Billie Bradley and Her Classmates; Or The Secret of the Locked Tower Read online

  CHAPTER II--NEARLY FROZEN

  The screams for help seemed to be quite near the girls, but whoever wasin trouble was hidden from them by a sharp bend in the lake shore.

  Without further thought of danger to themselves, the chums skatedforward swiftly, the long fringed ends of their scarfs flying out behindthem and their bodies thrown eagerly forward.

  "Maybe somebody is drowning!"

  "It's some great peril, you may be sure of that--otherwise they wouldn'tscream so."

  "They are children!"

  "Yes, and little ones at that, if I am any judge of voices."

  Thus talking excitedly the girls skated forward along the lake shore.Then came a sudden scream from Vi. She had skated too close to anoverhanging tree and a branch caught in her hair as she tried to sweeppast.

  "Wait! wait!" she cried. "Don't leave me behind!"

  "What's the trouble?" came simultaneously from the others.

  "I'm caught--my hair is fast in the tree."

  "Pull yourself loose," cried Billie. "Hurry, do! Oh, just listen tothose cries!" she added, as scream after scream rent the wintry air.

  In frantic haste poor Vi tried to do as bidden. But the tree was athorny one, and she had considerable trouble to liberate herself.

  Then came fresh trouble as Billie's left skate became loosened.

  "I've got to fasten it," she said, and bent down to do so. Then theclassmates swept forward as before.

  They rounded the bend in the lake a minute later and then drew upsuddenly as they came upon a singular scene.

  Three small children, a boy and two girls, were standing up to theirwaists in the icy water. Evidently they had ventured out upon the lakein a spirit of mischief, and had stepped upon thin ice which had givenway beneath even their slight weight. Luckily they had not got far fromthe shore, for if the ice had broken through in a deeper part of thelake they must surely have been drowned. As it was, they were three verybadly frightened children who were beginning to feel numb with the cold.

  At sight of the girls they began to wail afresh and held out theirlittle arms imploringly.

  The sight was too much for Billie, and she began to edge her waycautiously along the thin ice, calling to the girls to follow herexample.

  "Be careful," she warned. "If we went through, too, it would be hard toget out, and while we were trying it the kiddies would probably freezeto death. Look out!" she exclaimed, as the ice cracked treacherouslyunder her weight. "It is paper-thin right here."

  And while the girls are busy at their work of rescue we will take a fewminutes to tell those who are meeting Billie Bradley and her chums forthe first time something of the good times the girls have had in othervolumes of the series.

  In the first book, called "Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance," thegirls had many and varied adventures, some of which were thrilling andothers only funny. Just when Billie was wondering how to raise onehundred dollars to pay for a statue which she had accidentally broken, aqueer old aunt of hers, Beatrice Powerson by name, died and left to heran inheritance which had at first seemed a doubtful blessing, namely arambling gloomy old homestead at a place called Cherry Corners.

  The house dated back to Revolutionary times and had many weird andromantic legends attached to it. The girls, anxious to see the old placefor themselves, had decided to spend their vacation there, and a littlelater some boys had joined them.

  They had an unusual and exciting time of it and the climax of the wholeouting was the finding of a shabby old trunk which was hidden away inthe attic. This trunk contained five thousand dollars' worth of rare oldcoins and queer postage stamps, and this small fortune enabled Billienot only to replace the statue she had broken but gave her more thanenough to send herself to Three Towers Hall and her brother Chet toBoxton Military Academy.

  But we forgot entirely to introduce the boys! And they at leastconsidered themselves by far the most important part of the story. Herethey are then--First of all comes Chetwood Bradley, Billie's brother,whom his friends called Chet for short. Chet was a lovable boy,good-looking, quiet, reserved and devoted to Billie--whose real name, bythe way, was Beatrice.

  Then there was Ferd Stowing, an all-around good-natured boy who alwaysadded a great deal to whatever fun was at hand. And last, but not least,Laura's brother Teddy. Teddy was fifteen, as were the other boys, but,unlike them, he looked quite a good deal older than he was. He was tall,with wavy hair and handsome gray eyes and an athletic build which wasthe envy of most of the boys at North Bend, where the young folks lived.Teddy had always liked Billie a lot because, as he told his sister,Laura, Billie was the nearest like a boy of all the girls he knew. Sheliked sports almost as well as he did and so as a matter of course theyplayed tennis and hiked and skated a good deal together.

