“Why, Mrs. Pinkney! If you don’t go insane—and I don’t believe you will—I am sure you will overwork and be ill.”

“I must keep doing. I must keep going. If I sit down to think I imagine the most horrible things happening to the dear child. It is awful!”

Agnes knew that never before had the woman been so much disturbed by her boy’s absences from home. It seemed as though she really had lost control of herself, and the Corner House girl was quite worried over Mrs. Pinkney.

“If we could only help you and Mr. Pinkney,” said Agnes doubtfully. “Do you suppose it would do any good to go off in the car again—Neale and me and your husband—to look for Sammy?”

“Mr. Pinkney is so tied down by his business that he cannot go just now,” she sighed. “And he has put the search into the hands of an agency. I did not want the police to get after Sammy. But what could we do? And they say there are Gypsies around.”

“Oh!” gasped Agnes. “Do you suppose—?”

“You never can tell what those people will do. I am told they have stolen children.”

“Isn’t that more talk than anything else?” asked Agnes, trying to speak quite casually.

“I don’t know. One of my neighbors tells me she hears that there is a big encampment of Gypsies out on the Buckshot Road. You know, out beyond the Poole farm. They have autovans instead of horses, so they say, and maybe could carry any children they stole out of the state in a very short time.”

“Oh, dear me, Mrs. Pinkney! I would not think of such things,” Agnes urged. “It does not sound reasonable.”

“That the Gypsies should travel by auto instead of behind horse?” rejoined Sammy’s mother. “Why not? Everybody else is using automobiles for transportation. I tell Mr. Pinkney that if we had a machine perhaps Sammy might not have been so eager to leave home.”

“Oh, dear, me!” thought Agnes, as she made her way home again, “I am sorry for Mr. Pinkney. Just now I guess he is having a hard time at home as well as at business!”

But she treasured up what she had heard about the Gypsy encampment on the Buckshot Road to tell Neale—when she should not be so “put-out” with him. The Buckshot Road was in an entirely different direction from Milton than that they had followed in their automobile on the memorable search for Sammy. Agnes did not suppose for a moment that the missing boy had gone with the Gypsies.

CHAPTER XXI—TESS AND DOT TAKE A HAND

“I’m not going to give up my share to your Alice-doll,” announced Tess, quite firmly for her. “And, anyway, you must not be so sure that it is going to be ours all the time. See! Aggie says we can’t take it out of the house to play with.”

“I don’t care!” whined Dot. “I don’t want to give it back to those Gypsy ladies.”

“Neither do I. But we must of course, if we can find them. Honest is honest.”

“It—it’s awful uncomfortable to be so dreadful’ honest,” blurted out the smaller girl. “And I think they meant us to have the bracelet.”

“All right, then. It’s only polite to offer it back to them. Then if they don’t want it we’ll know that it is ours and even Ruth won’t say anything.”

“But—but when my Alice-doll grows up—”

“Now, don’t be a little piggie, Dot Kenway!” exclaimed Tess, rather crossly. “When your wrist gets big enough so the bracelet won’t slip over your hand so easy, you will want to wear it yourself—just as I do. And Agnes wants it, too.”

“Oh! But it’s ours—if it isn’t the Gypsy ladies’,” Dot hastened to say.

Two claimants for the ornament were quite enough. She did not wish to hear of any other people desiring to wear it.

As it chanced, Tess and Dot heard about the Gypsy encampment on the Buckshot Road through the tongue of neighborhood gossip, quite as had Sammy’s mother. Margaret and Holly Pease heard the store man tell their mother; and having enviously eyed the silver bracelet in the possession of the Kenway girls, they ran to tell the latter about the Gypsies.

“They’ve come back,” declared Margaret decidedly, “to look for that bracelet you’ve got. You’ll see them soon enough.”

“Oh, Margie! do you think so?” murmured Tess, while Dot was immediately so horror-stricken that tears came to her eyes.

“Maybe they will bring the police and have you locked up,” continued the cheerful Pease child. “You know they might accuse you of stealing the bracelet.”

“We never!” wailed Dot. “We never! They gave it to us!”

“Well, they are going to take it back, so now!” Margaret Pease declared.

“I don’t think it is nice of you to say what you do, Margie,” said Tess. “Everybody knows we are honest. Why! if Dot and I knew how to find them, we would take the bracelet right to the Gypsy ladies. Wouldn’t we, Dot?”

“But—but we don’t know where to find them,” blurted out the youngest Corner House girl.

“You can find them I guess—out on the Buckshot Road.”

“We don’t know that our Gypsy ladies are there,” said Tess, with some defiance.

“You don’t dare go to see,” said Margaret Pease.

It was a question to trouble the minds of Tess and Dot. Should they try to find the Gypsies, and see if the very ladies who had given them the bracelet were in that encampment?

At least it was a leading question in Tess Kenway’s mind. It must be confessed that Dot only hoped it would prove a false alarm. She was very grateful to the strange Gypsy women for having put the silver ornament in the green and yellow basket; but she hoped never to see those two kind women again!

The uncertainty was so great in both of the small girls’ minds that they said nothing at all about it in the hearing of any other member of the family. Had Ruth been at home they might have confided in her. They had always confided everything to their eldest sister. But just now the two smaller Corner House girls were living their own lives, very much shut away from the existence Agnes, for instance, was leading.

