CHAPTER VI A PERPLEXING PROBLEM
The gypsy girl regained her self-control in a moment and gently putCora's helping arm aside.
"It is nothing," she said. "I just had an attack of dizziness. The heatof the sun, perhaps."
It was evident that this last remark was only a pretext, for a pleasantbreeze was blowing and they were standing under a great tree that shadedthem completely.
"I hope it wasn't anything I said that startled you," said Besscuriously.
"How could it have been?" put in Belle incredulously. "You only referredjokingly to that Higby fellow who nearly got away with Cora's purse whenwe were shopping yesterday. I'm sure there's nothing in that to startleanybody."
Cora had been watching the girl intently, and at this second mention ofthe young man's name she saw a swift spasm--was it of pain or fright or acombination of both?--sweep over the girl's face.
"Well, never mind," said Cora briskly, "if you're sure you're all rightnow. Perhaps you'd better have a drink of water. Jack, suppose you go tothe car and get one of the drinking cups."
Jack started promptly to obey, but the girl objected so strongly that hestopped and stood irresolute.
"No, no," she said, "please not. Only leetle deezy, but all right now,"she continued, dropping into the slipshod gypsy manner of speaking. "Letme tell pretty ladies' fortunes."
But just then one of the gypsy men, who had been watching the groupsharply, stepped up to the girl and spoke to her roughly in a jargon thatthe girls could not understand. It was evidently a command, for the gypsygirl turned instantly and went away, disappearing into one of the vans,while the man, after a scowl that included all the party, sauntered awayand dropped on the grass beside some of his comrades.
"Well, what do you think of that?" demanded Belle in amazement.
"Just when she had a husband picked out for each of you, too," chaffedPaul. "But cheer up, girls. We're here yet. Count on us to the lastbreath. You can't lose us."
"No such luck," retorted Bess. "But what on earth made that man act thatway?"
"It isn't like gypsies to let good money get away from them," said Jack,"and they must have seen from our open countenances that we were easymarks and ready to cough up."
"Jack," said Walter severely, "please pass up that line of chatter--Imean, please refrain from such vulgar slang. In my unregenerate days Icould have stood for it--I mean, endured it--but since I have becomerefined it hits me on the raw--I mean, it affects me painfully."
"Oh, stop your nonsense, you boys," chided Cora. "Can't you see I'mtrying to think?"
"Cora's trying to think!" exclaimed her irrepressible brother. "Heaven bepraised that I have lived to see this day!"
Cora gave him a scornful glance, and Jack sagged down at the knees,pretending to wilt.
"Just how did that girl strike you?" asked Cora thoughtfully.
"A peach," replied Jack promptly.
"A pippin--I mean, she was very good looking," added Walter.
"I'm asking the girls," said Cora witheringly.
"She didn't seem to me like a gypsy at all," answered Bess. "And yet Isuppose of course she must be, since she's here with them."
"Did you notice the way she spoke when she was off her guard for amoment?" asked Belle. "She said that she had 'an attack of dizziness.'Later on, she was a 'leetle deezy.'"
"Her eyes were blue," remarked Cora musingly, "and that is somethingunusual in a gypsy."
"But her complexion was as dark as any of the others," objected Bess.
"That might be accounted for by the tan from the open-air life," repliedCora. "And then, too, it would be easy to color it artificially."
"I didn't know girls ever did such things," interrupted Jack with apained expression.
"And then too," went on Cora, unheeding, "when her sleeve fell back, Isaw that her arm was white. But what I'm trying to get at especially iswhom she looks like. She resembles some one that I've seen before, but Ican't remember who it is."
"What do you suppose made her act so queerly when I spoke of the stealingof your purse?" asked Bess.
"It wasn't the robbery itself that startled her," said Cora. "It was thename of the man, Higby. He was mentioned twice, and each time she lookedfrightened."
"I wonder if she knows him," murmured Belle.
"He said there were lots of girls who would be glad of his company,"laughed Bess. "Perhaps she is one of them."
"There was no liking in that look of hers," replied Cora emphatically."It was positive alarm."
"If a mere man may break into this discussion," said Jack humbly, "youfair detectives haven't yet told us why that pirate over there took thegirl away from us."
"That's easy," interposed Walter. "He was jealous. It was my fatal giftof beauty that worried him. The girls all fall for it--I mean, areattracted by it."
"Girls," asked Cora exasperatedly, "why are those long legs of Walter'slike organ grinders?"
"Why?" asked Belle.
"Give it up," said Bess.
"Because," explained Cora, "they always carry a monkey about with them."
Walter staggered back.
"Stung!" he moaned. "Penetrated, I mean."
"Well, don't suffer too much, poor boy," said Cora soothingly. "If it'sany comfort to you to know it, your two accomplices in crime are just asbad. Women are the only sensible human beings anyway."
"Are they human?" asked Walter. "I've always thought of them as angels."
"Stop trying to square yourself," said Paul.
"Don't knuckle down to them," Jack adjured him.
"I must," replied Walter, "or they won't let me ride with them any more."
"We're not going to, anyway; that is, for the rest of this afternoon,"said Cora. "I want to have the girls in the car with me where we can talkover this thing without being interrupted."
"Shut out from Eden," groaned Walter bitterly. "You wash your hands ofme. You cast me into outer darkness. Just when the better part of mynature was getting uppermost, you put me back into low company. Iwouldn't have believed it of you, girls."
"Back to the kennel, you hound!" exclaimed Paul, seizing him by thecollar. "You might have known that the girls would throw you down. Theyalways do, sooner or later."
"Well, now that Lucifer as lightning has fallen from heaven," remarkedJack, "what do you say to hustling along? The afternoon waneth and myappetite waxeth. Dinner at Camp Kill Kare sounds awfully good to me."
"I suppose we'll have to," assented Cora reluctantly; "but I would liketo have another glimpse of that gypsy girl first."
"Nothing doing," said Jack. "We're only visitors here anyway, and wehaven't any right to intrude on their private affairs when they show usso clearly they don't want us to. Ten to one it's only a mare's nestanyway that you're stirring up, sis, about the girl. Probably she's anhonest to goodness gypsy, just like the rest of them."
"That's what my common sense tells me," agreed Cora, "but somethingoutside of common sense tells me that she isn't."
"That's the way I feel about it too," echoed Bess.
"I too," agreed Belle. "She may have been stolen when she was a child.That happens often enough."
"Not so often as it used to," said Paul. "The telegraph and the telephonemake it too risky."
"Well, how about it?" said Jack. "Are you three Graces coming along, ordo we three scapegraces have to wend our way to Camp Kill Kare alone?"
"There she is now!" exclaimed Bess, as she caught sight of the gypsy girllooking at them from the door of the van.
But a wrinkled crone who was sitting on the top step of the van reachedout a skinny arm and angrily pushed the girl inside and out of sight.
"They've evidently made up their minds that we're showing too muchinterest in her, and for some reason they don't like it," sighed Cora."Well, come along, girls. We'll have to go. But that gypsy girl has ahistory and a secret, and I'd give a good deal to find out just what theyare."
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