“Oh well, my dear,” said Ruth, teasingly, “there are many things in this life it is better you should not know. Ahem! I’m going to see Rebecca.”
Helen ran off, too, to Sarah Blanchard’s room. Many of the girls’ doors were ajar and there was much visiting back and forth on this last evening; while the odor of tea permeated every nook and cranny of Dare Hall.
Rebecca’s door was closed, however, as Ruth expected. Rebecca Frayne was not as yet socially popular at Ardmore – not even among the girls of her own class.
In the first place she had come to college with an entirely wrong idea of what opportunities for higher education meant for a girl. Her people were very poor and very proud – a family of old New England stock that looked down upon those who achieved success “in trade.”
Had it not been for Ruth Fielding’s very good sense, and her advice and aid, Rebecca could never have remained at Ardmore to complete her freshman year. During this time, and especially toward the last of the school year, she had learned some things of importance besides what was contained within the covers of her textbooks.
But Ruth worried over the possibility that before their sophomore year should open in September, the influence at home would undo all the good Rebecca Frayne had gained.
“I’ve just the thing for you, Becky!” Ruth Fielding cried, carrying her friend’s study by storm. “What do you think?”
“Something nice, I presume, Ruth Fielding. You always are doing something uncommonly kind for me.”
“Nonsense!”
“No nonsense about it. I was just wondering what I should ever do without you all this long summer.”
“That’s it!” cried Ruth, laughing. “You’re not going to get rid of me so easily.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rebecca, wonderingly.
“That you’ll go with us. I need you badly, Becky. You’ve learned to rattle the typewriter so nicely – ”
“Want me to get an office position for the summer near you?” Rebecca asked, the flush rising in her cheek.
“Better than that,” declared Ruth, ignoring Rebecca’s flush and tone of voice. “You know, I told you we are going West.”
“You and Cameron? Yes.”
“And Jennie Stone, and perhaps others. But I want you particularly.”
“Oh, Ruth Fielding! I couldn’t! You know just how dirt poor we are. It’s all Buddie can do to find the money for my soph year here. No! It is impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible. ‘In the bright lexicon of youth,’ and so forth. You can go if you will.”
“I couldn’t accept such a great kindness, Ruth,” Rebecca said, in her hard voice.
“Better wait till you learn how terribly kind I am,” laughed Ruth. “I have an axe to grind, my dear.”
“An axe!”
“Yes, indeedy! I want you to help me. I really do.”
“To write?” gasped Rebecca. “You know very well, Ruth Fielding, that I can scarcely compose a decent letter. I hate that form of human folly known as ‘Lit-ra-choor.’ I couldn’t do it.”
“No,” said Ruth, smiling demurely. “I am going to write my own scenario. But I will get a portable typewriter, and I want you to copy my stuff. Besides, there will be several copies to make, and some work after the director gets there. Oh, you’ll have no sinecure! And if you’ll go and do it, I’ll put up the money but you’ll be paying all the expenses, Becky. What say?”
Ruth knew very well that if she had offered to pay Rebecca a salary the foolishly proud girl would never have accepted. But she had put it in such a way that Rebecca Frayne could not but accept.
“You dear!” she said, with her arms about Ruth’s neck and displaying as she seldom did the real love she felt for the girl of the Red Mill. “I’ll do it. I’ve an old riding habit of auntie’s that I can make over. And of course, I can ride.”
“You’d better make your habit into bloomers and a divided skirt,” laughed Ruth. “That’s how Jane Ann – and Helen and Jennie, too – will dress, as well as your humble servant. There are women who ride sidesaddle in the West; but they do not ride into the rough trails that we are going to attempt. In fact, most of ’em wear trousers outright.”
“Goodness! My aunt would have a fit,” murmured Rebecca Frayne.
CHAPTER III – THE LETTER FROM YUCCA
Before Dare Hall was quiet that night it was known throughout the dormitory that six girls of the freshman class were going to spend a part of the summer vacation in the wilds of Arizona.
“Like enough we’ll never see any of them again,” declared May MacGreggor. “The female of the species is scarce in ‘them parts,’ I understand. They will all six get married to cowboys, or gold miners, or – ”
“Or movie actors,” snapped Edith Phelps, with a toss of her head. “I presume Fielding is quite familiar with any quantity of ‘juvenile leads’ and ‘stunt’ actors as well as ‘custard-pie comedians.’”
“Oh, behave, Edie!” chuckled the Scotch girl. “I’d love to go with ’em myself, but I must help mother take care of the children this summer. There’s a wild bunch of ‘loons’ at my house.”
Fortunately, Helen Cameron did not hear Edith’s criticism. Helen had a sharp tongue of her own and she had no fear now of the sophomore. Indeed, both Ruth and Helen had quite forgotten over night their suspicions regarding the girl at their study window. They arose betimes and went for a last run around the college grounds in their track suits, as they had been doing for most of the spring. The chums had gone in for athletics as enthusiastically at Ardmore as they had at Briarwood Hall.
Just as they set out from the broad front steps of Dare and rounded the corner of the building toward the west, Ruth stopped with a little cry. There at her feet lay a letter.
“Somebody’s dropped a billet-doux,” said Helen. “Or is it just an envelope?”
Ruth picked it up and turned it over so that she could see its face. “The letter is in it,” she said. “And it’s been opened. Why, Helen!”
“Yes?”
“It’s for Edie Phelps.”
Helen had already glanced upward. “And right under our windows,” she murmured. “I bet she dropped it when – ”
“I suppose she did,” said Ruth, as her chum’s voice trailed off into silence. Suddenly Helen, who was looking at the face of the envelope, gasped.
“Look!” she exclaimed. “See the return address in the corner?”
“Wha – Why, it says: ‘Box 24, R. F. D., Yucca, Arizona!’”
“Yucca, Arizona,” repeated Helen. “Just where we are going. Ruth! there is something very mysterious about this. Do you realize it?”
“It is the oddest thing!” exclaimed Ruth.
“Edith getting letters from out there and then creeping along that ledge under our windows to listen. Well, I’d give a cent to know what’s in that letter.”
“Oh, Helen! We couldn’t,” cried Ruth, quickly, folding the envelope and slipping it between the buttons of her blouse.
“Just the same,” declared her chum, “she was eavesdropping on us. We ought to be excused if we did a little eavesdropping on her by reading her letter.”
But Ruth set off immediately in a good, swinging trot, and Helen had to close her