The Orchard Secret Part 25

"No, we won't! There are plenty of cracks for air," said Sim.

Hardly was the cover down, shutting the girls inside the now very dark case, than the door of the baggage room was pushed open and, through cracks in the packing case the girls could see Rev. Dr. Henry Bordmust, dressed neatly in black, step in ahead of the agent in his blue coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. With the two men wisps of fog drifted into the room.

In the closeness of the box, Arden tried vainly to push Sim's left elbow away from her ribs. Terry was slowly settling down, half on Arden, with her legs twisted around Sim's neck. Sim had the best position, as she was the smallest. Her eyes were on a level with a crack between the lid and the top edge of the box. She squinted to accustom her eyesight to the dimly lighted room. She saw the chaplain looking at a tag on a worn and dusty trunk.

The reason for his visit now seemed obvious. He wasn't after the girls.

"Have you any trace of that trunk of mine yet?" asked the chaplain.

"No, sir, I haven't," the agent answered, following the example of the clergyman and looking at several labels on various pieces of baggage.

"But that there trunk ought to be around some place, if it was shipped when you say it was."

"Of course it was shipped when I say it was!" testily replied the Rev.

Henry. "Why would I say it was if it wasn't, my good man? This is the third or fourth time I've been over here looking for it. I've been expecting it over a week now. Come, be a little quicker! You ought to be able to find it for me!"

"Yes, sir, I am looking. It might have got over in behind this here packing case. Lots of things get behind these cases. They are shipped up here filled with raw silk for the factory over at Tumeville. But sometimes the drivers take the silk out here and leave the empty cases to be shipped back. I'll have a look back of this case."

With hearts that beat faster than ever, the girls could look through the cracks in their prison and see the agent approaching their hiding place.

"Somebody musta left this case unfastened when they emptied it," muttered the agent. "It's dangerous, with the nails sticking out of the cover like the way they do. I'll tap 'em in."

With an iron weight from the platform scale near him, the man hammered down the nails projecting from the lower side of the lid into the front rim of the box.

He had nailed the girls in! With just a couple of whacks!

Hardly daring to breathe, lest they betray their presence, Arden, Terry, and Sim listened speechless.

"Nope, nothing behind this case 'ceptin' some old valises n.o.body ever called for," reported the agent, peering behind the big box after his nailing work.

"How about this pile of trunks?" asked the chaplain, his voice, this time, coming from a distant corner of the room.

"I'll help you look there, sir, but I don't believe what you want's there," the agent replied, as he shuffled away.

The girls breathed more freely, and Sim hoa.r.s.ely whispered:

"Heavens! We're nailed in!"

"Oh, Arden! What a pickle you got us into!" gasped Terry.

"Hush! They'll hear us! Wait until Henry goes out," counseled Arden.

"Then we'll try to force the cover up with our shoulders."

There was a sudden silence as the agent and the clergyman peered at another pile of trunks. The girls could hear their hearts beating and Terry, interested in the phenomenon, inquired cautiously whether it was Sim's heart she heard or her own.

"It's your own, silly!" replied Sim. "I'm almost smothered! I wish they'd go out so we could breathe! Don't hiss so; they'll hear you."

"That there trunk of your'n might have got over in th' freight office by mistake," said the agent. "S'posin' we look there."

"Suppose we do," agreed the chaplain, who was fast losing what little patience he had.

Then the two men left the baggage room, and on his way out the agent pulled the switch controlling the dim and dirty ceiling light.

The imprisoned girls were left in darkness!

CHAPTER XIX Strange Talk

"It seems to me," remarked Terry disgustedly, as the agent pulled the door of the baggage room shut and his footsteps and those of the chaplain died away in faint echoes, "it seems to me that we just get into one sc.r.a.pe after another. This is a pretty kettle of fish!"

"Or something!" gloomily agreed Sim.

"Can you turn around so you can be sort of on your hands and knees?"

asked Arden, ignoring Terry's remark. "Try it. Sim and I will squeeze away over to one side."

"Oooff!" grunted Terry as she attempted to change her position. "I'm almost over! Don't mind if you get a black eye, Sim. It will only be from my elbow."

"I shall mind, though, so you'd better fold up your arms. There! She's over, Arden. Now I'll do it!" said Sim.

Sim accomplished the feat more easily than had Terry, and then Arden did it. All kneeling, they braced with their legs and arms, arched up their backs, and tried to force off the nailed lid of the packing case.

"Heave!" exclaimed Arden, having heard this expression used by the foreman of a gang of section men on the railroad near the college grounds. "Heave hard!"

All together they raised their backs.

"Ouch! That doesn't do any good! We're in here for the night unless someone comes back to release us!" groaned Terry.

"Rest a minute," advised Arden. "Then we'll try it again. Once more--all heave!"

But the second try only made the box shift a little on its base.

"We must make some noise! Bang on the sides or yell or scream! We must get out of here!" Arden was getting desperate.

"Hey! Hey!" shouted Terry. "Come back! Let us out! We're smothering!

Hey!"

"Hurray! Hurray!" screamed Sim.

"What are you cheering for?" demanded Terry.

"That wasn't a cheer. But I can make my voice carry farther that way than any other."

"Help! Help! Help!" appealed Arden shrilly.

They listened, their hearts beating fast from fear and the exertion of shouting. They thought they heard footsteps approaching.

Then, by the rays of light streaming through the fog from the station platform, as they peered out of the cracks in the box, they could see the door of the baggage room flung open. Near it stood the agent.