THE DESERTED ENCAMPMENT
“Hadn’t we better stop and get one of the policemen?” asked Jack, as he
and his two chums sped onward in the now full darkness of the May
evening.
“No, we can do what we have to do ourselves,” declared Phil. “If they’ve
got mother’s ring I’ll take it away myself.”
“And she was such a pretty girl too—for a Gypsy,” murmured Blake.
“They’ll always take a trinket if they get their hands on one,” declared
Phil. “I suppose she saw it glittering there on the table, and while she
was holding the girls’ hands, and telling them all sorts of rubbish, she
just slipped it away when they were thinking about a dark stranger or
crossing unknown water. Bah! It makes me mad!”
“And she was such a pretty girl,” murmured Blake. “I wouldn’t have
believed it!”
“Oh, drop that kind of talk and get a move on!” exclaimed Phil. “It’s
quite a ways out to that Gypsy encampment, and she has a good start of
us.”
“Not so much,” declared Jack. “We came as soon as your mother missed her
ring.”
“Yes, but we wasted five minutes talking about where it might have
strayed to, and another five looking for our hats. That’s ten, and those
Gypsies travel light—they’re always ready to make a forced march. Hurry
up!”
“I still maintain that we’d better take one of our faithful and
efficient cops with us,” declared Jack. “Those dark-skinned horse
traders are ugly customers, I’ve heard.”
“Not when you’ve got ’em where we have these,” declared Phil. “They’ll
wilt when we tell them what we want, and give up.”
“The worst of it is that we haven’t any proof,” suggested Blake.
“No proof! I’d like to know what you call it? Mother left her ring on
the table in that little room. The only one in it, besides our girls,
was the Gypsy. The ring is gone—the Gypsy is gone—what else can you get
from that? Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each
other.”
“Well, I, myself, think she might have taken it,” went on Blake, “in
spite of the fact that she had a nice face. But that isn’t proof.
Suppose they say they haven’t it—that she hasn’t it—what are you going
to do?”
Phil stopped short in his quick walk toward the outskirts of the town
where the Gypsy wagons had been drawn up for the last week.
“Why—er—why,” he began, “I suppose perhaps maybe we had better take a
policeman with us. He’ll be sort of impressive, you see. Yes, I guess we
will. Wish I’d thought of it at first. That’s more time we’re going to
lose.”
The boys turned back toward the more thickly populated part of the town,
in search of a guardian of the law, of whom there were half a dozen, or
more, in Middleford.
Meanwhile there was plenty of excitement at the Anderson home. Mrs.
Anderson and the girls went carefully over the room in which the
fortunes had been told, but only to confirm the first suspicion—the ring
was gone.
“Couldn’t you have left it on your dresser, mother?” asked Mabel, with
tears in her eyes.
“I’ve looked there. No, I distinctly remember laying it on the table
when I put away some books,” for the little room was used as a sort of
storeroom. “Jennie called me for something or other. I meant to come
back and get my ring. But I never gave it another thought until you
asked me about the fortune telling. Then I happened to recall that you
might go in that room, to be private, and I came down. But the
prophetess had gone,” she finished rather pathetically.
“And also your lovely diamond ring!” sobbed Mabel. “The one papa gave
you for the wedding anniversary. Oh, it’s all my fault!”
“Not at all, Mabel!” exclaimed Mrs. Anderson. “How could you know I had
left my ring there?”
“And how could we know that Gypsy was a—thief?” burst out Marie.
“Oh, I do hope the boys catch her!” murmured Alice.
“Will—will they be in any danger?” asked Natalie timidly.
“What! Three of them to one little Gypsy girl? I guess you don’t know
our brothers!” exclaimed Mabel.
“No, I never had any, you see,” responded Natalie with a smile. “But I
was thinking she might get to where her people are, and those Gypsy men
aren’t the most gentle individuals, I’ve heard.”
“That’s so!” cried Alice. “Oh, I hope——”
“I wish father were home,” put in Mabel.
“I have it!” burst out Marie. “The police! We can telephone to them, and
ask them to go and protect the boys.”
“Perhaps it would be a good idea,” suggested Mrs. Anderson. “I don’t
like the fuss and notoriety, but I do want my ring back, and I wouldn’t
like the boys to run into any danger. You had better telephone, Mabel.”
Soon the wire to the police station was in use, with Mabel on one end
and the somewhat venerable chief on the other.
