What to do next was a problem. Bessie, when she had followed the rough path until it led to a trail, was completely lost. She knew, roughly, and in a general way, the direction of Camp Manasquan, as the camp at Long Lake was called, but that was about all.
"If I go straight ahead I may be going just as straight as I can away from anyone who can help Dolly," she reflected. "Or I may get over toward Loon Pond, and run into that awful gypsy, and then I"d be worse off than ever! Oh, I do wish I knew where I was, or how I can find Lolla. She must know these woods, and she"d be able to help me, I"m sure."
Finally, however, Bessie determined to move slowly along the trail in a direction that would, she thought, take her around the bottom of Deer Mountain. She remembered that just a little while before she had come to the place where she had first seen Lolla, a side path had crossed the trail on which she had followed Dolly and her captor, and it seemed likely to her that that path would also cross the trail she was now on.
If it did she could work back to a spot she knew, and so find her bearings, at least. Then, if there was nothing else to be done, she would certainly be able to get back to Long Lake. For her to stay in the woods, lost and hungry, would not help Dolly.
So she set out bravely, walking as fast as she could. The sun was high in the heavens now, and it was long after breakfast time, so that Bessie was hungry, but she thought little of that.
As she had hoped, and half expected, she came, presently, and at what seemed to her the proper place, upon a trail that crossed the one she was following, and she turned to the left without hesitation. She might, she felt, be going in the wrong direction altogether, but she could not very well be more hopelessly lost she was already; and, if she had to be out in the woods without a clue to the proper way to turn, she felt it made very, little difference whether she was in one place or in another.
The new trail was one evidently little used, and when Bessie had been on it for perhaps ten minutes, and was beginning to think that it was time she came in sight of the larger trail from Long Lake to Deer Mountain, she heard someone coming toward her, and, rounding a bend, came into sight of Lolla.
The gypsy girl seemed overwhelmed with joy at the sight of Bessie.
"Oh, how glad I am!" she exclaimed. "I was afraid that Peter had caught you and tied you up with your friend, and that you would think I had sent you up there so that he would trap you! How did you escape?"
"I climbed down the rocks," said Bessie simply, and smiled at Lolla"s gasp of astonishment.
"You climbed down the rocks!" cried the gypsy. "However did you do that? There ain"t many men--not even many of our men--would try that, I can tell you. I thought perhaps you would try to do that, and I was coming around this way to get to the foot of the rocks and see if I could find out what had become of you."
"You know where we are and how to get back, then?" asked Bessie.
"Of course I do. I know all these woods." Lolla laughed. "I have set traps for partridges and rabbits here many and many a time, but the guides never saw me. You knew where you were going, didn"t you? If you"d kept on as you were going when you met me you would have come to the main trail in a minute or two, and then, if you"d turned to the right, and kept straight on, you"d have come to Long Lake, where you started from."
"I thought that was what would happen, Lolla, but I wasn"t quite sure."
"Did you hear me shouting when Peter came along? I hoped you would understand and bide yourself some way, so that he wouldn"t find you. What I was most afraid of was that you would be in the woods with your friend, and that you wouldn"t hear us."
"Yes, I heard you, and I knew what you were doing, Lolla; that you meant to warn me that Peter had come sooner than you thought he would. I was grateful, too, but I was afraid just to hide myself and let him go by, because the woods were so thick on each side of the trail that I was afraid he would see where I had broken through and catch me."
Lolla nodded her head.
"You are wise. You would be a good gypsy, Bessie. You would soon learn all the things we know ourselves. Peter has very quick eyes, and he is very suspicious, too. He saw you at the camp, you know, and he would have guessed right away, if he had seen you there, that you were looking for Dolly."
"That was just what I was afraid of, Lolla. He would have tied me up with her if he had found me, wouldn"t he?"
