Camp Fire Girls The at Long Lake Part 5

Her best chance, however, was to wait until the light came, and then, despite her lack of acquaintance with the art of reading footprints, to try to distinguish those of the gypsy. All that she needed was some clue to enable her to guess which path her quarry had taken; beyond that the message of the footprints was not necessary.

As she sat there, watching the slow, slow lightening in the east, Bessie wondered if the day was ever coming. She had seen the sun rise before, but never had it seemed so lazy, so inclined to linger in its couch of night.

But every wait comes to an end at last, and finally Bessie was able to go back a little way, before the other trails began to branch off, and bending over, to try to pick out the footprints of the man who had carried Dolly off. It was easy to do, fortunately, or Bessie could scarcely have hoped to accomplish it.

There had been a light rain the previous morning, enough to soften the ground and wipe out the traces of the numerous parties that had made Deer Mountain the objective point of a tramp in the woods, and, mingled with her own small footsteps, Bessie soon found the marks of hobnailed feet, that must, she was sure, have been made by the gypsy.

Step by step she followed them, and she was just about at the first of the diverging trails when a sound behind her made her turn, terrified, to see who was approaching.

But it was not the man who had so frightened her whom she saw as she turned. It was a girl--a gypsy, to be sure--but a girl, and Bessie had no fear of her, even when she saw that it was the same girl the scamp she was pursuing was to marry. Moreover, the girl seemed as surprised and frightened at the sight of Bessie, crouching there? as Bessie herself had been at the other's coming.

"Where is he; that wicked man you are to marry?" cried Bessie, fiercely, springing to her feet, and advancing upon the trembling gypsy girl. "You shall tell me, or I will--"

She seized the gypsy girls shoulders, and shook her, before she realized that the girl, whose eyes were filled with tears, probably knew as little as she herself. Then, repentant, she released her shoulders, but repeated her question.

"You mean John, my man?" said the girl, a quiver in her tones. "I do not know, he was not at the camp last night. I was afraid. I think he does not love me any more."

Something about the way she spoke made Bessie pity her.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Lolla," said the gypsy.

"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. You remember, the one who was with me yesterday, when we looked at your camp? That is why I am looking for him. He says he will make her marry him later on; that he will keep her with your tribe until she is ready."

Lolla's tears ceased suddenly, and there was a gleam of pa.s.sionate anger in her eyes.

"He will do that?" she said, angrily. "My brothers, they will kill him if he does that. He is to marry me, we are betrothed. You do not know where he is? You would like to find your friend?"

"I must, Lolla."

"Then I will help you, if you will help me. Will you?"

Lolla looked intently at Bessie, as if she were trying to tell from her eyes whether she really meant what she said.

"Oh, I wish I knew whether you are good; whether you speak the truth," cried the gypsy girl, pa.s.sionately. "That other girl, your friend. She wants my John. So--"

Bessie, serious as the situation was, could not help laughing.

"Listen, Lolla," she said. "You mustn't think that. Dolly--that's my friend--thinks John is good looking, perhaps, but she hasn't even thought of marrying anyone yet, oh, for years. She's too young. We don't get married as early as you. So you may be sure that if John has her, all she wants is to get away and get back to her friends."

Lolla's eyes lighted with relief.

"That is good," she said. "Then I will help, for that is what I want, too. I do not want her to live in the tribe, and to be with us. You are sure John has taken her?"

Then Bessie told her of the face they had seen in the flashlight, and of how Dolly had been spirited away from the camp fire afterward. And as she spoke, she was surprised to see that Lolla's eyes shone, as if she were delighted by the recital.

"Why, Lolla, you look pleased!" said Bessie. "As if you were glad it had happened. How can that be; how can you seem as if you were happy about it?"

Lolla blushed slightly.

"He is my man," she said, simply. "He is strong and brave, do you not see? If he were not brave he would not dare to act so. He is a fine man. If I were bad, he would beat me. And he will beat anyone who is not good to me. Of course, I am glad that he was brave enough to act so, though I did not want him to do it."

Bessie laughed. The primitive, elemental idea that was expressed in Lolla's words was beyond her comprehension, and, in fact, a good many people older and wiser than Bessie do not understand it.

But Lolla did not mind the laugh. She did not understand what was in Bessie's mind; what she had said seemed so simple to her that it required no explanation. And now her mind was bent entirely upon the problem of getting Dolly back to her friends, in order that John might turn back to her and forget the American girl whose appeal to him had lain chiefly in the fact that she was so different from the women of his own race.

"He will not take her back to camp," said Lolla, thoughtfully. "He knows they would look there first."

