The Mystery of the School by the Lake

By MAY HOLLIS BARTON

Author of "The Girl from the Country," "Plain Jane and Pretty Betty," etc.

NEW YORK CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1926, by Cupples & Leon Company

Three Girl Chums at Laurel Hall

Made in the U. S. A.

CHAPTER I

JO'S TROUBLE

"Jo! You never mean it!"

Nan Harrison regarded the dark-haired girl with dismay.

"I'm afraid I do," said Jo Morley miserably. "You don't hate it any more than I do, Nan!"

"You said you couldn't go with us to Laurel Hall," said the third of the trio, repeating the statement made by Jo Morley a moment before as though she still could not credit it. "Why, Jo, it was only yesterday we were talking over our plans for boarding school! You expected to go then, didn't you?"

"Of course I did! I learned the awful news only last night!"

Over Jo's dark head Nan Harrison and Sadie Appleby exchanged frowning glances. Then Nan slipped a coaxing arm within Jo's.

"Suppose you tell us all about it, Jo," she said. "It's the worst news in the world, of course, but we might as well hear it now as later."

"I hardly understand about it myself, yet," said poor Jo, with a telltale quiver of her lips. "But it has something to do with Dad's business. He's had a heavy money loss, as he calls it, and—and he can't afford to send me away to boarding school. That's all."

"All!" echoed Nan Harrison, aghast. "It's enough! Why, Jo, if you can't go to Laurel Hall it will just spoil everything! I don't want to go at all!"

"Nor I!" said Sadie Appleby.

The three girls walked along moodily for a distance, pondering this unexpected change in their prospects.

Nan Harrison, the tallest of the three chums, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, a fine specimen of the athletic schoolgirl. Jo Morley formed a rather striking contrast to Nan in that her hair and eyes were as dark as Nan's were fair. Jo was small, too, and as lithe and active on her feet as a little cat.

Sadie Appleby, on the other hand, was rather a cross between the two, being of medium height, and having light brown hair and gray eyes.

The three girls had been chums all through the years of grammar school. It was their boast that nothing and nobody could separate them, that where one went the other two were sure to follow.

The happy association of grammar school days at an end, they had planned to go together to famous Laurel Hall boarding school which was situated about two hundred miles west of their home town of Woodford.

Their names had been entered with Miss Jane Romaine, the presiding head of Laurel Hall, a year before the delightful, late-summer day on which poor Jo was breaking her news to her dismayed chums. It was a well known fact that there was always a waiting list of those who aspired to enter the select portals of Laurel Hall, and that not all who applied were admitted.

So there was great rejoicing on the part of the three girls when their parents had received word from Miss Romaine that their applications had been accepted and that the girls' names had been enrolled among those who would enter the following fall.

It would be such great fun! The three chums had looked forward to it as such a marvelous experience! And now all their happy plans must be overshadowed by this inexplicable statement of Jo's in regard to her father's business!

"Maybe your father didn't mean it," said Sadie, a desperate gleam of hope in her eye. "Maybe he was just fooling you."

Jo shook her head gravely.

"That isn't Dad's idea of a joke, Sadie," she said. "If you could have seen him when he told me," she added, with a miserable little shake of the head, "you wouldn't think he was joking!"

"Is it very bad, Jo?" Nan bent down and tried to peer into her chum's downcast face. "Your father was always well off. Surely, he can't have lost every cent of his money at once!"

Again Jo shook her head, frowning.

"I tell you, I don't understand about it altogether, Nan," she answered. "Dad was so blue last night that I didn't like to question him much."

"How did he come to tell you about it?" Sadie insisted.

The shadow of trouble deepened on Jo's face, and for a moment she walked on between the two girls in silence, her eyes on the ground.

"It was last night after dinner," she said finally, speaking rapidly as though she did not like to remember the scene she was about to describe. "I was raving on about Laurel Hall and wishing the last days of vacation would fly a little faster so that we could start in there when Dad turned around and looked at me. There was—there was a look on his face that frightened me!"

For a time Sadie and Nan said nothing; just stared at Jo with a tragic expression.

"Well—" prompted Nan at last.

"Well," Jo sighed, "he told me I'd better not count too much on going to Laurel Hall. At first I thought it must be a joke, but when I saw Mother over in a corner crying into one of Dad's pocket handkerchiefs, I saw it was all true enough."

"But what did he say?" persisted Sadie, who was always insatiable for details.

