“Ha! she come here to see you——”
“No. She went to the hotel and to a friend’s house in the village,” said Ruth, “asking for me. I did not see her. She has not come here.”
“Huh!” grunted the man, and backed away, doubtfully.
“Now we are busy and you must not trouble us any more,” declared Ruth, hurriedly. “Come, Agnes!”
“He’ll come in the tent and search it,” whispered Agnes, in her sister’s ear.
“I will speak to Mr. Stryver. He is here to-day,” said Ruth, mentioning a neighbor in the camp.
“Big Jim,” as the Gypsy called himself, had backed away from the tent, but he watched the departing girls with lowering gaze. At Mr. Stryver’s tent Ruth halted long enough to tell the gentleman to keep his eye on the Gypsy man who was hanging about the camp.
“The women were here to sell baskets and such like truck while you girls were off crabbing, this morning,” said Mrs. Stryver. “It gives me the shivers to have those folks around. I think we ought to have these tent camps policed.”
“I’ll ’tend to this fellow,” promised Mr. Stryver, who was a burly man, and not afraid of anything.
Ruth hurried Agnes away toward the bend without another word.