"But will the others--your people--help him?"

"He may tell them that he has stolen her to get a ransom; to keep her until her friends pay well for her to be returned. Our old men do not like that, they say it is too dangerous. But if he were to say that he had done so, they might help him, because our people stand and fall together. But," and her eyes shone, "I will tell my brothers the truth. They will believe me, and--Quick! Hide in those bushes; someone is coming!"

Bessie obeyed instantly. But, once she had hidden herself, she heard nothing. It was not for a minute or more after she had slipped into the bushes that she heard the sound that had disturbed Lolla. But then, looking out, she saw John coming down one of the paths, peering about him cautiously.

CHAPTER IX.

AN UNEXPECTED ALLY.

Bessie's heart leaped at the sight of the man who had given her her wild tramp through the night, and it was all she could do to resist her impulse to rush out, accuse him of the crime she knew he had committed, and demand that he give Dolly up to her at once. It was hard to believe that he was really dangerous.

Here, in the early morning light, his clothes soaked by the wet woods, as were Bessie's for that matter, he looked very cheap and tawdry, and not at all like a man to be feared. But a moment's reflection convinced Bessie that, for the time at least, it would be far wiser to leave matters in the hands of Lolla, the gypsy girl, who understood this man, and, if she feared him, and with cause, did so from reasons very different from Bessie's.

For a moment after he came in sight John did not see Lolla. Bessie watched the pair, so different from any people she had ever seen at close range before, narrowly. She was intensely interested in Lolla, and wondered mightily what the gypsy girl intended to do. But she did not have long to wait.

Lolla, with a little cry, rushed forward, and, casting herself on the ground at her lover's feet, seized his hand and kissed it. At first she said not a word; only looked up at him with her black, brilliant eyes, in which Bessie could see that a tear was glistening.

"Lolla! What are you doing here?"

At the sight of the girl John had started, nervously. It was plain that he did not feel secure; that he thought his pursuers might, even thus early, have tracked him down, and, in the moment before he had recognized Lolla, Bessie saw him quail, while his face whitened, so that Bessie knew he was afraid.

That knowledge, somehow, comforted her vastly. It removed at once some of the formidable quality which John had acquired in her eyes when he stole Dolly after the fright that he must have had when the flashlight powder exploded, almost in his face. But Bessie remembered that he had plucked up his courage after that scare; the chances were that he would do so again now.

But, if Bessie was afraid of the kidnapper, Lolla was not. She rose, and faced him defiantly. Bessie thought there was something splendid about the gypsy girl, and she wondered why John, with such a girl ready and anxious to marry him, had been diverted from her by Dolly, charming though she was.

"I have come to save you, John," said Lolla. "Where is the American girl you stole from her friends!"

John started, evidently surprised by Lolla's knowledge of what he had done, and said something, sharply, in the gypsy tongue, which Bessie, of course, could not understand. Her question, it was plain, had frightened, as well as startled him; but it had also made him very angry. Lolla, however, did not seem to mind his anger. She faced him boldly, without giving ground, although he had moved toward her with a threatening gesture of his uplifted hand.

"Hit me, if you will," she said. "I am not your wife yet, but when I am it will be your right to strike me if you wish. But I know what you have done. I know, too, that the Americans know it. Do you think you can escape from these woods without being caught?"

John stared at her angrily.

"I am going now to the camp," he said. "If. they come looking for news of the girl, they will find me there, and plenty to swear that I have been there all this night, and so could not have done what they charge. My tribe will help me; it is my right to call upon it for help."

"You forget me," said Lolla, dangerously. "I will swear that I saw you here, where I came to look for you because you had stayed away from the camp all the night. And when I tell my brothers, what will they swear?"

Again the man muttered something in the gypsy-tongue, but under his breath. When he spoke aloud to Lolla it was in English.

"They are Barlomengri; they will support me. They will never let the policemen take me away. They are my brothers--"

"Do you think you can jilt their sister, the girl you asked for as your wife before all the tribe, and escape their vengeance? Do you think they will not punish you, even by seeing that you die in a prison, in a cell?"

And now John, beside himself with anger, fulfilled the threat of his uplifted hand, and struck Lolla sharply.

"Strike me again!" cried Lolla, furiously. "I have done no wrong! I am trying only to save you from your own folly. Tell me, at least, where you have hidden the girl? Would you have her starve? You will be watched, so that you may not bring her food. Had you thought of that?"

"Will you betray me? If you do not I shall not be watched! They will know as soon as they look for me that I was in the camp all through the night. Lolla, you fool, I love you, only you. I want her to win a ransom. They will pay to have her back, those Americans."