Agnes had a secret—several of them, indeed. She did not take Tess and Dot into her confidence. So, if for no other reason, the smaller girls did not talk to Agnes about the Gypsies.

The Kenways owned some tenement property in a much poorer part of the town than that prominent corner on which the Corner House stood. Early in their coming to Milton from Bloomsburg, the Corner House girls had become acquainted with the humble tenants whose rents helped swell the funds which Mr. Howbridge cared for and administered.

Some of these poorer people, especially the children near their own age, interested the Kenway girls very much because they met these poorer children in school. So when news was brought to Agnes one afternoon (it was soon after lunch) that Maria Maroni, whose father kept the coal, wood, ice and vegetable cellar in one of the Stower houses and who possessed a wife and big family of children as well, had been taken ill, Agnes was much disturbed.

Agnes liked Maria Maroni. Maria was very bright and forward in her studies and was a pretty Italian girl, as well. The Maronis lived much better than they once had, too. They now occupied one of the upstairs tenements over Mrs. Kranz’s delicatessen store, instead of all living in the basement.

The boy who ran into the Kenway yard and told Agnes this while she was tying up the gladioli stems after a particularly hard night’s rain, did not seem to be an Italian. Indeed, he was no boy that Agnes ever remembered having seen before.

But tenants were changing all the time over there where Maria lived. This might be a new boy in that neighborhood. And, anyway, Agnes was not bothered in her mind much about the boy. It was Maria’s illness that troubled her.

“What is the matter with the poor girl?” Agnes wanted to know. “What does the doctor say it is?”

“They ain’t got no doc,” said the boy. “She’s just sick, Maria is. I don’t know what she’s got besides.”

This sounded bad enough to Agnes. And the fact that the sick girl had no medical attention was the greater urge for the Kenway girl to do something about it. Of course, Joe and his wife must have a doctor for Maria at once.

Agnes went into the house and told Mrs. McCall about it. She even borrowed the green and yellow basket from the little girls and packed some jelly and a bowl of broth and other nice things to take to Maria Maroni. The Kenways seldom went to the tenements empty-handed.

She would have taken Neale with her, only she felt that after their incipient “quarrel” of the previous morning she did not care immediately to make up with the boy. Sometimes she felt that Neale O’Neil took advantage of her easy disposition.

So Agnes went off alone with her basket. Half an hour later a boy rang the front door bell of the Corner House. He had a note for Mrs. McCall. It was written in blue pencil, and while the housekeeper was finding her reading glasses the messenger ran away so that she could not question him.

The note purported to be from Hedden, Mr. Howbridge’s butler. It said that the lawyer had been “brought home” and had asked for Mrs. McCall to be sent for. It urged expedition in her answer to the request, and it threw Mrs. McCall into “quite a flutter” as she told Linda and Aunt Sarah Maltby.

“The puir mon!” wailed the Scotch woman who before she came to the old Corner House to care for the Kenway household had been housekeeper for Mr. Howbridge himself for many years. “There is something sad happened to him, nae doot. I must go awa’ wi’ me at aince. See to the bairns, Miss Maltby, that’s the good soul. Even Agnes is not in the hoose.”

“Of course I will see to them—if it becomes necessary,” said Aunt Sarah.

Her idea of attending to the younger children, however, was to remain in her own room knitting, only occasionally going to the head of the back stairs to ask Linda if Tess and Dot were all right. The Finnish girl’s answer was always “Shure, Mum,” and in her opinion Tess and Dot were all right as long as she did not see that they were in trouble.

To tell the truth, Linda saw the smaller girls very little after Mrs. McCall hurried out of the house to take the street car for the lawyer’s residence. Once Linda observed Tess and Dot in the side yard talking to a boy through the pickets. She had no idea that the sharp-featured boy was the same who had brought the news of Maria Maroni’s illness to Agnes, and the message from Hedden to Mrs. McCall!

The boy in question had come slowly along the pavement on Willow Street, muttering to himself as he approached as though saying over several sentences that he had learned by rote. He was quite evidently a keen-minded boy, but he was not at all a trustworthy looking one.

Tess and Dot both saw him, and that he was a stranger made the little girls eye him curiously. When he hailed them they were not quite sure whether they ought to reply or not.

“I guess you don’t know us,” Tess said doubtfully. “You don’t belong in this neighborhood.”

“I know you all right,” said the boy. “You’re the two girls those women sold the basket to. I know you.”

“Oh!” gasped Tess.

“The Gypsy ladies!” murmured Dot.

“That’s the one. They sold you the basket for forty-five cents. Didn’t they?”

“Yes,” admitted Tess.

“And it’s ours,” cried Dot. “We paid for it.”

“That’s all right,” said the boy slowly. “But you didn’t buy what was in it. No, sir! They want it back.”

“Oh! The basket?” cried Tess.

“What you found in it.”

The boy seemed very sure of what he was saying, but he spoke slowly.

“They want that silver thing back. It wasn’t meant for you. It was a mistake. You know very well it isn’t yours. If you are honest—and you told them you were—you will bring it back to them.”

“Oh! They did ask us if we were honest,” Tess said faintly. “And of course we are. Aren’t we, Dot?”

“Why—why— Do we have to be so dreadful’ honest,” whispered the smallest Corner House girl, quite borne down with woe.

“Of course we have. Just think of what Ruthie would say,” murmured Tess. Then to the boy: “Where are those ladies?”

