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The new trail was one evidently little used, and when Bessie had been on it for perhaps ten minutes, and was beginning to think that it was time she came in sight of the larger trail from Long Lake to Deer Mountain, she heard someone coming toward her, and, rounding a bend, came into sight of Lolla. The gypsy girl seemed overwhelmed with joy at the sight of Bessie.
And I'm not frightened any more; really I'm not." But Bessie, tired and disappointed, was nearer to giving in than she had been since the moment when she had awakened and found that Dolly was missing. She felt that she ought to have distrusted Lolla; that she had made a great mistake in thinking, even for a moment, that the gypsy girl meant to betray her own people.
Then suddenly a strange thing happened. A new voice, that belonged to none of the four who were in the clearing, suddenly broke the silence. It seemed to come from a tree directly over the heads of Lolla and Peter, and, as it spoke, they stared upward with one accord, listening intently to what it said. "Will you make me come down and punish you?" said the voice.
They went on up the trail, and, at the bend just below the spot where she had broken through to reach Dolly before, Bessie waited while Lolla, who had recognized the place from Bessie's description of it, crept forward to make sure that the way was clear. "All right," she whispered. "Come on."
"Yes, but it is not the way you would go," she said. "The trail to the camp will be full of people. They will be out all over the camp particularly. We must come to it from another direction. That is why we are going this way." It was not long before Bessie was as thoroughly lost as if she had been in a maze. Lolla, however, seemed to know just where she was going.
"Bessie, why do I always get into so much trouble? All this happened just because I changed those signs that day." "Oh, I don't know about that, Dolly. It might have happened anyhow. I've got an idea now that they knew we were around, and that John planned to kidnap one of us and keep us until someone paid him a lot of money to let us go. Something Lolla said made me think that."
The idea that Paw Hoover, the mildest and most inoffensive of men, might ever beat his wife would have made anyone who knew that couple laugh. Instead of turning when they reached the trail which Bessie had followed after her descent from the rocks, Lolla led the way straight on. "Are you sure you know where you are going, Lolla!" asked Bessie. Lolla smiled at her scornfully.
"I believe you do not know, Lolla," said Bessie, kindly. "And you do not want him to be sent to prison, perhaps for years and years, do you? You love this John?" "Prison? They would send him there? What for? No, no yes, I love him. Do you know where he is; where he was last night?" "I know where he was last night, Lolla, yes. He came to our camp and carried my friend away.
The sheriff said he'd see that they were kept tight until they could be tried, and Andrew guessed they wouldn't have much chance of getting off when the people around the town would be on the jury. The men in those parts haven't any use for gypsies, you see, and they'd be pretty sure to see to it that they were properly punished." "I wouldn't mind seeing Lolla get off, Dolly.
They made the return trip with hearts far lighter than they had been as they made their way to the gypsy camp. Bessie had seen that Lolla was afraid of John, though now that he, had been over-reached she was ready enough to laugh at him. "What are you going to do! How are you going to get her away, Lolla?" asked Bessie, as they neared the point where she had first seen her ally."
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