Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 10

"I'm not so sure of _that_," laughed Lluella. "Miss Brokaw became impatient with little Pease and said:

"'It seems you are never able to answer a question, Mary; why is it?'

"'If I knew all the things you ask me, Miss Brokaw,' said Pease, 'my mother wouldn't take the trouble to send me here.'"

"I'm sure _that_ doesn't prove the poor little kiddie a dunce," laughed Ruth.

"Say! we have a dense one at this very table," hissed Heavy, a hand beside her mouth so that the sound of her whisper would not travel to the head of the table where Miss Picolet and the sullen looking new girl sat.

"What do you mean?" asked Belle, curiously.

"_Whom_ do you mean?" added Helen.

"That infant yonder," hissed the fleshy girl.

"What about her?" Ruth asked. "I'm rather sorry for that little Gregg. She doesn't look happy."

"Say!" chuckled Heavy. "She tried for an hour yesterday to coax electricity into the bulb over her table, and then went to Miss Scrimp and asked for a candle. She got the candle, and burned it until one of the other girls looked in (you know she's not 'chummed' with anybody yet) and showed her where the push-b.u.t.ton was in the wall. And at that," finished Heavy, grinning broadly, "I'm not sure that she understood how the 'juice'

was turned on. She must have come from the backwoods."

"Hush!" begged Ruth. "Don't let her think we're laughing at her."

"Miss Scrimp's very strict about candles and oil lamps," said Nettie. "We use them a lot in the South."

"That old house of yours in 'So'th Ca'lina' must be a funny old place, Nettie," said Heavy.

"It isn't ours," Nettie said. "The cotton plantation belongs to Aunt Rachel. She was born on it--the Merredith Place. We usually go there for the early summer, and then either come No'th, or into the mountains of Virginia until cool weather. My own dear old Louisiana home isn't considered healthy for us during the extreme hot weather. It is too damp and marshy."

"'Way down Souf in de land ob cotton-- Cinnamon seed an' sandy bottom!'"

hummed Heavy. "Oh! I wish I was in Dixie--right now."

"Wait till my Aunt Rachel comes up here," Nettie promised. "I'm going to beg an invitation for you girls to visit Merredith."

"But it will be hot weather, then," said Heavy; "and I don't want to miss Light-house Point."

"And I'm just about crazy to get back to Silver Ranch," said Ann Hicks.

"Me for Cliff Island," cried Belle Tingley. "No land of cotton for mine, this summer."

"When is your aunt coming, Nettie?" asked Ruth.

"To see you graduate, my dear," replied the Southern girl, smiling. "And wait till she meets you, Ruthie Fielding! She'll near about love you to death!"

"Oh, everybody loves Ruth. Why shouldn't they?" cried Belle.

"But everybody doesn't give her a fortune, as Nettie's Aunt Rachel did,"

laughed Heavy.

Ruth wished they would not talk so much about that money; but, of course, she could not stop them. She made no rejoinder, but looked across the room and out at the upper pane of one of the long windows. It was deep dusk now without. The evening was clear, with a rising wind moaning through the trees on the campus.

Tony Foyle, the old gardener and general handy man, was only now lighting the lamps along the walks.

"There's a funny red star," Ruth said to Helen. "It can't be that Mars is rising _there_."

"Where?" queried her chum, lazily, scarcely raising her eyes to look.

Helen was not interested in astronomy.

n.o.body else was attracted by the red spark Ruth saw. Against the dusky sky it grew swiftly A new star----

"It is fire!" gasped Ruth, softly, rising on trembling limbs. "_And it is in the West Dormitory_!"

CHAPTER IX

THE DEVOURING ELEMENT

Not even Helen heard Ruth's whispered words. She went on calmly with her supper when her chum arose from her seat.

Ruth quickly controlled herself. The word "fire" would start a panic on the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the main hall.

The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that of a tight band. Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful they were invisible just then.

When she started up the room toward Mrs. Tellingham's table Ruth walked steadily enough. Some of the girls looked after her in surprise; but it was not an uncommon thing for a girl to leave her seat and approach the preceptress.

Mrs. Tellingham looked up with a smile when she saw Ruth coming. She always had a smile for the girl of the Red Mill.

The preceptress, however, was a sharp reader of faces. Her own expression of countenance did not change, for other girls were looking; but she saw that something serious had occurred.

"What is it, Ruth?" she asked, the instant her low whisper could reach Ruth's ear.

The girl, looking straight at her, made the letters "F-I-R-E" with her lips. But she uttered no sound. Mrs. Tellingham understood, however, and demanded:

"Where?"

"West Dormitory, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth, coming closer.

"Are you positive?"

"I can see it from my seat. On the second floor. In one of the duo rooms at this side."

Ruth spoke these sentences in staccato; but her voice was low and she preserved an air of calmness.

"Good girl!" murmured Mrs. Tellingham. "Go out quietly and then run and tell Tony. Do you know where he is?"