  Returning from their vacation in the old homestead at Cherry Corners,the girls went straight to Three Towers Hall, the boarding school towhich their parents were sending them, partly because the young folkswanted to go and partly because the high school at North Bend washopelessly inefficient and unsatisfactory.

  At the same time, the boys departed for Boxton Military Academy whichwas only a little over a mile from the boarding school and which wasalso situated close to Lake Molata.

  The good times the young folks had at school are told in the secondvolume of the series entitled, "Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall."The most startling thing that happened during the year was the captureof the man whom the boys and girls had named the "Codfish" on account ofhis peculiarly fish-like mouth. The latter had once attempted to stealBillie's precious trunk, and had later on been suspected of planning andcarrying out a robbery at Boxton Military Academy. Later, he had robbedMiss Race, one of the teachers at the Hall.

  The girls had made new friends--and enemies also,--at Three Towers Hall.Chief among the enemies were Amanda Peabody and her chum, Eliza Dilks.The girls were both sneaks and tattletales, and the former, beingjealous of Billie and her chums, had done her best to make lifeunbearable for them at Three Towers. That the disagreeable girls had notsucceeded, was not in the least their fault.

  Another enemy of Billie's had been Rose Belser, a pretty, black-haired,very vain girl who was also jealous of Billie because of her unusual andimmediate popularity with the girls. However, even Rose was won over toBillie's side in the end and became sincerely repentant for her meanbehavior.

  Connie Danvers, a pretty, fluffy-haired girl, became a staunch friend ofthe chums at once, and it was she who had invited Billie and Laura andVi to spend their vacation at Lighthouse Island where her parents had asummer bungalow. Connie's Uncle John, an interesting, bluff character,lived at the lighthouse on the island.

  The girls had become very much interested in a mystery surrounding MissArbuckle, one of the very nice new teachers who had come to Three Towersto replace the disagreeable "Dill Pickles." They had also met a queerlooking man one day when they were lost in the woods, and they hadwondered about him a great deal.

  It seems Miss Arbuckle had been very greatly disturbed over the loss ofan album, and when Billie, accidentally stumbling upon the book, hadreturned it to the teacher, the latter had wept with joy. Turning overthe pages of the album until she came to the pictures of three beautifulchildren she had cried out: "Oh my precious children. I couldn't loseyour pictures after losing you."

  Of course this exclamation, together with Miss Arbuckle's strangeconduct, considerably puzzled the girls, and they wondered about it allduring the vacation at Lighthouse Island. Then one day a terrible stormcame up and a ship was wrecked on one of the treacherous shoals whichsurrounded the island. The girls, helping in the work of rescue,discovered three children lashed to a rude raft, and after releasing thelittle victims, the girls had carried them to the Lighthouse to be caredfor.

  Later, Billie saw a marked resemblance in the three children to thepictures of the children she had seen in Miss Arbuckle's album, and whatstrange discovery this led to is told in the third volume of this seriesentitled "Billie Brad
ley on Lighthouse Island."

  And now the girls were all back at Three Towers again in search offurther education, likewise, they hoped, much fun and adventure.

  "Don't come any farther," Billie said to Laura and Vi, as she stretchedherself out at full length on the ice and reached out to grasp one ofthe children in the water. "Lie down on the thick ice, both of you, andhold on to me just as hard as you can. When I say pull--pull!"

  Obediently Laura and Vi flopped down on the ice, each grasping one ofBillie's feet and holding on stoutly.

  "I'd like to see you get away from us now," said Laura.

  Leaning over, Billie grasped the nearest child under the arms and tuggedwith all her strength.

  "Pull!" she gasped to the girls, "I'm slipping."

  The girls pulled and dragged her, child and all, out on the more solidice. They set the child on his poor shivering little feet and then wentback for the next one. A moment more and all three of the little thingswere standing huddled together on the ice, shivering and cryingmiserably.

  "I wanna do home!" wailed the little boy. "I wanna do home."