aculated the man with the grouch.

Here Professor Krenner interfered, and he spoke quite sharply.

"You've said enough, Bulson. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know," grumbled the fat man.

"He can't tell till he's seen his lawyer," whispered Laura Polk,
beginning to giggle.

"Are any of you girls hurt?" queried the professor, his red and
white cap awry.

"I don't think so, Professor," Bess replied. "Only Nan's feelings. That
man ought to be ashamed of himself for speaking so of Mr. Sherwood."

"Oh, I know what I'm talking about!" cried the fat man, blusteringly.

"Then you can tell it all to me, Ravell Bulson," bruskly interposed the
professor again. "Come along to my cabin and I'll fix you up. Mrs.
Gleason has arrived at the top of the hill and she will take charge of
you young ladies. I am glad none of you is hurt."

The overturned crew hauled their bobsled out of the drift. Linda Riggs
went on with her friends, dragging the _Gay Girl_.

"I'd like to hear what that fat man has to say about Sherwood's father,"
the ill-natured girl murmured to Cora Courtney, her room-mate. "I wager
he isn't any better than he ought to be."

"You don't _know_," said Cora.

"I'd like to find out. You know, I never have liked that Nan Sherwood.
She is a common little thing. And I don't believe they came honestly by
that money they brought from Scotland."

"Oh, Linda!" gasped Cora.

"Well, I don't!" declared the stubborn girl. "There is a mystery about
the Sherwoods being rich, at all. I know they were as poor as church mice
in Tillbury until Nan came here to school. I found that out from a girl
who used to live there."

"Not Bess Harley?"

"No, indeed! Bess wouldn't tell anything bad about Nan. I believe she is
afraid of Nan. But this girl I mean wrote me all about the Sherwoods."

"Nan is dreadfully close-mouthed," agreed Cora, who was a weak girl and
quite under Linda's influence.

"Well! Those Sherwoods were never anything in Tillbury. How Bess Harley
came to take up with Nan, the goodness only knows. Her father worked in
one of the mills that shut down last New Year. He was out of work a long
time and then came this fortune in Scotland they claim was left Mrs.
Sherwood by an old uncle, or great uncle. I guess it's nothing much to
brag about."

"Bess said once it might be fifty thousand dollars," said Cora, speaking
the sum unctuously. Cora was poor herself and she loved money.

"Oh, maybe!" exclaimed Linda Riggs, tos