“All right,” said Heavy. “But if so, it’s a girl I never saw run before. You can’t tell me.”
“You had better go in and get off your clothes, Sarah,” advised Ruth. Then she looked at Madge. Madge was one of the oldest girls at Briarwood. “Let’s go and see if we can find the girl,” Ruth suggested.
“I’m game,” cried Madge, as the other stragglers mounted the steps and disappeared behind the dormitory building door.
Both girls hurried down the walk under the trees to the main building. In one end of this Mrs. Tellingham and the Doctor had their abode. In the other end was the dining-room, with the kitchens and other offices in the basement. Besides, Tony Foyle, who was chief man-of-all-work about the Hall, and his wife, who was cook, had their living rooms in the basement of this building.
Ruth and Madge hoped to investigate the matter of the mysterious marauder without arousing the little old Irishman, but already they saw his lantern behind the grated window in the front basement, and, as the two girls came nearer, they heard him grumblingly unchain the door.
“Bad ‘cess to ’em! I seen ’em cavortin’ across the campus, I tell ye, Mary Ann! There’s wan of thim down here in the airy——”
It was evident that the old couple had been aroused, and that Tony was talking to his wife, who remained in the bedchamber. Ruth seized Madge’s wrist and whispered in her ear:
“You run around one way, and I’ll go the other. There must be somebody about, for Tony saw her——”
“If it is a girl.”
“Both Sarah and Heavy say it is. I’m not afraid,” declared Ruth, and she started off alone at once.