"Mollie! Mollie! Where are you?"
"Wait a minute. Stand still so I can find you! I'm coming!" was the answer.
The three little ones looked at one another in surprise, and they were, moreover, a little frightened. Was it possible that the missing, talking doll was really in the woods and had answered them? That it could talk, because it had a phonograph inside, they all knew. But would it answer when spoken to?
"It didn't sound like Mollie," whispered Helen, after a bit. "Her voice wasn't as loud as that."
"Oh-o-o-o-o!" suddenly gasped Flossie. "Maybe it was—the gypsies!"
That was something the children had not thought of before. Suppose it should be the same gypsy man who had taken away the doll?
"It couldn't be the gypsies," said Freddie, looking around him. "They all went away. Daddy said so."
"But maybe there was one left," suggested his sister.
"Pooh! I'm not afraid of one gypsy," declared Freddie. "If he bothers me I'll sic Whisker on him."
"You can't sic a goat—they can't bite or bark like a dog," retorted Flossie.