"Just what I told you before. That he had been unfortunate in business and had lost a great deal of money, and that he couldn't afford to send me away to school. Poor old Dad, he took it pretty hard, too. So did Mother. I wish there was something I could do to help."

"Same here!" said Nan unhappily. "This is awful, Jo!"

"It's positive cruelty to animals," agreed Sadie. "I think I'll sit right down when I get home and write out a resignation to Miss Jane Romaine. I shan't stir a step if you don't, Jo, and that settles it!"

"I'm not a dog in the manger," said Jo, with a mirthless smile. "It won't help me any to have your good time spoiled."

"Our good time!" cried Nan. "As if it wasn't spoiled already if you can't go with us! I can't believe the awful truth yet. I simply can't!"

The three girls had been for a hike out into the country. Now they realized suddenly that it was getting late, and they turned their steps toward home.

They walked on for a considerable distance in silence, each busy with her own thoughts. Suddenly Nan spoke.

"We've got troubles at home, too, though of course they are nothing like yours, Jo," she said. "Dad has money enough yet, thank goodness! But poor Aunt Emma—" she paused and a shadow clouded her face.

Jo and Sadie knew of Nan's Aunt Emma, although they had seen very little of the maiden lady who lived with the Harrisons. The latter was half-paralyzed, an all but helpless invalid. Week after week, month after month, she sat in her wheeled chair near the window of her room, reading, sewing, or sitting idle, hands clasped in her lap looking out upon a scene of which she could never again hope to be an active part. So now when Nan spoke the invalid's name Jo and Sadie were all sympathy.

"Why, what's the matter with your Aunt Emma—worse than usual, I mean?" asked Jo.

"You look so dreadfully sad, Nan," added Sadie.

Nan shook her head.

"It's enough to make any one sad, to see that poor patient woman sitting there week after week and year after year, watching other people do what she is crazy to do herself. But that isn't the worst. Lately, it seems to us," Nan paused and stared at the girls tragically, "as if poor Aunt Emma were losing her mind!"

The girls cried out, shocked:

"Oh, Nan, you never mean that!"

"The few times I have spoken to her she seemed unusually quick-witted," protested Jo.

Nan nodded.

"She doesn't talk much any more, though, and when she does she says—funny things. Too much brooding, Dad says. He believes that if something would only happen to shock her out of this state of mind and give her a new interest in life, she might have a chance. As it is, we are all dreadfully worried about her."

They had been walking slowly toward town.

"If we want to get home in time for dinner," Sadie observed, "I guess we'll just about have to run!"

They did run, but on reaching the outskirts of the town they slowed their progress to a quick but decorous walk. They had not gone more than two or three blocks, however, when Jo stopped and sniffed the air in a curious manner.

"What's wrong with you?" Sadie wanted to know. "You look like a pointer dog."

"Thanks for the comparison," retorted Jo. "Does anybody smell smoke?"

"Yes! And I see it, too!" Nan pointed toward a cloud of smoke that curled lazily skyward. "It looks as though it came from my street! Girls, it can't be our house!"

The girls turned the corner of the street and found that their worst fears were justified. Smoke was rolling in gray clouds from the windows of the Harrison house!

"It seems to be downstairs!" gasped Nan.

The girls ran swiftly toward the house, but as they reached it a sound came to them that chilled their blood. They stared at each other, white-faced, desperate. For that sound had been a cry for help!

Nan pointed to an upper window.

"Aunt Emma's room!" she cried. "The fire has reached her room! She will die like a rat in a trap! Girls, we've got to get her out! We've got to!"

Again from the room above came that fearful, heartbreaking cry.

"Help! Oh, help!"

CHAPTER II

FIRE!

The three girls dashed to the front door of the Harrison house but were met and driven back by a cloud of smoke.

"The dining room's full of it!" cried Nan. "Probably the stairs are afire!"

"We'll have to reach the room from the outside," declared Jo.

Ever the leader in moments when level head and quick action were needed, Jo Morley looked about her.

Painters had been at work on the outside of the house. These had finished their day's work, but had left behind them some paint cans, an empty bucket or two, and a long ladder.

The three girls saw it at the same instant, but Jo was the first to reach it.

Together they raised the heavy ladder and with much straining effort brought it around to the rear of the house.

The cries of the invalid could still be heard, but they were becoming terrifyingly faint and weak.

"Oh, hurry, hurry!" almost sobbed Nan. "If we don't reach her soon it will be too late——"

"You two stay here and hold the ladder!" Jo commanded briskly. "I'm going up!"

