“Not such an awful lot,” answered Paul. “The gypsy camp was certainly stirred up about something—little knots everywhere jabbering away in that outlandish lingo of theirs. Didn’t seem as keen on grafting from visitors as usual. I suppose of course that Nina was the storm center. They’re pretty badly roiled, I imagine.”
“But how about Higby?” asked Bess.
“I saw him, too,” replied Paul. “Jostled against him, excused myself in my well known irresistible manner, and got into conversation with him. He’s staying over at Wilton on a two weeks’ vacation. He’s used up nearly a week of it now. Doesn’t seem to be very keen about going back, though. Knocks his job to beat the band. I guess he’s sore on the management.”
“Probably the real reason is that they’re sore on him,” said Jack.
“I noticed the manager looked at him very suspiciously the day that Cora lost her purse,” observed Belle.
“Perhaps he’s near the end of his rope and knows it,” said Paul. “He was quite anxious to know how far we were here from the Canadian line. He may be getting ready to emigrate.”
“He’d be a great loss to the United States,” sniffed Bess contemptuously.
“We could probably stagger along without him,” drawled Walter.
“Did he have anything to say about Nina?” asked Bess.
“Only in an offhand way,” returned Paul. “He remarked that there seemed to be a great hullabaloo among the gypsies, and that he understood one of the girls was missing. But I noticed that he kept looking sharply all around as though he was hoping to see some one.”