"Well, that's fair," said Jennie Bruce.

"Oh, she knows she's got the majority with her," snapped Cora, shrugging her shoulders. "The minority have no rights at all in this cla.s.s."

"I am glad--or would be so--if I believed I was so popular," Nancy said, with some warmth. "But I believe with the majority of us girls my suggestion is popular. It isn't _I_."

Then she put the question and the Montgomeryites were in a very small minority.

Nevertheless, outside of cla.s.s matters, Grace Montgomery was still something of a leader. She and Cora paid more attention to dress than other girls in the school. They spent more money on "orgies," too, and had hampers arrive from home more frequently. They were even more popular among the juniors than they were in their own cla.s.s.

And soon a certain number of the new girls at Pinewood Hall began to ape the manners and quote the sayings of Grace Montgomery. The present cla.s.s of seniors paid little attention to Grace and her growing clique; but Nancy and Jennie often spoke of the possibility of her having a large following before she was through her senior year.

"Unless she does something for which to be shown up before them all, the time will come when Grace Montgomery will divide the school. She'll never have much influence in her own cla.s.s," said Jennie; "but in the school as a whole she will be a power if she can."

In athletics that fall, however, neither Grace nor Cora cut much of a figure. Cora tried hard for the school crew, but Miss Etching turned her back to the second boat for another year.

To make Cora all the angrier, Nancy "made" Number 6 in the eight-oared sh.e.l.l. It was something for the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s as a whole to be proud of; for it was seldom that one of their number got into the "varsity"

crew.

But Cora did all she could to belittle Nancy's triumph. She stood on the landing and sneered at the work of the crew, and especially at "Number 6" until one evening Jennie Bruce came up behind her, caught her by both elbows, and thrust her suddenly toward the edge of the float.

"Ouch! Don't! You mean little thing!" cried Cora.

"Mean?" said Jennie, sharply. "If I was as mean as you are, Cora Rathmore, I'd be afraid to go to sleep without a light in the room.

Just think of being left alone in the dark with anybody as mean as _you_ are!"

"Think you're smart! Ouch! Let go of me!"

"You quit ragging Nance Nelson, or I'll pitch you right into the river--now you see if I don't!" threatened Jennie.

"I'll tell Miss Etching on you!" threatened Cora, still struggling.

"Go ahead. And I'll tell her the things you've said down here every time the school crew is out. You have a funny kind of loyalty; haven't you, Cora? Pah!"

"Mind your own business!" snapped Cora, but rubbing her elbows where Jennie had held them like a vise.

She was a little afraid of Jennie's muscles, as well as of her sharp tongue. Jennie was not a heavy girl, but she was wiry and strong.

This fall rowing was a particular fad of the Pinewood Hall girls. In the long evenings after dinner all but the freshman cla.s.s were allowed to go out on the river until Mr. Pease blew the big horn at the boathouse to call the stragglers in.

Some of the girls owned their own boats, too, for of course they could not use the racing boats except in practice hours. Others, who did not own boats, hired them of a boatman below the estate, near the railroad bridge.

Jennie and Nancy pooled their pocket money and bought a light skiff--a flat-bottomed affair which was just the thing for them to paddle about in shallow water, and was "seaworthy." No ordinary amount of rocking could turn the skiff over.

They often pulled into the still pools, or meadow ponds, opening into the river, and plucked water-lilies. Nancy never did this without remembering her adventures before she came to Pinewood Hall--the occasion when she had helped save Bob Endress from drowning.

Bob was now a lordly senior at Dr. Dudley's Academy. Nancy had only seen him flashing past the girls' boathouse in the Academy eight. Bob was stroke of his school's first crew. Nancy often wondered if he had learned to swim yet.

One evening when the two chums from Number 30, West Side (they had held their old room for another term, as sophs often did at Pinewood Hall), arrived at the little dock where the private boats were kept, they saw that their own skiff was in the water.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Jennie. "Some of the girls have been using the _Beauty_. What do you know about that?"

They began to run. One girl popped up out of the boat, saw them, and immediately climbed out upon the dock. It was Grace Montgomery.

"Well, will you look who's here!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jennie. "Who invited _you_ to play in our yard, Miss?"

"Oh, never mind, Jennie!" begged Nancy, pulling at her chum's sweater.

"I'm not going to have anybody take our boat without permission. Who is that other one? Why, it's Cora, of course! Get out of that!" commanded Jennie, much more harshly than Nancy had ever heard her speak before.

"Dear me! I didn't know it was _your_ boat, Jennie," said Grace, airily.

"Nor I," chimed in Cora. "You can be sure I wouldn't have got into the sloppy old thing, if I had."

"Go 'long, chile!" spoke Jennie, scornfully. "It wouldn't matter to you whose boat it was. Your appreciation of personal property is warped."

"Nasty thing!" snapped Cora.

"Just so," returned Jennie. "Come on, Nance. We'll get a padlock for our boat-chain to-morrow."

When they had pushed off and were out of hearing of the girls on the dock, Nancy said, admonishingly:

"Why say things to stir them up? It does no good."

"Oh, fudge! What does it matter? Do you suppose that I care if Grace or Cora 'have a mad on' at me? Much!" and Jennie snapped her fingers.

They were pulling out into the river. The sun was already below the hills; but the light was lingering long in the sky and on the water. The chums had an objective point in a little cove across the river, where splendid lilies grew.

The evening boat from Clintondale down the river came in sight and the girls rested on their oars to let it pa.s.s. The little waves the small steamer threw off rocked their skiff gently.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Jennie, suddenly. "This skiff is all wet. My feet are soaked."

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Nancy. "The water is over _my_ shoes, too."

"I bet those girls slopped some into the boat when they launched her,"

declared Jennie, angrily.

"Wish we had a bailer. Why, Jennie! the boat's leaking!"

But Jennie had already found that out. And she found _where_ it was leaking.

"The plug's been pulled, Nance!" she exclaimed. "See that bunch of rags floating? That's what Cora Rathmore stuffed into the hole when she pulled out the plug. She knew the water would soon work them out."

"But where's the plug?" asked Nancy.

"They took it away with them. It's a mean trick!" gasped her chum. "Why, Nancy! The water is gaining fast. Here we are in the middle of the river and the skiff will sink under us before we can row to sh.o.r.e!"