"No, Jo! Let me go!" cried Nan.

But Jo Morley was already half way up the ladder, scaling it like a monkey.

Fortunately, a shed stretched beneath one window of the invalid's room. This shed had been added to the house after construction, and was used by the Harrisons as a pantry. The roof of the shed, Jo noticed swiftly, was almost level.

"There's luck, anyway!" she thought, as she hopped nimbly from the ladder to the shed roof and ran over toward the open window.

A cloud of smoke rolled from this aperture, suffocating smoke that caught in Jo's throat and choked her. She turned aside for a moment, drew in a long breath of clean, cool air, then plunged bravely through the window into the room beyond.

The smoke stung her eyes. Blinded, Jo groped with feverish hands.

"Miss Emma!" she cried. "Where are you? Help me to find you!"

"Here I am—right here!"

The voice, though faint, was close to her. Jo turned sharply and stumbled over a chair. Her tortured eyes saw dimly a figure straining toward her.

"Help me out! Help me out! This smoke! I can't fight it any longer!"

Jo's strong young arms went about the slender, wasted figure in the chair.

"If you can put your arm over my shoulders—that's it! Now I'll have you out in a jiffy!"

Jo spoke more confidently than she felt. The smoke swirled about her like a living thing; it robbed her of sight; it sapped her strength. To carry this helpless invalid to the safety of the shed roof seemed at the moment utterly beyond her power.

"I can't do it! I can't do it!" she cried. Then, with a sudden stiffening of her will: "I will do it!"

Even in her torment of mind and body, Jo found time to wonder why there was no flame.

"All smoke and no fire!" she thought.

She wound her arms more tightly about the invalid. A sudden sagging of the woman's weight frightened her. A quick glance confirmed her fear. Aunt Emma had fainted!

Jo summoned all her strength and staggered with her burden toward the square of window. She could not lift the invalid; could only drag her step by step away from the torment of the smoke-filled room.

What if the woman was dead? She was so heavy!

Jo's throat was parched. The blood pounded in her temples. Tears from her tortured eyes ran down her face.

Only a step more——

She reached the sill. Gasping, she rested her burden on the sill for a moment, striving for breath. A cloud of smoke rolled over her, stifling, blinding.

Suppose Miss Emma were dead! One breath of fresh air——

Jo tried to lift the unconscious woman across the sill. Useless! Her strength had deserted her. Her head whirled dizzily. Only the grip of her hand on the window sill kept her on her feet.

"Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do?" she cried aloud in her impotence. "Help me, some one! Help me!"

As though in answer to her cry, a figure appeared on the shed outside the window.

"Jo, have you got her?" The voice was Nan's.

Jo cried in an agony of relief:

"Oh, I'm so glad you came, glad! Can you help me get her over the window sill?"

Some one else was on the shed, and Jo knew vaguely that it was Sadie. They had both come to help her. Well, it was just in the nick of time!

Between them, the chums managed to get the unconscious woman over the window sill and on to the shed roof outside. Jo, relieved of her burden, scrambled over herself.

She stood there for a moment breathing in deep breaths of the pure evening air. Then she looked toward the invalid.

The latter was stretched out on the shed, her head pillowed on Nan's arm. Nan was crying over and over again that they had come too late; that her aunt was dead.

Sadie looked on dumbly at the scene, frightened and not knowing just how to help.

Jo pushed her aside and knelt beside the invalid.

"She isn't dead. Look, Nan. She's breathing, and there's color in her face!"

Nan's face brightened and she raised the helpless head that rested on her arm.

"If we could only get her down off this shed!" Sadie Appleby was looking nervously at the black smoke that rolled from the window. "The fire may break out any minute!"

"How are we going to get her down the ladder?" Nan waved her hand helplessly. "Not one of us is strong enough and there's no one else in sight."

She was wrong there. Jo ran to the edge of the shed and pointed excitedly.

"Here comes your maid, Nan!" she cried. "And there's a man with her. We'll have help now!"

Annie, the Harrison's hired girl, who had been gossiping with the man of all work at the home of the Jamesons, some distance down the street, had seen the smoke from the Harrison house and had hurried to see what was wrong.

Annie was suddenly conscience-stricken and wretchedly frightened.

"And Miss Emma up in that room all by herself and her not able to move hand or foot!" she wailed. "I should 'a' knowed better than to leave her alone, I should! And the worst of the smoke, it's coming from Miss Emma's room!" the half-hysterical Annie wailed, as, followed by the man, she drew nearer. "She's dead by this time! Sure I know it to my sorrow and all the fault o' Annie O'Brien! I wisht I was dead, that I do!"

