“Oh, but I must get to the field, Chetwood!” cried Eve, in despair. “They told me Margit was here and needed me, and I came right from the train. I don’t know what it means——”
Chet had darted down the stairs and he soon came back with the other policeman. The officers agreed that the boy and two girls need not accompany them to the station; the Gypsy Queen and her husband, with the other Romany folk at home in the flat, could be held until later in the day for somebody to appear against them.
And that somebody was Miss Carrington’s lawyer, Aaron MacCullough. Eve had no more trouble with the Gypsies—nor did Margit. Mr. MacCullough took the opportunity of showing the roaming folk that they could make little out of Margit or her friends, and then the Centerport police warned them out of town.
Meanwhile Chet, with the two girls, got into the automobile, and started back toward the Central High athletic field. It was already two o’clock, and on the program of the day the event of the broad jump would be called in less than half an hour!
[CHAPTER XXV—THE WINNING POINTS]
That first relay race, in which the Junior Four of Central High took part, passed like a night-mare for Laura Belding and her companions. Every one of them was worried about Eve’s disappearance—so worried that they came perilously near not doing their very best.
But the rooters for their school got off with a splendid chorus when the girls came on the field, and with all that enthusiasm Laura and her comrades could not fail “to pull off some brilliant running,” as Bobby slangily expressed it.
And they did so. The four won the point for Central High, and next in line was the one hundred-yard dash. Bobby, as fresh as a lark, came to the scratch and prepared to do her very best against the representatives from the four other high schools. There was a girl from Lumberport whom she had been told to look out for. But Bobby proposed to “look out” for nobody on this short dash. The girl who got off in the best form was almost sure to win.
And that girl was Bobby. At the word she shot away like an arrow, and a roar of approval burst from the seats occupied by the boys of Central High.
“C—e—n, Central High!