CHAPTER

I. AN ACCIDENT.

II. THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS.

III. CHET HELPS.

IV. THE LAST HOPE.

V. WORSE AND WORSE.

VI. DEBBIE DESERTS.

VII. A STRANGE BURGLAR.

VIII. STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.

IX. GHOSTS AND THINGS.

X. OLD FURNITURE.

XI. BILLIE WINS OUT.

XII. GREAT PLANS.

XIII. CHERRY CORNERS.

XIV. WEIRD TALES.

XV. A NOISE IN THE DARK.

XVI. SHADOWS AND MYSTERY.

XVII. ONLY A BAT.

XVIII. A FISH STORY.

XIX. IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.

XX. THE MOTOR AGAIN.

XXI. BOTH AT ONCE.

XXII. A THRILLING DISCOVERY.

XXIII. THE WRECKED AEROPLANE.

XXIV. COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS.

XXV. "LARGE FORTUNES."

CHAPTER I

AN ACCIDENT

"Aren't you glad that we are only going back to school for a little while?" cried Billie Bradley, as she gave a little exultant skip. "Suppose it were fall and we were beginning high—"

"Billie, stop it," commanded Laura Jordon, turning a pair of very blue and very indignant eyes upon her chum. "I thought we were going to forget school for a little while."

"Well, we're not going back for anything I forgot," Billie was asserting when Violet Farrington, the third of the trio, interposed:

"If you two are going to quarrel on a day like this, I'm going home."

"Who said we were quarreling?" cried Billie, adding with a chuckle: "We're just having what Miss Beggs" (Miss Beggs being their English teacher) "would call an 'amiable discussion.'"

"Listen to the bright child!" cried Laura mockingly. "I don't see how you ever get that way, Billie."

"Neither do I," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle as they turned to stare at her: "Just natural talent, I guess."

The three chums—and three brighter, prettier girls it would be hard to find—were on their way to the grammar school which had just closed the week before. Laura had forgotten a book which she prized highly and was in hope that the janitor, a good-natured old fellow, would let her in long enough to get it. At the last minute she had asked the other girls to go with her.

The three chums had lived in North Bend, a town of less than twenty thousand people, practically all their lives. The girls loved it, for it was a pretty place. Still, being only forty miles by rail from New York City, they had been taken to the roaring metropolis once in a while as a treat, and it was only with great difficulty that their parents had succeeded in luring them home again.

Among other things North Bend boasted a jewelry factory, of which Raymond Jordon, Laura's father, was the owner.

Billie's father was the prominent Martin Bradley, well known among real estate and insurance men, and it was from him that Billie, whose real name was Beatrice, had taken her brown eyes and brown hair and even that merry, irrepressible imp of mischief that made Billie Bradley the most popular, best-loved girl in all North Bend.

Her mother, Agnes Bradley, quiet, sincere and beautiful to look upon, kept just the check on her gay young daughter that the young girl needed.

Billie had a brother, Chetwood Bradley, commonly known as "Chet"—a boy as different from his sister as night is from day, yet, in his own more quiet way, extremely attractive.

Laura's brother, Theodore, known to his intimates as Teddy, was a handsome boy, as full of wild spirits as Billie herself. Teddy had entertained a lively admiration for Billie Bradley since he was seven and she was six. Teddy was tall for his fifteen years, and had already made a name for himself in the field of athletics.

The third of the chums was Violet Farrington, a daughter of Richard Farrington, a well-known lawyer of North Bend, and Grace Farrington, a sweet, motherly woman.

Nearly everybody loved Violet, who was tall and dark and sweet-tempered. She also acted as a sort of perpetual peace-maker between brown-eyed Billie and blue-eyed Laura.

So now she was acting again on this glorious day in July when the roses were out and the birds were singing and the sun was shining its brightest.

"What shall we do if we can't get in?" suggested Billie, waving her hand to Nellie Bane, another girl in her class, who passed on the opposite side of the street.

"I suppose we'd have to go home again," answered Laura, adding with a little worried frown: "Oh, I do hope I can get the book. I wouldn't lose it for anything."

"There goes Amanda Peabody," cried Violet suddenly, clutching Billie's arm.

"That makes no difference in my young life," Billie slangily assured her.