“Huh?” he asked. “What ladies?”

“The Gypsy ladies we bought the basket from?”

“Oh, them?” he rejoined hurriedly, glancing along the street with eagerness. “You go right out along this street,” and he pointed in the direction from which he had come. “You keep on walking until you reach the brick-yard.”

“Oh! Are they camped there?” asked Tess.

“No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don’t be afraid, kids. It’s all right.”

He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined.

“What shall we do?” Tess exclaimed.

“Oh, let’s wait. Let’s wait till Ruth comes home,” cried Dot, saying something very sensible indeed.

But responsibility weighed heavily on Tess’s mind. She considered that if the Gypsy women wished their bracelet returned, it was her duty to take it to them without delay. Besides, there was the man in the automobile waiting for them.

Why the man had not come to the house with the car, or why he had not brought the two Gypsy women to the Corner House, were queries that did not occur to the little girls. If Tess Kenway was nothing else, she was strictly honest.

“No,” she sighed, “we cannot wait. We must go and see the women now. I will go in and get the bracelet, Dot. Do you want your hat? Mrs. McCall and Agnes are both away. We will have to go right over and tend to this ourselves.”

CHAPTER XXII—EXCITEMENT GALORE

“It is too bad you were troubled so, Agnes,” said Maria, when she understood all about it. “I can’t imagine who that boy could be. But I am glad you came over to see us, never mind what the reason is that brings you.”

“A sight you are for sore eyes yet,” declared the ponderous Mrs. Kranz, who had kissed Agnes warmly when she first appeared. “Come the back room in and sit down. Let Ikey tend to the customers yet, Maria. We will visit with Agnes, and have some tea and sweet crackers.”

“And you must tell me of somebody in the row, Mrs. Kranz, who needs these delicacies. Somebody who is ill,” said Agnes. “I must not take them home again. And Maria looks altogether too healthy for jelly and chicken broth.”

Mrs. Kranz laughed at that. But she added with seriousness: “There is always somebody sick here in the tenements, Miss Agnes. They will not take care themselfs of—no! I tell them warm flannels and good food is better than doctors yet. But they will not mind me.” She sighed.

“Who is ill now?” asked Agnes, at once interested. She loved to play “Lady Bountiful”; and, really, the Kenway sisters had done a great deal of good among their poor tenants and others in the row.

“Mrs. Leary. You know, her new baby died and the poor woman,” said Maria quickly, “is sick of grief, I do believe.”

“Ach, yes!” cried Mrs. Kranz. “She needs the cheerful word. You see her, Miss Agnes. Then she be better—sure!”

“Thank you!” cried Agnes, dimpling and blushing. “Do you really think I can help her?”

“And there is little Susie Marowsky,” urged the delicatessen shopkeeper. “That child is fading away like a sick rose. She iss doing just that! If she could have country eggs and country milk—Ach! If we were all rich!” and she sighed ponderously again.

“I’ll tell our Ruth about her,” said Agnes eagerly. “And I’ll see her, too, before I go home. I’ll give her the broth, yes? And Mrs. Leary the jelly, bread, and fruit?”

“No!” cried Mrs. Kranz. “The fruit to Dominic Nevin, the scissors grinder. He craves fruit. You know, he cut his hand and got blood poisoning, and it was so long yet that he could not work. You see him, too, Miss Agnes.”

So altogether, what with the tea and cakes and the visits to the sick, Agnes was away from the Corner House quite three hours. When she was on her way home she was delayed by an unforeseen incident too.

At the corner of Willow Street not far from the brick-yard a figure suddenly darted into Agnes’ path. She was naturally startled by the sudden appearance of this figure, and doubly so when she saw it was the Costello that she knew as the junkman, and whose first name she now believed to be Miguel.

“What do you want? Go away!” cried the girl faintly, backing away from the vehement little man.

“Oh, do not be afraid! You are the honest Kenway I am sure. You have Queen Alma’s bracelet,” urged the little man. “You will give her to me—yes?”

“I—I haven’t it,” cried Agnes, looking all about for help and seeing nobody near.

“Ha!” ejaculated the man. “You have not give it to Beeg Jeem?”

“We have given it to nobody. And we will not let you or anybody have it until Mr. Howbridge tells us what to do. Go away!” begged Agnes.

“I go to that man. He no have the Queen Alma bracelet. You have it—”

“Just as sure as I get home,” cried the frightened Agnes, “I will send that bracelet down to the lawyer’s office and they must keep it. It shall be in the house no longer! Don’t you dare come there for it!”

She got past him then and ran as hard as she could along Willow Street. When she finally looked back she discovered that the man had not followed her, but had disappeared.

“Oh, dear me! I don’t care what the children say. That bracelet goes into Mr. Howbridge’s safe this very afternoon. Neale must take it there for me,” Agnes Kenway decided.

She reached the side door of the Corner House just as Mrs. McCall entered the front door, having got off the car at the corner. The housekeeper came through the hall and into the rear premises a good deal like a whirlwind. She was so excited that Agnes forgot her own fright and stared at the housekeeper breathlessly.

“Is it you home again, Agnes Kenway?” cried Mrs. McCall. “Well, thanks be for that. Then you are all right.”

“Why, of course! Though he did scare me. But what is the matter with you, Mrs. McCall?”

