"You don"t mean that, Eve?" Jess cried. "A bloodhound?"
"And they have put him on the trail of that girl--sure as you live!"
declared the farmer"s daughter, with decision.
CHAPTER III--THE GYPSY CAMP
"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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing shower."