After a little further talk with the two men, Uncle Ben took the things he had bought down to the dock where he had left the boat, and soon he and the children were on their way back across Silver Lake.
All the way home Ted and Janet, with Lola and Tom, talked of nothing but what they had heard of the Gypsy camp, and they wondered if Skyrocket would be found there.
“I wish I could be with you when you go up there to-morrow,” said Daddy Martin, when he heard the story of the yellow dog, the missing chickens, and the sheep that had been chased so hard that some of them died. “But I have to go back to Cresco the first thing in the morning.”
“But we can go look for Skyrocket, can’t we?” asked Ted anxiously.
“Oh, yes, Uncle Ben can take you there,” his father answered. “I guess, with him and the storekeeper, and the farmer you’ll be enough to make the Gypsies be good. And if you see Skyrocket——”
“I’ll just hug him and bring him home!” exclaimed Janet.
“Me want to hug Skywocket, too!” exclaimed Baby William.
“You’ll have to wait until they bring him home, Trouble, dear,” said his mother. “That is, if they are lucky enough to find him.”
When supper was over and after they had played about in the woods a bit, the Curlytops and their visitors went to bed. Trouble, some little time before, had nodded off to sleep in his mother’s arms. Mr. and Mrs. Martin, with Uncle Ben, sat up in the bungalow, talking over what had happened during the day.
“Do you really think Skyrocket may be at the Gypsy camp?” asked Mrs. Martin.