noon
It was a small city of some thirty or forty thousand inhabitants . The people , not alone in the city but in the surrounding country , were a rather wealthy class . Ardmore was a mile from the outskirts of the town . Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron , her chum , had arrived with other girls bound for the college on the noon train . Of course , the chums knew none of their fellow pupils by name , but it was easily seen which of those alighting from the train were bound for Ardmore . There were two large auto-stages in waiting , and Ruth and Helen followed the crowd of girls briskly getting aboard the buses . As they saw other girls do , the two chums from Cheslow gave their trunk checks to a man on the platform , but they clung to their hand-baggage .