“Oh! happy day!” sang Lanky. “When you hear of me trying to take a short-cut on that same Marathon race, just engage a room for me at the insane asylum; won’t you?”
“But looky there, what under the sun have we got now, boys?” called out Bones, who happened just then to be a little in the lead of the runners.
“Wagons, hey?” exclaimed Lanky; “and all the colors of the rainbow at that. Jupiter whiz! did you ever see such a gay crowd? Say, Frank, these must be the gypsies that hang around Budd’s Corners every other summer; don’t you think so?”
“Just what they are,” came the reply; “but there’s twice as many this year as ever before.”
“And would you see the fine wagons they’ve got along?” remarked Bones, as they stood upon the lower fence rail to watch the caravan pass. “Most of ’em are fitted up, they tell me, like the cabin of a boat, with sleeping bunks and a cooking range. I’d just like to say that one of those wagons must be worth a heap of money. How do they make it all, Frank, do you think?” and he lowered his voice, for the head of the procession was now very close by, and the boy did not wholly like the looks of the swarthy men who drove those wagons along toward the first of the line.
“They do a lot of horse trading,” Frank replied; “and are mighty smart at it, too. The ordinary farmer has little chance against a gypsy in a trade; though he may think he’s some pumpkins, as they say. Those horses are a pretty good lot, let me tell you, fellows,” as the wagons began to pass by.
There must have been at least ten of them, all told, mostly new ones, with all the comforts known to modern wagon travelers. The boys watched the procession pass with considerable interest, and from the way the gypsies stared at them they excited almost as much curiosity, on account of their running clothes, as the gypsies did in them. And it was while they stood in this way that Lanky suddenly began to show a strange excitement, turning toward his chums with a puzzled look on his face.
“Say, perhaps you fellows didn’t see that little girl trying to attract our attention in one of those vans?” he remarked, with more or less eagerness. “The old gypsy woman pulled her down in a big hurry, but, Frank—Bones, I sure believe that she was holding out her baby hands to us, like she wanted to ask us to help her!”
CHAPTER IV
A MYSTERY OF THE WAGON
The other two boys looked at Lanky curiously, as if to see whether he could be in earnest, or only joking. Lanky was inclined, at times, to show an odd streak of humor, as Frank had long since found out.