“You’ve got a treat waiting for you, then, Joel,” laughed Jack. “Some day we’ll take you riding, and you’ll go so fast you’ll have to hold on to your hair to keep it from being blown off.”
“I ain’t prezactly pinin’ fur no sich speed as that,” said Joel. “I sh’d think them gals w’u’d be skeered to death to ride in one uv them.”
“They drive them as well as ride in them,” returned Jack. “My sister can handle one of them as well as any man can. You ought to have seen the race she gave me yesterday.”
“Ye don’t say so!” replied Joel, and it was evident that his respect for the feminine members of the party had gone up several degrees.
They were soon equipped with a lantern and three axes. In addition, Joel took along some sticks of resinous wood to serve as torches, and they came around to the front porch, where they found the girls impatiently waiting for them.
All started out in high spirits, Joel leading the way. The road was muddy, but they found fairly good footing on the turf that bordered it. The rain had now entirely ceased.
It was not long before they reached the fallen tree, and they found the cars standing where they had left them.
“Ye needn’t hev bin much skeered,” grinned Joel. “There ain’t many folks come along this way, an’ them that do is giner’lly honest. It’s only when the gypsies come round thet we hev to keep a tight grip on things, specially hosses. Them gypsies suttinly is light-fingered, an’ they kin beat a weasel in gittin’ into places where they ain’t got no business to be.”
“We saw a camp of them to-day,” said Cora, in whom the word “gypsy” just now woke an instant response.
“Is thet so?” asked Joel in surprise. “Then they’re probably headed up this way. I heven’t seen ’em around these diggin’s fur sev’ral years now, and I wuz hopin’ I’d never see their ugly faces ag’in.”