“Gypsies,” declared Natalie. “Oh, dear! I hope they won’t come around after dark.”
“How can you suggest such things?” demanded Mrs. Bonnell. “Stop!”
“We must tell the boys,” remarked Marie, and a little later, the meal being finished a flag was run up on a pole near the lake shore. It was easily observable from the point where the boys camped, and was an adopted signal requesting the presence of the three chums at Crystal Springs.
“Well, what is it this time?” asked Jack as he and his companions arrived a little later. “Has old Jackson been trying to arrest you again for scaring some one’s cows?”
“Nonsense,” declared his sister. “This is more serious. Boys, we’ve been——”
“Nothing is more serious than scaring cows,” insisted Jack. “If you make them run they’ll give milk instead of butter.”
“Then I should think it would save the farmers the bother of churning,” was Mabel’s opinion, at which they all laughed.
“What is up?” asked Blake, seeing that the girls looked worried.
“Some one has been taking our things,” said Mrs. Bonnell. “A bottle of olives, some sardines——”
“The ones you asked me for, Jack,” put in Natalie.