The first days of a stormy March whistled and shrieked across the campus before Elizabeth hit upon a scheme which seemed within her scope. Fortune appeared to favor her in that Augusta exchanged sharp words with Alma Hurst and Ida Weir, the two freshmen who made it hardest for her on the basket ball team. The trouble occurred between the halves of a practice game. Elizabeth chanced to be standing near enough to the two, as a spectator, to hear a part of it. It gave her an excuse to seek out Alma and Ida that evening and have a confidential talk with them. Both players were bitter against Augusta, who had, as usual, been valiantly standing up for her rights. Elizabeth’s crafty insinuations, which grew soon to open denunciation of Gussie, fell upon willing ears. Thereafter the trio were to be found with their heads together as they formulated their plot against independent Gussie.
Continued stormy weather forced Elizabeth to abandon the idea of tying Augusta to a tree on the campus and leaving her there. It also meant too great a hazard. Three of them could hardly manage the tall, broad-shouldered freshie when it came to a question of physical strength. She had tried to coax a sufficient number of girls into her scheme and had failed. She decided to resort to the method she had earlier employed of doing some mischief to Augusta’s room. Over and over the three plotters discussed the subject, proposing this trick and that. Many of the proposals were too hard for accomplishment to be considered more than briefly. Every now and then one or the other would hit upon something that could be added to the list which they had made up of depredations easy “to get away with.”
“The time has come to act,” were the words with which Elizabeth greeted the two freshmen one afternoon. They had met her by appointment in the library. Neither lived at Wayland Hall. She had cunningly warned them against coming there until they should have “put over the great stunt.” Then no suspicion could, later, be attached to them.
“Glad to hear it,” Alma Hurst said with a disagreeable smile. “If ever I detested a girl I do that overgrown, domineering freshie. You can’t make me believe that she didn’t go to Miss Dean with a great long string of yarns about us. Miss Dean wrote me a hateful note. In it she claimed the sports committee had been observing us for quite awhile. I know they hadn’t. I wouldn’t believe her any sooner than I would Miss Smarty Forbes.”
“Better not let any of Miss Dean’s friends hear you say that.” Elizabeth arched her eye-brows with a knowing air. “Her crowd think her perfection. She is awfully influential on the campus. I never tried to put anything over on her for fear of getting into difficulties.”
“I’ve heard she was a power here.” The accompanying shrug denoted supreme indifference. “I’m not likely to come within conversational range of her crowd. She doesn’t approve of me, nor her pals, either. Miss Forbes gets all the babying from them. Can’t say I admire their taste.”
Elizabeth gave a contemptuous sniff. “Miss Dean pretends to be very noble and talks a lot about observing Hamilton traditions. She treated me abominably the day I landed on the station platform, a freshie.” For the twentieth time Elizabeth recited her imaginary grievance. The tale was, as usual, a far departure from truth. It impressed her listeners because they wished to be impressed by it.
“I’m not surprised.” Alma was still smarting from the merited rebuke Marjorie had delivered her by letter. “She’s been so unfair toward us. Proffy Leonard allows her to run basket ball. Speaking of hazing—was she hazed two years ago? I heard so, and that the girls who hazed her were expelled from college. I heard they were seniors.”
“They were seniors,” nodded Elizabeth, “seventeen of them. They weren’t found out until late last year. If you are caught hazing a student, off goes your head. We must be careful. No reason why we shouldn’t get away with our plan, though. This is what we’ll do and when we’ll do it. I am——”
“Did Miss Dean know who hazed her? Who reported the seventeen seniors?” demanded Ida Weir with manifest uneasiness.