“I assure you the lady is in good hands,” interrupted Richard. “My sister is looking after her.”
There were more explanations and presently they started on their way again, and in a little while drew up beside the Gypsy van and the abandoned motor car. And the upshot of the whole adventure was that the two parties joined forces and provisions.
The boys built a fire against a great boulder on the river bank and there was a wonderful supper. All the very best of everything was brought out for the occasion. They ate Johnnie cakes from wooden platters and drank black coffee from glasses, Russian fashion. Later they sang songs and told stories around the camp fire. Never did people commingle so agreeably as the caravanners and the motorists. Somehow Sunrise Camp and Alberdina Schoenbachler faded into the dim recesses of their memories.
“Of course you can’t go home,” Richard Hook remarked to Billie. “We’ll camp out to-night. You’ll never be able to mend that car in all this blackness, and it would be a pretty hard road to follow at night anyhow. We’ve just come over it. Dobbin can pull the car over to one side of the road, and Miss Campbell and Miss Price can sleep in the van.”
“And we’ll show you what a bed really is,” Ben went on eagerly. “Not a motor car cushion affair either.”
To their surprise, Miss Campbell was agreeable to the plan.
“There’s nobody at home to worry but Alberdina,” she said, “and it won’t hurt her to lose a little flesh, anyhow.”
The boys worked hard over the beds. Springy couches they made of spruce branches, covered with blankets, and, at last as care-free as a lot of Gypsies, they all slept as soundly as they had ever slept in their own beds at home.