"Well, I think it will be a good thing if she doesn't know about this gypsy trouble, Miss Eleanor. So I'll go and find Dolly, and tell her not to say anything."
"Do, Bessie. And get Dolly to come to me before dinner. She was wrong to play that trick with the signs, but I don't mean to scold her. I want to comfort her, instead. I think she's been punished enough already, if she's really frightened about that gypsy."
Dolly seemed to be a good deal chastened after her talk with Eleanor, and Bessie felt glad that the Guardian, though she evidently did not take the episode of the gypsy as seriously as did Bessie, had still thought it worth while to let Dolly think she did.
"I'm going to stay close to the camp after this, Bessie," she said. "And, oh, Miss Eleanor said that there were footprints this morning near the water that a deer must have made. I've got my camera here; suppose we try to get a picture of one tonight? We could go to sleep early, and then get up. Miss Eleanor said it would be all right, just for the two of us. She said if any more sat up it would frighten the deer."
"All right," agreed Bessie. "That would be lots of fun."
So they slept for an hour or so, and then, about midnight, got up and went down to the shore of the lake, to a spot where a narrow trail came out of the woods. There they hid themselves behind some brush and placed Dolly's camera and a flashlight powder, to be ready in case the deer appeared.
They waited a long time. But at last there was a rustling in the trees, and they could hear the branches being pushed aside as some creature made its way slowly toward the water.
"All ready, Bessie?" whispered Dolly. "When I give you a squeeze press that button; that will set the flashlight off, and I'll take the picture as you do it."
They waited tensely, and Bessie was as excited as Dolly herself. She felt as if she could scarcely wait for the signal. Dolly held her left hand loosely, and two or three times she thought the grip was tightening. But the signal came at last, and there was a blinding flash. But it was not a deer which stood out in the glare; it was the gypsy who had pursued Dolly!