“What is the matter wi’ me? A plenty. A plenty, I tellit ye. If I had that jackanapes of a boy I’d shake him well, so I would!”

“What has Neale been doing now?” cried the girl.

“Not Neale.”

“Then is it Sammy?”

“Nor Sammy Pinkney. ’Tis that other lad that came here wi’ a lying note tae get me clear across town for naething!”

“Why, Mrs. McCall! what can you mean? Did a boy fool you, too?”

“Hech!” The woman started and stared at the girl. “Who brought you news of that little girl being sick?”

“But she wasn’t sick!” cried Agnes. “That boy was an awful little story-teller.”

“Ye was fooled then? That Maria Maroni—”

“Was not ill at all.”

“And,” cried Mrs. McCall, “that boy who brought a note to me from Hedden never came from Mr. Howbridge’s house at all. It nearly scar’t me tae death! It said Mr. Howbridge was ill. He isn’t even at home yet, and when Mr. Hedden heard from his master this morning he was all right—the gude mon!”

“Oh, Mrs. McCall!” gasped Agnes, gazing at the housekeeper with terrified visage. “What can it mean?”

“Somebody has foolit us weel,” ejaculated the enraged housekeeper.

“But why?”

The woman turned swiftly. She had grown suddenly pale. She called up the back stairs for Linda. A sleepy voice replied:

“Here I be, mum!”

“Where are the children? Where are Tess and Dot?” demanded Mrs. McCall, her voice husky.

“They was in the yard, mum, the last I see of them.”

“That girl!” ejaculated the housekeeper angrily. “She neglects everything. If there’s harm happened to those bairns—”

She rushed to the porch. Uncle Rufus was coming slowly up from the garden, hoe and rake over his shoulder. It was evident that the old colored man had been working steadily, and for some time, among the vegetables.

“Oh, Uncle Rufus!” cried the excited woman.

“Ya-as’m! Ya-as’m! I’s a-comin’,” said the old man rather querulously.

“Step here a minute,” said Mrs. McCall.

“I’s a-steppin’, Ma’am,” grumbled the other. “Does seem as though dey wants me for fust one t’ing an’ den anudder. I don’t no more’n git t’roo one chore den sumpin’ else hops right out at me. Lawsy me!” and he mopped his bald brown brow with a big bandanna.

“I only want to ask you something,” said the housekeeper, less raspingly. “Are the little ones down there? Have you seen them?”

“Them chillun? No’m. I ain’t seen ’em fo’ some time. They was playin’ up this-a-way den.”

“How long ago?”

“I done reckon it was nigh two hours ago.”

“Hunt for them, Agnes!” gasped the housekeeper. “I fear me something bad has happened. You, Linda,” for the Finnish girl now appeared, “run to the neighbors—all of them! See if you can find those bairns.”

“Tess and Dottie, mum?” cried the Finnish girl, already in tears. “Oh! they ain’t losted are they?”

“For all you know they are!” declared Mrs. McCall. “Look around the house for them, Uncle Rufus. I will look inside—”

“They may be upstairs with Aunt Sarah,” cried Agnes, getting her breath at last.

“I’ll know that in a moment!” declared Mrs. McCall, and darted within.

Agnes ran in the other direction. She felt such a lump in her throat that she could scarcely speak or breathe. The possibility of something having happened to the little girls—and with Ruth away!—cost the second Corner House girl every last bit of her self-control.

“Oh, Neale! Neale!” she murmured over and over again, as she ran to the lower end of the premises.

She fairly threw herself at the fence and scrambled to her usual perch. There he was cleaning Mr. Con Murphy’s yard.

“Neale!” she gasped. At first he did not hear her, but she drubbed upon the fence with the toes of her shoes. “Neale!”

“Why, hullo, Aggie!” exclaimed the boy, turning around and seeing her.

“Oh, Neale! Come here!”

He was already coming closer. He saw that again she was much overwrought.

“What has happened now?”

“Have you seen Tess and Dot?”

“Not to-day.”

“I—I mean within a little while? Two hours?”

“I tell you I have not seen them at all to-day. I have been busy right here for Con.”

“Then they are gone! The Gypsies have got them!”

For Agnes, without much logic of thought, had immediately jumped to this conclusion. Neale stared.

“What sort of talk is that, Agnes?” he demanded. “You know that can’t be so.”

“I tell you it is so! It must be so! They got Mrs. McCall and me out of the house—”

“Who did?” interrupted Neale, getting hastily over the fence and taking the girl’s hand. “Now, tell me all about it—everything!”

As well as she could for her excitement and fear, the girl told the story of the boy who had brought her the false message about Maria Maroni, and then about the message Mrs. McCall had received calling her across town.

“It must be that they have kidnapped the children!” moaned Agnes.

“Not likely,” declared the boy. “The kids have just gone visiting without asking leave. In fact, there was nobody to ask. But I see that there is a game on just the same.”

He started hastily for the Corner House and Agnes trotted beside him.

“But where are Tess and Dot?” she demanded.

“How do I know?” he returned. “I want to find out if there is something else missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“That bracelet.”

“Goodness, Neale! Is it that bracelet that has brought us trouble again?”

“It looks like a plot all right to me. A plot to get you and Mrs. McCall out of the house so that somebody could slip in and steal the bracelet. Didn’t that ever occur to you?”

