A SERIOUS JOKE
Bessie, seriously alarmed, led the race through the woods and they had gone for nearly a quarter of a mile before she would even stop to listen. When she felt that if the gypsy were going to overtake them he would have done it, she stopped, and, breathing hard, listened eagerly for some sign that he was still behind them. But only the noises of the forest came to their ears, the rustling of the leaves in the trees, the call of a bird, the sudden sharp chattering of a squirrel or a chipmunk, and, of course, their own breathing.
"I guess we got away from him all right," she said. "Oh, Dolly, I was frightened!"
"What?" cried Dolly, amazed. "Do you mean to say that you let that silly gypsy frighten you? I thought you were braver than that, Bessie!"
"You don't know anything about it, Dolly," said Bessie, a little irritated. "It really wasn't your fault, but those people aren't like our men. He probably meant just what he said, and if he thought you were laughing at him, it would have made him furious. When you said you would marry him, of course I knew you were joking, and so would anyone like us, but I think he took you seriously. He thought you meant it!"
"Bessie! How absurd! He couldn't! Why, I won't marry anyone for ever so long, and he surely doesn't think an American girl would ever marry one of his nasty tribe! You're joking, aren't you! He couldn't ever have really thought anything so perfectly absurd?"
"I only hope we won't find out that he was serious, Dolly. You couldn't be expected to understand, but people like that are very different from ourselves. They haven't got a lot of civilized ideas to hold them in check, the way we have, and when they want something they come right out and say so, and if they can't get what they want by asking for it, they're apt to take it."
"But I didn't think anyone ever acted like that! And he is going to marry that pretty gypsy girl who is putting the beads and buttons on a jacket for him, anyhow. She said so; she said they were engaged."
"Men have changed their minds about the women they were going to marry, Dolly, even American men. And that's another thing that bothers me. I think that girl's very much in love with him, and if she thought he was fond of you, she'd be furious. There's no telling what a gypsy girl might do if she was jealous. You see, she'd blame you, instead of him. She'd say you had turned his head."
"Oh, Bessie, what a dreadful mess. Oh, dear! I seem to be getting into trouble all the time! I think I'm just going to have a little harmless fun, and then I find that I've started all sorts of trouble that I couldn't foresee at all."
"Never mind, Dolly. You didn't mean to do it, and, of course, I may be exaggerating it anyhow. I'll admit I'm frightened, but it's of what I know about the gypsies. They're strange people and they carry a grudge a long time. If they think anyone has hurt them, or offended them, they're never satisfied until they have had their revenge. But, after all, he may not do anything at all. He may have been joking. Perhaps he just wanted to frighten you."
"Oh, I really do think that must have been it, Bessie. Don't you remember that he was different from the others! He spoke just as well as we do, as if he'd been to school, and he must know more about our customs."
Bessie shook her head.
"That doesn't mean that he isn't just as wild and untamed as the others down at bottom, Dolly. I've heard the same thing about Indians; that some of those who make the most trouble are the very ones who've been to Carlisle. It isn't because they're educated, because they would have been wild and wicked anyhow, but the very fact that they are educated seems to make them more dangerous. I hope it isn't the same with this gypsy; but we've got to be careful."
"Oh, I'll be careful, Bessie," said Dolly, with a shudder. "I'll do whatever I'm told. You needn't worry about that."
"That's good, Dolly. The first thing, of course, is never to get far away from the camp alone. We mustn't come over this way at all, or go anywhere near Loon Pond as long as those gypsies are still there."
"Oh, Bessie, do you think we'll have to tell Miss Eleanor about this?"
"I'm afraid so, Dolly. But there's no reason why you should mind doing that. She won't blame you, it really wasn't your fault."
"Yes, it was, Bessie. Don't you remember the way I changed the signs! If I hadn't done that we wouldn't have gone to Loon Pond, and if we hadn't gone there—"
"We wouldn't have seen the gypsies? Yes I know, Dolly. But Miss Eleanor is fair, you know that. And she may scold you for playing trick with the signs, but that's all. She won't blame you for having misunderstood that gypsy."
Then they came to the crossing of the trails, and Dolly replaced the signs as they had been before she had played her thoughtless prank.
"We must hurry along, Dolly," said Bessie. "It's getting dark, and we don't want to be out here when it's too dark. I think it's safe enough, but—"
"Oh, suppose that horrid gypsy followed us through the woods, Bessie? That's what you mean, isn't it! Let's get back to the camp just as fast as ever we can."
"Bessie, I'm an awful coward, I'm afraid," Dolly said, as the camp was approached. "Will you tell Miss Eleanor what happened; everything! I'm afraid that if I told her myself I wouldn't put in what I did with the signs."
"You wouldn't tell her a story, Dolly?"
"No, but I might just not tell her that. You see, I wouldn't have really to tell her a story, and, oh, Bessie, I want her to know all about it. Then if she scolds me, all right. Can't you understand?"
"I'll do it if you like, Dolly, but I'm quite sure you'd tell her everything yourself. You're not a bit of a coward, Dolly, because when you've done something wrong you never try to pretend that it was the fault of someone else, or an accident."
"Do you think I ought to tell Miss Eleanor myself?" said Dolly, wistfully. "I will if you say so, Bessie, but I'd much rather not."
"No, I'll tell her," Bessie decided. "I think you're mistaken about yourself, Dolly, and the reason I'm going to tell her is because I think you'd make her think you were worse than you were, instead of not telling her the whole thing. Do you see?"