"As long as she goes, it's all right," added Laura, glancing after the lanky figure of Amanda Peabody as the girl swung off in the other direction.

Amanda Peabody was not popular with the girls. Nor was she with anybody, for that matter. As far as the girls knew, she had not one friend in the whole school.

Amanda was red-haired and freckled; and while these attributes alone could not have accounted for her unpopularity, she added to them a tendency to spy upon the other girls and then run and tell what she had seen or heard.

It was this last characteristic that no fair-minded girl would tolerate and so Amanda had lived in practical ostracism ever since she had come to North Bend two years before.

"I don't think we ought to be too hard on her," said Violet, as they turned the corner that brought the school into view. "She can't help her mean disposition, I suppose. And anyway, Miss Beggs says there's always some good to be found in everybody."

"Maybe," said Billie skeptically, "but hers is so small you would need a microscope to see it. There's the janitor now, just going out. If we run we can catch him."

And run they did, presenting themselves a minute later, rather red in the face and out of breath, before a very much amused janitor.

"Hello," he cried, his twinkling eyes under their shaggy brows lighting with pleasure as he looked at the girls. "Are you young ladies tryin' to catch a train, or what?"

"Oh, no, no," cried Violet eagerly. "We were just trying to catch you, Mr. Heegan."

"Oh-ho! An' it's mighty flattered I am," said Mr. Heegan, his Irish brogue coming to the fore. "An' what, if I might be askin' you—"

"It's a book we left here," Billie broke in quickly. "Laura wants to know if you will let us in long enough to get it."

"Sure, an' I will that," Mr. Heegan assured them, leading the way into the school yard and pulling out his bunch of keys. "It must be a verra important book," he added, smiling at them as he fitted the key in the lock, "to be bringing you back to school after school's out."

"It was a gift from Father," Laura explained. "And I wouldn't lose it for anything."

"All right, there you go," said the good-natured janitor, swinging the door wide for them. "I'm goin' home, but I'll be comin' back in a few minutes to lock up. You'd best not be stayin' here then," he added, with a twinkling backward glance at them, "or it will be locked up for the night you'll be."

"We won't be more than a minute," Violet assured him, and jubilantly the girls ran through the empty, echoing hall and stopped before a door at the farther end.

"It seems so horribly quiet," said Violet, looking around at them with her hands on the door knob. "It makes you feel like a thief."

"Must be your guilty conscience," said Laura wickedly. "Come on, Vi; we've got to hurry if we don't want to be 'locked in for the night.'"

"Are you sure you left the book here, Laura?" asked Billie, as Violet opened the door and they crowded in. "It would be too bad if it were gone—"

But a cry from Laura interrupted her.

"There it is," she said, running to a desk at the farther end of the room and picking up from an inner corner a prettily bound book. "Just the very place I left it, too. My, but I'm glad to get it back again."

"What do you think you're doing, Billie Bradley?" inquired Laura a minute later, for Billie had seated herself at the teacher's desk and was looking as severe as she knew how.

"Take your seats," she now commanded, rapping vigorously on the desk and fixing them with her best school-teacher stare. "Violet Farrington, go to the board—"

But she got no further, for with an indignant cry the girls had rushed on her. Dropping both her air of command and her dignity, Billie scurried wildly around the room, keeping the desks between her and her pursuers.

"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" she taunted them, as she dodged nimbly in and out among the desks. "I could keep this up all day, I could—"

"Oh, you could, could you?" cried Laura, and, making a desperate lunge, she almost had her hand on Billie's dress. "We'll see about that. Billie! what are you doing?"

For Billie had suddenly doubled on her tracks, rushed to the back of the room, put her foot upon a steam radiator pipe and was trying to clamber to the top of a bookcase.

It was a tall bookcase, and on the top of it stood a marble statue.

"Billie, look out!" screamed Violet as the bookcase shook and the statue seemed about to topple over by reason of Billie's wild scrambling.

"You won't catch me this time," Billie was defying them, when—the awful thing happened!

The marble statue toppled once more, trembled as though it were not quite sure whether to fall or stay where it was, then came tumbling to the floor with a crash.

The girls cried out, and then stood dumbly looking at the pieces.

CHAPTER II

THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS

Billie Bradley clambered down from her perch in awed silence.

