Suppose, years and years hence, I should meet Ruth and she should ask to tell my fortune as Gypsy women do--and she shouldn"t know me----"
Helen began to sob again. She was working herself up into a highly nervous state and her imagination was "running away with her," as Ruth often said.
Just then she almost lost the punt-pole, and this near-accident startled her. She might need that pole yet--especially if the boat drifted into shallow water.
She looked all around. She stood up, so as to see farther. Not a moving object appeared along either sh.o.r.e of the lake. This was a veritable wilderness, and human habitations were far, far away.
She raised her eyes to the chain of hills over which she and her brother and Ruth had ridden the day before. At one point she could see the road itself, and just then there flashed into view an auto, traveling eastward at a fast clip.
"But, of course, they can"t see _me_ "way down here," said Helen, shaking her head. "They wouldn"t notice such a speck on the lake."
So she did not even try to signal to the motor-car, and it was quickly out of sight.
The current was now stronger, it seemed. The punt drifted straight down the lake toward the broad stream through which Long Lake was drained.
Helen hoped the boat would drift in near one sh.o.r.e, or the other, but it entered the stream as near the middle as though it had been aimed for that point!
Here the water gripped the heavy boat and drew it onward, swifter and swifter. At first Helen was not afraid. She saw the banks slipping by on either hand, and was now so far from the Gypsies, that she would have been glad to get ash.o.r.e. Yet she did not think herself in any increased danger.
Suddenly, however, an eddy gripped the boat. To her amazement the craft swung around swiftly and she was floating down stream, stern foremost!
"Oh, dear me! I wish I had a pair of oars. Then I could manage this thing," she told herself.
Then the boat sc.r.a.ped upon a rock. The blow was a glancing one, but it drove the craft around again. She was glad, however, to see the bow aimed properly.
From moment to moment the boat now moved more swiftly. It seemed that the foam-streaked water tore at its sides as though desiring to swamp it. Helen sat very quietly in the middle seat, and watched the dimpling, eddying stream with increasing anxiety.
Suddenly the punt darted sh.o.r.eward. It looked just as though it must be cast upon the beach. Helen raised herself stiffly, seized the pole more firmly, and prepared to leap ash.o.r.e with its aid.
And just as she was about to risk the feat, the bow of the boat whirled outward again, she was almost cast into the water, and once more the boat whirled down the middle current.
She dropped back into her seat with a gasp. This was terrible! She could not possibly control the craft in the rapids, and she was traveling faster and faster.
The boat came to another eddy, and was whirled around and around, so swiftly, that Helen"s poor head swam, too! She raised her voice in a cry for help, but it was likewise a cry of despair. She had no idea that there was a soul within the sound of her voice.
Crash! the boat went against an outcropping rock. It spun around again and darted down the current. It was leaking now; the water poured into it between the sprung planks.
The river widened suddenly into a great pool, fringed with trees. At one point a rock was out-thrust into the river and Helen saw--dimly enough at first--a figure spring into view upon this boulder.
"Help! help!" shrieked the girl, as the boat spun about.
"Hi! catch that!"
It was dear old Tom"s voice! The shout brought hope to Helen"s heart.
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" she cried. "Save me!"
"Bet you I will!" returned the boy. "Just grab this rope----Now!"
She saw the loop come hurtling through the air. Tom had learned how to properly throw a lariat the summer before, while in Montana, and he and his particular chums had practised the art a.s.siduously ever since that time.
Now, at his second trial, he dropped the noose right across the punt.
Helen seized upon it.
"Hitch it to the ring in the bow--quick!" commanded her brother, and Helen obeyed.
In five minutes he had her ash.o.r.e, but the punt sunk in shallow water.
"I don"t care! I don"t care!" cried Helen, wading through the shallow water. "I really thought I was going to drown, Tommy boy."
"But where"s Ruth? Whatever have you girls been doing since last evening? Where did you go to?"
He held her in his arms for a moment and hugged her tightly. Helen sobbed a little, with her face against his shoulder.
"Oh! it"s so-o good to have you again, Tommy," she declared.
Then she told him swiftly all that had happened. Tom was mighty glad to get his sister back, but he was vastly worried about her chum.
"That"s what I feared. I had a feeling that you girls had fallen into the hands of those Gypsies. Those men in the old house were two of them----"
"I know it. We saw them at the encampment."
"But if Ruth is still with them," Tom said, "Peck will get her. He said he knew how to handle Gyps. He"s been used to them all his life. And this tribe often come through this region, he told me."
"Who is Mr. Peck?" asked Helen, puzzled.
Tom told her of his adventures on the previous night. After returning to the spot where the auto had been stalled earlier in the evening, Tom and the constable had searched with the lanterns all about the place, and had followed the footsteps of the girls and the strange woman to the lower road.
"I had no idea then that the wagon you had evidently gotten into was a Gypsy cart," pursued Tom. "We saw you"d gone on toward Severn Corners, however, and we went back. But you come along with me, now, Helen, and we"ll return to that very place. I expect Uncle Ike will be waiting for us. I telephoned him before daylight this morning--and it"s now ten o"clock. The car is right back here on the road."
"Oh! I am so glad!"
"Yes. Soon after breakfast Peck and I separated! I came this way in the car, hoping to find some trace of you. Peck made inquiries and said he"d follow the Gyps. Ruth will be taken away from them," declared Tom, with conviction. "That big smith isn"t afraid of anybody."
"Oh, I hope so," said Helen. "But that horrible old Gypsy--the queen, she calls herself--is very powerful."
"Not much she isn"t!" laughed Tom. "Peck fully feels the importance of that star he wears. I think he would tackle a herd of elephants, if they were breaking the law."
So they sped on in the motor-car, feeling considerably better. The twins were very fond of each other, and were never really happy, when they were apart for long.
But when they ran down into Severn Corners, expecting to find Ruth at the constable"s house, they were gravely disappointed. The forge was open and Sim Peck was shoeing a horse. He stood up, hammer in hand, when the motor-car stopped before the smithy.
"h.e.l.lo!" he said to Tom. "Did you get her?"
"I got my sister. She"s had an awful time. Those Gypsies ought to be all shut up in jail," said Tom, vigorously.
"Them "Gyptians?" drawled Peck, in surprise. "What they got ter do with it?"
"Why, they had everything to do with it. Don"t you know that they carried off both my sister here and Ruth Fielding?"