"You're ever so good, Bessie. Really, I'm going to try to stop worrying you so much after this. It seems to me that you're always having things to bother you on account of me."
Miss Eleanor, at first, like Dolly, was inclined to laugh at what Bessie told her of the gypsy and his absurd suggestion that Dolly should stay with his tribe until she was old enough to be married to him.
"Why, he must have been joking, Bessie," she said. "You say he talked well; as if he were educated? Then he surely knows that no American girl would take such an idea seriously for a moment."
"But American girls do live with the gypsies and marry them, Miss Eleanor. Often, I've heard of that. And if you'd seen him when he got in our way on the trail you'd know why he frightened me. His face was perfectly black, he was so angry. And when Dolly laughed at him he looked as if he would like to beat her."
"I can understand that," laughed Miss Eleanor. "I've wanted to beat Dolly myself sometimes when she laughed when she was being scolded for something!"
"Oh, but this was different," said Bessie, earnestly. "Really, Miss Eleanor, you'd have been frightened too, if you'd seen him. And I do think Dolly ought to be very careful until they've gone away from Loon Pond."
Bessie was so serious that Miss Eleanor was impressed, almost despite herself.
"Well, yes, she must be careful, of course. I don't want the girls going over to Loon Pond, anyway. I want them to have this time in the woods, and live in a natural way, and the Loon Pond people at the hotel just spoil the woods for me. But I don't believe there's any reason for being really frightened, Bessie."
"Suppose that man tried to carry her off?"
"Oh, he wouldn't dare to try anything like that, Bessie. I don't believe the gypsies are half as bad as they are painted, anyhow, but, even if he would be willing to do it, he'd be afraid. The guides would soon run him out of the preserve if they found him here; no one is supposed to be on it, without permission. And a gypsy couldn't get that, I know."
"But it's a pretty big place, and there aren't so very many guides. We didn't see one today, and we really took quite a long walk."
"But, Bessie, what would he do with her if he did carry her off? Those people travel along the roads, and they travel slowly. He must know that if anything happened to Dolly, or if she disappeared, he'd be suspected right away, and he'd be chased everywhere he went."
"I think it would be easy to hide someone in their caravans, though, Miss Eleanor. And those people stick together, so that no one would betray him if he did anything like that. We might be perfectly sure that he had done it, but we wouldn't be able to prove it."
"I'll speak to the guides and have them keep a good watch in the direction of Loon Pond, Bessie. There, will that make you feel any better? And those gypsies won't stay over there very long. They never do."
"Have they been here before, Miss Eleanor?"
"Oh, yes; every year when I've been here."
"Well, I'll feel better when they've gone, Miss Eleanor."
"So will I. You've made me quite nervous, Bessie. I think you'd better tell Dolly, and be careful yourself, not to tell the other girls anything about this. There's no use in scaring them, and making them feel nervous, too."
"No. I thought of that, too. Some of them would be frightened, I'm sure. I think Zara would be. She's been very nervous, anyhow, ever since we got her away from that awful house where Mr. Holmes had hidden her away from us."
"I don't blame her a bit; I would be, too. It was really a dreadful experience, Bessie, and particularly because she knew it was, in a way, her own fault."
"You mean because she believed what they said about being her friends, and that she would get you and me into trouble unless she went with them that night when they came for her?"
"Yes. Poor Zara! I'm afraid she guessed, somehow, that I had been angry with her, at first. She's terribly sensitive, and she seems to be able to guess what's in your mind when you've really scarcely thought the things yourself."
"Well, I think it will be a good thing if she doesn't know about this gypsy trouble, Miss Eleanor. So I'll go and find Dolly, and tell her not to say anything."
"Do, Bessie. And get Dolly to come to me before dinner. She was wrong to play that trick with the signs, but I don't mean to scold her. I want to comfort her, instead. I think she's been punished enough already, if she's really frightened about that gypsy."
Dolly seemed to be a good deal chastened after her talk with Eleanor, and Bessie felt glad that the Guardian, though she evidently did not take the episode of the gypsy as seriously as did Bessie, had still thought it worth while to let Dolly think she did.
"I'm going to stay close to the camp after this, Bessie," she said. "And, oh, Miss Eleanor said that there were footprints this morning near the water that a deer must have made. I've got my camera here; suppose we try to get a picture of one tonight? We could go to sleep early, and then get up. Miss Eleanor said it would be all right, just for the two of us. She said if any more sat up it would frighten the deer."
"All right," agreed Bessie. "That would be lots of fun."
So they slept for an hour or so, and then, about midnight, got up and went down to the shore of the lake, to a spot where a narrow trail came out of the woods. There they hid themselves behind some brush and placed Dolly's camera and a flashlight powder, to be ready in case the deer appeared.
They waited a long time. But at last there was a rustling in the trees, and they could hear the branches being pushed aside as some creature made its way slowly toward the water.
"All ready, Bessie?" whispered Dolly. "When I give you a squeeze press that button; that will set the flashlight off, and I'll take the picture as you do it."
They waited tensely, and Bessie was as excited as Dolly herself. She felt as if she could scarcely wait for the signal. Dolly held her left hand loosely, and two or three times she thought the grip was tightening. But the signal came at last, and there was a blinding flash. But it was not a deer which stood out in the glare; it was the gypsy who had pursued Dolly!