RUTH IN THE TOILS
The lake shore was just ahead of the fugitives. Ruth had been but a few
yards out of the way in her calculations. She and Helen came out upon
the beach almost at the spot where the fishing punt lay.
The boat appeared to be sound, and the pole lying in it was a straight,
peeled ash sapling, not too heavy for either of the girls to handle.
"Jump in, Helen!" commanded Ruth. "Take the pole and push off. I'll push
here at the bow."
"But you'll get all wet!" quavered her chum.
"As though _that_ mattered," returned the other, with a chuckle, as she
leaned against the bow of the punt and braced her feet for the grand
effort. "Now!"
Helen had scrambled in and seized the pole. She thrust it against the
shore, her own weight bearing down the stern, which was in the water,
and thus raising the bow a trifle.
"All-to-geth-er!" gasped Ruth, as though they were at "tug-of-war" in
the Briarwood gymnasium.
The boat moved. Ruth's feet slipped and she scrambled to get a fresh
brace for them.
"Now, again!" she cried.
At that moment a great hound came rushing out of the wood upon their
trail, raised his red eyes, saw them, and uttered a mournful bay.
"We're caught!" wailed Helen.
"We're nothing of the kind!" returned her friend. "Push again, Helen!"
One more effort and Ruth was ankle deep in the water. The boat floated
free!
But before the brave girl could scramble aboard, the hound leaped for
her. Helen screamed. That shriek was enough, without the baying of the
hound, to bring their enemies to the water's edge.
Ruth Fielding was terrified--of course! But she gave a final push to the
boat as the hound grabbed her. Fortunately the beast seized only her
skirt. Perhaps he had been taught not to actually worry his prey.
However, the girl was dragged to her knees, and she could not escape.
The punt shot out into the lake, and Ruth shouted to her chum:
"Keep on! keep on! Never mind me! Find Tom and bring help----Oh!"
The weight of the big dog had cast her into the shallow water. She
immediately scrambled to her feet again. The hound held onto the skirt.
The material was too strong to easily tear, and she could not get away.
There was a crashing in the brush and out upon the edge of the lake came
half a dozen of the Gypsy men and one of the women. She was the one who
had befooled Ruth and Helen into entering the green van the night
before. When she saw Ruth's plight, standing in the water with the hound
holding her, she laughed as though it were a great joke.
But the men did not laugh. He with the squinting eye strode down to the
girl and would have slapped her with his hard palm, had not the woman
jumped in and put herself between the man and Ruth. She seemed to
threaten him in her own language, and the ruffian desisted.
One of the boys threw off his clothing--all his outer garments, at
least--and plunged right into the lake after Helen. The boat had swung
around, for there was considerable current in Long Lake.
"Don't let him come near you, Helen!" screamed Ruth. "Use your pole!"
Her friend stood very bravely in the stern of the punt and raised the
pole threateningly. The Gypsy boy could not easily overtake the boat,
which was drifting farther and farther out toward the middle of the
lake.
Some of the others began running along the shore as though to keep pace
with the boat. But suddenly a long-drawn, eerie cry resounded from the
direction of the camp. The men stopped and returned; the boy scrambled
ashore and hastily grabbed his clothing. The woman and the squint-eyed
man dragged Ruth into the bush.
The cry was a signal of some kind, and one not to be disobeyed. The
Gypsies hurried back to the vans, and Ruth did not see Helen again.
All was confusion at the camp. The horses were ready to start, and the
movables were packed. The children and women swarmed into two of the
vans. Queen Zelaya stood at the door of the other, and the moment she
saw that one of the prisoners had not been recovered, she began to
harangue her people threateningly.
The squint-eyed man pushed Ruth toward the old woman. Zelaya's claw-like
hand seized the girl's shoulder.
She was jerked forward and up the steps into the van. Almost at once the
caravan started, and Zelaya pulled the door to, and darkened the
windows.
"Quick, now!" she commanded the girl. "Take off your hat. Gypsies have
no use for hats."
She seized it and thrust it into one of her boxes. Then she commanded
Ruth to remove her frock, and that followed the hat into the same
receptacle. Afterward the girl was forced to take off her shoes and
stockings.
"Sit down here!" commanded Zelaya, as the van rolled along. The queen
had been mixing some kind of a lotion in a bowl. Now with a sponge she
anointed Ruth's face and neck, far below the collar of any gown she
would wear; likewise her arms and hands, and her limbs from the knees
down. Then Zelaya threw some earth on Ruth's feet and streaked her limbs
with the same. She gave her a torn and not over-clean frock to put on
instead of her own clothing, and insisted that she don the ugly garment
at once.
"Now, Gentile girl," hissed the old woman, "if they come to search for
you, speak at your peril. We say you are ours--a wicked, orphan Gypsy,
wicked through and through."
She tore down Ruth's hair and rubbed some lotion into it that darkened
its color, too. She really looked as wild and uncouth as the bold girl
who waited upon the queen of the Gypsies.
"Now let them find you!" cackled the old woman. "You are Belle, my
great-granddaughter, and you are touched here--eh?" and she tapped her
own wrinkled forehead with her finger.