But the long-legged chap certainly looked serious enough just then. His eyes followed the line of gypsy vans eagerly. If there was anything that appealed to Lanky Wallace it was a bit of mystery, and he had been known to bother his head for days and weeks over some trifling affair that the ordinary schoolboy would dismiss from his mind with a laugh.
“I tell you she did just what I said, fellows,” he persisted in saying; “held out her hands to me; and if ever there was a look of fear on a little girl’s face, I saw it on hers!”
“Oh, rats!” exploded practical Bones; “you’ve been reading some silly stuff about gypsies taking the children of rich people and holding ’em for a ransom. That might have happened years ago, or perhaps in Old England; but if you think it could to-day, and in America, why, you’re away off your base, Lanky. Reckon you ought to have been born about the year sixteen hundred and seven, instead of in this age.”
Frank, while doubting whether there could be anything in what seemed to be a far-fetched idea of the tall chum, was not so much inclined to “josh” him as Bones had been.
He and Lanky had known of a case where the haunting face of a young tramp had kept both of them guessing for a long spell, and the persistence of the tall chum had in the end brought the truth to light. And through that same dogged perseverance a long-lost son and brother was restored to his family; while Lanky had made a good friend in rosy-cheeked Dora, the pretty sister of Will Baxter.
“Tell me, Lanky,” he said, now, in as serious a tone as he could command, “was the child fair-haired, or a brunette; because, you know, all gypsies are dark?”
Lanky made a wry face, but stood to his guns.
“Sure, she did have a dark little phiz, Frank, that’s right; but, then, I reckon it’s the easiest thing in the world to change the skin, and dye the hair. Why, haven’t you had your hands turn brown with the juice of fresh walnuts every fall, when we laid in our winter stock, and hulled ’em? ’Course you have, and so has Bones here. I tell you, fellows, I’ll never get that look out of my head. If I wake up in the night, bet you a cookey I’ll think of it right away.”
Frank knew the obstinacy of his chum only too well. There never was a boy who would persist more in a thing than Lanky Wallace, though when he had the truth absolutely shown to him he would give up, and admit that he was wrong. Some people who did not fancy Lanky called him pig-headed and stubborn, but those who were better able to judge understood the difference between stubbornness and firmness.
“Well,” said Frank, “if that’s the way you feel about it, Lanky, there’s only one thing to be done. To satisfy yourself, you ought to see the child again. When you find out that she is only a little brown gypsy, sure enough, you’ll sleep easy again.”