OVERBOARD
For a moment Constable Jackson, as he had called himself, staggered to
retain his footing, for Blake had used no gentleness in thrusting him to
one side.
“Ah—ha!” the man finally managed to gasp, as he steadied himself by
seizing a slender sapling. “What do you mean, young man? How dare you
lay hands on me? I represent the law, I do!”
“Then I’m sorry for the law,” was Blake’s cool response. “What are you
doing here, anyhow? Don’t you know that this is private property? These
young ladies rent this camping-ground, and you’re as much a trespasser
as if they owned it. What are you doing here, anyhow?” and Blake’s voice
was stern.
“I’m not going to answer your questions, young man, unless I want to,”
the constable fired back. “And you’re doing a mighty risky thing in
interfering with the majesty of the law. I am it!”
“Glad you told me,” murmured the lad, “otherwise I might not have known
it,” and he laughed.
“Be careful!” warned the constable. “I can arrest you too, if I like!”
“Arrest!” gasped Natalie, who had somewhat recovered her composure at
the advent of Blake. The other boys and girls were not in sight.
“Yes, arrest! I thought I’d make you take back-water.”
“I’m not taking back-water, as you call it, at all,” said Blake sharply,
“I am merely curious. What do you mean? Once more I ask why you are
here? And if you don’t give an account of yourself, I’ll run you off the
place,” and Blake looked very much able to do it, a fact, which even
gentle Natalie was gladly aware of at that moment.
“Be careful,” needlessly warned Constable Jackson. “I’m here on account
of this—it’s my authority,” and again he tapped the nickel star on his
coat.
“Authority for what?” snapped Blake.
“For taking her. I’ve got a warrant!” and he pointed a stubby finger at
Natalie. “It calls for the arrest of one Hadee, a Gypsy girl for the
‘feloniously taking, carrying away and converting the same to her own
use of one pocket-book, said to contain the sum of fourteen dollars and
thirteen cents, the property of Mrs. Josiah Applebaum, with force and
arms, contrary to the statutes in such cases made and provided,’” and he
drew from his pocket a paper, from which he appeared to have quoted the
last few words with great satisfaction. “That’s why I’m here,” the
constable went on, “and when I go away I’m going to take her with me!”
and he took a step toward Natalie.
“No! No!” she gasped. “There’s some mistake. Oh, Blake!” and she stepped
toward the youth.
“There now,” he soothed her. “Don’t you be a bit alarmed. Of course
there’s a mistake. You sha’n’t stir a step!”
“Oh, she won’t; eh?” jeered the representative of the law.
“No!” declared Blake. “As she says there has been a mistake, and it’s
you who are making it. So you take her for some Gypsy girl; eh?”
“I sure do. The description fits perfect. Dressed like some Indian
girl—hair down her back, ribbon around it and all. Of course she’s the
one I want!”
“And you say she is Hadee?” asked Blake curiously, making a sign to
Natalie not to show that she recognized the name.
“Yes; but that don’t matter. Names is easy made up. Now will you come
along peaceable, or not?” and he glared at Natalie.
“I—I—” she began.
“Wait,” spoke Blake, “I’ll answer him. In the first place,” he went on,
“this is Miss Natalie Fuller, a friend of mine. With two boy friends, I
am camping over at Stony Point. Miss Fuller and four chums are camping
here. I can give you their names. I can also refer you to Mr. Henderson,
the storekeeper, who knows us all. We might know this Gypsy Hadee you
speak of, for some of the girls have had their fortunes told, but I’m
positive Miss Fuller has taken no pocket-book. Her costume is that of
the Camp Fire Girls’ Association, as we can show you in the official
book. Now what do you say?”
“Well, all I’ve got to say that I’ve got a warrant for Hadee,” declared
the constable sullenly.
“But not for Miss Fuller,” insisted Blake. “If you’ll use your eyes
you’ll see that she isn’t at all like a Gypsy girl, though she does wear
her hair that way,” and at this Natalie smiled a little.
“Well, maybe they did make a mistake,” admitted Constable Jackson.
Evidently the array of facts that Blake shot at him rather staggered the
representative of the law.
“They!” exclaimed Blake. “I think _you_ did.”
“I didn’t mean to,” the man went on. “After I got the warrant I made
some inquiries. Some one told me there was Gypsy girls camping over
here, and I come.”
“So they take us for Gypsies!” exclaimed Natalie. “Oh, what will the
Camp Fire Girls say to this?”
“What about this pocket-book?” asked Blake. “Did a Gypsy really take
it?”
“Here’s all I know,” said the constable. “Josiah Applebaum, he lives
over on the Woodport road, come to town yist’day and complained to
Squire Grover that a Gypsy had visited his wife, told her fortune, and,
when she left, the pocket-book that was on the table went too!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Natalie.
“What’d you say?” demanded the constable.
“Nothing,” answered Blake for her, giving his friend a warning look. “Go
on.”
“That’s all there is to it. The squire made out the warrant for the
girl, who give the name Hadee, though whether it’s her right one or not
I don’t know—it’s a heathen name, anyhow.”
“And you came here after her?” questioned Blake.
“Yes, havin’ heard there was Gypsies here.”
“And now you see you’re wrong?”
“Well, you say so. And it don’t exactly look like a Gypsy camp, either,”
Mr. Jackson admitted. “Do you know where I can find ’em?”
“Not in the least,” Blake replied. “You’ll have to use your detective
abilities. But I advise you to be a little more sure next time, before
you make accusations. If I had not come along you might have frightened
Miss Fuller.”
“I didn’t mean to,” murmured the man. “Well, I’ll go looking for this
Hadee, though I don’t believe there’ll be much money left in th’
pocket-book when I git it,” and he started off, looking rather
suspiciously at Natalie.
