Ruth Fielding At College Part 17

"You ridiculous thing!" laughed Helen, recovering her good nature.

"Should we sacrifice ourselves for your benefit, do you think, Jennie?"

Ruth asked.

"Why not? 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' only more so. I need the inspiration of you girls to help me," Jennie declared. "Do you know, sometimes I am almost discouraged?"

"About what?" asked Helen.

"About my weight. I watch the bathroom scales with eagle eye. But instead of coming down by pounds, I only fall by ounces. It is awfully discouraging. And then," added the fleshy girl, "the other day when we had such a scrumptuous dinner--was it Columbus Day? I believe so--I was tempted to eat one of my old-time 'full and plenty' meals, and what do you think?"

"You had the nightmare," said Helen.

"Not a chance! But I went up _two pounds and a half_--or else the scales were crazy!"

"Girls!" exclaimed Ruth, suddenly. "Do you know it is snowing?"

"My! I never expected that," cried Helen, as a feathery flake lit upon the very point of her pretty nose. "Ow!"

"Well, we'd better go on, I guess," Ruth observed. "Put your best foot forward, please, Miss Jennie."

"I don't know which is my best foot now," complained the heavy girl.

"They are both getting lame."

"We'll just have to make you sit down on the ice while we drag you,"

announced Helen, increasing the length of her stroke.

"Not much you won't!" exclaimed Jennie Stone, "I'm cold enough as it is."

"Shall we take off our skates and walk over the island, girls?"

suggested Ruth. "That will save some time and more than a little work for Heavy."

"Don't worry about me," put in Jennie. "I need the exercise. And walking would be worse than skating, I do believe."

It was snowing quite thickly now; but the sh.o.r.e of the island was not far away. The trio hugged it closely in encircling the wooded and hilly piece of land.

"Say!" Helen cried, "we're not the only girls out here to-day."

"Huh?" grunted Jennie, head down and skating doggedly.

"See there, Ruth!" called the black-eyed girl.

Ruth turned her face to one side and looked under the shade of her hand, which she held above her eyes. There was a figure moving along the sh.o.r.e of Bliss Island just abreast of them.

"It's a girl," she said. "But she's not skating."

"Who is it? A freshie?" asked Jennie, but little interested.

Ruth did not reply. She seemed wonderfully interested by the appearance of the girl on sh.o.r.e. She fell behind her mates while she watched the figure.

The snow was increasing; and that with the abruptly rising island, furnished a background for the strange girl which threw her into relief.

At first Ruth was attracted only by her figure. She could not see her face.

"Who can she be? Not one of the girls at Dare Hall----"

This idea spun to nothingness very quickly. No! The figure ash.o.r.e reminded Ruth Fielding of n.o.body whom she had seen recently. The feeling, however, that she knew the person grew.

The snow blew sharply into the faces of the skating girls; but she on sh.o.r.e was somewhat sheltered from the gale. The wind was out of the north and west and the highland of the island broke the zest of the gale for the strange girl.

"And yet she isn't strange--I _know_ she isn't," murmured Ruth Fielding, casting another glance back at the figure on the sh.o.r.e.

"Come on, Ruth! _Do_ hurry!" cried Helen, looking back. "Even Heavy is beating you."

Ruth quickened her efforts. The strange girl disappeared, mounting a path it seemed toward the center of the island. Ruth, head bent and lips tightly closed, skated on intent upon her mystifying thoughts.

The trio rounded the island at last. They got the wind somewhat at their backs and on a long slant made for the boathouse landing. It was growing dusk, but there was a fire at the landing that beckoned them on.

"Glad it isn't any farther," Helen panted. "This snow is gathering so fast it clogs one's skates."

"Oh, I must be losing pounds!" puffed Jennie Stone. "I bet none of my clothes will fit me to-morrow. I shall have to throw them all away."

"Oh, Heavy!" giggled Helen. "That lovely new silk?"

"Oh--well--I shall take _that_ in!" drawled Jennie.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Ruth, in a most startling way.

"Goodness me! are you hurt?" demanded Helen.

"What you got? A cramp?" asked Jennie, quite as solicitous.

"I know now who that girl looked like," declared Ruth.

"What girl?" rejoined Helen Cameron. "The one over yonder, on the other side of the island?"

"Yes. She looks just like that Maggie who came to the mill, Helen. You remember, don't you? The girl I left to help Aunt Alvirah when I came to college."

"Well, for the land's sake!" said Jennie Stone. "If she's up there at the Red Mill, how can she possibly be down here, too? You're talking out of order, Miss Fielding. Sit down!"

CHAPTER XIV

"OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT"

Ruth Fielding could not get that surprising, that almost unbelievable, discovery out of her mind.