"Why! I think this is outrageous," said Nellie Agnew. "We ought to find
a constable and have such a thing stopped. Think of chasing that poor
girl with a mad dog----"
"I guess he isn't mad," ventured Eve, soberly.
Bobby laughed. "Even if he's only vexed I wouldn't want a bloodhound
tearing after me over these hills."
"You know what I mean," persisted Nellie, still wrathfully. "It is a
desperate shame! The dog will hurt her----"
"No, no!" said Eve. "It is trained. And the man has it in leash----"
"Hush! here they are!" warned Laura, and the girls hid themselves behind
the fringe of bushes.
The dog gave tongue just as it came in sight, and the sound sent a
shiver over the watchers. The baying of a bloodhound is a very
terrifying sound indeed.
With the dogs were three men--one of them the same the girls of Central
High had seen before. The other two were fully as rough-looking.
"I hope they don't find her!" exclaimed Bobby.
"They'll find you if you don't keep still," warned Jess.
But it appeared to the girls that the Gypsies were having considerable
difficulty in following the trail of the girl who had fled along the top
of the old stone wall. The dog searched from side to side of the road.
He leaped the wall, dragging one of the men after him, and ran about the
lower field. That she had traversed the stone fence, like a fox, never
seemed to enter the men's minds, nor the dog's either.
For some time the party of hunters were in sight; but finally they went
off in an easterly direction along the road, passing over the brook in
which the strange girl had left her "water trail," and the girls of
Central High believed that the fugitive was safe--for the time being, at
least.
"I wish we knew where she was going," said Nellie. "I'd help her, for
one."
"Me, too," agreed Bobby Hargrew.
"If she should get as far as our house, mother would take her in," said
Eve, in her placid way. "But the Romany folk are peculiar people, and
they have laws of their own and do not like to be brought under those of
other countries."
"Why, they're just tramps, aren't they? Sort of sublimated tramps,
perhaps," said Jess.
"Not the real Gypsies," said Laura. "They are very jealous, I have read,
of their customs, their laws, and their language. They claim descent in
direct line from early Egyptian times. The name of Stanley alone, which
is common with them, dates back to William the Conqueror."
"Well, come on!" sighed Jess. "We don't care anything about the Gypsies,
and we can't help that girl--just now. If we tried to follow her up
stream we would only give those men the idea of the direction in which
we went. Let's get on, or we'll never get to Fielding."
"All right," agreed Laura.
"Forward, march!" sang out Bobby. "How's the way, Eve? Right down this
hill?"
"Keep parallel with the road. We'll strike another path later," said the
Swiss girl, who had rambled all over these hills with her brother.
"Oh, these shoes!" groaned Jess.
"I told you so," exclaimed Laura.
"Bah! what good does it do to repeat _that?_" snapped her chum. "I hate
those old mud-scows of mine that Mrs. Case makes me wear when she goes
walking with us."
"Well, you certainly wore a fine pair to-day," scoffed Bobby. "I guess
it doesn't do to do what Mrs. Case advises against."
"Not if we want to make points for Central High," said Laura, laughing.
"That's so! Where would Jess be to-day if this was a regular scheduled
walk, to count for our school in June?" cried Dora.
"Now, rub it in! rub it in!" exclaimed Jess. "Don't you suppose I know
I've been a chump without you all telling me so?"
"I do believe it will rain," burst out Dorothy, suddenly. "Doesn't that
look like a rain-cloud to you, Laura?"
"Pooh!" said Eve. "Don't be afraid of a little April shower. It won't
drown us, that's sure."
"That's all right," agreed Dora, the other twin. "But we don't want to
get soaked. If it should start to rain, is there any shelter near?"
"The Gypsy camp, maybe," laughed Bobby, and then went on ahead, singing:
"'April showers bring May flowers
And sometimes more than that;
For the unexpected downpour
Often ruins the Easter hat.'
"Say, girls, we _would_ be in a mess if it should start to rain hard."
"And that cloud looks threatening," admitted Nellie Agnew.
"I believe I felt a drop then," gasped Dora.
"What's the matter, Chicken Little?" laughed Laura. "Is the sky
falling?"
"You can laugh! Maybe it will be a regular flood," said Jess, ruefully.
"By the way, what caused the flood?" asked Bobby, soberly.
"Folks were so wicked--all but Noah," replied Dora.
"No," said Bobby.
"It's one of Bobby's 'burns,'" declared Jess. "What _did_ cause the
flood, then?"
"It rained," said the irrepressible one.
"Come on under this tree, girls!" cried Eve, striding ahead down the
hill. "It will only be a passing shower."
