Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Jane Allen Junior

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did I put that piece of paper?" "In your shoe?" suggested Dozia as Jane exhausted all other possibilities. "No, here it is in my sleeve. Sit down and we'll decipher it." They dropped to the nearest bench and smoothed out the paper. "It's part of a letter," said Dozia, "and written by a boy! Oh, joy, now we will have some fun--a love letter!" and she pored over the torn page. "Neither the beginning nor the end," said Jane, "but the climax." She read: "'You are a brick if not a wizard, and oh, boy! how that two hundred dollar check did look to me!'" "Two hundred!" Dozia repeated. "No girl around these diggings ever handled that tidy little sum. Read on, Jane, it may be a will or something, and we may come in for a share--reward, you know." "Here's our clue," announced Jane. "The name Shirley! Read that." She did so herself. "'Shirley, however did you do it, I know you neither stole nor borrowed, so it is all right and'--wait," interposed Jane, "that's torn." She lay the paper on her knees and fitted in the damaged parts. "Here it is. 'I'm back in college and in the big dorm, after the scare, and it's wonderful to have a little sis like you.'" "Sis!" groaned Dozia. "The lover's only a big brother!" She slumped in her seat dejectedly. "Shirley's brother," reasoned Jane, "and we have been blaming that girl! She helped her brother to get back to college!" The voice reeked with dismay and incredulity. "Can you imagine college running in her family?" questioned Dozia the incredulous. "I suppose we should hardly have read the letter--" "Why not? Should we have risked our precious lives up in that attic and then turned down this important clue? Indeed I'm all for asking Shirley to introduce me," and Dozia strutted off to show her height if not to display the "runs" in her hose and the "threadbares" in her sweater elbows. "But it does sort of take one down," mused Jane, following her companion toward Warburton Hall. "I hate to feel I have so misjudged Shirley." "Pure personal pride on your part, Jane. I have proof positive of the girl's perfidy. Every single day I must paste anew the paper decoration that hides her work. I mean that crack in my mirror. More than once it has done dreadful things to my poor face. If I move just one inch to the left the crack gashes my right cheek. You know how a glass reflects. But this brother. May I see the paper, Jane? His name might be between the lines." "Oh, it's Ted," said Jane innocently. "See the signature here, but no address, of course. And from that immature hand, Doze, I am sure Ted is a junior." "But, Jane!" almost gasped Dozia. "What can you do with that letter? It would be positively dangerous to let Shirley know you found it. It would mean, logically, that she rang the ghost chains, and that you knew she had helped her brother financially." All the nonsense had now died out of Dozia's voice, and she compelled Jane to stand while she proclaimed this ultimatum. "But how could she get up there, Dozia, when we know positively she was not on the campus the night of the big alarm?" "And little Sarah is innocent, I am sure," went on Dozia, "for she handled that trash with an interest too keen for previous acquaintance with the stuff. Each piece gave her a little spasm of surprise. I watched just how it affected her." "Queer, I noticed that also," said Jane. "Yes, I'm sure she never saw the armor before. But Shirley is never around in any excitement. I am afraid she spends a lot of time in Dol Vin's." "But how could she ever get two hundred dollars for brother Ted?" "I--wonder, Dozia, could she be in partnership with Dol?" "She might, but wouldn't that mean an outlay?" "Of course. There'll be little profit there--and two hundred!" The amount was appalling to Jane's practical mind. Voices broke in on the soliloquy. "Here come the girls from their ride, and what a shame you didn't go, Jane. Laying a ghost is all right, but if I rode a horse as you do, I'd assign the ghosts to others. 'Lo, girls! Break your necks or anything?" chirped Dozia. Judith hurried to gain Jane's arm and squeezed it affectionately as she fell in step. "Such a glorious ride, Jane!" enthused Judith, "and we all missed

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