It would not have changed Hester's att.i.tude at all-for she was not one to easily forgive-had she known that Laura Belding had taken occasion that very morning to take Bobby Hargrew to task for what she had done the evening before. Bobby came into Mr. Belding's store while Laura was dusting and re-arranging the show cases.

"Have a scrumptious time at the club house, Laura?" asked the irrepressible.

"Oh, it is nice, Bobby!" cried Laura. "I wish you had been touched."

"Me? Huh! I'd have about as much chance of ever being an M. O. R. as Hester Grimes," and she chuckled.

"Less chance than Hester, I fear," said Laura, with sudden gravity.

"Especially after last evening. Bobby Hargrew, I never knew you to do so mean a thing before."

"Well, wasn't she mean to me?"

"That does not excuse you. And I told Mr. Sharp that you had never done a really mean thing within my knowledge--"

"Ah! Now I see why I have not been promoted to the outside of Central High," cried Bobby, quickly. "You have been interceding for me."

"I-I-- Well, it was nothing much I said, dear," said Laura.

"I'm grateful," said Bobby, really moved. "But I can't tell you how much."

"Show me, then," urged Laura.

"How do you mean?"

"Give up this practical joking. Stop making trouble for the teachers--"

"I have! Gee Gee hasn't had a chance to criticize me all this week. And sometimes I feel as though I should burst," cried the spirited girl.

"But I _did_ tell the princ.i.p.al that you never did anything mean-and see what you have done to Hester!"

"And see what she has done to me," snapped Bobby.

"Perhaps she _thought_ she saw you throw something into that basket."

"No, she didn't. She and I sa.s.sed each other," declared Bobby, who was plain if not elegant of speech at all times, "right there in the princ.i.p.al's office when Miss Gee Gee sailed out into the music room.

Hessie _was_ the last girl to leave me-true enough. But she did not see me near that basket, for I started for the corridor when she was going out of the room."

"But she might have been mistaken--"

"You don't more than half believe me yourself, Laura Belding!" accused Bobby.

"I do. I believe just what you say about it."

"Then you can take it from me," said the emphatic Bobby, "that Hester Grimes told that story to Miss Carrington for the sake of getting me into trouble-and for no other reason."

"I'd hate to think her so mean," sighed Laura.

"I'd hate to be foolish enough to believe she was anything _but_ mean,"

growled Bobby, sullenly. "We've always known what she was. Why so tender of her all of a sudden?"

"But she must be hurt dreadfully by that trick you played on her last evening."

"Serves her right, then. I've no love for her, I confess. But if you don't want me to I'll let her strictly alone hereafter. I guess I've squared things pretty well with her anyway," and Bobby Hargrew laughed lightly.

"I want you to be good, Bobby," said Laura, yet smiling at the younger girl. "Show them there is something in you besides mischief. The teachers have a wrong idea of you. You want to change all that."

"Gee! I couldn't be a Miss Nancy," chuckled the other.

"Just see how you are cut out of all our good times," warned Laura. "And we need you in athletics, Bobby! Our eight-oared sh.e.l.l will be without its c.o.x-and we hoped to have a boat of our own this season. You see, Bobby, one girl can't do wrong without hurting the rest of us. 'All for one and one for all' is the motto of Central High, you know."

"Oh, dear, Laura, I _didn't_ set that fire," cried Bobby, suddenly, and almost in tears.

"I don't believe for a minute that you did," returned her friend. "But you might use your superabundance of wit in finding out who did set it.

I've racked my brains, I am sure, and I can't see the answer."

"Then, how do you expect me to do so-and you always so ingenious?"

complained Bobby.

Laura's ingenuity about the kite and the steeple-jack delighted most of the girls who were with her on that Sat.u.r.day afternoon tramp. And when they knew she intended giving the gold eagle presented to her by Colonel Swayne to the treasury of the Girls' Branch they cheered her-all but Hester and Lily.

The explanation of the fire in Mr. Sharp's office eluded Laura, however, as it did everybody else. But she gave considerable thought to the problem as the days pa.s.sed.

The Athletic Field was being put in shape as rapidly as possible.

Already the high board fence was being erected and a large shed with lockers for the girls. As the field joined their old bathing pavilion there were shower and plunge baths already at hand. Mrs. Case promised the school that, other things being well, the girls should have an exhibition field day for parents and friends before many weeks. The indoor exercises were practiced a.s.siduously, and most of the advanced cla.s.ses, at least, tried to stand well in these so as to take part in the outdoor games.

With the regular school work, the physical instruction, and the after-hour athletics, the girls of Central High found their time filled.

But Laura Belding and her close friends had the added excitement and interest of the coming M. O. R. initiation.

A full week elapsed from the Day of the Touch to the hour when the candidates were to be made full members of the secret society. This initiation was usually a novel affair, and on this occasion it was announced to the candidates that Robinson's Woods was the scene and Sat.u.r.day at four o'clock the time of the exercises. Secrecy was maintained-or should have been. No one but members of the M. O. R., or the candidates, was to know the time and place; but events which followed showed that there was a "leak" somewhere.

Robinson's Woods was a fine picnicking ground, back among the hills. One of the Market Street cars pa.s.sed a road which led to the grove; one needed to walk but half a mile, and through a pleasant byway. But once at the Woods, it was as though the primeval forest surrounded the place.

There was a small hotel, tables and benches in the open, swings and a carousel, and a dancing pavilion. But the M. O. R.'s did not propose to hold their exercises in so exposed a place. Up from the regular grounds devoted to entertainment led a narrow, rocky path through the thicker wood. The goal to which this path led was a high, open plateau in the midst of the forest, from which one could overlook a winding country road and a more winding, tumbling, noisy brook which came down from the heights.

Two special cars awaited the M. O. R. girls and the candidates for initiation, and it was a merry party that debarked at the head of the wood road. They marched straight away from the regular picnic grounds and were soon on the plateau.

The sun was going down and the view over the valley, in which lay the City of Centerport, was beautiful indeed. There were nearly a hundred girls, and in their bright dresses they made a very pretty picture in the open s.p.a.ce in the forest.

They were far from human habitation. Indeed there was no house in sight, save an abandoned farmhouse at the upper end of the clearing. Surrounded by a straggling fence, with a gate hanging from one hinge, and the out-houses behind it fallen in ruins, this old dwelling presented a rather ghostly appearance. It did, indeed, go by the name of "Robinson's Haunted House"; but in the late afternoon sunlight none of the visitors thought of the grewsome stories told of it.

CHAPTER XIII-THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Every girl had brought a box of luncheon, and besides, somebody had "toted" two huge pots for chocolate and the little individual cups they all carried made sufficient drinking vessels. Mary O'Rourke, with the help of Laura and another girl who knew something about wood-lore, built a campfire, while two other girls climbed down to the road and followed it across the brook on the stepping-stones and up the hill to the nearest farmhouse for milk. There was a spring of clear water in the hillside at the edge of the plateau.