“Do you mean we’ll sneak back, and see what’s goin’ on, right now; sorter creep up through the bushes, Injun fashion, and peep, unbeknown to any of the gypsies? Tell me, is that what’s got you, Frank?”
“Well no, hardly that, Lanky,” replied the other. “In the first place it’s getting kind of late, and I promised to be home by five, sharp. Then, though perhaps you haven’t noticed it, there’s a gypsy boy trailing us right now. No, don’t turn around and look, because that would tell him we knew all about his following us. Wait till we get to that bend, and then you can see without showing that you’re bothering your head about him.”
“Wow! that’s what I call going some, Frank,” remarked Lanky, presently.
“You saw him then; didn’t you?” asked the leader of the boys.
“Right you are; and he’s certain sure follerin’ us, to see that we don’t play a double game, and sneak back in the direction of the camp,” was Lanky’s admission.
“And you can understand that a boy wouldn’t be up to any such trick unless some other person had told him to do it?” Frank continued, with convincing force.
“That must mean she did it,” Lanky admitted.
“The old queen, and no other. So, you see, we couldn’t turn back now without her knowing about it; and that would give the alarm. Why, by to-morrow morning these same gypsies would be miles away on the road to nowhere; and it’d be the hardest kind of business getting on the track of them again.”
“Well, when can we come back?” asked Lanky; “to-morrow afternoon?”
“For one, I don’t feel like waiting that long,” the other declared.