At the sound of the whistle Number 1 girl shot off across the running space and touched Number 2, the latter dashing back to touch Number 3, and so on until the last girl crossed the line at the finish. This is a splendid form of relay-racing, for it keeps the girls on the alert, and the distance is not too great for any girl, who has a physician’s approval, to run.
Mrs. Case, however, was extremely careful—as was Dr. Agnew, the medical inspector—as to the condition of the girls before they entered upon any very serious training. The afternoons of this first week of school were spent in working out the girls gradually, the instructor learning what they really could do. Nor were any of the girls allowed to work on the track, or in the gym., two days in succession.
But Saturday afternoon was devoted to real work and the making up of the relay teams for practice during the spring. It chanced to be a glorious day, too, and the field was well attended. Bobby Hargrew was faithfully practicing for the quarter-mile sprint. She was as fast as anybody in the junior class, and for once was really putting her mind to the work.
“If Gee Gee doesn’t hamper me too much with conditions and extra work, maybe I can be of some help to the school,” spoke Miss Bobby. “But I can see plainly she’s got it in for me.”
“That’s what the Gypsy fortune-teller told you,” returned Jess. “Didn’t she warn you to beware of one of your teachers—and a woman?”
Bobby’s light-hearted chatter was stilled and she paled as Jess reminded her of the Gypsy woman.
“Pooh!” Laura quickly said. “There is nothing in that foolishness.” Bobby had utterly refused to tell them what Grace Varey, the Gypsy queen, had told her in the tent. “She could easily see that Bobby was full of good spirits and that she must always be in difficulties with her teachers—and of course it was safe to guess that she would have trouble with a female teacher. I wouldn’t give a minute’s thought to such foolishness.”
But Bobby would not be led to say anything farther, and was very quiet for a time.
She was with Laura and the other juniors, however, over by the gate, when Nell Agnew made her great discovery. The girls had been playing captain’s ball on one of the courts, and they were all warm and tired. Wrapped in their blanket coats, on which Mrs. Case insisted at this time of the year, they were resting on the bench which faced the gateway, and the gate was open.
“My goodness me!” gasped the doctor’s daughter, suddenly, “isn’t that the same girl?”