“Oh!” gasped Mabel. “There’s been a robbery here, Chief. Mother’s
diamond ring, that father gave her for a wedding present. It was a
lovely ring, and——”
“Skip all those details,” urged Alice in a low voice. Alice could be
very practical at times.
“Yes, a robbery,” went on Mabel’s voice. “At our house. A Gypsy came to
tell our fortunes—no it’s nothing about the porch—I said
fortunes—f-o-r-t-u-n-e-s—” and she spelled it out. “A Gypsy
girl—mother’s ring was on a table. Now it is gone—no, not the table—the
ring. Oh, please do hurry and get the boys! What? No, boys didn’t take
the ring. A Gypsy girl took it, and the boys—my brother, and Jack
Pendleton and Blake Lathrop. We’re so afraid the Gypsy men may attack
them. You’ll send at once? Oh, thank you!”
The instrument clicked as Mabel hung up the receiver, and turned her
still tearful eyes on her mother and her chums.
“There, at least the boys will be safe,” she whispered. “But if they can
only get your ring, momsey.”
“Never mind, dear. It might be worse. Don’t distress yourself over it.
We’ll just wait until the boys come back. Perhaps you had better make
some coffee and sandwiches. They’ll be cold, for it’s chilly, even if it
is nearly June.”
“And time to go camping,” added Natalie.
Mrs. Anderson looked at her daughter in some surprise.
“I haven’t told you yet, momsey,” Mabel said, “but we Camp Fire Girls
have been challenged by the boys to go off to the woods at Green Lake,
and be real camp fire maidens. We are thinking of doing it. Do you think
we might?”
“I’ll see. We’ll talk it over later. But now if you’ll light the fire
perhaps being busy will make you forget this little trouble.”
“It isn’t a little trouble,” declared Mabel. “I shall always feel that
it was my fault if mother’s ring is not recovered.”
“But you mustn’t, dear,” said Mrs. Anderson gently, putting her arms
around her daughter. Mabel sobbed a little, and then, remembering her
guests, she regained her composure.
“It won’t be as easy as this—getting a meal in camp,” remarked Alice, as
she put a match to the gas stove.
“But it will be ever so much more fun!” declared Natalie. “Think of
sitting beside the sky-blue water, with the birds singing overhead, and
eating a meal beside a glowing camp fire.”
“Beautiful breath-of-the-pine-tree!” exclaimed Marie. “That is if the
camp fire doesn’t smoke.”
“They almost always do—at least those I’ve seen always did,” declared
Mabel.
* * * * *
Phil, Blake and Jack had no trouble in persuading one of the policemen
to accompany them to the Gypsy encampment. On the way, as they hurried
on, they told of what had occurred.
“It’s about time something was done to them Gypsies,” declared the
officer. “They pretend to tell fortunes—the women folks do—but it’s only
an excuse to get around to places and size ’em up, so the men folks can
come later, and pick up anything that’s lying around loose. As for
horse-trading, they’d stick the wisest white man that ever cinched a
saddle. They can doctor old, worn-out nags so they’ll look like racers,
but the first time you drive ’em the color runs in the rain, and their
manes and tails come unglued. I know Gypsies! I’ll be glad of a chance
to help run these out of town!”
The boys and officer hurried on. They had left the lighted streets of
the town, and were out on a country road leading to the next village.
“It isn’t far now,” remarked Phil.
“They always have lots of curs around,” suggested Jack. “I hope they
don’t nip us in the dark.”
“Just go right on boldly,” advised the officer. “If a dog bites you kick
it. I’ve got my club.”
“It’s too late after a dog bites you,” murmured Blake. “And she was such
a pretty girl,” he added.
“Say, you’ve got her on the brain!” complained Phil.
“Well, she had a pretty face—for a Gypsy,” declared his chum.
“I don’t hear any dogs barking,” said Jack a little later.
“No, and I don’t see any lights of their encampment,” added Blake.
“Fellows, I guess it’s farther than we thought it was.”
“No it isn’t!” cried Phil. “It was right near the bridge we just
crossed. But I can tell you what has happened!” he exclaimed, coming to
a halt in the dark road.
“What?” asked his chums. “What’s happened?”
“Those Gypsies have skipped. See, there are the embers of one of their
camp fires, though they use stoves when they want to do any real
cooking. Boys, they’ve skipped. We’re just too late. That Gypsy girl,
and her tribe, have vanished with mother’s diamond ring!”