"Yes. He"s a bad man, that Peter. I think if John and he were not so friendly John would not have done this. He is kind, and brave, and he always tried to stop anyone who wanted to steal children. He would steal a horse, or a deer, but never a child; that was cowardly, he said."
"He didn"t hurt you, did he, Lolla?"
The gypsy girl laughed.
"Oh, no. He tried to hit me, but I got away from him too quickly. I would not let him touch me. With John it is different. He is my man; he may beat me if he likes. But not Peter; I hate him. If he beat me I would put this into him."
Bessie, surprised by the look of hate in Lolla"s eyes, drew back in fear as Lolla produced a long, sharp knife from the folds of her dress, and flourished it for a moment.
"Oh, Lolla, please put that away!" she exclaimed. "There"s no one here to be afraid of." Lolla laughed.
"No, but I have it if I need it," she said meaningly.
"What are we going to do now, Lolla? We can"t leave Dolly up there much longer. They"ve got her tied up, and gagged, so that she can"t call out, and she"s terribly uncomfortable, though I don"t think she"s suffering much."
"We will get her soon," said Lolla, confidently.
"You stay near where she is, so that they can"t get her away," said Bessie, "and I"ll go and get help. Then we shan"t have any trouble."
But Lolla frowned at the suggestion.
"You would get those guides, and they would catch my man and put him in prison, oh, for years, perhaps! No, no; I will get her away, with you to help me. Leave that to me. Peter is stupid. Come with me now; I know what we must do."
"Where are you going? This isn"t the way back to where Dolly is," protested Bessie, as Lolla pressed on in the direction from which Bessie had come. "We can never get up those rocks, Lolla; it was hard enough to come down."
"We are not going there, not yet," said Lolla. "I must go to the camp and find out what John is doing. If he comes back to watch her himself it will be harder. But if he has to stay, and Peter looks after her, then we shall have no trouble. You shall see; only trust me. I managed so that you saw her, didn"t I? Doesn"t that show you that I can do what I say?"
"I suppose so," sighed Bessie. "I should think you wouldn"t care if that man does go to prison, though, Lolla. He isn"t nice to you, and you say he"ll beat you when you"re married. American men don"t beat their wives. If they did they would be sent to prison. I should think you"d give him up--"
Lolla"s dark eyes flamed for a moment, but then she smiled, as if she had remembered that Bessie, not being a gypsy, could not be expected to understand the gypsy ways.
"He is a good man," she said. "He will always see that I have enough to eat, and pretty things to wear. And if he beats me, it will be because I have been wicked, and deserve to be beaten. When I am his wife he will be like my father; if I am bad he will punish me. Is it not so among your people?"
Bessie struggled with a laugh at the thought of the only married couple she had ever known at all well: Paw and Maw Hoover. The idea that Paw Hoover, the mildest and most inoffensive of men, might ever beat his wife would have made anyone who knew that couple laugh.
Instead of turning when they reached the trail which Bessie had followed after her descent from the rocks, Lolla led the way straight on.
"Are you sure you know where you are going, Lolla!" asked Bessie.
Lolla smiled at her scornfully.
"Yes, but it is not the way you would go," she said. "The trail to the camp will be full of people. They will be out all over the camp particularly. We must come to it from another direction. That is why we are going this way."
It was not long before Bessie was as thoroughly lost as if she had been in a maze. Lolla, however, seemed to know just where she was going. She left one trail to turn into another without ever showing the slightest doubt of her direction, and, at times, when the woods were thin, she would take short cuts, leading the way through entirely pathless portions of the forest with as much a.s.surance as if she had been walking through the streets of a city where she had lived all her life. Even Bessie, used to long walks around Hedgeville, in which she had learned the country thoroughly, was surprised.
"I don"t believe I"d ever get to know these woods as well as you do," she said admiringly. "Why, you never seem even to hesitate."
"I"ve been here every summer since I was born," said Lolla, in a laughing tone. "I ought to know these woods pretty well, I think."