The voices of the other girls, and Mrs. Bonnell approaching through the
woods, were heard now, and as they saw Natalie and Blake and the
retreating constable Marie cried:
“Oh, what has happened? Is anything wrong?”
“This man is the only one in wrong,” said Blake grimly. “He came to
arrest Natalie as a Gypsy pocket-book embezzler.”
“Oh, Natalie!” came in a chorus.
If there had been any doubt in the mind of the constable, it vanished at
the sight of the others. Putting his warrant back in his pocket, and
murmuring some indistinguishable words he slowly rowed away in his boat,
as Jack and Phil came along the lake-shore path to the girls’ camp.
“What’s the row?” demanded Jack. “What did old Jackson want? Has some
one been cutting down trees again?”
Blake explained, and his two chums were waxing very indignant until
Natalie informed them that, after all it was a very natural mistake, and
that no harm had been done.
“If you will look so much like a charming Indian maid, I suppose you
must put up with the consequences, breath-of-the-pine-tree,” said Mabel.
“It is the penalty of—well, notoriety.”
“Yes, your fame must have spread,” remarked Alice.
“Well, I wish some bread was spread,” declared Marie. “I’m as hungry
as—well, as the hungriest animal in the woods. Is dinner ready, Nat?”
“I was getting it when I came near going to prison,” laughed Natalie.
“If you’ll all help it will soon be on the table.”
“We’ll help!” exclaimed Jack eagerly. “We haven’t anything much in the
grub line at our camp. Ask us, won’t you?”
“Shall we, girls?” inquired Mabel.
“In view of Blake’s rescue, I think we might,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell,
and soon a merry little party was gathered under the dining canvas.
“And, Oh, girls!” cried Natalie. “Do you know what I was thinking of
when that constable was telling why he thought he wanted me?”
“Probably wondering how you’d like to live on bread and water,”
suggested Alice. “I believe that is what prisoners receive.”
“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Natalie. “But when he told how this
Hadee—which may be Gypsy for Hattie—when he said how she told the
farmer’s wife fortune, and then left with the pocket-book, I was
thinking of Mabel’s mother’s ring. That girl gave the same name, you
know.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Mabel. “The two cases are just alike. This Hadee
may be a professional larcerner, to speak in polite language. Oh, boys!
Can’t you locate her camp, and make her give back mother’s ring?”
“I never thought of that,” spoke Blake. “There may be something in it.
Fellows, shall we have a try?”
“Where is the camp?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know, but if Jackson can get on the trail, I should think we
could,” went on Natalie’s champion. “Let’s think about it, anyhow.”
“And if you boys don’t find it, maybe we can,” put in Alice.
“You girls! You’d never dare go off in the woods alone, looking for a
Gypsy camp; you’d get lost!” declared Phil.
“That shows how little he knows about the Camp Fire Girls!” exclaimed
Marie. “Know then, rash youth, that we are instructed in the following
of trails—Gypsy as well as Indian—that we know how to ‘blaze’ our way as
well as do your boy scouts, and that, while we may not be adepts, still
we can read some signs of woodlore. Can’t we, girls?”
“We can!” came in a chorus.
“I know that moss grows on the South—no, the East side of a tree!” said
Alice. “At least I think it does. And the East star——”
“North star—moss on the North side, too!” broke in Mabel. “How forgetful
you are, Alice.”
“I know I am. Anyhow, do you think we could find this Gypsy camp?”
“We’ll find it for you,” promised Jack. “What do you say to a trip on
the water this afternoon?”
“In the launch?” asked Mrs. Bonnell.
“Unfortunately the launch is out of commission,” explained Blake. “Jack
was trying to fix the carburettor and he got it out of adjustment.”
“I did not. It was broke before I touched it!” declared Jack
indignantly.
“Anyhow the boat’s gasolene circulation seems to be wrong,” went on
Blake. “It runs backwards like a crab, instead of forward. So I guess we
shall have to take to the oars. We have sent for a boat-doctor.”
“I’d like to row,” ventured Natalie.
“My canoe holds two very nicely,” put in Blake, quickly.
“And it’s as wabbley as a fellow just learning to skate,” declared Jack.
“Come with me, Nat, in my good old tub.”
“After the gallant manner in which I saved her from the clutches of the
law? I guess not,” exclaimed Blake. “You’ll come canoeing, won’t you,
Natalie?”
“I think so—for a little while,” she promised.
The others paired off somehow, and soon a little flotilla of boats was
slowly moving along the shady side of the lake. The occupants talked of
many things, chiefly of the visit of the constable.
“Where do you suppose the Gypsy camp could be?” asked Mabel, calling to
Blake, near whose canoe she and Jack were, in a rowboat.
“It might be almost anywhere,” he answered. “We’ll see Jackson
to-morrow, and ask if he has learned anything.”
“Do you think this Hadee could possibly be the same one?” went on the
girl whose mother’s ring had been taken.
“From—er—from the method of operation I should think it very likely,”
said Blake. “Look out!” he called suddenly to Phil who was rowing with
Marie. “Pull over!”
But he was too late. Phil’s boat struck the frail canoe, tilted it
sharply, and the next moment Blake and Natalie were in the waters of the
lake.
“Overboard!” yelled Jack. “Steady! We’ll get you!”
The other girls screamed, until a stern command from Mrs. Bonnell
quieted them. Jack and Phil, keeping their wits about them rowed toward
the overturned canoe. An instant later Blake came up, gasping. With a
shake of his head he cleared his eyes of water, and then looked around
for Natalie. She had sunk out of sight.