Then she spoke again to the mare, and the latter picked her way carefully over the narrow path and so to the North pasture. In fifteen minutes Eve had the strange girl at the farmhouse, where her kind-hearted mother helped put the visitor to bed. They were true Samaritans in that house. They reserved all questioning until after the needy had been aided.
Eve went to town that afternoon, for she was due for practice at the athletic field, full of this adventure. The strange girl had not said a word about herself save that she had been traveling through the marsh early that morning and had mistaken the path.
Eve had told her mother her suspicions as to who the girl was, and it was plain that the young Gypsy would be unfit for travel for some days. The Sitzes would try to find out something about her condition and why she was striving to escape from her companions.
“But, it’s plain why she left town so hurriedly,” declared Jess Morse, one of those to whom Eve told her story. “I’ve seen those Gypsy women in town myself this week. I saw the queen—Grace Varey, did you say her name is?”
“That’s the name she gave us last year,” said Eve.
“Well, I saw her only this morning. The Gypsies have come to town to search for that girl. She knows it and was escaping into the country when she got into that swamp. My! It was lucky you rode that way, Eve.”
But it was Bobby Hargrew who showed the most interest in the affairs of the mysterious Gypsy girl. She asked Eve a hundred questions about her and finally admitted that she had reasons for wishing to know all about her that she did not feel free to divulge.
“I tell you honestly, Eve, I wish you’d let me go home with you so that I can see that girl before Monday morning,” said Bobby, bluntly.
“Well, why not?” returned the farm girl, laughing. “You’d be welcome, Clara.”
“I’ll telephone father at the store and run home and pack a bag and meet you at the station,” announced Bobby, greatly excited.