“Who pulled that box?” demanded Chief Murry, angrily.

“I did,” replied Jane.  “But the alarm came from within and the students were out before I did so.”

“Well, there’s no fire here!” he announced witheringly.  “And you young ’uns better get indoors.  Been in all the sheds and corners, Ben?” to his assistant.

“Every inch, and there being no kitchen here, ’tain’t likely a fire would be tucked away in a closet, though we looked thoroughly.  Queer how the thing happened.”

Miss Gifford was now trying to march her charges back, but a good sized contingent refused flatly to comply with her orders.  They answered her quietly but firmly.

“They would never sleep another night in Lenox Hall.  If it wasn’t haunted it was surely queer.”

With the courage of juniors Jane and Dozia attempted to laugh the whole thing off, but the freshmen were determined.

“How did you get over here?” suddenly demanded little Nellie Saunders of Dozia. ’"I thought it was a rule to stay in your own dorm when a first alarm fire gong sounded in another building?”

“’We were visiting,” replied Jane so quickly Nellie thought the reply meant something, and was too absorbed in the crisis of the situation to further press her question.

“But you children will be ill!” wailed Miss Gifford helplessly.  “You simply must come indoors.”

“Come into the recreation room,” insisted Jane.  “We won’t ask you to go back upstairs yet.”

“We just wouldn’t go,” declared Daisy Blaire.  “If I can’t sleep in another cottage I shall telegraph mamma to come and take me home this very night or day, whichever it is.”

This resolve met with hearty approval, for it was seconded from many quarters until open revolt or general mutiny seemed imminent.

The firemen were driving out with the jog trot of a false alarm, and ghosts or no ghosts, Jane, Dozia and Miss Gifford, each and all realized that those frightened children must be persuaded to go indoors.  Their bare feet alone made the matter imperative, if bath robes did somewhat lessen the danger from a cold night’s exposure.

The sudden tingling of the telephone shot another bolt of terror through them.

“There, that’s the hall,” said Miss Gifford.  “At least make it possible for me to report you are all safe in Lenox.”

Jane and Dozia wound arms around a few leaders and this with the matron’s appeal firmly broke their deadlock and a thin stream of frowzy heads and pretty boudoir robes dripped into the old walnut hall.

Miss Gifford used the telephone at the foot of the circular staircase.  She was giving a very tactfully worded account of the incident to the president, and it was very evident the whole occurrence would be conspiciously free of sensation if the matron’s verbal report were embodied in official records.

A long drawn out and happily intoned reply floated from Miss Gifford’s lips as she half turned from the telephone and surveyed Jane and Dozia.