the last twenty years:

"Hi-hi-hi; hi-hi-hi; Oakdale, Oakdale, HIGH SCHOOL!"

As she expected, the call was answered immediately, and some of the loiterers along the highway vaulted the fence at one bound.

"Help!" cried all the girls in chorus. "Help! Help!"

"It's some of the High School boys!" exclaimed Nora, in a relieved voice as the rescuers came bounding through the orchard.

The tramps looked irresolute for a moment, but when they saw that the newcomers were five boys they held their ground.

"What do you want?" said the tallest boy, with a flaming head of red hair, as he confronted one of the tramps.

"Thank heaven it's Reddy Brooks, pitcher on the sophomore baseball team!" whispered Grace, unable to conceal her joy.

"Is that any of your business, young man?" demanded the tramp, showing his teeth like an angry dog.

"It's my business to protect these young ladies," answered Reddy Brooks, "and I'll do it if I have to shed somebody's blood in the attempt."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the big tramp, clapping his hands to his sides and almost dancing a jig in his amusement.

In the meantime Reddy had cast his eyes about for some kind of a weapon. There was not a stick nor stone in sight. The only thing he could find was a pile of winter apples that had evidently been collected by the owner of the orchard to be barreled next day.

Reddy made a rush for the pile, to the amazement of his fellow-students, who imagined for a moment that he was running away. They soon found out his purpose, however, when the apples came whizzing through the air with well-aimed precision.

The first one hit the biggest tramp squarely on the chin and almost stunned him. Each boy then chose his man and the five ruffians were soon running across the orchard to the wood, the boys after them, their pockets bulging with apples. Laughing and yelling like wild Indians, they pelted their victims until the men disappeared in the forest.

The girls, who had forgotten their fright in the excitement of the chase, were laughing, too, and urging on the attacks exactly as they would have done at one of the college football games. Perhaps they had had a narrow escape, but it was great fun, now, especially when Reddy Brooks threw one of his famous curved balls and hit a tramp plump on the back of the head.

"Oh," cried Nora, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, "I never had such a good time in all my life! Wasn't it great?"

"Wasn't it though?" grinned Reddy, as the boys returned from the field of victory. "Lots more fun than throwing balls at dummies at the county fair, wasn't it, fellows?"

"You girls ought to be careful how you walk out here alone at this time of the year," said Jimmie Burke. "There are a great many tramps around now, going south in bunches to spend the winter in Palm Beach, no doubt."

"We'll never do it again," answered Grace.

"Never again!" exclaimed Nora, raising her right hand to heaven.

"I suppose Farmer Smithson will wonder what became of his apples," observed Reddy.

"Oh, well, he has so many acres of orchards, I don't suppose he'll miss this one little pile."

And the crowd started gayly off to town.

But the girls of the freshman class had not forgotten—or forgiven—the Black Monks of Asia.

All along the walk Grace was turning over and over in her mind some scheme of revenge. Nothing seemed feasible, however. The sophomores were so well up in tricks that it would be difficult to deceive them.

"Suppose," Grace proposed suddenly, aloud, "we ask David Nesbit's advice to-morrow night, when we go to the flying machine exhibition."

After that she dismissed the subject from her mind for the time being.