Jake looked around the interior of the strange van. Overhead arched the canvas roof, filtering the sunshine and splashed with moving shadows as the car journeyed down the road. He found himself sitting on the edge of a bunk built across the floor of the car, directly back of the driver’s seat now occupied by the ridiculous couple whom they had helped. In one corner was a small charcoal stove. The interior was heaped with all sorts of things: a little tin trunk, cooking pots, a cage with a canary chirping inside, bundles of clothing; from hooks swung more clothing, a lantern, a jangling bucket, a spare tire. “A regular house on wheels!” he told himself. “Wonder if these people are sure-enough gypsies?”
The little dark man’s head appeared as if by magic through an opening cut in the front of the canvas, his teeth showing white against his sweeping mustachios. “That ees right! Make yourselfs like at home, eh?”
“How far are you going?” Burk asked him. “To Wallistown?”
The car bumped and shook dangerously; the head was withdrawn and the machine put back on its course again. Then the rolling black eyes were turned on them once more. “What town ees that?”
“The one just down the road there.”
“We do not like the towns. We just go on, and then go on some more. Maybe we see nice place, we stop, eh? Maybe not.” A teeth-rattling lurch of the car again demanded his full attention, and the conversation was cut off.
Burk shook his head. “I don’t know whether we’ve done the right thing or not,” he said in a low tone. “These people seem to be going our way; but it remains to be seen whether we’re any better off than we were.”
“But, Burk—those people from the lake would have found us in no time if we hadn’t got this lift! And now we’re going south, even if it’s not very fast. And we’re hidden here under this cover, so that nobody will see us, even if the police have sent out a description.”
Burk nodded soberly. “I guess so. But you can be sure this highway is the first place they’ll watch.” He peeped out through the flap in the back of the caravan. “Look; we’re almost into Wallistown; if he stops here, I might as well be back in my cell at the prison right now. I know this was the only thing we could do; but maybe we’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.” The hunted man had never been at his ease among crowds of people; now, he felt doubly unsure.
Jake tried to reassure him. “Cheer up! We’re snug enough here for a while, and it’ll give us time to think up a plan. We’ll make it yet, old timer! Now, if I only knew where Jerry was, I think I’d feel pretty good.”