Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Jane Allen Junior

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the town hall. You can phone us there in twenty minutes. Now hurry and be prudent. Don't spread any sensational stories." Jane acted like a senior now, but the emergency was sufficiently exacting to demand such forceful means. Where was Judith Stearns and what was the meaning of Dolorez Vincez' sinister statement, about running down poor messenger boys? Also who could have been sobbing in the room back of the parlors? "Look!" exclaimed Jane as they left the tanbark walk. "Who is that running from the back driveway?" "Little Sarah Howland," replied Dozia in amazement. "Whatever can that innocent little thing be doing around here?" "I--wonder," sighed Jane as they hurried off to the old town hall. "Jane," murmured Dozia, halting her companion for a moment as a sudden calling was heard through the fields, "do you think that baby can be implicated with those unscrupulous shop keepers?" "She was in there, and we saw her run," replied Jane. "I would like to doubt my own eyes--" Dozia grasped her arm and again they hurried on. "Find Judith!" That was their slogan. CHAPTER IX WHAT HAPPENED TO JUDITH In that mysterious way peculiar to girls, the students knew, without the facts being apparent, that something strange and perhaps even desperate had happened to Judith. They had not been told any of the details, but when the party walking in from the village was suddenly broken up, first by the incident of the messenger boys' quarrel and then by Judith's disappearance into Dol Vin's beauty shop, with officer Sandy twirling his club and "gum-shoeing" after her, the whole situation was as clear as if the pieces had been patched together on a movie screen. Judith, fighting for justice, had been ranged with the culprits! There was no possibility of her return to the college grounds without her companions' knowledge; neither was it probable she had gone to take a youngster's part at the emergency court in the Town Hall without first having notified Jane or some of the other girls. She would have dragged them along with her, for Judith believed in team play for all things, even at trials and courts of alleged justice. So it was that the girls' anxiety was not so thinly supported as the mere record of events might have indicated; they knew there was something wrong, knew it instantly and knew it positively; and they were right about it, too. The outstanding fact was a weighty argument. Dolorez Vincez had been expelled from Wellington the year previous; she had vowed vengence against Jane Allen and her friend, Judith Stearns (although both girls had actually interceded for the culprit with the college faculty), and now was the time and this was the place to wreak her vengeance. In a shorter time than occupies this explanation Jane and Dozia and Janet reached the Town Hall. The ancient building of dingy brick filled a conspicuous spot facing the Square; its carriage stone was a revolutionary relic and two reliable cannon set off the much trampled green diamond in front with something of a stately significance. It was fast growing dark in the early autumn evening, but the excitement of an arrest had drawn a crowd from the few business offices and from the passersby at the supper hour, flanked and reinforced by boys, boys who seem to go with excitement--always, at all times and in all places. The students made their way into the hall with its sputtering gas light, and while Janet went to the telephone booth, Jane and Dozia hurried to the office of the chief of police. "Judith!" Both girls had uttered the name and both now elbowed their way through the curious crowd up to the rail, where stood the disconsolate Judith. "Keep back, keep back," ordered an officer. He was the second and only other active member of "the force" besides Sandy Jamison, he who had "taken Judith in." Jane and Dozia urged forward in spite of orders, however, and now Judith saw them! She flashed a look first defiant then hopeless. It had defiance for the charge, but was hopeless to make that country court understand. Jane and Dozia answered the code with unwavering determination fairly emitting from their every feature. But the chief was talking or muttering, and he had been pompously

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