THE GYPSY CAMP
“Have we everything we need?” asked Natalie.
“No, and we wouldn’t even if we had brought the whole camp outfit with
us,” replied Marie. “We’d still find that we wanted something we didn’t
have.”
“But we have enough!” declared Mrs. Bonnell, looking at what she
carried, and then at the burdens borne by the girls. It was two days
after the episode of the hornets, and the members of Dogwood Camp had
sallied forth to make another effort to locate the Gypsies. And, to
prevent a repetition of their unfortunate experience the previous time,
they were well equipped, as will presently be set forth.
They had managed to conceal from the boys their real destination, by a
harmless little subterfuge that it is needless to recite. Sufficient to
say that it was rendered all the more easy because the boys had a ball
game in prospect—two nines made up of cottagers and campers—and they
were to play at a certain distant and fashionable hotel.
“Which means that they will be away late enough so that they won’t have
to come to rescue us,” said Mabel.
“There will be no need this time,” asserted Mrs. Bonnell. “I have the
little axe with which to blaze the trees.”
“It sounds like a French lesson, doesn’t it?” asked Alice, with a laugh.
“The hairpins did very well,” said Natalie with another laugh, at the
remembrance of their pretty Guardian-chaperone diligently scratching the
bark of the white birch trees with her wire coiffeur retainers.
The day after the boys had “played tag with the hornets,” as Alice put
it, there had been rain, but the Camp Fire Girls had put in the enforced
idle time to good advantage by getting ready for the trip to Bear Pond.
Marie had artfully interviewed Reuben when he came with some eggs, and
had carefully jotted down the directions to be followed. He told them of
a shorter route to the place, necessitating a little longer row, but
less of a walk.
Then they had carefully packed some baskets of provisions, and had even
arranged to take along some coffee, and an old pot in which to boil it
over an open fire.
“Well, I guess we’re ready to start,” announced Mrs. Bonnell, after an
early breakfast.
“Did you bring the compass?”
“How many bottles of olives did you put in?”
“I hope there are enough sandwiches.”
“And a drinking cup.”
“What about matches?”
“Did you lock my trunk, Natalie?”
“What shall we do with the keys?”
The above are only samples. Three or more pages of similar import might
be set down, but to no purpose. They were about to leave their camp,
and, against the visits of an intruder they had locked most of their
valuables such as they did not take with them—in their trunks. Then the
tent-flaps had been carefully tied shut, a weird array of knots being
used, having been copied from a boy-scout book that the Guardian had
with her.
“If a burglar can untie those,” said Mrs. Bonnell as she finished the
last one, “he’ll be so short tempered that he won’t bother to take the
few little things we have left here.”
“But how can we untie them?” asked Marie.
“Oh, I can easily pick them out with a hairpin,” answered the
resourceful Mrs. Bonnell. “Hairpins to a woman are what a screw-driver
is to a man. I never could get along without them. From buttoning shoes
to opening bottles of olives, they run the gamut of utility.”
The day was fair, with no promise of rain, but, even if it should come,
the serviceable suits, of which each girl had two, would neither be
damaged, nor would they readily permit of the wearers being drenched.
And so they started off.
“I do hope that Reuben doesn’t tag after us, or want to come with us,”
said Alice, when they were in the boats.
“Why, did he say he would?” asked Mabel.
“No, but he was rather hinting when we questioned him about Bear Pond. I
wouldn’t be surprised but what he got one of his ‘half days off,’ and
became our escort.”
“He means all right,” murmured Natalie. “Poor fellow!”
“You may well say that, if you accept any more flowers from him,” warned
Alice.
“I don’t see why. They are only wild blossoms, and I’d pick them myself
if he didn’t.”
“That’s Nat!” exclaimed Mabel with a laugh.
They rowed leisurely to another cove about which Reuben had told them,
and then, once more concealing the oars, they struck off into a path
that, they had been assured led directly to Bear Pond, and to that
portion most likely to be the camping-place of the Gypsies, since it was
near a main-traveled road.
“Be sure we have everything!” exclaimed Alice, as they disembarked. “For
it may be a long time before we get back.”
“Don’t look for trouble,” warned Mrs. Bonnell.
Laden with their parcels and bundles containing mostly food, for they
intended to have a substantial lunch in the woods, they trudged on. Mrs.
Bonnell industriously blazed the trail as they proceeded, though it was
scarcely necessary, for the path seemed often used.
“But we may be able to see the white blaze of the wood in the dark,” she
insisted.
