The Girls of Central High on Track and Field Part 21

"Go to the next one, then, and I'll point it out to you."

Laura did so. Sitting sideways on the sills the girls could thrust the upper part of their bodies out and obtain an un.o.bstructed view of this entire wall of the tower.

"See that wire?" exclaimed Eve, eagerly.

Just below the level of the windows which pierced the upper story of the tower a heavy stay-wire was fastened to a staple set in the masonry. At some time the school building had been dressed with flags and bunting and this heavy wire had never been removed. It was fastened at the other end to a ring in the roof of the main building.

"I see it, Evangeline," admitted Mother Wit, with something like fear in her voice. "You wouldn't do it!"

"I believe I can," declared the country girl.

"Why--why--it would take a trapeze performer!"

"Well, Mrs. Case has had us working on the ladders and the parallel bars until we ought to be pretty fair on a trapeze," said Eve, laughing a little.

"Oh, Eve! I wouldn't try it," cried Laura.

"You see," said the other, steadily, "if I can get out of the window here, and two of you can steady me, I can drop down upon that wire----"

"But suppose you should fall to the roof!"

"I won't fall. That is not what I am aiming to do, at least."

"It is too reckless a thing to try," cried Laura.

"Now, wait. n.o.body will see us up here. If we have to stay all night some of the girls will be sick. You know that. Now, if I can once get to that wire, I know I can work my way down it to the roof."

"You'll slide--and cut your hands all to pieces."

"No, I won't. I've a pair of thick gloves in my pocket," declared Eve.

"I am going to try it, Mother Wit."

"Oh, I don't believe you had better!"

Eve slid back into the tower-room, Laura following her. The bigger girl slipped out of her coat and took off her hat immediately.

"Hullo!" said Bobby. "Don't you want your slippers, too? You're in for the night, are you?"

But Eve was finding her gloves and these she drew on. Even Nellie began to get interested then.

"What _are_ you going to do now?" she cried.

Laura explained quickly. Nellie began to cry again, and even Bobby looked troubled.

"It isn't worth the risk, is it?" she asked. "Somebody will find us some time."

"That's just it," Eve returned. "We don't know when that _some time_ will be. I can slide down that wire, get in by the roof opening, and unlock this door that shuts us up here. Of course, the key will be in the lock. If it isn't, and there is n.o.body in the building, I can telephone for help."

"Say, that's great!" spoke Jess. "If you can only do it safely, Eve."

"Oh, I'll do it," declared the country girl, confidently, and the next moment she began climbing out through the window nearest to the wire.

Laura and Jess held her around the waist; then, as she slid out, farther and farther, they clung to her shoulders. But Eve had to leave her arms free and suddenly she panted:

"Let me go! I've got to drop and grab the wire. That's the only way."

Laura and her chum looked at each other in doubt and fear. It did seem as though, if they let go of the girl, she must fall to the foot of the tower!

CHAPTER XVIII--THE CONSCIENCE OF PRETTYMAN SWEET

Prettyman Sweet would never have played such a contemptible trick on Bobby Hargrew and her comrades had he not been goaded to it by Lily Pendleton. Purt had what the girls called "a dreadful crush" on Lily, and she had made fun of him because he took Bobby's jokes so tamely.

"If you had a spark of pluck you'd get square with that Hargrew girl,"

Lily Pendleton had told him, and Purt thought that he was getting square with Bobby and her friends when he turned the key in the lock at the foot of the tower stairs.

At first as he ran out of the school building into the rain that was still falling a little, his only fear was that he had been seen by somebody. But once away from the school building he began to giggle over the joke he had played on the girls.

"They won't laugh at me so much next time," he thought.

And then he remembered, with something of a shock, that he could not afford to tell anybody about what he had done. If he owned up to having locked the girls into the tower, he knew very well what would happen to him.

If Chet Belding, or Lance Darby, did not get hold of him, one of the other boys would most certainly take him to task for the trick. And Purt Sweet was no fighter.

He wouldn't get much fun out of the trick he had played on the girls, after all! Now he wished he had not done it. What was the fun, when he had to keep it a secret?

So Purt continued on this way home with lagging feet. And every yard, the possibilities that might follow his trick grew plainer in his mind.

He saw, as he went on, that instead of having done something to create a laugh, he might have been guilty of an act that would start a whole lot'

of trouble.

He knew, as well as did the girls shut up in the tower, that old John, the janitor, would go home to supper soon. And at this time of year, when there were no fires to see to, except the hot water heater, the old man might not come back at all.

For, as far as Purt knew, there were no meetings in the building that evening. At least, he had heard none announced. The girls were likely to be left in the tower until the next day, while their friends were searching the city for them.

Purt went into the square, from which point he could gaze up at the tower. But it was so far away, and so tall, that he could see nothing at the narrow slits of windows up there at the top.

"If--if those girls waved a handkerchief out of the openings, n.o.body could see it down here," thought the conscience-stricken youth.

He had never been up in the tower himself, for it was forbidden territory. So he did not know how wide the windows were. It just struck home to Master Purt Sweet that the girls would be unable to signal their situation to anybody.

But he had reached home before these thoughts so troubled him that he felt as though he _must_ undo what he had done. Perhaps John had not gone home yet. He might still be able to get into the building, creep upstairs, unlock the door of the tower, and then run out before the girls could catch and identify him.

For Purt had a very strong desire not to be suspected in this matter.

Chet Belding would take up cudgels for his sister in a minute; and Chet would, Purt was sure, thrash him most soundly!