Nan poked her head over the edge of the shed.

"Stop that noise, Annie! Aunt Emma's safe. And if you've got a good strong man down there, for goodness sake, send him up!"

CHAPTER III

THE RESCUE

The strong man demanded by Nan was forthcoming, the same with whom Annie had been gossiping to the peril of Miss Emma Harrison left alone and helpless in the burning house.

He proved to be an exceedingly strong man, and the girls were lost in admiration at the masterly manner in which he carried Miss Emma down the ladder and placed her in the arms of the penitent Annie.

Annie stood five feet eleven and a half in her stocking feet and was as strong as a man. She held the frail invalid as easily as though she had been a child, and, to do her justice, as tenderly.

Having seen Miss Emma safe, the hired man rejoined the three excited girls on the roof of the shed.

"What's going on here?" he demanded roughly. "Where's the fire?"

"There doesn't seem to be any," said Jo, remembering her bewildered thankfulness over the absence of flames in Aunt Emma's room. "It seems to be all smoke."

"Humph!" grunted the hired man.

He went to the end of the shed and called to some small boys who were beginning to gather. The house was set in a big garden and nobody else was in sight.

"One of you kids run to the next house and send in an alarm to the fire department," he commanded, then returned to where the girls were watching him eagerly.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to tie it over his nose.

"What are you going to do?" demanded Sadie Appleby.

"Don't go in there!" Nan begged, catching the man's arm eagerly. "The house must be all on fire inside! You will be burned to death!"

"If there was flames, you'd have seen 'em before this," the man retorted. He brushed Nan aside, flung a leg over the sill, and the next moment disappeared within the room.

Jo, eager to explore the mystery for herself, was about to follow him recklessly when Nan seized her arm and drew her back.

"No, you don't!" cried the latter. "You have been in danger enough for one day, Jo Morley. Stay where you are!"

Even then Jo might have persisted in her attempt to enter the house, had not her anxiety for the invalid been greater than her curiosity.

"Let's get down to the ground," she proposed. "Maybe we can get into the house by the front way now. And I want to see how your Aunt Emma is, Nan."

Jo scaled down the ladder like the monkey she was on things of the sort, and the other girls followed more slowly.

On reaching the ground they found that the invalid had been taken by Annie down the road to the Jamesons' for first aid.

"But is she alive and all right?" asked Nan, shaking her informant impatiently.

The latter, a lad of about fourteen and conscious of his dignity, replied coldly:

"Oh, she's all right—no thanks to that hired girl of yours though. If I was you, I'd give her the bounce before she's a couple of hours older, that's what I'd do!"

The girls did not stop for further observations on the delinquency of Annie, but joined a group of people who were gathering on the Harrisons' front porch.

Some of these had tried to force their way into the house, but had been driven back by the clouds of smoke.

"Looks like the whole place would go up," one of them said and received a warning glance from the neighbors as Nan and her chums ran up on the porch.

One of the men, an old harness maker, barred the girls' way as they were about to enter the house.

"Better not go in there," said the harness maker, who was a kindly old man and had long been a pleasant neighbor of the Harrisons'. "There's too much smoke. It would choke you."

"A lot of smoke, but no fire!" cried Nan wonderingly. "I don't understand. Where are the flames?"

Jo, who was beginning to entertain a theory as to the true origin of the smoke, spoke with an air of decision.

"I know one thing, and that is that if the man who went in Aunt Emma's window doesn't come out soon, some one will have to go in and drag him out. He can't stand that smoke very long. I've been in it—and I know!"

"Looks like you'd been down the chimbley," chirped an old man with a wrinkled, parchment-like face and a back bent like a bow. "You got plenty of soot on you, that's one thing sartain, young woman."

"But don't you see? Some one must go in and get that man!" Jo cried desperately. "He may be lying somewhere unconscious this minute. If some one doesn't get him out, he'll die!"

She tried again to get by the man who blocked the doorway.

"Gently, gently!" cried the latter, holding her back. "I'll get him for you, Miss."

The man drew a red-spotted bandana handkerchief from his pocket and began to tie it over his nose and mouth. As he did so a smoke-stained, wild-eyed figure burst through the cloud of smoke and stood swaying in the doorway. At the same moment the clanging of a bell down the road warned all of the approach of the fire engine.

The Jamesons' hired man ripped the handkerchief from over his nose, still holding to the door to steady himself.