WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?
The two men were mumbling together--Ruth could not catch the words at
first. When she did, they meant nothing to her, and she was puzzled.
But suddenly one said in clear, if peculiar, English:
"The old hag bags the best of the loot--always, my Carlo."
The other replied, still gruffly, yet in a musical language that Ruth
could not identify; yet somehow she was reminded of Roberto. He, the
Gypsy lad, had formed his English sentences much as this ruffian had
formed his phrase. Were these two of Roberto's tribesmen?
"I like it not--I like it not!" the other burst out again, in anger.
"Why should she govern? It is an iron rod in a trembling hand."
"Psst!" snapped the other. "You respect neither age nor wisdom." He now
spoke in English, but later he relapsed into the Tzigane tongue. Helen
crept down to Ruth's side and listened, too; but it was little the girls
understood.
The angry ruffian--the complaining one--dropped more words in English
now and then, like: "We risk all--she nothing." "There were the pearls,
my Carlo--ah! beautiful! beautiful! Does she not seize them as her own?"
"I put my neck in a noose no longer for any man but myself--surely not
for a woman!"
Then it was that the man Carlo burst into a tirade in his native speech,
and under cover of his loud talk Ruth motioned her chum to creep back up
the stairway, and she followed.
A sudden disquieting thought came to her. The rain was growing less.
Suppose Tom should come abruptly into the house? He might get into
trouble with these ruffians.
She whispered this thought to Helen, and her friend was panic-stricken
again. "We must warn Tom--oh, we _must_ warn him somehow!" she gasped.
"Surely we will," declared the girl from the Red Mill. "Now, careful how
you step. A creaking board might give us away."
They crept across the upper chamber to the rear of the house. Through
another room they went, until they could look out of a broken window
upon the sheds. There was Master Tom standing before the shed (the
machine was hidden), wiping his hands upon a piece of waste, and looking
out upon the falling rain.
He saw the girls almost instantly, and opened his mouth to shout to
them, but Ruth clapped her own hand to her lips and motioned with the
other for him to be silent. Tom understood.
He looked more than surprised--not a little startled, in fact.
"What will he think?" murmured Helen. "He's so reckless!"
"Leave it to me," declared Ruth, leaning out of the window into the
still falling rain.
She caught the boy's eye. He watched her motions. There was built at
this end of the house an outside stairway, and although it was in bad
repair, she saw that an agile fellow like Tom could mount the steps
without any difficulty.
Pointing to this flight, she motioned him to come by that means to their
level, still warning him by gesture to make no sound. The boy understood
and immediately darted across the intervening space to the house.
Ruth knew there was no dining-room window from which the ruffians
downstairs could see him. And they had made no move as far as she had
heard.
She left Helen to meet Tom when he came in through the sagging door at
the top of the outside flight of stairs, and tiptoed back into that room
where they had been frightened by the bat.
It was directly over the dining-room. The same chimney was built into
each room. This thought gave Ruth's active mind food for further
reflection.
The rumble of the men's voices continued from below. Tom and Helen
followed her so softly into the room that Ruth did not hear them until
they stood beside her. Tom touched her arm and pointed downward:
"Tramps?" he asked.
"Those Gypsies, I believe," whispered Ruth, in return.
Helen was just as scared as she could be, and clung tightly to Tom's
hand. "Wish we could scare them away," suggested the boy, with knitted
brow.
"Perhaps we can!" uttered Ruth, suddenly eager, and her brown eyes
dancing. "Sh! Wait! Let me try."
She went to the paper-stuffed stovepipe hole, out of which the bat had
fallen. Helen would have exclaimed aloud, had not Tom seen her lips open
and squeezed her hand warningly.
"What is it?" he hissed.
"Don't! don't!" begged Helen. "You'll let those bats all out here----"
"Bats?" queried Tom, in wonder.
"In the chimney," whispered Ruth. "Listen!"
The stir and squeaking of the bats were audible. Enough rain had come in
at the top of the broken chimney to disturb the nocturnal creatures.
"Just the thing!" giggled Tom, seeing what Ruth would do. "Frighten them
to pieces!"
The girl of the Red Mill had secured the stick she used before. She
pulled aside the "stopper" of newspaper and thrust in the stick. At once
the rustling and squeaking increased.