“Oh, if we could only bribe a few lightning bugs to stay on each
chipped-off place,” suggested Marie, “we could easily pick out the path
then.”
They laughed at her quaint conceit, and proceeded. The way was easier
than the first one they had essayed, and they made better time. In the
distance they had occasional glimpses of farmhouses set down in some
hollow. Farmhouses of an ancient régime, it seemed, since the land about
them was little tilled now. There were only small gardens, not prolific
ones at that.
They came from the path out upon a country road, with many and deep ruts
in its dirt surface.
“We are to keep along this for half a mile, and then take the path to
the right,” read Marie from the written directions that had not been
forgotten this time.
“Oh, there’s an old well sweep, and I’m sure there must be an old oaken
bucket going with it!” cried Mabel. “I must have a drink,” and she
started toward the gate of a farmhouse they were approaching.
“The germ-covered bucket!” murmured Alice. “I’d rather have a tin pail.”
As they reached the gate a yellow cur rushed out at them, barked
vociferously and interspersing his disapproval with snarls of anger.
“Oh, mercy!” cried Natalie, shrinking back.
“Good doggie! Good old fellow!” called Mrs. Bonnell, coming to a
standstill, while the girls huddled behind her. “Nice old chap!”
“He isn’t at all nice!” declared Alice. “How can you say such things?”
“That’s always the way to talk to barking dogs,” insisted the Guardian.
“Don’t let them see that you fear them.”
“No—don’t!” laughed Natalie, as she saw the fear-huddled group. “We are
a living monument to—bravery!”
“Maybe his bark is worse than his bite,” whispered Mabel.
The dog did not seem disposed to retreat. He had run out into the road,
and disputed their progress, in spite of the many soothing
“good-doggie!” and “Nice old fellow!” verbal sops that Mrs. Bonnell
threw to him.
“Maybe he’s hungry!” suggested Marie. “Wait a minute!”
She began exploring the lunch basket she carried and presently threw
something to the cur. He made a spring for it, and then bolted into the
yard.
“Why, Natalie Fuller!” cried Alice aghast. “That was one of our best
chicken sandwiches!”
“You didn’t think I’d give him anything but the best; did you?” inquired
Natalie, as she tossed back her long braids. “I was going to offer him
some olives, but he didn’t stay for dessert. Come on, girls. Now he’s
gone we can advance.”
“I don’t believe I want a drink—at least not here,” said Alice. “But we
can get past the house, and maybe there’s a spring farther on.”
The dog evidently accepted the chicken sandwich as a peace offering for
he barked no more. There was no sign of life about the house as the
girls passed it. They soon came to a roadside watering-trough, cut out
of one solid log, into which, from a wooden spout, there flowed a stream
of clear, cold water.
The drink was refreshing, and they filled some milk bottles they had
brought with them for this purpose, since at Bear Pond the water was not
fit to use.
Again they struck into the cool, green woods, glad of the change from
the hot highway. Birds flitted around them in the trees, calling in
sweet notes, and now and then some startled creature of the forest
darted away from beneath their very feet. They heard the distant call of
crows, and the lowing of cows hidden in the fastness of the wood.
“We are almost there,” declared Marie consulting her elaborate
directions. “It’s about half a mile from this spring,” and she pointed
at the one where they had halted for another drink—a spring stone-lined,
in the center of a grassy plot, and shaded by a great, gnarled oak. A
spring so clear that the sand bottom seemed but a few inches below the
surface. Yet when they replenished their water bottles they realized
that it was nearly three feet deep. Cold and refreshing was the water.
And then, a little later, they emerged from the forest and stood on the
shore of Bear Pond. They could look down its lonesome length and see the
rock where they had first stood. The place did not seem to have changed.
“It’s as dreary and Dead Sea-like as before,” said Natalie in a whisper.
Somehow it seemed natural to whisper at Bear Pond.
“Well, now to see if we can locate the Gypsy camp,” suggested Mrs.
Bonnell. “It is early yet. We don’t want lunch for an hour. Let’s
explore a bit first.”
They walked on, keeping as near to the shore of the lake as possible.
Suddenly Natalie, who was in the lead, held up a hand for silence.
“Hark!” she called in a whisper.
From somewhere in the woods ahead of them came the sounds of barking.
“Dogs,” said Marie.
“And Gypsies always have lots of dogs,” added Mabel.
They pushed on. The barking became plainer. They saw a gleam of white
amid the trees.
“The Gypsy camp!” exclaimed Natalie. “We’ve found it!”