“Oh, dear me,” said Ruth, rather worriedly. “I don’t just like Gypsies.”
“Oh, you haven’t got to hug and kiss them!” laughed Pearl. “Come on! they’re lots of fun.”
But when the party of girls drew nearer to the Gypsy camp, this particular tribe of Nomads did not appear to be “lots of fun,” after all.
In the first place, the tents—as Ann had said—were very shabby and dirty. The two covered wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding in the little glade were mere “crowbaits.”
Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle to his lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
“Let’s hurry right by, Pearl!” begged Ruth.
Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
“Where’s your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want our fortunes told.”
One man—a tall fellow with a scarred face—turned and shouted something in a strange tongue at the tents. Ruth recognized the language in which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl on the train.
And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight of the face of the very woman in question, peering from between the flaps of one of the dingy tents.