Teddy and Chet stood watching the girls as they trudged through the clinging snow, and when they turned away their faces were unusually sober.

"That's a plucky thing to do," said Teddy admiringly. "But I bet they would never have had the nerve to do it if Billie hadn't set them up to it."

"Billie's some cla.s.s, isn't she?" Chet took him up eagerly. "Just look how she jumped in front of the Codfish. She might have been shot, but she never even thought of it. Say," he added, his chest swelling visibly with pride, "I've always thought I'd like a brother; but Billie's as good as a brother, any day."

"She's a sight better," Teddy contradicted fervently.

Tired but hopeful, the girls trudged the remaining distance to town and started up the main street toward the one big hotel in Molata. They strung down the street in what seemed an endless line, and people pa.s.sing stared wonderingly and turned around for another look when the girls had pa.s.sed them.

People gathered at the windows and in the door-ways to look at the strange procession, but the girls were too tired and hungry to notice them.

When they filed into the big summer hotel lobby, how the clerk at the desk and the few men gathered about did stare! A hundred girls, all pretty and daintily dressed, but seeming, by their suitcases and their clothes which were powdered thick with clinging wet snow, to have walked a good distance, were sure to create a sensation.

The girls hung back, realizing for the first time how they must appear to strangers and not quite certain just what to do next. But, as usual, Billie took the lead.

She went toward the clerk with an uncertain, apologetic little smile that would have softened a much harder heart than his and said that she would like to engage rooms for herself and her friends.

Be it said to the credit of the clerk, who was rather a nice looking boy with sand colored hair and eyes to match, that he did not even smile.

Soberly he asked Billie how many rooms she would need, and Billie turned to the girls rather helplessly. Then it was Caroline Brant who came to her aid.

"We can sleep three in a room," she said, regarding the clerk gravely through her horn-rimmed spectacles. "So you can figure out just how many we'll need."

"If we could have cots put in the rooms," Billie ventured, "we could get more than three in one room."

"All right," the clerk answered, still unsmiling, while several people had gathered around and were looking on with interest. "If you don't mind cots I guess I can fix you up all right. It's lucky that it's winter," he added, a little twinkle creeping into his nice eyes, "and that the hotel isn't crowded, or we might have to turn somebody out."

He watched the girls go up the stairway to the rooms above--for they had decided they would rather walk than wait for the elevator--then turned to one of the men lounging near with a chuckle.

"Nice kids," he said, regarding the signatures in the big book before him written in unmistakably girlish hands. "If they weren't dressed so well, I'd say it was an orphan asylum out for an airing."

Meanwhile the girls had decided that they were more hungry than they were tired, and so merely stopped to drop their bags in their rooms and brush a little of the clinging snow from their clothing before setting forth in search of food.

They had decided to separate into groups and to eat in different places so as not to attract too much attention, and they were gathered on the sidewalk in front of the hotel wondering just what to do next when suddenly one of the girls gave a startled cry.

"Girls--no, it isn't--yes, it is!" she cried, clutching the girl beside her hysterically. "Look! There's Miss Walters!"

"Where?"

"Oh, it can't be!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, there she is! There she is!"

And Miss Walters--for it was indeed she--attracted by the hubbub as were some other pa.s.sersby, looked at the girls first curiously, then in astounded amazement. To her startled vision it seemed as if all the girls in the world were gathered there on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. And they were her girls--the girls of Three Towers Hall!

She hurried forward, feeling that the next moment she must wake up and find it all a dream, and the girls surged around her in an eager flood.

They were so wildly surprised and joyful at the unexpected meeting that they were almost ready to get down on their knees and thank the fates who had sent her to them just when they needed her most.

They all started to talk at once, but Miss Walters, having recovered a little from her first surprise and seeing that a curious crowd was beginning to gather, spoke to them authoritatively.

"Come inside," she said. "I can't imagine what has brought you here like this, but we certainly can't talk about it in the street."

She led the way through the doorway and into the hotel lobby, which was fortunately deserted. Then she sank down upon a couch and the girls gathered eagerly around her.

"Now suppose one of you tell me the meaning of all this," said Miss Walters, her blue eyes a little hard and accusing. She had no idea what had happened, but she knew that if the girls were responsible for this unheard of proceeding it would go hard with them. Miss Walters was fair and just, and because she was just she could be sternness itself where any disobedience on the part of the girls was concerned.

As for the girls themselves, all their old fears of expulsion came back at this att.i.tude of their president, and they looked rather helplessly at each other.

Then Connie Danvers nudged Billie and whispered something in her ear.

And Billie bravely did as she was asked, although, as she afterward said, her knees were trembling under her.

"Miss Walters," she began hesitatingly, as Miss Walters turned a steady gaze upon her, "I can explain why we are here and everything that has happened since you left--if you will let me," she finished rather timidly.

"That is just what I want you to do," said Miss Walters gravely.

As Billie told her story Miss Walters' expression changed, became less stern, and she leaned forward in amazement.

"You say that some of the girls were faint and sick from lack of food?"

she asked once incredulously. "Why, it's--it's incredible. But go on,"

she interrupted herself impatiently. "What happened then?"

When Billie told of the raid, her imprisonment in the little room, her escape, and finally the decision of the girls to leave Three Towers and come to the hotel until Miss Walters' return, the latter jumped to her feet, her face flushing angrily.

"I'm glad I came just when I did," she said. "I was tempted to stay longer, but something told me that I might be needed, and that something was right. Come, girls, we'll hire all the taxis in town if we have to, and private automobiles, too, and get back to Three Towers immediately."

"We'll have to get our baggage," Billie suggested timidly.

"Your baggage?" queried Miss Walters absently, her mind on what she would do when she reached Three Towers.

"Yes, we left our bags in our rooms upstairs."

"Your rooms?" Miss Walters asked, then added with a compa.s.sionate smile that made her seem more beautiful than ever to the adoring girls: "Why, of course, you poor children! I forgot that you expected to stay over night. All right, run up and get your bags while I see the room clerk and about getting us back to Three Towers."

The girls never forgot that triumphant ride back to Three Towers through the snow. Nor did they forget what happened afterward.

Miss Ada and Miss Cora Dill and the other teachers saw them coming, and Miss Cora's lips tightened grimly. She was the first to greet Miss Walters at the door.

"Go up to your dormitories, girls," said Miss Walters, hardly glancing at the teachers. "We will have lunch in half an hour--a real lunch. Just a minute," she called, as the girls started jubilantly off. "I'd like to speak to Beatrice Bradley in my private office immediately."

Billie came back, wondering just what was going to happen next, while Laura picked up the suitcase she had dropped and hurriedly followed the other girls.

Then Miss Walters turned to the teachers.

"Will you all come with me into my office?" she asked. "There is a very important matter which I must attend to before I do anything else."