"Girls," she said, her voice very low and solemn, "that 'Girl Reading a Book' statue was worth a hundred dollars."

The girls started, and Laura cried out:

"How do you know it cost that much?"

"I heard Miss Beggs say so," Billie replied dully. "Now I certainly have done it. Girls, what shall I do?"

"It—it couldn't be put together again, could it?" suggested Violet weakly, leaning down to examine the pieces.

"Of course it couldn't," sniffed Laura, adding suddenly: "I suppose we could run away and nobody would know the dif—"

"Look," cried Billie, excitedly pointing to one of the windows.

Following the direction of her glance the girls were just in time to see the freckled face and mean little eyes of Amanda Peabody disappear from the window.

"Oh, that sneak!" cried Laura in a rage, rushing across to the window while the other girls followed close at her heels. "I wish I were a boy and she were another one. I'd just show her!"

"Well, now she will tell and we couldn't run away even if we wanted to," said Billie, sinking down on a bench and looking at them wistfully. "Of course we wouldn't really have wanted to," she added, after a minute of uncomfortable silence. "Only it makes me mad to have to do the right thing. Oh, I don't see why somebody doesn't run that Amanda person out of town," she went on, doubling up her fists and looking as if it might have been just as well for that "Amanda person" that she was not there at the minute.

"Teddy says he calls her 'Nanny,'" said Violet, with a flash of humor, "because it 'gets her goat.'"

"Sounds just like Ted," said Billie, with a smile. Then her face sobered again as she realized the gravity of the situation.

"Of course I'll have to make it good," she said, going over to the pieces again and regarding them mournfully. "But how in the world am I ever going to get together a hundred dollars? It might just as well be a thousand as far as I'm concerned." The last was a wail.

"Won't your father give you the money?" asked Laura, for to Laura's father a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.

But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.

"He would if he could," she said, "but I heard him say only the other day that times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know he is worried. Oh, girls, I'm in a terrible fix!"

"I know you are, honey," said Violet, coming over and putting a comforting arm about her. "But there must be some way that we can fix things all right."

"I'd like to know how," grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomy view. "We might," she added generously, after a moment's thought, "say that I broke it—"

"Laura—dear!" cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended or grateful for the generous suggestion. "It's wonderful of you, of course, but you know I couldn't do that."

"And there's Amanda Peabody," added Violet. "She wouldn't let us get away with anything like that."

At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.

"Well," cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to look hopeful, "I suppose it won't do any good to stand here and look at the pieces. Besides," she added with a start, "we've been here a terribly long time, and we don't want the janitor to lock us in."

They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ran back and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.

"What are you going to do?" asked Violet, regarding her curiously.

"What does it look as if I were doing?" asked Billie, reaching for an old newspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket. "I might as well have the evidence of my crime. Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs."

"Do you know where she lives?" asked Laura, stooping and helping Billie at her task.

"She sent me there one time to get some papers," Billie explained, as she rose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package. "It's a boarding house on Main Street, only a few blocks from here."

"Shall we go there now?" asked Violet as they closed the door softly behind them and started down the hall.

"We might as well," answered Billie, with a sigh. "The sooner I get it over with, the better I'll feel. But oh, that hundred dollars!"

"Never mind, we'll get it if we have to steal it," said Laura firmly, as they came out into the flower-sweet air.

"That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," remarked Violet, at which the girls had to laugh.

As they swung out through the gate they met Mr. Heegan coming in, and he smiled at them from under his bushy brows.

"Did you get what you were after comin' for?" he asked them.

"Yes. And something we didn't come for," answered Billie, while the color flooded her face and she felt like a criminal. She smiled a wry little smile and displayed the newspaper package.

"Meanin'—" Mr. Heegan began, puzzled.

"I—I broke a statue that was on the bookcase," explained Billie. "We were skylarking—"

"And many's the time I've done the same in my day," said Mr. Heegan, with a nod, looking not nearly as shocked as the girls thought he would. "And sure, what are you made young for, if it wasn't that you was meant to be skylarkin' all the time?"

The girls looked at each other. This strange sentiment had never occurred to them before, but they found it very comforting, nevertheless.

"But—but," stammered Billie, "this statue cost a hundred dollars. And it was given to Miss Beggs by a rich uncle."

