Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma

“Well, are you a quitter or ain’t you?” the rude voice demanded. “I can’t get you down there all by myself. Chances are, if you faint, we’ll both go crashing down onto them pointed rocks. And they won’t make a soft bed, I promise you! Well, how about it? Are you going to faint – or ain’t you?”

By a supreme effort Billie regained control of her slipping senses. She stared coldly at the round, hard face of the young stranger.

“I’m not a quitter,” she said. “And I assure you, I have no intention of fainting.” After a moment she added, as though as an afterthought: “Thank you for saving my life!”

The strange girl grinned.

“Don’t mention it! Only I ain’t saved it yet. Reckon both of us have got to look sharp if we want to get out of this jam alive. It ain’t no easy going down this hill, let me tell you! Now then! Ready?”

Bitterly ashamed of her recent weakness, Billie assented. She would have died rather than admit, even to herself, that her head was still whirling and that she was forced to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering.

That descent to the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff was one long nightmare. If it had not been for the help and encouragement of the strange girl, interspersed with occasional merciless taunts from the same source, Billie knew she could never have made it.

As it was, she slipped and half fell, half slid the last fifteen or twenty feet, finally landing amid a shower of pebbles and dirt in a crevasse between two jagged rocks.

“Mercy!” she gasped.

“It is a mercy that you landed betwixt instead of on ’em.”

Billie looked up from her undignified position to find the strange girl grinning down at her. She frowned and tried to rise, but found herself wedged in so tightly that she could scarcely move.

“Like a sardine in a packed can,” remarked the strange girl unkindly.

Billie wanted to feel offended, but she could not. The comparison was too apt. She met the quizzical, smiling glance of the strange girl and suddenly laughed.

“You are a very frank person. But I do feel rather like a sardine. If you will give me a hand, I think I can manage, if I try hard enough, to get out of this ridiculous place.”

The pulling and tugging that ensued was a painful process for Billie. She discovered that there was scarcely a portion of her body that failed to boast either bruise or scratch.

“I’m pretty well disabled,” she admitted. “No tennis and no rowing for me for a few days to come at least.”

“’Twouldn’t be best to try, I guess,” remarked the girl.

Ruefully, Billie bent to examine her torn skirt. As she straightened up, a sharp exclamation escaped her.

“Hold on there! Where are you going?”

CHAPTER IV

BATTLE

Even as Billie Bradley spoke, the strange girl disappeared into the woods.

“Please don’t go! Please! You mustn’t until I’ve had a chance to thank you!”

At the urgent request, or command, the girl reappeared, but with obvious reluctance. She stood awkwardly, rubbing one foot over the other.

“Don’t want any thanks,” she muttered. “Didn’t do nothing, nohow. I guess – I guess – I’d better go now.”

Billie was nonplused by the strange behavior of this young person who had just saved her life. The manner of the girl had altered completely. From being dictatorial, “bossy,” and almost offensively sure of herself, she had become a shy and awkward country girl. Her eyes avoided Billie’s direct look, whether from shyness or sullenness, it was impossible to tell.

Billie, painfully conscious of all her cuts and bruises, went up to the girl and held out her hand.

“Whether you like it or not, I’m going to thank you. My life doesn’t mean a lot to you probably,” with a whimsical smile, “but it does to me and I am very properly grateful for it. How you can climb!” she added with genuine admiration. “If I could scale the side of a cliff like that, I wouldn’t care whether I could solve a problem in algebra or not.”

The girl flashed Billie a glance. There was both sullenness and shyness in it; which was odd, considering the dictatorial tone she had used to Billie a few moments earlier.

“Don’t be so nice to me,” she said, in a hard voice, “until you know who I am!”

Billie was given no opportunity to comment on this peculiar observation for at the moment Vi and Laura dashed in from the woods, rushed to Billie and flung their arms about her. They had come by the woods path “around Robin Hood’s barn” and had reached her as soon as possible.

“Oh-h, look out! Don’t hug so tightly, darlings. I’m – to put it mildly – sensitive. Yes, I’m alive – as you see. No there are no bones broken – I think. But I’ll have to soak in arnica to-night. Bruises – hundreds of ’em. But I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I am just to be alive!”

Animated by the same thought, Laura and Vi left off hugging Billie and turned to the strange girl.

“We don’t know how to thank you,” Vi began.

“If you knew how much I hate thanks you wouldn’t go to the bother,” responded the stranger ungraciously. “I don’t do such things for thanks. Well – good-by!” She turned abruptly and would have plunged into the woods had not Billie called her.

“I don’t know why you have taken such a sudden dislike to me – to us,” she said. “I am sorry if I have done or said anything to offend you. After saving my life, I don’t like you to go away angry.”

“I’m not mad,” muttered the girl. “And I don’t dislike you. I think you’re grand!”

Was ever such a contradictory, amazing creature? Billie stared at her in helpless bewilderment.

“Well, then!”

The girl suddenly flung up her head. Her round face was stern and her mouth was combative, but there were tears in her eyes!

“You won’t be so nice to me when you know who I am, I tell you,” she blurted. “You’ll be like all the rest of the sneerin’, titterin’ lot of ’em. I hate them, I hate every last one of them!”

This outburst amazed the three girls and roused their curiosity. What did the strange creature mean?

“It’s true I don’t know your name or where you come from,” said Billie. “But I am sure I shall like you just as much and be just as grateful to you for having saved my life, whoever you are.”

“Well, then, my name is Edina Tooker,” the girl threw out the information like a challenge. “And I’m livin’, just at present, at Three Towers Hall!”

The girls merely stared at her, doubting if they had heard aright. The self-styled Edina Tooker laughed harshly.

“You see! A crazy lookin’ jay like me couldn’t be goin’ to your select boarding school, could she? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Oh, you don’t need to answer me! I can see it in your faces!”

There was a world of bitterness behind the girl’s harsh tone.

“She has been hurt,” thought Billie. “Pretty badly hurt and her pride is up in arms.”

Before she could speak Laura said impulsively:

“Why, you can’t be a student at Three Towers Hall. I’ve never even seen you there!”