Lolla had guessed right when she had said that this would be his plea. But Bessie was surprised, and thought Lolla must also wonder at his telling her such a story. Lolla looked scornfully at John.

"I am no baby that I should believe such a tale as that," she said witheringly. "I give you your chance, John, your last chance. Will you take this girl back to her people, or set her free and show her the road? Or must I bear witness against you, and tell the tribe that you would shame me by forsaking me even before I am your wife?"

"Let me go," said John furiously. "We shall see if a woman's talk is to be taken before mine. You fool! Even your brothers will laugh at your Jealousy, and rejoice with me over the money this girl will bring us. Let me pa.s.s--"

"Tell me, at least, where you have hidden her! She will starve, I tell you--"

"She will not starve. Think you I know no more than that of doing such a piece of work! It is not the first time we have made anxious fathers pay to win their children back! Ha-ha! Peter, my friend, comes to take my watch. He will see to it that she does not suffer for food. And he will keep her safe for me. Out of my way!"

He brushed Lolla aside roughly, and strode off down the trail that Bessie had followed. For a moment, while she could hear the sound of his retreating footsteps, Lolla did not move. But then she raised herself, a smile in her eyes, and beckoned to Bessie.

"Go up that path, quickly," she whispered. "Somewhere up there, hidden, you will find your friend. Comfort her, but do not let her move. If she is tied up, leave her so. Tell her that help is near. I will free her."

"But why--why not come with me, and free her now!" protested Bessie, eagerly. "We can find her, for he came down that path, so he must have left her somewhere up there. Oh, come, Lolla, you will never regret it!"

"Did you not hear him say that Peter was coming? Peter is his best friend; they are closer together, and are more to one another, than brothers. If we tried to escape with her now, Peter would find us, and his hand is heavy. We should do your friend no good, and be punished ourselves. We must wait. But hurry, before he comes. Tell her to be happy, and not to fear. I will save her, and you. We will work together to save her."

And with that Bessie, much as she would have liked to get Dolly out of the clutches of her captor at once, had to be content. She realized fully that in Lolla she had gained an utterly unexpected ally, in whom lay the best possible chance for the immediate release of her chum, and the mere knowledge of where Dolly was hidden would be extremely valuable.

After all, it was all, and, possibly, more, than she had expected to accomplish when she had plunged into the woods after the gypsy and his prisoner, and she felt that she ought to be satisfied. So she hurried at once up the path that Lolla pointed out, leaving the gypsy girl below as a guard.

The path was rough and steep, rising sharply, but Bessie paid little heed to its difficulties, since she felt that it was taking her to Dolly. She kept her eyes and ears open for any sight or sound that might make it easier to find Dolly, but she did not call out, since she felt that it was practically certain the gypsy had managed, in some manner, to make it impossible for poor Dolly to cry out, lest, in his absence, she alarm some pa.s.serby and so obtain her freedom.

Bessie was sure that Dolly would not be left in some place that could be seen from the path, but she was also sure that she could not be far from it, since there had not been time for the gypsy to make any extended trip through the woods off the trail. Bessie had traveled fast through the night, and she was sure that John, with the weight of Dolly to carry, had not been able to move as fast as she, and could not, therefore, have been more than twenty minutes or half an hour ahead of her in reaching the trail she was now following.

So she watched carefully for some break in the thick undergrowth that lined the trail, for some opening through which John might have gone with his burden. There might even, she thought, be another of those precious sign posts that, back on the other trail, had been made by the torn pieces from Dolly's skirt.

But, careful as was her search, she reached the end of the trail without finding anything that looked like a promising place, or seeing anything that made her think Dolly was within a short distance of her. The trail led to an exposed peak, a ragged outcrop of rock, bare of trees, and covered only with a slight undergrowth.

Once there Bessie understood why the trail had been made through the woods. The view was wonderful. Below her were the waving tops of countless trees, and beyond them she could look down and over the cultivated valleys, full of farms, whose fields, marked off by stone fences, looked small and insignificant from her high perch.

Bessie, however, was in no mood to enjoy a view. She wasted no time in admiring it, but only peered over the edge of the peak on which she stood, to satisfy herself that Dolly was not hidden just below her. One look was enough to do that. There was a way, she soon saw, of descending, and reaching the woods again, but no man, carrying any sort of a burden, could have accomplished that descent.

It was a task that called for the use of feet and hands and Bessie turned desperately, convinced that she must, in some manner, have overlooked the place at which John had turned off the main trail with his burden.

