“Pretty soon,” resumed Sim, “we said that it was someone carrying a lantern—holding it down low so it was only shining on the ground.”
“Don’t stop, Sim—tell us who it was!” Terry begged.
“I don’t know who it was. He didn’t pass very close, and from the way he was carrying the lantern I could only see his legs and part of one hand, but—” Sim paused dramatically—“he seemed like a young man.”
“Did he see you?” Arden blurted out.
“Perhaps; though if he did, he didn’t seem to care. He went stumbling on his way toward Bordmust. Then I came out of my daze and told Mr. Newman we’d better be getting on our way. Of course, he thought it queer that a man should be out that hour of night near a girls’ school, but I passed it off by saying it was the watchman on his rounds. But, girls, it wasn’t, though even the little I could see made me feel he belonged around here. But, here’s a question, a hard one, really: What do you suppose he was doing in the orchard after midnight?”
“I can’t imagine. It’s all very queer. And,” went on Arden, “I hope it just stays merely queer. But now, to be practical—much as I know you hate to be that way, Sim—I think we had all better get some sleep. We’ll have to see Tiddy in the morning, and we had better have our wits about us when we do.” Arden yawned. The conference was ended. The girls got into bed. The light was extinguished. Silence settled over the room.
Terry, as usual, lost no time in getting to sleep. Sim, utterly exhausted, was sighing heavily as she burrowed under the blankets.
But Arden was never more wakeful. All the various adventures the girls had shared in the past were as clear in her mind as though she were watching a motion-picture film of them. She tossed and turned. Through the gloom Arden fancied she could see again the face of the man described in the reward placard in the post office.
Arden was still certain that, somewhere, she had seen that face before. The fright she and her chums had in the orchard, was, in some way, linked with the lantern man Sim had seen that night. Then, intruding upon that situation, it was borne to Arden that the swimming pool was in as hopeless a shape as on their arrival at Cedar Ridge.
What would Sim do now?