She worked the stick up and down insistently. Scale from the inside of
the chimney began to rattle down to the hearth below. The voices ceased.
Then the men were heard to scramble up.
The bats were dislodged--perhaps many of them! There was a scuffling and
scratching inside the flue.
Below, the men broke out into loud cries. They shouted their alarm in
the strange language the girls had heard before. Then their feet stamped
over the floor.
Tom ran lightly to the window. He saw a bat wheel out of the window
below, and disappear. The rain had almost stopped.
It was evident that many of the creatures were flapping about that
deserted dining-room. The two ruffians scrambled to the door, through
the entry, and out upon the porch.
The sound of their feet did not hold upon the porch. They leaped down
the steps, and Tom beckoned the girls eagerly to join him at the window.
The two men were racing down the lane toward the muddy highroad, paying
little attention to their steps or to the last of the rainstorm.
"Panic-stricken, sure enough! Smart girl, Ruthie," was Master Tom's
comment. "Now tell a fellow all about it."
The girls did so, while Ruth lit the alcohol lamp and made the tea. Tom
was ravenous--nothing could spoil that boy's appetite.
"Gyps., sure enough," was his comment. "But what you heard them say
wasn't much."
"They'd been robbing somebody--or were going to rob," said Helen,
shaking her head. "What frightful men they are!"
"Pooh! they've gone now, and the old machine is fixed. We'll plow on
through the mud as soon as you like."
"I shall be glad, when we get to civilization again," said his sister.
"And I'd like very much to understand what those men were talking
about," Ruth observed. "Do you suppose Roberto knows about it?
Pearls--beautiful pearls, that fellow spoke of."
"I tell you they are thieves!" declared Helen.
"We'll probably never know," Tom said, confidently. "So let's not
worry!"
Master Tom did not prove a good prophet on this point, although he had
foreseen the breaking down of the automobile before they started from
the Red Mill. They went back to the car and started from the old house
in a much more cheerful mood, neither of the girls supposing that they
were likely to run across the Gypsy men again.
"We must hustle to make Uncle Ike's to-night, sure enough," Tom said, as
the car rolled out into the muddy highway.
"Is it very far yet?" asked Ruth.
"More than sixty miles, and a bad road, and it is now half-past five,"
replied the boy.
"Oh, my! I hope we'll not be delayed after dark," said his sister.
"I never knew you to be such a 'fraid-cat before, Helen," laughed Ruth.
"Everything's gone wrong to-day. And those awful men scared me. Let's
stop at the hotel at Boise Landing, if it grows dark. Uncle Ike's is a
long way beyond the town, Tom."
"Sure--if you say so," agreed her brother, cheerfully. "I can send word
up to the folks that we are all right. Of course, they will be expecting
us this evening. I telegraphed them this morning that we were on the
way."
The car plowed on through the mud. These roads were in very bad shape,
and even while it had been dry, the traveling was bad enough. Now the
wheels skidded and slipped, and the engine panted as though it were
tired.
It missed explosions frequently, too, and Tom sat under the wheel with
a very serious face indeed. It was not far to a small settlement called,
on the map, Severn Corners. Tom knew he could get gas there, if he
needed it, but he was not sure that there was a repair shop at the
place. If the old machine played a trick on them again----
And it did! Right at the foot of a hill, and not far from the shore of
Long Lake, the engine "died."
"Whatever shall we do?" cried Helen.
"No use wrangling about it," said Ruth, with a laugh. "Will we have to
walk?"
"Walk! and carry the ropes and everything else of value?" demanded
Helen.
"We can't leave the machine unprotected," said Tom, seriously. "No
knowing what would happen to it. But it's not far to Severn Corners.
Only two miles, or so."
"Now, I tell you," said Ruth, briskly. "You walk on, Tom, and get help.
Bring back a team to drag the auto into town. Perhaps you'll find a farm
before you go far. We'll remain here till you come back."
"That's what you'll have to do, Tommy," agreed his sister, as the boy
hesitated. "Of course, I'm only fooling. I won't be afraid."
"I'll do my best, girls," Tom assured them. "I am sure you'll be
perfectly safe," and Master Tom started off along the road at a quick
trot.