"No, I rather think he is not the man we want," agreed the other young man.
"Stay here all year?" asked Ed, as he handed the brimming tin dipper to
Bess, and turned to the stranger.
"Pretty much," spoke the man with the pipe. "But is there anything wrong? Anything I could do for you?"
This caused the whole party to surmise that he must have heard that "something" was wrong. That looked suspicious.
A woman emerged from the hut. She was not altogether untidy, but of course showed that she lived far from civilization. She bowed to the party, then called to the children in the woods.
"Well," said Mr. Rand finally, "we are looking for somebody. You haven't happened to hear or to have seen anything of a young girl in these parts, a girl—who might have gotten lost in the woods; have you?"
"I have heard that a girl was lost," replied the man. "But I'm one of the forest rangers and I keep pretty close to my post at this time of the season, watching for fires. There are so many young folks camping and reckless with matches. Is there no trace of her? The missing girl from the hotel, is the one you mean, isn't it?"
Then he was not a gypsy! The forest ranger!
"No, I am sorry to say we have not yet discovered her," went on Mr. Rand. "But you being here in the very depths of the woods would likely know of any gypsy camps about, I believe."
"There are no camps in the woods this year," the man assured him. "We have kept them out of this particular clearing by law. There are a lot of them scattered about in the mountains, but as far as I could find there is no camp deep in the woods. You see every summer someone gets lost in these woods, and we don't like the gypsies to have the first chance of finding them. But sit down," and he cleared the bench of the water pail. "You must have had a weary search."