THE old bell in the tower of North Main had slowly settled to
repose with a long-drawn murmur of satisfaction that it
had once more performed its duty in warning the young
ladies in the Dormitory, at the farther side of the campus, that
it was time to retire. One by one the lights went out, until only
a few faint gleams flecked the massive front of Huling’s Hall, or,
as the boys called it, the “Spoon Holder.”
The matron had completed her tour of inspection, and, as the
faint sound of a closing door announced that she had reached her
room and that the coast was clear, a white robed figure stole
from one of the rooms on third floor and skipped noislessly to
the head of the stairs, paused a moment to listen, and then stole
down the hall, stopping here and there to tap gently on a door)
when, as if by magic, other ghostly figures crept out and joined
the first. At the end of the hall they paused, the leader turned
to count her followers, then, as everything appeared satisfactory,
the procession moved back up the dimly-lighted hall and was soon
congregated in one of the cosy rooms. As soon as the door was
closed, Winnie Sterret, a dark-haired little sphinx, whose be
witching black eyes were always dancing with merriment, broke
the silence. “Girls, I’m so tired of this everlasting grinding;
we haven’t done one thing this term to break the monotony, and
this is such a lovely night for a lark; let’s get out and do some
thing real desperate, something shocking. What shall we do?”
“ Mildew,” piped a voice from the corner, and the owner was
promptly smothered under a pile of cushions.
“Oh, girls, I’ve a jolly scheme, and surely it’s desperate
enough to suit any of you,” asserted Maud Ashly, a lively girl
who always stood at the head of her class, and was just as surely
to be found in everything that happened in the institution.
‘ ‘ Brother Tom just told me this afternoon that a crowd of Hanford
College men, out on a surveying trip, are camping down on the
west shore of the lake. Eet’s steal a boat and sail down to