you think there was anything in what he said?”

“Who said?”

“The taxi-man who drove us here from the station.”

“About what?”

“The orchard. You know he warned us to keep away from it. And if there is something terrible or scary about an orchard so near the college, why, I’m going——”

“You’re going to keep right on walking up!” interrupted Arden with her usual clear-headedness in a critical situation. “If there’s any mystery here at Cedar Ridge we’ll have the time of our lives solving it. But I don’t believe there is. That orchard is no different from any other, except, from what little we saw of it, there seemed to be some fine apples there. Now don’t go making mountains out of the camel in the eye of the needle, or something like that.”

“Oh, all right,” said Terry meekly. “But I was thinking——”

“This is no time to think!” came from Sim. “Use your legs! Whew! Five flights! Is your room this high up, Miss Everett?”

“No, I’m a sophomore. I’m a floor lower than you are. But this is the fourth time I’ve taken freshies up here today. I don’t see why they have to pick on me!”

“Oh, this is too bad!” exclaimed Sim impulsively. “Perhaps if you could have a swim in the pool before dinner tonight you wouldn’t feel so tired.”

To Sim a dive into a pool with sea-green tiles on the bottom was a cure-all and she recommended it at every opportunity.

“Try a swim,” she urged.

Miss Everett came to a sudden stop on a landing and laughed in a manner that could be described only as cynical.

“Listen, freshie!” she exclaimed, “let me tell you something about that pool!”

The three girls looked at their guide apprehensively.

Was there something mysterious about the pool, as the taxi-man had intimated there was about the orchard?

CHAPTER II
Fruit-Cake

Waiting, with the deference they, as freshmen, guessed was due a sophomore, Arden, Terry, and Sim looked at Miss Everett. There was a smile on her lips, but there was no mirth in her words as she went on.

“There’s nobody in the world who could have a swim in that pool!” said the tall blonde girl, and one could only surmise whether there was exultation or vindictiveness in her tones. “A swim in that pool! Don’t make me laugh! Why, Tiddy, our revered head, uses it as a storehouse for cabbages, potatoes, and turnips that come out of the college garden. Swimming pool—ha!”

“Then that accounts for the wheelbarrow,” murmured Sim in a strained voice.

“Wheelbarrow? Oh, yes,” said Miss Everett. “They cart the cabbages, potatoes, and turnips to the pool in the wheelbarrow.”

“And apples?” asked Arden who, as were her chums, had been taken somewhat aback by this information. Yet Arden couldn’t help mentioning apples. She remembered the orchard, about which the taxi-man had so mysteriously hinted and toward which Tom, the porter, had been gazing so steadfastly. What was in the orchard, anyhow? Arden Blake wondered while she waited for the tall blonde girl’s reply.

“Yes, apples in season,” granted Miss Everett. “There’s a big orchard here, a fine orchard, as orchards go, I suppose, though, really, I don’t know much about them. But we have a crabbed old college farmer who seems well up in that work. And there’s Tom.”

“Where?” asked Terry for she saw no signs of the good-looking young fellow in blue overalls.

“Oh, I don’t mean he’s here now,” Miss Everett made haste to reply, with somewhat more interest in her voice. “But he too seems fascinated by our orchard. He seems to know a lot about apples. Yes, they’ll store some in the swimming pool, but mostly potatoes, cabbages, and turnips go in there for the winter. I hope you freshies will like vegetables, because you’re going to get plenty of them here.”

“But what in the world is the matter with the swimming pool that they have to store vegetables in it?” asked Sim as they walked down a gloomy corridor.

Arden felt her heart sinking. She dared not look at Sim.

“What isn’t the matter with it?” sneered Miss Everett. “The pump is broken, the concrete walls are full of cracks, the tile bottom is broken in several places so that it won’t hold water, and half the edge is gone on one side. It hasn’t been kept in service for two years, I imagine.”

“Why?” asked Sim sharply.

“No money. The depression—and other things, I suppose,” answered the blonde guide. “And then, too, nobody here, that I know, goes in much for swimming. It isn’t my line, I’m sure.”

Arden ventured to glance at Sim, who at that moment raised her eyebrows with rather a breathless gesture and pushed her smart sport hat back on her head. But Sim did not further pursue the matter then.

“Here’s the recreation hall for your floor.” Miss Everett indicated a large bare room, the broad doors of which were partly open. “And down this way,” she went on, “is your room. You’re free to do what you like until you hear the bell, and then you’re to report in the hall. Hazing,” she added ominously, “doesn’t begin until next week.”

“Thank you for bringing us up here,” the three chorused as they turned toward No. 513. But the tired sophomore had already vanished down the dusky corridor.

For a few moments Arden, Sim, and Terry were too bewildered to speak as they entered their room. Silently they noted that their bags were already there. Tom must have ridden up with them on some sort of an elevator to arrive ahead of the girls.

It was a long narrow room with three beds in a row, two on one side of the door and one on the other. There were three bureaus against the opposite wall, and there were three windows, close together, at one end of the apartment. A most attractive and home-like feature was a window seat extending beneath the three casements. Three desks and a small bookcase completed the furnishings.

“Thank goodness, there’s a large closet for our clothes!” exclaimed Sim, opening the door to disclose it.

“I think it’s lovely here,” murmured Terry.

Arden went to the windows and looked out through the gathering dusk. She saw down below, and a far distance it seemed, the cinder circle of the drive with a fountain in the center. On a little plot of grass was the stone deer gazing, in a surprised manner, Arden thought, across the campus toward the railroad tracks.

Somewhere to the south of Pentville—and home—for all three freshmen. Just about this time the lights were being turned on. The respective fathers would be shaking out their evening papers and the respective mothers would be seeing to it that the dinners weren’t late.

With a start Arden turned away from the windows. She wasn’t getting homesick, was she, so soon? She who had urged the others to come to Cedar Ridge! A typical freshman trick!

But no! Sim and Terry seemed all right. Terry was combing her sandy hair, and Sim was rummaging in her suitcase.

Not the prettiest of the three, Sim Westover had something about her that left a clear impression which could be remembered afterward. Her eyes, large and sparkling, were sea-gray in color, with long, dark-brown lashes. It was fitting that Sim’s eyes should, somehow, be of a sea tint, for since she was a little girl she had spent all her summers at the shore, and she reveled in surf-bathing and swimming in deep water. Sim made no secret of the fact that some day she was going to be a champion swimmer and diver. That, perhaps, was why she had so