"Who ever would camp over on Bliss Island on a night like this?" gasped Helen.

"I don't see why you put such mysteries up to me," returned Ruth, with a shrug. "I'm no prophet. But----"

"But what?"

"Do you remember that girl we saw on the island this afternoon?"

"Goodness! Yes."

"Well, mightn't it be she, or a party she may be with?"

"Campers on the island in a snow storm? No girls from this college would be so silly," Helen declared.

"I'm not at all sure she was an Ardmore girl," said Ruth, reflectively.

"Who under the sun could she be, then?"

"Almost anybody else," laughed Ruth. "It is going to stop snowing altogether soon, Helen. See! the moon is breaking through the clouds."

"It will be lovely out," sighed Helen. "But hard walking."

Ruth gestured towards their two pairs of snowshoes crossed upon the wall. "Not on those," she said.

"Oh, Ruthie! Would you?"

"All we have to do is to tighten them and sally forth."

"Gracious! I'd be willing to be Sally Fifth for a spark of fun,"

declared Helen, eagerly.

"How about Heavy?" asked Ruth, as Helen hastened to take down the snowshoes which both girls had learned to use years before at Snow Camp, in the Adirondacks.

"Dead to the world already, I imagine," laughed Helen. "I saw her to her room, and I believe she was so tired and so full of dinner that she tumbled into bed almost before she got her clothes off. You'd never get her out on such a crazy venture!"

Helen was as happy as a lark over the chance of "fun." The two girls skilfully tightened the stringing of the shoes, and then, having put on coats, mittens, and drawn the tam-o'-shanters down over their ears, they crept out of their rooms and hastened downstairs and out of the dormitory building.

There was not a moving object in sight upon the campus or the sloping white lawns to the level of the frozen lake. The two chums thrust their toes into the straps of their snowshoes and set forth.

CHAPTER XV

AN ODD ADVENTURE

Six inches or more of snow had fallen. It was feathery and packed well under the snowshoes. The girls sank about two inches into the fleecy ma.s.s and there the shoes made a complete bed for themselves and the weight of their wearers.

"You know what I'd love to do this winter?" said Helen, as they trudged on.

"What, my dear?" asked Ruth, who seemed much distraught.

"I'd like to try skiing. The slope of College Hill would be just splendiferous for _that_! Away from the observatory to the lake--and then some!"

"We'll start a skiing club among the freshies," Ruth said, warmly accepting the idea. "Wonder n.o.body has thought of it before."

"Ardmore hasn't waked up yet to all its possibilities," said Helen, demurely. "But this umpty-umph cla.s.s of freshmen will show the college a thing or two before we pa.s.s from out its scholastic halls."

"Question!" cried Ruth, laughing. Then: "There! you can see that light again."

"Goodness! You're never going over to that island?" cried Helen.

"What did we come out for?" asked Ruth. "And scamp our study hour?"

"Goodness!" cried Helen, again, "just for _fun_."

"Well, it may be fun to find out just who built that fire and what for,"

said Ruth.

"And then again," objected her chum, "it may be no fun at all, but _serious_."

"I have a serious reason for finding out--if I can," Ruth declared.

"What is it, dear?"

"I'll tell you later," said Ruth. "Follow me now."

"If I do I'll not wear diamonds, and I may get into trouble," objected Helen.

"You've never got into very serious trouble yet by following my leadership," laughed Ruth. "Come on, Fraid-cat."

"Ain't! But we don't know who is over there. Just to think! A camp in the snow!"

"Well, we have camped in the snow ourselves," laughed Ruth, harking back to an adventure at Snow Camp that neither of them would ever be likely to forget.

They scuffed along on the snowshoes, soon reaching the edge of the lake.

n.o.body was about the boathouse, for the ice would have to be swept and sc.r.a.ped by the horse-drawn machines before the girls could go skating again.

The moon was pushing through the scurrying clouds, and the snow had ceased falling.

"Look back!" crowed Helen. "Looks as though two enormous animals had come down the hillside, doesn't it?"

"The girls will wake up and view our tracks with wonder in the morning,"

said Ruth, with a smile. "Perhaps they'll think that some curious monsters have visited Ardmore."

"That would cause more wonderment than the case of Rebecca Frayne. What do you suppose is finally going to happen to that foolish girl?"

"I really cannot guess," Ruth returned, shaking her head sadly. "Poor thing!"