“Goodness me, Neale!” cried Agnes again, but with sudden relief in her voice. “If that is all it is I’ll be glad if the old bracelet is stolen. Then it cannot make us any more trouble, that is one sure thing!”

CHAPTER XXIII—A SURPRISING MEETING

For the nearer the time came to give up the silver bracelet, the worse Dot felt about it.

The big Gypsy looked around at the two little girls and smiled broadly.

“You leetle ladies tak’ ride with Beeg Jeem?” he asked. “You go to see the poor Gypsy women who let you have the fine bracelet to play with? Yes?”

“He knows all about it, Tess,” murmured Dot.

“Yes, we will give them back the bracelet,” Tess said firmly to the Gypsy man. “But we will not give it up to anybody else.”

“Get right into my car,” said Big Jim, reaching back to open the tonneau door. “You shall be taken to the camp and there find the ones who gave you the bracelet. Sure!”

There was something quite “grownupish” in thus getting into the big car all alone, and Tess and Dot were rather thrilled as they seated themselves on the back seat and the Gypsy drove them away.

Fifteen minutes or so later Agnes came to this very corner and had her unpleasant interview with Miguel Costello. But of course by that time the children were far away.

The big Gypsy drove them very rapidly and by lonely roads into a part of the country that Tess and Dot never remembered having seen before. Whenever he saw anybody on the road, either afoot or in other cars, Big Jim increased his speed and flashed by them so that there was little likelihood of these other people seeing that the two little girls were other than Gypsy girls.

He did nothing to frighten Tess and Dot. Indeed, he was so smiling and so pleasant that they enjoyed the drive immensely and came finally in a state of keen enjoyment to the camp which was made a little back from the highway.

“Well, if we have to give up the bracelet,” sighed Tess, as they got out of the car, “we can say that we have had a fine ride.”

“That is all right. But how will my Alice-doll feel when she finds out she can’t wear that pretty belt again?” said Dot.

There were many people in the camp, both men and women and children. The latter kept at a distance from Tess and Dot, but stared at them very curiously. They kept the dogs away from the visitors, too, and the little girls were glad of that.

“Where can we find the two ladies that—that sold us the basket?” asked Tess politely, of Big Jim.

“You look around, leetle ladies. You find,” he assured them.

There were four or five motor vans of good size in which the Gypsies evidently lived while they were traveling. But there were several tents set up as well. It was a big camp.

Timidly at first the two sisters, hand in hand, the silver bracelet firmly clutched inside Tess’s dress against her side, began walking about. They tried to ask questions about the women they sought; but nobody seemed to understand. They all smiled and shook their heads.

“Dear me! it must be dreadful to be born a foreigner,” Dot finally said. “How can they make themselves understood at all?”

“But they seem to be very pleasant persons,” Tess rejoined decidedly.

The children ran away from them. Perhaps they had been ordered to by the older Gypsies. By and by Tess, at least, grew somewhat worried when they did not find either of the women who had sold them the yellow and green basket. Dot, secretly, hoped the two in question had gone away.

Suddenly, however, the two Kenway girls came face to face with somebody they did know. But so astonished were they by this discovery that for a long minute neither could believe her eyes!

“Sammy Pinkney!” gasped Tess at last.

“It—ain’t—never!” murmured the smaller girl.

The figure which had tried to dodge around the end of a motor van to escape observation looked nothing at all like the Sammy Pinkney the Kenway girls had formerly known. Never in their experience of Sammy—not even when he had slipped down the chimney at the old Corner House and landed on the hearth, a very sooty Santa Claus—had the boy looked so disgracefully ragged and dirty.

“Well, what’s the matter with me?” he demanded defiantly.

“Why—why there looks to be most everything the matter with you, Sammy Pinkney,” declared Tess, with disgust. “What do you s’pose your mother would say to you?”

“I ain’t going home to find out,” said Sammy.

“And—and your pants are all tored,” gasped Dot.

“Oh, that happened long ago,” said Sammy, quite as airy as the trousers. “And I’m having the time of my life here. Nobody sends me errands, or makes me—er—weed beet beds! So there! I can do just as I please.”

“You look as though you had, Sammy,” was Tess’s critical speech. “I guess your mother wouldn’t want you home looking the way you do.”

“I look well enough,” he declared defiantly. “And don’t you tell where I am. Will you?”

“But, Sammy!” exclaimed Dot, “you ran away to be a pirate.”

“What if I did?”

“But you can’t be a pirate here.”

“I can be a Gypsy. And that’s lots more fun. If I joined a pirate crew I couldn’t get to be captain right away of course, so I would have to mind somebody. Here I don’t have to mind anybody at all.”

“Well, I never!” ejaculated Tess Kenway.

“Well, I never!” repeated Dot, with similar emphasis.

“Say, what are you kids here for?” demanded Sammy, with an attempt to turn the conversation from his own evident failings.

“Oh, we were brought here on a visit,” Tess returned rather haughtily.

“Huh! You was? Who you visiting? Is Aggie with you? Or Neale?” and he looked around suddenly as though choosing a way of escape.

“We are here all alone,” said Dot reassuringly. “You needn’t be afraid, Sammy.”

“Who’s afraid?” he said gruffly.

“You would be if Neale was with us, for Neale would make you go home,” said the smallest Kenway girl.

“But who brought you? What you here for? Oh! That old bracelet I bet!”

“Yes,” sighed Dot. “They want it back.”