They ran for cover, and the broad branching limbs of the huge cedar Eve
had selected faithfully covered them as the brief spring shower went
drumming by.
Meanwhile Laura was saying, more thoughtfully:
"We've got to give our best attention to the inter-class and
inter-school athletics when school opens again, girls, if we want
Central High to stand first at the end of the year. You know we are
being beaten right along by the East High and Keyport Just think!
Central High only Number 3 in points that count when the June field day
comes. We can't stand for that, can we?"
"I should say not!" cried Bobby. "But we beat 'em last year on the
water."
"And we stand first in basketball," added Dora Lockwood.
"But the fact remains we haven't got the championship of the League
cinched by any manner of means," returned Laura. "Eve is going to win, I
believe, in the shot-putting contests. Mrs. Case says that is on the
doubtful list of girls' athletics. But throwing weights isn't going to
hurt Eve, or Hester Grimes, that's sure. And look at that girl at
Vassar! She put the shot thirty-two feet and three-quarters of an inch
when she was only sixteen. Eve can do almost as well."
"I don't know about that, Mother Wit," said the big girl, laughing. "But
I'll do my best."
"And your best will beat them all, I believe."
"She'll beat Magdeline Spink, of Lumberport, I know," cried Bobby. "And
_she_ did all the big 'throws' last year--baseball, basketball, putting
the shot, and all of 'em."
"I hope you are right, Bobby," returned the country girl, smiling. She
was proud of her strength and physique. Her outdoor life since she was a
little child, and what she had inherited from a long line of peasant
ancestors was coming into play now for the benefit of Central High's
athletic score.
"Now, don't sit down there on the damp ground, Jess. You'll get a case
of rheumatism--and a bad case, too."
"Oh, I hope not!" cried Jess, jumping up. "I shouldn't know what to do
for it."
"You'd have to take mud baths," giggled Dorothy.
"That road below is in fine shape for that purpose, then," said Jess,
looking through the pouring rain at the puddles in the roadway.
"You'd have to wear flannels," said Dora.
"Hah!" cried Bobby. "That's it. Flannels are a sure cure. You know,
"'Although it caused within his home
A very serious schism,
He still insisted flannel-cakes
Were good for rheumatism.'"
"Go on!" exclaimed Jess, laughing. "You sound like 'Alice in
Wonderland.'"
"Say, rather, 'Bobby in Blunderland,'" added Laura. "But to get back to
athletics----"
"'To return to our muttons,'" quoth Bobby, unrepressed.
"We have a chance to win the championship--our school has--if we can
bring the relay teams up to the mark, and win the jumping events. It is
on field and track that we have got to gain the points. No doubt of
that."
"Then our track teams need strengthening--much," said Nellie Agnew,
thoughtfully.
"I should say so!" exclaimed Bobby. "I could put on one of Lil
Pendleton's peg-top skirts and beat most of the junior runners right
now!"
"If it's as bad as that, we have all got to go into the track athletics,
and pull up our score," declared Laura.
"Hurrah!" cried Dorothy, suddenly. "It's stopped raining."
"That little shower didn't even wet under the bushes," said Eve, with
satisfaction.
"Let's get along, then, before another comes and washes us away," said
Bobby. "Straight ahead, Evangeline?"
"Yes. Right down to that dead oak you see on the lower hillside."
"Good! A mark is set before me, and if my luck holds good I'll reach it.
But why prate of 'luck'? Is there such a thing?"
"Give it up. What's the answer?" asked Dora Lockwood, directly behind
her.
"Luck is a foolish thing--or a belief in it is," complained Bobby. "List
to my tale of woe:
"Why wear a rabbit foot for luck
Or nail a horseshoe on the sill?
For if upon the ice you slip
You'll surely get a spill.
"Why cross your fingers in the dark
To keep the witches from your track,
When if, in getting out of bed,
You step upon a tack?"
"Don't sing us any more doggerel, but lead on!" commanded Laura.
Bobby was first at the dead tree. There she stopped, not for breath, but
because, below her, in a sheltered hollow, where a spring drifted away
across a grassy lawn, there was an encampment. She held up her hand and
motioned for silence.
There were three large, covered wagons such is Gypsies usually drive. A
dozen horses were tethered where the young grass was particularly lush.
A fire over which a big kettle of some savory stew bubbled, burned in
the midst of the encampment. There were two gaudily painted canvas tents
staked on the green, too, although from the opened doors of the wagons
it was evident that the Gypsies, at this time of year, mainly lived
within their vehicles.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bobby, when the other girls were crowding about her, and
looking as hard as she was at the camp. "This is what the girl we saw,
ran away from."