"I hope no one sees us now," said Bessie, nervously. "I really do feel as if it were wrong for me to keep away. Miss Mercer must be as anxious about me as she is about Dolly."
"Is she the lady who is with you girls?"
"Yes. You see, she probably thinks that was carried off, as well as Dolly."
"She will stop being anxious all the sooner for not knowing where you are. I think it will not be long now before we get your friend away from that place where she is hidden."
"Well, I certainly hope so. Listen! I think I can hear voices in front of us."
"I heard them two or three minutes ago," said Lolla, with a smile. "Stay here, now; hide behind that clump of bushes. I will go ahead and see what I can find. Even if it is some of your friends they would not suspect me; they would think I was just out for a walk."
So Bessie waited for perhaps ten minutes, while Lolla crept forward alone. But the gypsy was back soon, smiling.
"All is safe now," she said. "Come quickly, though, so we shall get behind them and be able to get near the camp. There is a place there where you may hide while I find out what is going on."
They reached the spot Lolla meant in a few minutes more, and again Bessie had to play the inactive part and wait while Lolla went on to gain the information she needed. When she came back she was smiling happily.
"That John is stupid, though he is so brave," she said to Bessie. "He went back there to the camp, and he is sitting in front of his wagon. There is a guide with a gun sitting near him, and my sister tells me that the guide says he will follow him and shoot him if he tries to get away.
"There are many people there, and the whole camp is angry and frightened. The king says he will punish John, but John will not admit that he knows where your friend is. We are safe from him. They will not let him get away for a long time."
Bessie was comforted by the news. With her captor under guard, Dolly had nothing to fear from him, and, though Peter might be a sullen and dangerous man, Bessie felt that Lolla was right, and that he was too thick witted to be greatly feared.
They made the return trip with hearts far lighter than they had been as they made their way to the gypsy camp. Bessie had seen that Lolla was afraid of John, though now that he, had been over-reached she was ready enough to laugh at him.
"What are you going to do! How are you going to get her away, Lolla?" asked Bessie, as they neared the point where she had first seen her ally."
"I don"t know yet," said Lolla, frankly. "If Peter is on the trail it will be harder. I hope he will be inside, so that we can slip by without his seeing us. If he is, and we get by, then you are to wait until you hear me sing. So."
She sang a bar or two of a gypsy melody, and repeated it until Bessie, too, could hum it, to prove that she had it right, and would not fail to recognize it.
"When you hear me sing that, remember that you must run down and go to your friend. Here is nay knife. Use it to cut the cords that tie her. Then you and she must go back toward the rocks where you went down. And when you hear me sing again you are to go down, as quickly as you can, but quietly, and, as soon as you are past the place where she was hidden, you must start running. I will try to catch up with you and go with you, but do not wait for me."
"I don"t quite understand," Bessie began.
But now Lolla was the general, brooking no defiance. She stamped her foot.
"It does not matter whether you understand or not," she said sharply. "If you want me to save your friend and get back to the others you must do as you are told, and quickly. Now, come."
They went on up the trail, and, at the bend just below the spot where she had broken through to reach Dolly before, Bessie waited while Lolla, who had recognized the place from Bessie"s description of it, crept forward to make sure that the way was clear.
"All right," she whispered. "Come on."
Silently, but as swiftly as they could, they crept past the place, and, when they were out of sight stopped.
"Now, you will know my song when you hear it?"
"Yes, indeed, Lolla. Why, what have you got there?"
"What I need to make Peter come with me," laughed Lolla. "See, a fine meal, is it not? I got it at the camp. Let him smell that stew and he would follow me out of the woods."
Bessie began to understand Lolla"s plan at last. She was going to tempt Peter to betray his orders from his friend by appealing to his stomach. And Bessie wondered again, as she had many times since she had met Lolla, at the cunning of the gypsy girl.