“Who want it back?”

“Those two ladies that sold us the basket,” explained Tess.

“Are they with this bunch of Gypsies?” asked Sammy in surprise. “I haven’t seen them. And I’ve been here two whole days.”

“How did you come to be a Gypsy, Sammy?” asked Dot with much curiosity.

“Why, I—er—Well, I lost my clothes and my money and didn’t have much to eat and that big Gypsy saw me on the road and asked me if I wanted to ride. So I came here with him and he let me stay. And nobody does a thing to me. I licked one boy,” added Sammy with satisfaction, “so the others let me alone.”

“But haven’t you seen either of those two ladies that sold us the basket?” demanded Tess, beginning to be worried a little.

“Nope. I don’t believe they are here.”

“But that man says they are here,” cried Tess.

“Let’s go ask him. I—I won’t give that bracelet to anybody else but one of those ladies.”

“Crickey!” exclaimed Sammy. “Don’t feel so bad about it. Course there is a mistake somehow. These folks are real nice folks. They wouldn’t fool you.”

The three, Sammy looking very important, went to find Big Jim. He was just as smiling as ever.

“Oh, yes! The little ladies are not to be worried. The women they want will soon come.”

“You see?” said Sammy, boldly. “It will be all right. Why, these people treat you right. I tell you! You can do just as you please in a Gypsy camp and nobody says anything to you.”

“See!” exclaimed Tess suddenly. “Are they packing up to leave? Or do they stay here all the time?”

It was now late afternoon. Instead of the supper fires being revived, they were smothered. Men and women had begun loading the heavier vans. The tents were coming down. Clotheslines stretched between the trees were now being coiled by the children. All manner of rubbish was being thrown into the bushes.

“I don’t know if they are moving. I’ll ask,” said Sammy, somewhat in doubt.

He went to a boy bigger than himself, but who seemed to be friendly. The little girls waited, staring all about for the two women with whom they had business.

“I don’t care,” whispered Dot. “If they don’t come pretty soon, and these Gypsies are going away from here, we’ll just go back home, Tess. We can’t give them the bracelet if we don’t see them.”

“But we do not want to walk home,” her sister said slowly in return. “And we ought to make Sammy go with us.”

“You try to make Sammy do anything!” exclaimed Dot, with scorn.

Their boy friend returned, swaggering as usual. “Well, they are going to move,” he said. “But I’m going with them. That boy—he was the one I licked, but he’s a good kid—says they are going to a pond where the fishing is great. Wish I had my fishpole.”

“But you must come back home with us, Sammy,” began Tess gravely.

“Not much I won’t! Don’t you think it,” cried Sammy. “But you might get my fishing tackle and jointed pole and sneak ’em out to me. There’s good kids!”

“We will do nothing sneaky for you at all, Sammy Pinkney!” exclaimed Tess indignantly.

“Aw, go on! You can just as easy.”

“We can, but we won’t. So there! And if you don’t go home with us when the man takes us back in his car we certainly will tell where you are.”

“Be a telltale. I don’t care,” cried Sammy, roughly. “And I won’t say just where we are going from here, so you needn’t think my folks will find me.”

One of the closed vans—something like a moving van only with windows in the sides, a stove-pipe sticking out of the roof, and a door at the rear, with steps—seemed now to be ready to start. A man climbed into the front seat to drive it. Several women and smaller children got in at the rear after the various bales and packages that had been tossed in. The big man suddenly shouted and beckoned to Tess and Dot.

“Here, little ladies,” he said, still smiling his wide smile. “You come go wit’ my mudder, eh? Take you to find the Gypsy women you want to see.”

“But—er—Mr. Gypsy,” said Tess, somewhat disturbed now, “we must go back home.”

“Sure. Tak’ you home soon as you see those women and give them what you got for them.”

He strode across the camp to them. His smile was quite as wide, but did not seem to forecast as much good-nature as at first.

“Come now! Get in!” he commanded.

“Hey!” cried Sammy. “What you doing? Those little girls are friends of mine. You want to let them ride in that open car—not in that box. What d’you think we are?”

“Get out the way, boy!” commanded Big Jim.

He seized Tess suddenly by the shoulders, swung her up bodily despite her screams and tossed her through the rear door of the Gypsy van. Dot followed so quickly that she could scarcely utter a frightened gasp.

“Hey! Stop that! Those are the Kenway girls. Why! Mr. Howbridge will come after them and he’ll—he’ll—”

Sammy’s excited threat was stopped in his throat. Big Jim’s huge hand caught the boy a heavy blow upon the side of his head. The next moment he was shot into the motor-van too and the door was shut.

He heard Tess and Dot sobbing somewhere among the women and children already crowded into the van. It was a stuffy place, for none of the windows were open. Although this nomadic people lived mostly out of doors, and never under a real roof if they could help it, they did not seem to mind the smothering atmosphere of the van which now, with a sudden lurch, started out of the place of encampment.

“Never you mind, Tess and Dot, they won’t dare carry you far. Maybe they are taking you home anyway,” said Sammy in a low voice. “The first time they stop and let us out we’ll run away. I will get you home all right.”

“You—you can’t get yourself home, Sammy,” sobbed Dot.

“Maybe you like it being a Gypsy, but we don’t,” added Tess.

“I’ll fix it for you all right—”

One of the old crones reached out in the semi-darkness and slapped Sammy across the mouth.

