Warned by her chums that her pretty roommate was more than likely to prove frosty, Muriel went to Room 22, armed with her usual light-hearted insouciance, the best weapon she could have had in the circumstances. Far from being cast down by the chilly environment Doris’s haughty manner merely appealed to her keen sense of the ridiculous. She gaily named her the Ice Queen and their room the ice chest. “If I stayed in the ice chest too long I might catch cold,” she roguishly informed her chums, “but I’m never there more than five minutes at a time except to sleep.”

With the filling up of the campus houses with students and the formal opening of Hamilton College the Travelers found their work cut out for them. They spent countless hours in station duty, welcoming arriving freshmen. Feeling their responsibility as post graduates they tried earnestly to promote a spirit of sociability on the campus. These self-imposed duties, besides the effort to keep in touch with their personal campus friends, kept them constantly occupied.

The very reliable, conscientious firm of Page and Dean had the serious duty before them of looking out for the students who had formerly lived in the now demolished houses of the dormitory site. The tenants of the houses in the block which Leslie Cairns had bought had been ordered out of them directly after Commencement. The dingy row of dwellings still stood, awaiting their chagrined owner’s pleasure. For a time Leslie had lost interest in the garage idea and had regarded her ill-gotten purchase as an elephant on her hands. Later, she had moodily resolved, because she had nothing else to busy her, to go on with her original plan in the hope of being able, eventually, to even what she considered as a “score” with Marjorie Dean.

After painstaking inquiry and investigation Marjorie and Robin had finally found good boarding places in the town of Hamilton for the seventy-two students who could not afford campus rates. The zealous promoters had also arranged with an Italian, who had recently begun operating a three-bus line between Hamilton and West Hamilton to carry the students to the campus every morning on special trip. More, their old friend Baretti had offered to serve such students with sandwiches and tea, coffee or milk whenever their free hours from recitations should permit them to come to the restaurant. The devoted friend of Page and Dean, the warm-hearted Italian had named a small price for the service. He had been an almost avid supporter of the Travelers’ plans and had often hinted that “someday” he would give the “dorm” a nice present.

“Positively, Robin Page,” Marjorie declared fervently one soft fall afternoon as the two girls left the dormitory site after a consultation with Peter Graham, “things are simply skimming along. Everything good seems to be gravitating straight toward us. Thanks to Miss Susanna and Jonas the site is clear now and ready for the building. It wouldn’t have been cleared before Christmas if they hadn’t given us that splendid early start. And where could we find another builder like Mr. Graham? We couldn’t; I’m sure.”

“Blessing number two,” counted Robin, laughing. “We might as well rank Guiseppe Baretti as number three. Think of what he’s done for us!”

“I’m thinking,” Marjorie nodded. “Then that bus line started up like magic. Just what we needed, when we needed it! And the boarding houses for the off campus girls are fine. Now that they are so beautifully settled we can begin to pick up life on the campus. The freshies this year seem a dandy set of girls.”

“So Phil says. She’s not crazy over the sophs, though. She says she thinks they are chesty. Not Gussie Forbes and her crowd. Phil likes Gussie. She says there is a lack of college spirit among the others. She hasn’t discovered why as yet.” Robin looked thoughtful. “I dare say Gussie knows. She is such a live wire.”

“I must have a talk with her. Oh, gracious!” Marjorie sighed audibly. “I have so much to do I hardly know what to tackle first. I can’t start chemistry again for at least another week. That and French poetry are all I shall undertake this semester.”

“I’m going to send for my car,” Robin announced with sudden irrelevancy. “I’ve wasted time waiting for taxis to and from town. We really need my roadster.”

“I’d like to have a car here this year,” Marjorie admitted honestly. “This is a great secret, Robin. I haven’t told another person: General gave me a choice before I came back here between having a car and the money it would cost. I—I took the money. We need it for the dormitory. I know we are welcome to use as much of Ronny’s money as we like, but the self-respecting way is to raise it by earning it, or by self-denial.”

“You old dear!” Robin patted Marjorie’s arm. “You’ve taught all of us the self-denying way. I spent scads of money when first I came to Hamilton. Now I’ve turned positively stingy in my old age. I might as well have my car here as home. No one uses it there. I have an excuse for what the up-keep will cost.”

Robin was full of her plan to send home for her car. She began to calculate, as the two entered the campus and lingered there for a brief talk, on the saving of time it would mean as against the cost of up-keep. While the absorbed promoters stood talking together a group of half a dozen sophomores passed them. The sophs greeted the two girls’ pleasant salutation with a kind of admiring eagerness. Six pairs of bright eyes rested longest on Marjorie, however. One of the girls made a low-voiced remark to the others. There was a concerted shaking of heads as the group passed on.

They had not gone on far when Marjorie said good-bye to Robin and turned her face in the direction of Wayland Hall. The lively murmur of voices close behind her caused her to wheel suddenly. In the next instant a smiling band had surrounded her.

“Oh, Miss Dean, we’ve something special to ask you,” began the leader of the group, a small blue-eyed girl with a round rosy face and deep dimples. “You know the sophs have their election next week. Gussie Forbes is our candidate for president. We want to get up an election parade for her; a regular booster. We’d like to do something quite funny. Could you—would you—ask that awfully clever P. G. Miss Harper to—help—no I don’t mean exactly to help us. All we’d like is a suggestion from you two.”

“We’ve heard about Miss Harper’s wonderful stunts. We know what good shows you and Miss Page got up last year,” interposed a tall girl with a frank, boyish face. “We were going to ask you and Miss Page when we passed, then we were afraid of interrupting your conversation.”

“I wish you had,” Marjorie said with smiling regret. “Miss Page is full of funny, original ideas. I’ll speak to Miss Harper tonight. Why not come over to the Hall tomorrow evening? We can talk it over. Leila will have thought of some good stunt by then.”

“Oh, fine, lovely, great work!” went up from her pleased listeners. “What time shall we come?” asked the little girl who reminded Marjorie of Susan Atwell, one of her Sanford schoolmates.

“Any time after seven, Miss Vernon,” Marjorie said cordially.

The little girl showed pleased dimples at being thus remembered. The smiles of her companions were equally jubilant at the success of their plea. “Thank you, Miss Dean. We’ll surely come,” was Miss Vernon’s grateful acceptance as the sextette took themselves off across the campus after a united murmur of thanks.

“The old calls are beginning to rise again,” Marjorie reflected happily as she neared the Hall. She was reminded of the phrasing of the “Jungle Books,” which she had adored as a child. “It’s good hunting again on the campus. Good hunting all,” she repeated half aloud, “good hunting all who keep the jungle laws.”