And then she barely avoided a gasp. She had, for the first time, noted his manner of dress.
“A crimson sweater!” she breathed. “The—the youth in the crimson sweater.”
Had she found any reason for questioning her judgment in this case it would not have been for long. Of a sudden, the youth glanced down at his feet then, without a backward look, dashed away into the bush.
Surprised and startled, Jeanne held her ground. For all this, her heart was beating a pretty tattoo against her ribs. Where had this boy gone? Would he return? And if he did what should she do? Her first thought was to slip swiftly and silently away. And yet—she recalled her first warning, dropped from the airplane. He had not heeded the warning, at least had not come out into the open and proved himself innocent. Would a second warning help? She dared hope it might.
With fingers that trembled in spite of her best efforts to control them, she drew a stub of a pencil from her jacket pocket, pulled a square of birch bark from a tree to serve as paper, then wrote in scrawled words:
“Second warning: You are suspected of a terrible crime. If you are innocent you will come out and clear yourself. Gypsies never forget.
Signed, Gypsy Jeanne.”
Why had Jeanne signed this second warning? Perhaps she could not have told. Was it because the youth in the crimson sweater seemed a rather romantic figure?
With knees that all but refused to support her, she moved slowly toward the shelter. Once there, she slipped inside, placed the note on a small, hand-made table, weighted it down with a stone, then, springing away like a startled deer, went racing toward the fisherman’s cabin and her boat.
Arrived at the small dock she found all serene as before. Some small bird whistled at her from a tree. A pine squirrel chattered at her. For a moment she stood there thinking. Why had the young man run away? He had seen something. What had it been? In a twinkle she had the answer, her handkerchief was gone. “Must have lost it and my initials were in the corner,” she thought, a little startled.
After that, shoving off in her boat, she rowed to the opposite shores, hid in a narrow cove and waited until Dave’s return, then climbed aboard and rode away without a word concerning her adventure.