"Why?" queried the curious Bess, promptly.
"I believe it is considered to possess one of those rare birds, a 'hant,'" chuckled the professor. "By night, at least, it is given a wide berth by even the most romantic miss in the school."
"Oh! a real ghost?" gasped Bess, deliciously excited.
"That is quite impossible, is it not?" queried Professor Krenner, in his gentle way of poking fun. "A ghost must necessarily be impalpable; then, how can it be real?"
Bess did not like being "made fun of," so she whispered to Nan; but the latter liked to hear the professor talk. That he was an odd man she was sure; but he was nothing like Toby Vanderwiller, the lumberman, or the other crude characters she had met at Pine Camp. What would Bess have said to Mr. Fen Llewellen, for instance? Or what would her chum think, even, of her cousin, Tom Sherwood?
Bess soon became anxious for a change and she begged Nan to come into the dining car for luncheon.
"But we have our lunch," Nan pointed out.
"I don't care. I don't want a lot of stale sandwiches and fruit," Bess declared.
"I don't want to waste what little money I have, when your mother bought us a perfectly lovely lunch," said Nan, cheerfully.
"It isn't nice to eat it here," Bess objected.
"Other people are doing so."
"I don't care," snapped Bess.
"Oh, now, Bess----"
"I've got a dollar," interrupted Bess. "I don't see why mother wouldn't let me have more money while traveling; but she didn't."
"Good reason," laughed Nan. "You know you'd lose it." She failed to tell Bess that Mrs. Harley had entrusted her with some money to use, "if anything should happen." Nan was dependable and Bess' mother appreciated the fact.
"I'm going," said Bess, firmly, rising from the seat. "You'd better come, Nan."
"On a dollar?" declared Nan. "How far do you think you'll get in a dining car with all that wealth?"
Bess made a little face. "At least, we can have some tea," she said.
"Ex--cuse me!" exclaimed Nan. "I have a hearty appetite--and it is crying out for satisfaction right now. I know your mother did not fail to remember there were two high-school girls to feed. There is plenty here," and she took down the ample box which Mrs. Harley's thoughtfulness had supplied.
"That's all right," said her chum, slily. "There will be enough for me if I want some when I come back."
"I don't know about that," replied Nan, with gravity. "I shall try to eat it all."
There was no quarrel between them over such a small matter. Indeed, Nan and Bess had never really had a serious difference since they had sat side by side in the kindergarten.
Bess had a reason for going into the dining car which she did not explain to her chum. She was curious about Linda Riggs. Everybody had heard of Mr. Henry W. Riggs, one of the big railroad men of the Middle West. Linda, of course, must be very aristocratic, Bess thought. And she had lots of money and lots of fine clothes.
Bess was deeply interested in pretty frocks, and she spent more than a few minutes daily reading the society column in the paper. She knew that Linda Riggs had an older sister who was already out in society. And once Bess had seen a group picture of the Riggs family. She thought she remembered Linda as a rather long-legged girl with plenty of bone and a snub nose.
When she entered the dining car she scarcely noticed the colored man who bowed her to a seat, so interested was she in viewing the girl whom she knew must be the railroad magnate's daughter.
As Nan had intimated, Linda Riggs' frock was stunning. It was not fit for a girl of her age to wear, it was too loud and, really, somewhat immodest. But it was evident that Miss Linda Riggs was quite used to wearing such apparel.
Although she had completed her luncheon some time before, it was evident that she had no intention of going into the day coach to which the other dispossessed passengers had been relegated when the rod broke under the chair-car.
They would soon be at the junction where another chair-car was to be coupled on.
Meanwhile a waiter was hovering about Linda Riggs' chair. She beckoned him, took the check nonchalantly, and with a pencil wrote her father's name upon it, passing both the check and her visiting card to the negro.
Bess watched breathlessly. It would have been the height of human delight, in Bess Harley's opinion, if _she_ could do that.
The head-waiter came and bowed before Linda Riggs and showed that he appreciated the honor of her presence in the car. Bess forgot to drink her tea, and only crumbled her cake while she secretly watched the arrogant girl.
Bess had felt her anger rise at the unknown girl who so insulted Nan Sherwood, when first she had been told about the confusion over the traveling bags. But having heard the particulars of who Linda Riggs was, and of her father's riches, Bess' anger on her chum's behalf was soon drowned in curiosity.
She dawdled over her tea and cake until the train arrived at the junction, where another chair-car was in waiting. It was then, when Linda Riggs gathered up her purse and vanity bag, preparatory to leaving the dining car, that Bess Harley made a mortifying discovery.
She wished to pay her own modest check. Perhaps she would get into the corridor of the car at the same time as the stylishly gowned girl, and Linda might speak. But clutching her gloves and looking wildly all about, _Bess could not find her hand-bag_.
Had Nan Sherwood had the first suspicion just then of her chum's predicament she would have flown to her assistance. But the train had halted, been broken in two, and the forward part of it had gone off with the locomotive to couple on to the waiting chair-car.
Nan asked the brakeman, and learned it would be ten minutes or more before the train would go on. The junction was not a very attractive spot; but already Nan was tired of riding. She asked Professor Krenner, who was reading, if he would look out for her baggage, and then she left the car.
Away up on a side track she saw the main part of the train, puffing down. The station, a weather-beaten, ugly old building, was not near.
Indeed, there were not half a dozen houses in sight.
There were uncut weeds along the track, the cinderpaths were baked hard by the sun, and the whole situation was unlovely.
Near at hand was a shack, as ugly as all the other buildings; but there seemed to be some life about it.
At least, Nan, before she left the car, had seen the flutter of a child's skirt at the door of the hovel. She now crossed the tracks and went cautiously toward the miserable dwelling.
Nan saw the child again at the door of the cabin, but only for an instant. She shouted to the little one, but the latter bashfully slipped inside the door.
Nan was very fond of children and this little towheaded child interested her. There was still plenty of time before the two halves of the train would be brought together.
Nan ran across the desert of cinders and weeds toward the cabin. Nobody else appeared at the broken window or the open door, but suddenly she heard an ear-piercing shriek from within.
It was the voice of the child. It sounded from the loft of the cabin, into which the little girl had doubtless climbed to escape from Nan's thoughtless curiosity.
"What's the matter? What's the matter, my dear?" the girl from Tillbury cried, her feet spurred more quickly toward the cabin beside the railroad track.
The tiny girl shrieked for the second time--a shrill, agonized alarm. A more timid person would have been halted by the very nature of the cry.
But Nan Sherwood did not hesitate. In a moment she was at the door of the hovel.
CHAPTER V
NAN SAVES ANOTHER, BUT IS HURT HERSELF