Ruth and Helen were
shown so little attention by the quartette of girls next door o them.
They were all busy--even Heavy herself--in herding the new girls whom
they had entangled in the tentacles of the Upedes. The chums found
themselves untroubled by the F. C.'s; it seemed to be a settled fact
among the girls that Ruth and Helen were pledged to the Upedes.

"But we are _not_," Ruth Fielding said, to her friend. "I don't like
this way of doing business at all, Helen--do you?"

"Well--but what does it matter?" queried Helen, pouting. "We want to
get in with a lively set; don't we? I'm sure the Upedes are nice
girls."

"I don't like the leadership of them," said Ruth, frankly.

"Miss Cox?"

"Miss Cox--exactly," said the girl from the Red Mill.

"Oh--well--she isn't everything," cried Helen.

"She comes pretty near being the boss of that club--you can see that.
Now, the question is, do we want to be bossed by a girl like her?"

"Then, do you want to be under the noses of the teachers, and toadying
to them all the time?" cried Helen.

"If that is what is meant by belonging to the Forward Club, I certainly
do not," admitted Ruth.

"Then I don't see but you will have to start a secret society of your
own," declared Helen, laughing somewhat ruefully.

"And perhaps _that_ wouldn't be such a bad idea," returned Ruth,
slowly. "I understand that there are nearly thirty new girls coming to
Briarwood this half who will enter the Junior classes. Of course, the
Primary pupils don't count. I talked with a couple of them at dinner.
They feel just as I do about it--there is too much pulling and hauling
about these societies. They are not sure that they wish to belong to
either the Upedes or the F. C.'s."

"But just think!" wailed Helen. "How much fun we would be cut out of!
We wouldn't have any friends----"

"That's nonsense. At least, if the whole of us thirty Infants, as they
call us, flocked together by ourselves, why wouldn't we have plenty of
society? I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to suggest it
to the others."

"Oh, my! would you dare?" gasped Helen. "And we've only just arrived
ourselves?"

"Self-protection is the first selfish law of nature," paraphrased Ruth,
smiling; "and I'm not sure that it's a bad idea to be selfish on such
an occasion."

"You'd just make yourself ridiculous," scoffed Helen. "To think of a
crowd of freshies getting up an order--a secret society."

"In se