Jane Allen, Junior Part 21

"One, two, b.u.t.ton my shoe; three, four, knock at the door" (they knocked at everything).

"Five, six, pick up sticks" (wild grabs).

"Sticks, sticks, freshies can's mix."

"Rawr! rawr! freshies all sore" (moans and groans).

"Gore, sore, r-o-a-r" (and they roared)!

"Thanks," responded Jane when the roar died down, "and we're glad to be initiated in your sorority. Have a lovely time and be sure to let us know if you need help with the spook revue."

Dozia chimed in feebly and slipped out after Jane.

"They were actually disappointed," she remarked. "I believe they hoped for real gore."

"To tell the truth," admitted Jane, "it did seem a bit commonplace after all the symptoms. But I almost forgot the little note. Did you ever yet meet a case in which the written word played no part? Where did I put that piece of paper?"

"In your shoe?" suggested Dozia as Jane exhausted all other possibilities.

"No, here it is in my sleeve. Sit down and we'll decipher it." They dropped to the nearest bench and smoothed out the paper.

"It's part of a letter," said Dozia, "and written by a boy! Oh, joy, now we will have some fun--a love letter!" and she pored over the torn page.

"Neither the beginning nor the end," said Jane, "but the climax."

She read: "'You are a brick if not a wizard, and oh, boy! how that two hundred dollar check did look to me!'"

"Two hundred!" Dozia repeated. "No girl around these diggings ever handled that tidy little sum. Read on, Jane, it may be a will or something, and we may come in for a share--reward, you know."

"Here's our clue," announced Jane. "The name Shirley! Read that."

She did so herself. "'Shirley, however did you do it, I know you neither stole nor borrowed, so it is all right and'--wait,"

interposed Jane, "that's torn." She lay the paper on her knees and fitted in the damaged parts. "Here it is. 'I'm back in college and in the big dorm, after the scare, and it's wonderful to have a little sis like you.'"

"Sis!" groaned Dozia. "The lover's only a big brother!" She slumped in her seat dejectedly.

"Shirley's brother," reasoned Jane, "and we have been blaming that girl! She helped her brother to get back to college!" The voice reeked with dismay and incredulity.

"Can you imagine college running in her family?" questioned Dozia the incredulous.

"I suppose we should hardly have read the letter--"

"Why not? Should we have risked our precious lives up in that attic and then turned down this important clue? Indeed I'm all for asking Shirley to introduce me," and Dozia strutted off to show her height if not to display the "runs" in her hose and the "threadbares" in her sweater elbows.

"But it does sort of take one down," mused Jane, following her companion toward Warburton Hall. "I hate to feel I have so misjudged Shirley."

"Pure personal pride on your part, Jane. I have proof positive of the girl's perfidy. Every single day I must paste anew the paper decoration that hides her work. I mean that crack in my mirror. More than once it has done dreadful things to my poor face. If I move just one inch to the left the crack gashes my right cheek. You know how a gla.s.s reflects. But this brother. May I see the paper, Jane?

His name might be between the lines."

"Oh, it's Ted," said Jane innocently. "See the signature here, but no address, of course. And from that immature hand, Doze, I am sure Ted is a junior."

"But, Jane!" almost gasped Dozia. "What can you do with that letter?

It would be positively dangerous to let Shirley know you found it.

It would mean, logically, that she rang the ghost chains, and that you knew she had helped her brother financially." All the nonsense had now died out of Dozia's voice, and she compelled Jane to stand while she proclaimed this ultimatum.

"But how could she get up there, Dozia, when we know positively she was not on the campus the night of the big alarm?"

"And little Sarah is innocent, I am sure," went on Dozia, "for she handled that trash with an interest too keen for previous acquaintance with the stuff. Each piece gave her a little spasm of surprise. I watched just how it affected her."

"Queer, I noticed that also," said Jane. "Yes, I'm sure she never saw the armor before. But Shirley is never around in any excitement.

I am afraid she spends a lot of time in Dol Vin's."

"But how could she ever get two hundred dollars for brother Ted?"

"I--wonder, Dozia, could she be in partnership with Dol?"

"She might, but wouldn't that mean an outlay?"

"Of course. There'll be little profit there--and two hundred!" The amount was appalling to Jane's practical mind.

Voices broke in on the soliloquy.

"Here come the girls from their ride, and what a shame you didn't go, Jane. Laying a ghost is all right, but if I rode a horse as you do, I'd a.s.sign the ghosts to others. 'Lo, girls! Break your necks or anything?" chirped Dozia.

Judith hurried to gain Jane's arm and squeezed it affectionately as she fell in step.

"Such a glorious ride, Jane!" enthused Judith, "and we all missed you so much. Firefly was good, but he knew you were not on his back." Judith looked "n.o.bby" in her riding togs.

"And whom do you think we saw out with a stable horse and instructor?" asked Janet Clarke. "The Rebel Shirley Duncan! And you know, Jane, what a price Clayton asks for his horses."

Jane was amazed. A riding instructor, horse and hired outfit for Shirley Duncan!

What was the secret spring of her prodigious income?

CHAPTER XVIII

FATEFUL FROLIC

Excitement subsided with a thud at the discovery of the cast-iron ghost, and for some days a round of studies and basketball completely absorbed the girls of Wellington. Whatever the restless freshmen had in hand was not evident to the other cla.s.ses, and only Jane, Judith and Dozia shared the interest, and possible anxiety, following the clues and suspicions in the undertow.

"It's a dreadful thing to be proud," confessed Jane to these companions after a rather too vigorous hour in the gym on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. "Somehow, when I think of my own darling daddy's scholarship being dragged in the mud this way, I feel--dangerous."

"Don't blame you," acquiesced Judith. "The very impudence of a girl like Shirley breaking into college that way, then boasting she doesn't care a whang what happens! What do you suppose WILL happen at mid-year?"

"A neat little note, 'unable to keep up with her cla.s.s,' I suppose,"

said Jane. "And while I don't wish that girl any more harm than she's bent on, I am bound to confess I would sigh in relief at her departure."