Gypsies in this county have to be careful, or they lose their rights to come in here. I think, myself, we would be better off without them."
"Then give me a chance to leave," snapped the man. "The rest are gone.
We are done with this blamed county, anyhow."
"Well, you will have to settle up first," declared Squire Redding.
"Those spoons were valuable."
"I ain"t got no spoons! I tell you I was at the camp all night, and I don"t know nothin" about this thing."
"Very well, very well. Can you furnish a thousand-dollar bond?"
"Thousand-dollar bond!" and the gypsy shifted uneasily. "I guess not, judge."
"Then here comes the man to attend to your case. Constable c.u.mmings, take this man to the station again and lock him up. Here, Tony, you can walk all right. Don"t play off that way."
But Tony did not move. He sat there defiant.
Officer c.u.mmings was a big man and accustomed to handling prisoners as rough and as ugly as this one. The two steel cells back of the fire house were often occupied by rough fishermen and clammers who forgot the law at the seaside place, and it was always Tom c.u.mmings who put them in "the pen."
"Come, Tony," he said, with a flourish of his stick. "I never like to hit a gypsy; it"s bad luck."
The prisoner looked up at big Tom. Then he shuffled to his feet and shambled out of the room.
As he pa.s.sed down the stone steps he brushed past Cora. Whether intentionally or otherwise, the man shoved the girl so that she was obliged to jump down at the side of the step. Jack saw it and so did Ed, but big Tom winked at them and merely hurried the prisoner along.
Cora only smiled. Why should the man not be rude when her evidence had accused him of a serious crime--that of breaking and entering?
"I didn"t tell you about the bottle," she said to the boys as they walked along. "I found this bottle in the fields."
"Chloroform!" exclaimed Jack. "You should have told the judge, Cora."
"But could I prove that the man had it? Besides, it would be awful to have that made public."
"You are right, Cora," agreed Ed. "First thing we"d know, it would be in the New York papers. "Attempt to Chloroform Three Young Girls!"
That would not be pleasant news for the folks up home way."
"Oh, well, I suppose you are right," said Jack. "But that bottle puts a different light on the case, and it seems to me the fellow ought to suffer for it."
"And do you know that old gypsy woman, Liza, met me and tried to scare me into--or out of--identifying Tony? She made a most dramatic threat."
"Did, eh? I thought all the gypsies had cleared out!" exclaimed Jack.
"I"ll go and get a warrant for her----"
"She took the eleven o"clock train," said Cora. "I saw her going to the station as I came up the street. Oh, I wouldn"t bother with the poor old woman. This man is her brother, and naturally she wants to keep him out of trouble."
"At the expense of trouble for others." Jack was determined to have justice for his sister. "I"m going to make sure she and the whole tribe have left the county. The lazy loafers!"
"Now, Jacky," and Ed smiled indulgently. "Didn"t Liza tell your fortune once, and say that you were going to marry the proverbial b.u.t.ter tub? It is not nice of you to go back on a thing like that."
"Did it strike you, boys, that this man answers the description of the man Mrs. Robbins was frightened by?" asked Cora.
"That"s so," agreed Ed. "I"ll bet he had his eye on something around the bungalow--not Miss Robbins, of course."
"Well, it seems better that he is now safe," said Cora, with a sigh.
"I"m glad I am through with it."
"I hope you are," said Ed, and something in his manner caused Cora to remember that remark. "I hope you are!"
But Cora was not through with it by a great deal--as we shall soon see.
CHAPTER IX
THE START
"Dear me! I did think something else would happen to prevent us from getting off," said Bess, as she and Belle, with Cora, actually started out to get the autos ready for the tour to the Berkshires. "And to think that Miss Robbins can go with us!"
"I"m sure she will be a lot better than a nervous person like dear mamma," said Belle. "Not but what we would love to have mamma go, but she does not enjoy our kind of motoring."
"It does seem fortunate that Miss Robbins wanted to go," added Cora.
"I like her; she is the ideal type of business woman."
"Is she?" asked Belle, in such an innocent way that the other two girls laughed outright.
"Oh, I suppose I ought to know," and Belle pouted; "but we always think Cora knows so much better--and more."
"Which is another fact I have b.u.mped into," said Cora.
"I just feel that we are going to have the jolliest of good times,"
remarked Bess, as they started down the road. "I never care what route we take. Isn"t it fine that the boys attended to all that arrest and police business for us?"
"Very fine," agreed Cora, "but I like to have my say now about our plans. We are going to take the main road along the New York side. We will touch Bridgeport and Waterbury. You might like to know that much."
"There are the boys, and there is Miss Robbins! My, doesn"t she look smart!" suddenly exclaimed Bess.
"That"s a smart outfit," Cora agreed, as they saw the party approaching, Miss Robbins "done up" in a tan suit, with the exact shade in a motor cap.
"I"m so glad we have all the things in the cars. It is so much better to do that the night before," remarked Belle.
"But you didn"t do it the night before; I did!" her sister reminded her.
"Did you bring the hot-water bottle?" asked Cora. "If Belle gets a headache, you will surely need it."
This was not a joke, neither was it intended for sarcasm, for on previous tours Belle had suffered, and the getting of reliable remedies was one of the real discomforts of the trip.
"I put in the water bag and mustard, too," said Belle. "Bess is just as likely as not to get a cold, and she has to have mustard."
"I suppose Cora brought cold cream," called Bess, with a laugh. "That is usually the important drug in her medicine chest."