"Well, what do you know about that?" demanded Tom, almost before the girls were in the forward cabin. "Isn't that the big man with the red waistcoat that frightened that little woman on the Lanawaxa? You know, you pointed them out to me on the dock at Portageton, Helen? Isn't that him at the harp?"
"Oh! it is, indeed!" ejaculated his sister. "What a horrid man he is! Let's come away."
But Ruth was deeply interested in the harpist. She wondered what knowledge of, or what connection he had with, the little French teacher, Miss Picolet. And she wondered, too, if her suspicions regarding the mystery of the campus—the sounding of the harpstring in the dead of night—were borne out by the facts?
Had this coarse fellow, with his pudgy hands, his corpulency, his drooping black mustache, some hold upon Miss Picolet? Had he followed her to Briarwood Hall, and had he made her meet him behind the fountain just at that hour when the Upedes were engaged in hazing Helen and herself? These thoughts arose in her mind again as Ruth gazed apprehensively at the ugly-looking harpist.
Helen pulled her sleeve and Ruth was turning away when she saw that the little, piglike eyes of the harpist were turned upon them. He smiled in his sly way and actually nodded at them.
"Sh! he remembers us," whispered Helen. "Oh, do come away, Ruth!"
"He isn't any handsome object, that's a fact," muttered Tom. "And the cheek of him—nodding to you two girls!"
After the excitement of the accident on the lake our friends did not feel much like skating until it came time to go back to the landing. Mr. Hargreaves was out on the ice with those students of the two schools who preferred to skate; but Miss Reynolds remained in the cabin. Mary Cox had had her lunch in the little stateroom, wrapped in blankets and in the company of an oil-stove, for heat's sake. Now she came out, re-dressed in her own clothes, which were somewhat mussed and shrunken in appearance.
Helen ran to her at once to congratulate Mary on her escape. "And wasn't it lucky Tom and Ruth were so near you?" she cried. "And dear old Ruthie! she's quite a heroine; isn't she? And you must meet Tom."
"I shall be glad to meet and thank your brother, Helen," said The Fox, rather crossly. "But I don't see what need there is to make a fuss over Fielding. Your brother and Mr. Hargreaves pulled Mr. Steele and me out or the lake."