"I don't either," agreed Bert, "so I'll leave him at home I guess. Well, there's daddy calling me. I'll have to run. I'll tell you all about it when I come back."
So, while Flossie and Freddie, with the little cake Dinah had baked for them, went to have a good time playing party, Mr. Bobbsey, with a policeman and Bert, went to the gypsy camp. The policeman did not have on his uniform with brass buttons—in fact, he was dressed almost like Mr. Bobbsey.
"For," said this policeman, whose name was Joseph Carr, "if the gypsy men were to see me coming along in my helmet, with my coat covered with brass buttons, and a club in my hand, they would know right away who I was. They could see me a long way off, on account of the sun shining on the brass buttons, and they would have time to hide away that little girl's doll, or anything else they may have taken. So I'll go in plain clothes."
"Like a detective," said Bert.
"Yes, something like a detective," agreed Mr. Carr. "Now let's step along lively."
Several persons had seen the gypsy caravan of gay yellow and red wagons going through Lakeport, and had noticed them turn up along the farther shore of Lake Metoka. There was a patch of wood several miles away from the town, and in years past these same gypsies, or others like them, had camped there. It was to these woods that Bert and his father were going.
"Do you think we'll find Helen's doll?" asked the boy.
"Well, maybe, Bert," answered his father. "And yet it may be that the gypsies have it, but will not give it up. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."
"If I get sight of it they'll give it up soon enough," said Policeman Carr.
After about a two-hours' walk Bert, his father and Mr. Carr came to the woods. Through the trees they looked and saw the red and yellow wagons standing in a circle. Near them were tied a number of horses, eating what little grass grew under the trees, while dogs roamed about here and there.