Now, as she went downward, she searched the woods at each side with redoubled care, and at last she found what she had been looking for, or what, it seemed to her, must be the place, since she had seen no other that offered even a chance for a successful pa.s.sage through the thick growth of trees and underbrush.

Without hesitation she turned off the trail, and, though the going was rough, and her hands and face were scratched, while her clothes were torn, she was rewarded at last by finding that the ground below her grew smooth, showing that human feet had pa.s.sed that way often enough to wear the faintest sort of a path.

Once she became aware of the path her heart grew light, for she was sure now that she was going in the right direction at last. And, indeed, it was not more than five minutes before she almost stumbled over Dolly herself, bound to a tree, and with a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth so that she could not cry out.

"Oh, Dolly! I'm so glad, so glad! Listen, dear; I can't stay. You'll have to be here a little while longer, but we will soon have you back at the camp, as safe and well as ever. Are you hurt? Does it give you pain? If it doesn't shake your head sideways."

Dolly managed to shake her head, and in her eyes Bessie saw that now that she knew help was near Dolly's courage would sustain her.

"That gypsy girl we saw is near, but the man who carried you off is going to send another man to watch, and if I let you go now we'd only meet him, and be in more trouble than ever. But be brave, dear! it won't be long now."

Poor Dolly could not answer, for Bessie, remembering that Lolla had seemed to fear the man Peter more than she did John, dared not even loosen the gag. She saw, however, that while it must be making Dolly terribly uncomfortable, she could breathe, and that it was probably worse in appearance than in fact. So she leaned down and kissed her chum, and whispered in her ear.

"I'm going back to Lolla now, dear, but I'll soon be back with enough help so that we needn't care how many of the gypsies there are near us. If I stay now I'm afraid they'll catch me, too, and then no one would know where you were. They can't get you away from here, so you're sure to be safe soon."

Dolly nodded to show that she understood, and Bessie moved silently away. But, as she turned down the trail that would take her back to the spot where she had left Lolla, she had a new cause for fright. She heard Lolla's voice, raised loudly, arguing with a man who answered in low, guttural tones. What they were saying she could not distinguish, but somehow she understood that Peter had come even sooner than Lolla had feared, and the gypsy girl, at the risk of angering him, was trying to warn her, so that she might not descend the trail and so stumble right into his arms.

So, although the prospect frightened her, she turned and made her way swiftly up to the peak again, determined that if the man should go past the opening that led to the place where Dolly lay, she would risk the danger and the difficulty of the rocky descent from the peak itself.

As she hastened along silence fell behind her, and she knew that Peter must have started. He was whistling a queer gypsy tune and Bessie heard him pa.s.s the partly masked opening that she had herself found with so much difficulty.

After that she hesitated no longer, but rushed to the rocky top of the peak, and in a moment she was making her way down, with as much caution as possible, swinging from one ledge to the next, hanging on to a bush here, and a projecting piece of rock there.

Even an expert climber, equipped with rope and sharp pointed stick, would have found the descent difficult. And all that enabled Bessie to succeed was her knowledge that she must.

CHAPTER X.

A TERRIBLE SURPRISE.

Bessie, though she had to pause more than once in her wild descent of the rocks, dared not look back to see if the gypsy, Peter, was pursuing her, or even whether he was looking down after her. She had two reasons. For one thing, the task was difficult and terrifying enough as it was, and to know that there was danger from behind, as well as the peril involved in the descent itself, would, she feared, unnerve her.

And, moreover, even if Peter saw her, he might not, if she paid no attention to him, suspect that she had anything to do with Dolly, or that he and his companion had anything to dread from her. Bessie did not know whether he would recognize her as having been at the gypsy camp with Dolly, but she felt that it would be as well not to take the chance. Things were bad enough without running the risk of complicating them still further.

The descent was a long and hard one, but when she was about half way down to the comparatively level ground at the foot of the peak, all real danger of a crippling fall was over, since there a path began. Evidently some trampers who were fond of climbing had worn it through the rough surface to a point where a good view was to be had, and had stopped there, content with the distance they had gone, and not disposed to try the further ascent. And as soon as Bessie reached that point she was able to stop and get her breath.

Meanwhile she wondered what had become of Lolla. The gypsy girl, as Bessie understood thoroughly, was running severe risks. If the two men knew that she was in league with Dolly's friends they would certainly take some steps to silence her. But John, Bessie felt sure, did not believe that Lolla, no matter how jealous she might be, would actually betray her own people to the hated Americans. He had smiled in a confident manner while Lolla had made her threats, and Bessie thought he regarded the girl as a child in a temper, but sure to come to her senses before she actually put him in danger.