The green skirt and the yellow scarf appeared. The girl was wading in the stream, and she passed swiftly along, seen by the spectators at every opening in the fringe of trees and brush that bordered the brook.
“In the water at this time of the year!” gasped Jess.
“And in her shoes and stockings! She wouldn’t have had time to stop to take them off and get so far up stream,” declared Bobby, almost dancing up and down in her eagerness.
“What do you suppose it means?” cried Nellie.
“She is running away from the man, I guess,” admitted Laura, slowly.
“And trying to hide her trail,” added Eve.
“Hide her trail! Is this the Indian country? Are the Gypsies savages?” demanded Nellie. “Has she got to run along the top of a stone fence and then take to a running stream to throw off pursuit?”
“That is her hope, I expect,” Laura said.
“But why?” cried Bobby. “You can’t tell me that even Gypsies are as keen on a trail as all that——”
“Hark!” commanded Laura. “Listen.”