“Shut up!” she commanded harshly. But when she tried to slap the boy again she screamed. It must be confessed that Sammy bit her!

“You lemme alone,” snarled the boy captive. “And don’t you hit those girls. If you do I—I’ll bite the whole lot of you!”

The women jabbered a good deal together in their own tongue; but nobody tried to interfere with Sammy thereafter. He shoved his way into the van until he stood beside Tess and Dot.

“Let’s not cry about it,” he whispered. “That won’t get us anywhere, that is sure. But the very first chance we get—”

No chance for escape however was likely to arise while the Gypsy troop were en route. The children could hear the rumble of the vans behind. Soon Big Jim in his touring car passed this first van and shouted to the driver. Then the procession settled into a steady rate of speed and the three little captives had not the least idea in which direction they were headed nor where they were bound.

Back at the old Corner House affairs were in a terrible state of confusion. Linda had returned from her voyage among the neighbors with absolutely no news of the smaller girls. And Agnes had discovered that the silver bracelet was missing.

“It was Tess’s day for wearing it, but she did not have it on when she went out to play,” the older sister explained. “Do you suppose the house has been robbed, Neale O’Neil?”

Neale had been examining closely the piece of paper that Agnes had found stuck to the plate on which she had fed the beggar girl the day before and also the note Mrs. McCall had received purporting to come from Mr. Howbridge’s butler. Both were written in blue pencil, and by the same hand without any doubt.

“It’s a plot clear enough. And naturally we may believe that it was not hatched by that Miguel Costello, the junkman. It looks as though it was done by Big Jim’s crowd.”

“But what have they done with the bairns?” demanded the housekeeper, in horror.

“Oh, Neale! have they stolen Tess and Dot, as well as the silver bracelet?” was Agnes’ bitter cry.

“Got me. Don’t know,” muttered the boy. “And what would they want the children for, anyway?”

“Let us find out if any Gypsies have been seen about the house this afternoon,” Agnes proposed. “You see, Neale. Don’t send Linda.”

Linda, indeed, was in a hopeless state. She didn’t know, declared Mrs. McCall, whether she was on her head or her heels!

Neale ran out and searched the neighborhood over. When he came back he had found nobody who had set eyes on any Gypsies; but he had heard from Mrs. Pease that Gypsies were camped out of town. The store man had told her so.

“Oh!” gasped Agnes, suddenly remembering. “I heard about that. Mrs. Pinkney told me. They are on the Buckshot Road, out beyond where Carrie Poole lives. You know, Neale.”

“Sure I know where the Poole place is,” admitted Neale. “We have all been there often enough. And I can get the car—”

“Do! Do!” begged Mrs. McCall. “You cannot go too quickly, Neale O’Neil. And take the police wi’ ye, laddie!”

“Take me with you, Neale!” commanded Agnes. “We can find a constable out that way if we need one. I know Mr. Ben Stryker who lives just beyond the Pooles. And he is a constable, for he stopped the car once when I was driving and said he would have to arrest me if I did not drive slower.”

“Sure!” said Neale. “Agnes knows all the traffic cops on the route, I bet. But we don’t know that the children have gone with the Gypsies.”

“And we never will know if you stand here and argue. Anyway, it looks as though the silver bracelet has been stolen by them.”

“Or by somebody,” granted the boy.

“Ne’er mind the bit bracelet,” commanded the housekeeper. “Find Tess and Dot. I am going to put on my bonnet and shawl and go to the police station mysel’. Do you children hurry away in the car as you promised.”

It was already supper time, but nobody thought of that meal, unless it was Aunt Sarah. When she came down to see what the matter was—why the evening meal was so delayed—she found Linda sobbing with her apron over her head in the kitchen and the tea kettle boiled completely dry.

That was nothing, however, to the condition of affairs at one o’clock that night when Ruth, with Luke and Cecile Shepard, arrived at the old Corner House. They had been delayed at the station half an hour while Ruth telephoned for and obtained a comfortable touring car for her visitors and herself. Agnes did not have to beg her older sister to put in a telephone. After this experience Ruth was determined to do just that.

The party arrived home to find the Corner House lit up as though for a reception. But it was not in honor of their arrival. The telegram announcing Ruth’s coming had scarcely been noticed by Mrs. McCall.

Mrs. McCall had recovered a measure of her composure and good sense; but she could scarcely welcome the guests properly. Aunt Sarah Maltby had gone to bed, announcing that she was utterly prostrated and should never get up again unless Tess and Dot were found. Linda and Uncle Rufus were equally distracted.

“But where are Agnes and Neale?” Ruth demanded, very white and determined. “What are they doing?”

“They started out in the machine around eight o’clock,” explained Mrs. McCall. “They are searching high and low for the puir bairns.”

“All alone?” gasped Ruth.

“Mr. Pinkney has gone with them. And I believe they were to pick up a constable. That Neale O’Neil declares he will raid every Gypsy camp and tramp’s roost in the county. And Sammy’s father took a pistol with him.”

“And you let Agnes go with them!” murmured Ruth. “Suppose she gets shot?”

“My maircy!” cried the housekeeper, clasping her hands. “I never thought about that pistol being dangerous, any more than Uncle Rufus’s gun with the broken hammer.”

CHAPTER XXIV—THE CAPTIVES

“You keep-a them here—you see? If those kids get out, I knock you good. See?”