"Well, all I have to say is, that any one who would spend a hundred dollars on a statue," said Mr. Heegan, "deserves to have it broken on him."

And having delivered himself of this surprising comment, the janitor saluted and ambled off into the school yard, leaving the girls to look after him with laughing eyes.

"You know I just love Irishmen," remarked Billie with emphasis, as they started on their way once more.

In thoughtful silence, they walked the remaining three blocks to the boarding house where Miss Beggs lived.

"This is it," said Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-story brick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearance of a typical boarding house.

"Just like Miss Beggs," Billie was conscious of thinking.

"Well, let's go up," urged Laura, as Billie showed no inclination to move. "We might as well get the agony over with."

"All right, come on," cried Billie, running ahead of them and taking two steps at a time. "As Dad says: 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one.'"

The end of this quotation brought them to the porch, and Billie looked for the bell.

"Now then," she said, and braced herself for the ordeal.

A stout, middle-aged person, without any of the outward characteristics that are so often bestowed upon landladies in general, opened the door and looked at them inquiringly.

"Is there some one you wish to see?" she asked them.

"Yes," replied Billie in a weak little voice. "I would like to see Miss—Miss Beggs if she is at home."

"She isn't," said the middle-aged person. "She went away for the summer two days ago."

"Did she leave any address?" Billie managed to ask.

"No, she didn't; but I guess I could find out from one of the other ladies who is a friend of hers," the woman volunteered obligingly. "That is, if it's very particular," she added.

"Oh, yes it is," said Billie earnestly. "I would be very much obliged if you could get me her address."

"Well, I can't just now, because the lady that knows it isn't at home. But if you'll leave me your address I'll send it to you as soon's I find it out. Have you paper and pencil?"

The girls had not.

"Wait then, and I'll get something on which to write your address."

The landlady went inside, closing the door after her, and in spite of herself Billie uttered a little sigh of relief. She felt very much like a reprieved criminal.

A moment later the woman reappeared with a pencil and paper and painstakingly wrote down the address Billie gave her.

"Thank you so much," said the latter, as she turned away. "You won't forget to send it just the first minute you can, will you?"

The woman nodded and closed the door with a little bang.

"I wonder why she didn't ask us in," said Laura, as they ran down the steps. "It was queer to keep us waiting outside."

"Yes, it makes you feel like a book agent," chuckled Billie. "But oh, girls," she added, "I didn't know how much I dreaded facing Miss Beggs till I found out I didn't have to. I don't mind writing to her nearly so much."

With somewhat lighter steps and lighter hearts they turned toward home. But Billie could not get the hundred-dollar statue which she had broken out of her mind.

"I feel," said Laura, as they were turning the corner into her own street, "as if I ought to pay for that horrid old statue, Billie."

"What do you mean?" queried Billie, while Violet regarded her with wide open eyes.

"Well, if it hadn't been for me and my old book," she explained, "we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't have gotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty," she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help you pay for it, Billie."

Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.

"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," she chided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't make me put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the world am I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"

CHAPTER III

CHET HELPS

The sun was flooding Billie Bradley's room when she awoke the next morning, and she sat up in bed with the feeling that it must be very late. She glanced at the little clock on the dresser and saw that its hands pointed to half past eight.

"Oh, I'll be late to school," was her first thought. Then she checked herself and laughed.

"School!" she said, stretching her arms above her head with a delicious sense of freedom. "As the old man said: 'They ain't no sech animile.' I guess I might just as well get up, though, for I feel as if I were starving to death."

She was just putting her feet into very pretty bedroom slippers when she remembered the tragedy—or so it seemed to her—of the day before.

The long night's rest had driven from her mind all thoughts of the statue. Was it really only yesterday that she had broken it? The thing seemed to have been on her conscience forever!

"'Girl Reading a Book,'" she said disdainfully, as she began to brush her hair vigorously. "Horrid old thing! I suppose she was a grind anyway, like Amanda Peabody."

The thought of Amanda did not serve to lift her spirits any, and it was in a rather gloomy mood that she finally descended to the breakfast table.

To make things worse, she found that all the rest of her family, including Chet, had breakfasted bright and early, which meant that she would have to eat her breakfast in lonely state.