"Wait until I make certain my shoe is tight," cried Grace.

"And wait until I get my cap fastened on," added Nan.

"No primping now!" exclaimed Laura. "Everybody ready?"

"What's the prize?" questioned Bess. "I can't run well unless I know it's worth it."

"You get the hole out of a doughnut," said Nan. "All sugared over, too."

"And a gla.s.s of frozen ice-water," added Grace.

"This is all the way around the campus," went on Laura. "No cutting corners, remember. You must follow the trees and the hedge. One cent fine if you don't. All ready? One--two--three, go!"

With wild shouts and much laughter the race around the campus was on.

Nan won "by a nose," as Laura rather slangily put it, and the girls, glowing and breathless, looked like anything else than confessed law-breakers doing penance.

The sight of their happy faces was too much for Linda, who, with Cora, was pa.s.sing them, drawing the _Gay Girl_ and carrying their skates over their shoulders.

"Some people try mighty hard to show that they're having a good time,"

she remarked to her companion.

"Blessings brighten as they take their flight, as the girl said when she couldn't leave the campus," grinned Cora maliciously.

"Well," countered Nan, "at least we're not doing penance for sneaking in the dark and listening at doors."

The flush on Linda's face showed that the shot had reached the mark.

"You think you know a lot, don't you?" she mocked, as she and Cora went on.

"How I detest that Nan Sherwood," hissed Linda. "I'll get square with her some day, and that day isn't so far off either. I know just how I'm going to fix her."

"Why do you keep on being so mysterious?" asked Cora impatiently.

"You're always hinting and getting my curiosity aroused and then stopping short. Go on and tell me now."

But Linda refused, saying that she wanted to be sure first that her plans would go through all right.

"When I do spring things," she said, "I'll square up all accounts."

Cora sulked, but had to submit.

Several days later, as Nan and Bess were studying in their room, Bess wrote the final word in a French translation with a sigh of relief.

"Didn't you say once, Nan," she queried, "that you had somewhere a book of model French conversations?"

"Yes," answered Nan, looking up from her work. "Do you want it?"

"I'd like it ever so much," Bess answered. "I think it would help me with these wretched idioms that puzzle me so. Could you get it for me?"

"Surely, Bess," a.s.sented Nan, with obliging readiness. "It's down in my trunk. I'll go right down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to-morrow after we finish our English recitation at twelve o'clock and get it for you."

"That's a darling, Nan," returned Bess gratefully. "I know it will help me heaps."

During this conversation their door had been standing open, and Linda Riggs, who was pa.s.sing (she made occasion often to pa.s.s Nan's door), heard every word. An exultant look came into her face, and she hurried off to find Cora. She told her eagerly that at last she knew just how and when she was going to get even with that much-hated Nan Sherwood.

"What are you going to do?" asked Cora, excited and yet a little fearful of any scheme that Linda might hatch.

"I'm going to give her the scare of her life," replied Linda. "The idea came to me the other day when I was in the trunk room in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The steam started to blow off with such a whistle close to my ears that it made me almost jump out of my skin. I feel sure that if the steam can only be held down for a little while and then go off with a rush it will be ten times louder. If that could be made to happen just as Sherwood was going past, it would scare her out of a year's growth. She'd think her last hour had come. The trouble has been that I never knew just when she'd be there. But I know now. I just heard her say. She's in for the biggest fright of her life. How does it strike you?"

"It sounds all right," answered Cora slowly. "But how are you going to do it?"

"Easily," said Linda, with a confident ring in her voice. "After the janitor has fixed up the fires for the day to-morrow morning he'll not be in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll slip down before Sherwood is due to get there and tie down the valve. That'll keep the steam confined and make the shriek that much louder when it's let loose. I'll hide behind the woodpile, and just when Sherwood is opposite the furnace, I'll cut the string and--_voila_."

"All very fine," remarked Cora half-heartedly. "But isn't it awfully dangerous? Have you thought what might happen if you confine the steam?"

"Of course I've thought of that, stupid," replied Linda, nettled at Cora's lack of enthusiasm. "But the steam won't be held back long enough to do any harm."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Cora, who felt very uneasy about the possible results of her friend's malicious scheme.

"Nonsense," retorted Linda. "I'll take all the risk, if there is any.

But there won't be. I've planned it out too carefully to make any mistake about it. It's too good a chance to get even with Nan Sherwood to let it go by."

CHAPTER XII

ALMOST A DISASTER

"I wouldn't risk it if I were you, Linda," Cora persisted.

"Oh, what's the use of talking to you!" exclaimed Linda angrily. "You haven't got enough sense to understand. I wish I hadn't told you a word about it," and she turned her back upon her chum and refused to say another word.

Cora, daring for once to be angry in her turn, left the room, and Linda soon forgot her in gloating over the fright she was plotting for Nan.

The next morning after the eleven o'clock recitation had begun, Linda made a pretext for leaving the room. She slipped down into the bas.e.m.e.nt and then came back to her seat to await developments.

Meanwhile, the well-ordered routine of Lakeview Hall was proceeding as usual. The hands of the great clock in the English recitation room pointed to a quarter of twelve, and sidelong looks were being cast at it in pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of the noon hour.

Bang!

Suddenly the crash of a loud explosion filled every one with terror. The building trembled to its foundations. Clouds of steam poured up from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

A wild cry rent the air.

"What's that?"