The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Part 10

Chet would have leaped away to her a.s.sistance had not Jess grabbed him by the arm and screamed. The sleds were almost at the crossing, and surely Chet Belding would have been knocked down.

Janet Steele proved to be perfectly able to look out for herself. And on this occasion she could even do more than that.

She whirled and saw the horse coming with the wrecked wagon. She could not see up the hill of Nugent Street, for the corner house barred her vision in that direction. But without doubt she had heard the eager shouts of the coasters and understood what was ahead of them.

The runaway would cross the foot of the hill just in time, perhaps, to collide with one or more of the bobsleds.

Almost opposite the foot of Nugent Street and right beside the steep bank against which the coasters had been wont to stop their sleds, was a narrow lane pitching toward the lakesh.o.r.e. This lane was near Janet Steele.

Chet saw it and realized how the horse might be turned. But the boy was too far away. Even as he shook off Jess Morse's frenzied hold on his arm, the runaway was upon Janet Steele.

The latter had whipped off the Red Cross veil she wore. Seizing it by both extremes she allowed the veil to float out on the brisk winter breeze, darting with it into the street.

The runaway's glaring eyes caught sight of the flapping folds of the veil, and he swerved, his hoofs sliding on the slippery drive. The eyes of a horse magnify objects tremendously, and the girl's figure and her flowing veil probably looked to the frightened animal like some awful and threatening bogey.

Scrambling and snorting, he swerved to the side of the road, saw the open lane, and the next moment thundered into it, the broken wagon skidding across the lane and smashing into a gatepost.

It was at the same instant that the head sled came sweeping down Nugent Street, crossed the avenue, and stood almost on end against the bank, stopping abruptly in the snow bank.

The other sleds poured down and stopped; but none had been in so much danger as that first one. Laura and Chet and their friends started on the run for the spot--and for Janet Steele.

"Oh! _Oh! OH!_" shrieked in crescendo one girl who had ridden on the first bobsled. "We might have been killed!"

Some of the boys ran after the horse. The rest of the young people surrounded Janet Steele.

"How brave you were," murmured Jess Morse admiringly.

"You've got a head on you, sure enough!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew, while the Red Cross girl, blushing and with downcast eyes, began hastily to adjust her veil again.

"Oh, it was nothing," murmured Janet.

"Tell it to Lily. Here comes Lily Pendleton," said Jess, smiling again.

"She won't think it was nothing."

The girl who had shrieked so loudly came up quickly to the group of Central High girls.

"Did you turn that horse?" she demanded of Janet Steele. "You are a regular duck! We might have all been killed! I never will ride down a hill with Freddy Brubach again! There should have been somebody down here to signal that we were coming!"

"Guess the horse would not have paid much attention to signals, Lil,"

laughed Laura.

"Only the kind that Miss Steele waved," added Bobby.

"Is that your name?" Lily Pendleton asked the Red Cross girl. "I'm awfully glad to know you."

"And much gladder that she was right on the job here when the horse came along, aren't you, Lil?" chuckled Bobby.

"She ought to have a medal," declared one of the other girls.

"Let's write to Mr. Carnegie about her," proposed Jess, but good-naturedly, and hugged Janet now that she had rearranged her veil.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Janet Steele, "please don't make so much over so little. I shall almost be sorry that I turned the horse into the lane. And it was a little thing. I am not afraid of horses."

"A mere medal is nothing to Miss Steele, I bet," said Bobby, the emphatic.

"I expect she has a trunk full of 'em. Like the German army officer who had his chest covered with iron crosses and medals and the like. Somebody asked him how he came to get them all.

"'Vell,' he said, pointing to the biggest and shiniest medal, 'I got dot py meestake; undt dey gif me de odders pecause I got dot one!'"

"Oh, you and your jokes, Bobby!" said Lily Pendleton, with some scorn.

"This was a serious business. And there is another very serious matter, girls, that I have to call to your attention," she added, turning to Laura and Jess.

"What has gone wrong? Nothing about the play, I hope!" cried Jess.

"It is worse, because it is right at hand," said Lily, shaking her head.

"What do you suppose Miss Carrington has done?"

"Oh, Gee Gee!" groaned Bobby, in despair. "I knew she would break out in a fresh spot."

"Do tell us what it is," begged Jess Morse.

"It is about Hessie," said Lily.

"Hester Grimes?" demanded Laura, with a rather grim expression. "What has happened to her now?"

"Why!" cried Lily, rather sharply, "you speak as though Hessie was always getting into trouble."

"You cannot deny but that she has frequently made a _faux pas,_ as it were," said Jess, smiling.

"And what she does wrong," added Laura, with some bitterness, "usually affects the rest of us."

"She did not do a thing wrong!" cried Lily stormily. "You girls are just too mean!"

"Oh, come on, Lil," said Bobby. "Tell us the worst. We're prepared for murder, even."

"You are very rude, Clara Hargrew," declared Lily Pendleton. "Hessie is not to blame. She failed in rhetoric, and when Miss Carrington tried to put a lot of home work on her she refused to take it."

"What?" gasped Jess.

"Oh! She did refuse, did she?" snapped Bobby. "And a fat lot that would help her!"

"Well, I don't care!" cried Lily. "Gee Gee is just as mean----"

"Granted!" agreed Bobby, with emphasis. "But tell us how much Hessie has been set back?"

"Of course Miss Carrington has punished her if she was impudent," said Laura decidedly.

"She has punished us all!" cried Lily. "She refuses to allow Hessie to skate to-night. She's out of it."

"Out of the carnival?" cried several of her listeners in chorus.