system was put in the rope that originally reached close to the ground, so help could be summoned from the town and from nearby residents, was cut off. And it was cut off so high up that no ordinary person, standing under the rope, could reach it."

"Why was that done?" asked Terry.

"Because it was found," Sim explained, "that when the rope was left long enough to be reached, some students, thinking it fun, rang the alarm. That was long before our time. So the dean had the rope cut short."

"Why didn't she take it off altogether?" asked Arden.

"I asked a soph that," explained Sim, "and she told me it was thought best to leave most of the rope in place so if ever it was necessary to sound the old bell, it could be done."

"But how, if the rope was high up?" Terry inquired.

"By standing on a ladder, I suppose. Don't ask me, for I really don't know."

With determination they began washing off the marks of the eyebrow-pencil mustaches, using cold cream, and finally they were ready for bed.

"Well," remarked Arden in tones that told her chums she had made up her mind seriously, "something is going to happen, I feel sure of it." Pressed for details, she would say nothing more.

But a few evenings after this, up to which time nothing of moment had happened save that the three from 513 began to feel more and more their campused bonds, a thick hazy fog enveloped the college grounds, spreading to the near-by town and villages about. Arden was walking alone from the library back to the dormitory. The fog seemed suddenly swept in from the distant sea, settling in the low places so that the upper stories of the building seemed floating in the air.

Arden thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt and in one felt the letter Sim had entrusted to her--the letter asking her father for permission to leave college. The excitement of the masquerade party and the mysterious bell-ringing had done nothing to lighten Sim's depression. She was still determined, it seemed, to carry out her intention.

Sim didn't seem to care about anything. She was not the least bit excited by the bell-ringing nor by the strange face, and evidently had dismissed them from her mind.

Arden felt there was no time to be lost if Sim was to be kept at Cedar Ridge. The strange face she had seen through the obscured window when she was dancing with Jane Randall had seemed vaguely familiar, but she had glimpsed it for so short a time that it was impossible to recognize it. No one else had seen it, of that Arden was certain, for no one had spoken of it, and there were no more stories current of mysterious doings about the college.

"Sim will just pack up and go home unless something is done to make her change her mind," thought Arden as she walked along through the fog. "And I'm going to do it!"

Campused or not, she would now go to the little railroad station and send a telegraph message to her always sympathetic father, asking him for the money to put the swimming pool in order. That would cause Sim to remain.

Arden had everything in her favor for concealment, and she needed concealment in this risky undertaking. The fog, becoming more dense every minute, and the fact that she was alone, would allow her to reach the station unobserved. Also it was just the time when most of the students were in their rooms preparing to go down to supper in a short time.

Arden ran through the gathering gloom across the campus and toward the post office. The yellow gleaming lights of the railroad station beckoned to her with their flickering rays from the other side of the tracks.

There was always the chance that someone from the college might be in the little suburban station looking up trains, inquiring about baggage or express shipments, or sending a telegram. But Arden, risking the discovery of her voidance of the campus prohibition, kept on her rather perilous way. At the same time she was trying to be cautious.

First, she walked with light footsteps toward the window of the telegraph and ticket office nearest the tracks. She tried to peer through this window into the waiting room beyond but could see nothing through the murky glass and the heavy mesh of wire that covered it, save the indistinct figure of the ticket agent whose duties were combined with those of baggage-man, train dispatcher, telegraph operator, and occasional expressman.

"I'll try the side window," Arden determined, and through this she was able to glance into the deserted station. There was no one in the waiting room, as far as she could see: not even one of the few town taxi-drivers escaping from the heavy fog and the chilly dampness of the approaching night.

"Here's luck!" Arden thought. "If I'm quick I can send the telegram and be out of here before anyone sees me. Of course, the smart thing to have done would have been to write out my message before I came here. But I think it won't take long."

The dark brown door leading into the waiting room was heavy and stuck at the sill. That many feet had kicked it loose was evidenced by several dents and scratches showing at the bottom in the dim glow of an outside lamp under the station platform covering. After one or two futile efforts Arden managed to push back the door and enter.

The ticket and telegraph office was faintly lighted, but as Arden looked in through the little window, protected by a wicket of brass, she could not make out the form of the agent she was sure she had seen when she peered in from the outside platform.

"Oh, dear!" worried the girl. "He must have gone out, and before he comes back to take my message, someone from the college may stop in here and catch me. That's the worst of these country places. I suppose there isn't another train for some time and the agent went out for a rest. If I could only reach in and get a telegraph blank I could write the message, with a notation to send it collect, and leave it here for him. Let's see--what shall I say? 'Must have a thousand dollars at once. Can you send it? Letter follows.' Dad will probably think I've embezzled some of the college funds or stolen some jewels. Oh, where is that agent?"

She drummed impatiently with a pencil on the shelf of the window and stood on tiptoes to look in. As she did so the agent suddenly emerged from where he was crouched low in a stooping position halfway into a small supply closet in one corner of his cubbyhole of an office, out of Arden's sight. The agent stood up so quickly, directly in front of the wicket window confronting Arden, that it was as if some gigantic Jack-in-the-box had popped out at her.

"Oh!" she gasped, preventing herself, by a strong effort, from springing back. Then again, but less hysterically: "Oh, here you are!"

"Well?" asked the agent and he smiled.

Arden opened her mouth to say she wanted to send a telegram, but the sudden appearance of the man, popping up into her view in that manner, was so disconcerting that she could only stand there and stare at him. And as she stared she realized, with a shock, that she had seen the face of this man somewhere before. She stood there, silent and perplexed, trying to solve the puzzle, trying to remember. Could she have seen the man before?

He stood patiently waiting for her to state her wants.

But Arden went into a strange panic of fear and uncertainty.

"I--I think I've forgotten something!" she gasped, backing nervously away from the window. "I--I'll come back--later." She forced to her face a rather sickly smile.

"Very well," said the man behind the wicket. "I'll be open for quite a while yet."

Then, turning away, Arden fled, pulled open the door, scurried across the tracks and rushed back to college. Her one thought was to bring Terry and Sim with her to the station on a strange errand. She wanted them to help her identify the man in the ticket office as the missing Pangborn heir, pictured on the placard in the post office.

For that was exactly what Arden believed. So obsessed had she become with the poster picture and the reward offered for information about the original, that she was sure she was right.

The man who had popped up at the wicket window was Harry Pangborn.

"I'm positive of it!" murmured Arden as she ran faster. "But I must get Sim and Terry to look at him. I'll need their evidence."