“And likely she’ll do it too. If I do say so Dorothy has made good use of the fact that she is a first cousin to Nat White.”
“Of all the conceits!” cried Tavia, and then Dorothy and Ned appeared.
“I’ve been talking to Aunt Winnie,” began Dorothy, in her usual prompt way, “and she thinks we really ought to do something for Urania. The girl declares she will never go back to camp, and I really do believe she has a notion of following us to Glenwood. You know her folks camped in the mountains there last year.”
“Take her along, take her along,” spoke up Nat, foolishly, “the more the merrier.”
“Not exactly,” objected Dorothy. “Urania would scarcely enjoy the regime at Glenwood. But, all the same, there ought to be some place where she would fit in.”
“And if there is no such place then we will make one,” went on Nat, still half joking,—but he was the other half in downright earnest.
All this time John and the village constables were searching for the runaway men, who were suspected of being the actual robbers, although Urania declared they were not. It was true, as the gypsy girl said, the men taken into custody were the men she had seen enter the cave, and those who were seen later in the swamp were members of the same gang, but were strangers to the cave and the hidden property. Just how Urania came into possession of the facts was not altogether plain, but likely her habit of sleeping under trees, at some distance from the tents, made it possible for her to hear queer conversations, when all in the dense wood was supposed to be wrapt in the mantle of night.
Her father took no part in the doings of the other gypsies, neither did he know anything of the robbery, beyond that which was already public gossip. When therefore he heard his daughter’s name mentioned so conspicuously in the robbery talk, his wrath was intense, and his anger almost dangerous.
The whole place was in a commotion, and it was well that Urania kept away from the swamp and surrounding camp sites for the time being.