Her confidence in Lolla was complete by now, and she did not at all mind waiting as she saw the little brightly clad figure disappear amidst the green of the trail.
It was some time, however, before she heard any signs that indicated that Lolla had obtained any results. And then it was not the song she heard, but Lolla"s clear laugh, rising above the heavy tones of Peter.
"Oh, oh! You would give me orders when I bring you breakfast? No, no, Peter; that won"t do. Come, she is safe there; come and eat with me, where she cannot put a spell on your food to make it choke you."
"Do you think she would do that?"
That was Peter"s voice, stupid and filled with doubt. Bessie laughed at Lolla"s cleverness. Peter, she thought, would be just the sort of man to yield to the fears of superst.i.tion.
"I know she would; she hates us. Come, Peter; does it not look good?"
"Give it to me. There, I"ll catch you--"
Then there was a sound of scuffling and running, but Bessie, noticing that it drew further and further away, laughed. Lolla was a real strategist. She understood how to handle the big gypsy, evidently. And a moment later Bessie, her nerves quivering, all alert as she waited for the signal, heard the notes of Lolla"s song. At once she rushed down, broke through the tangled growth, and was at Dolly"s side, cutting away at the cords that bound Dolly, and, first of all, tearing the handkerchief from her mouth.
"It"s all right now, we"re safe, Dolly. Only you"ll have to come quickly, dear, when I get you free. There, that"s it. Are you stiff? Can you Stand up?"
"I guess so," gasped Dolly. "Oh, I"d do anything to get away from here. Bessie, look!"
Bessie turned, to face Peter and Lolla, their faces twisted into malignant grins. Lolla had betrayed her!
CHAPTER XI.
THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE.
For a moment Bessie stared at the two gypsies, their eyes glowing with malicious triumph, and delight at her shocked face, in such dazed astonishment that she could not speak at all. She had been completely outwitted and hoodwinked. She had trusted Lolla utterly; had made up her mind that the girl"s jealousy was not feigned.
Even now, for a wild moment, the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps Lolla had been unable to help herself; that Peter might have insisted on coming back, and that Lolla was forced, in order to be of help later on, to seem to fall in with his plans.
But Lolla herself soon robbed her of the comfort that lay in such a thought.
"You thought I would betray my people!" she cried, shrilly. "We do not do that; no, no! Ah, but it was easy to deceive you! When I saw you I knew you would be dangerous. I could not hold you by force until John came, I had to trick you. I thought we would catch you when you went up there. I did not think you would be brave enough to go down the rocks."
Bessie said not a word, but only clung to Dolly"s hand and stared at the treacherous gypsy.
"So then, when you had gone, I had to find you again, and send word to Peter to do as I said, so that we could catch you, and stop you from going to your friends and telling them where we had hidden your friend who is there with you now. Now we have two, instead of one. Oh, I have done well, have I not, Peter?"
Peter grinned, and grunted something in his own tongue that made Lolla smile.
"Tie them up again, Peter," said Lolla, looking viciously at Bessie, and obviously gloating over the way in which she had tricked the American girl. And Peter, nothing loath, advanced to do so. But Bessie had stood all she could.
Dolly, terribly cast down by this sudden upsetting of all the hopes of rescue that the coming of Bessie and her release from the cords that bound her had raised, was close beside her, shivering with fright and despair.
And Bessie, with a sudden cry of anger, seized the knife Lolla had given her, which had been lying at her feet. Furiously she brandished it.
"If either of you come a step nearer I"ll use it!" she said, scarcely able to recognize her own voice, so changed was it by the anger that Lolla"s treachery had aroused in her. "You"d better not think I"m joking. I mean it!"
Peter hesitated, but Lolla, her eyes flashing, urged him on.
"Go on! Do you want me to tell all the women that you were frightened by a little girl; a girl you could crush with one hand?" she cried, angrily. "You coward! Tie them up, I tell you! Oh, if my man John were here he"d show you! Here--"