"Well, I suppose I shouldn't. But the fact is, we might as well be prepared, for there are bands of our friends tied up around these hills. Fortune telling is a great business among summer idlers."
"Well, I hope we have seen the last of them. I'm going to stay in the open, in the Flyaway. I'd rather do it than be cooped up with the girls in the tonneau, and there will be room for Bess, Belle and Hazel inside the Whirlwind. It won't be so bad—a night in the wide open."
"Oh, we fellows don't mind it, but, sis, might not some cocoon drop in your hair in the night? We had better rig up some sort of hood."
"My own hood will do nicely, and I am almost dead from the exertion of that tire. I grant you, I will not lie awake listening for gypsies."
"Then we boys will take turns on the picket," said Ed. "You can really depend upon us this time, girls. One will be awake and watching every minute."
"Oh, I'm sure it's all right out here," replied Cora. "What would any one want in these woods at night?"
"Might want fishing tackle," answered Walter. "Yes, I agree with thee,
Edward; it is up to us to stay up to-night."
With this positive assurance, the young ladies proceeded to make themselves comfortable in their novel quarters. Cora curled up in the Flyaway, and the Comet, with Ed and Jack "sitting up in a lying-down posture," as they expressed it, was placed just where the young men could hear the girls whisper should any gypsies appear, or rather be scented. The first man to do picket duty, Walter, was in the Get-There, directly out in the road, so that presently it seemed a night in the wide open might be a novelty rather than a misfortune.
Some time must have passed. Belle declared she was not asleep. Bess vowed she was still asleep. Hazel begged both girls to keep quiet, but the light of the gas lamps from the Get-There was bobbing about, and the flash of a new revolver was reflected in the night.
"What can be the matter?" sobbed Belle. "Oh, I knew we shouldn't stay in these dreadful woods."