Sammy saw stars at least! He would not answer the man. There was something beside stubbornness to Sammy Pinkney. But stubbornness stood him in good stead just now.

“Don’t you mind, Tess and Dot,” he whispered, his own voice broken with half-stifled sobs. “I’ll get you out of it. We’ll run away first chance we get.”

“But it never does you any good to run away, Sammy,” complained Tess. “You only get into trouble. Dot and I don’t want to be beaten by that man. He is horrid.”

“I wish we could see those nice ladies who sold us the basket,” wailed Dot, quite desperate now. “I—I’d be glad to give ’em back the bracelet.”

“Sh!” hissed Sammy. “We’ll run away and we’ll take the bracelet along. These Gyps sha’n’t ever get it again, so there!”

“Humph! I don’t see what you have to say about that, Sammy,” scoffed Tess. “If the women own it, of course they have got to have it. But I don’t want that Big Jim to have it—not at all!”

“He won’t get it. You leave it to me,” said Sammy, with recovered assurance.

The van door was neither locked nor barred. But if the children had stepped out of it the firelight would have revealed their figures instantly to the Gypsies.

Either the women bending over the pots and pans at the fires or the children running about the encampment would have raised a hue and cry if the little captives had attempted to run away. And there were a dozen burly men sitting about, smoking and talking and awaiting the call to supper.

This meal was finally prepared. The fumes from the pots reached the nostrils of Tess, Dot, and Sammy, and they were all ravenously hungry. Nor were they denied food. The Gypsies evidently had no intention of maltreating the captives in any particular as long as they obeyed and did not try to escape.

One young woman brought a great pan of stew and bread and three spoons to the van and set it on the upper step for the children.

“You eat,” said she, smiling, and the firelight shining on her gold earrings. “It do you goot—yes?”

“Oh, Miss Gypsy!” begged Tess, “we want to go home.”

“That all right. Beeg Jeem tak-a you. To-morrow, maybe.”

She went away hurriedly. But she had left them a plentiful supper. The three were too ravenous to be delicate. They each seized a spoon and, as Sammy advised, “dug in.”

“This is the way all Gypsies eat,” he said, proud of his knowledge. “Sometimes the men use their pocket knives to cut up the meat. But they don’t seem to have any forks. And I guess forks aren’t necessary anyway.”

“But they are nicer than fingers,” objected Tess.

“Huh? Are they?” observed the young barbarian.

After they had completely cleared the pan of every scrap and eaten every crumb of bread and drunk the milk that had been brought to them in a quart cup, Dot naturally gave way to sleepiness. She began to whimper a little too.

“If that big, bad Gypsy man doesn’t take us home pretty soon I shall have to sleep here, Sister,” she complained.

“You lie right down on this bench,” said Tess kindly, “and I will cover you up and you can sleep as long as you want to.”

So Dot did this. But Sammy was not at all sleepy. His mind was too active for that. He was prowling about the more or less littered van.

“Say!” he whispered to Tess, “there is a little window here in the front overlooking the driver’s seat. And it swings on a hinge like a door.”

“I don’t care, Sammy. I—I’m sleepy, too,” confessed Tess, with a yawn behind her hand.

“Say! don’t you go to sleep like a big kid,” snapped the boy. “We’ve got to get away from these Gyps.”

“I thought you were going to stay with them forever.”

“Not to let that Big Jim bang me over the head. Not much!” ejaculated Sammy fiercely. “If my father saw him do that—”

“But your father isn’t here. If he was—”

“If he was you can just bet,” said Sammy with confidence, “that Big Jim would not dare hit me.”

“I—I wish your father would come and take us all home then,” went on Tess, with another yawn.

“Well,” admitted Sammy, “I wish he would, too. Crickey! but it’s awful to have girls along, whether you are a pirate or a Gypsy.”

“You needn’t talk!” snapped Tess, quite tart for her. “We did not ask to come. And you were here ‘fore we got here. And now you can’t get away any more than Dot and I can.”

“Sh!” advised Sammy again, and earnestly. “I got an idea.”

“What is it?” asked Tess, without much curiosity.

“This here window in front!” whispered the boy. “We can open it. It is all dark at that end of the van. If we can slide out on to the seat we’ll climb down in the dark and get into the woods. I know the way to the road. I can see a patch of it through the window. What say?”

“But Dot? She sleeps so hard,” breathed Tess.

“We can poke her through the window on to the seat. Then we will crawl through. If she doesn’t wake up and holler—”

“I’ll stop her from hollering,” agreed Tess firmly. “We’ll try it, Sammy, before those awful women get back into the van.”

Fortunately for the attempt of the captives their own supper had been dispatched with promptness. The Gypsies were still sitting about over the meal when Sammy opened that front window in the van.

He and Tess lifted Dot, who complained but faintly and kept her eyes tightly closed, and pushed her feet first through the small window. The driver’s seat was broad and roomy. The little girl lay there all right while first Tess and then Sammy crept through the window.

It was dark here, and they could scarcely see the way to the ground. But Sammy ventured down first, and after barking his shins a little found the step and whispered his directions to Tess about passing Dot down to him.

They actually got to the ground themselves and brought the smallest Corner House girl with them without any serious mishap. Sammy tried to carry Dot over his shoulder, but he could not stagger far with her. And, too, the sleepy child began to object.