CHAPTER XVIIIFINDING OUT
Lankywas once more himself. The look of gloom had vanished from his thin face, and he turned an eager glance on his comrade.
“I’ve been thinking,” Frank went on, slowly, as he sometimes did when he was trying to grasp an idea, “that we ought to do something to settle this business about whether there really is a little child in the charge of the old queen, or not.”
“Hear! hear!” burst out the other, pretending to clap his hands.
“If it turns out that there isn’t any such thing as the child you believed tried to attract your attention, then the sooner we give up all this foolishness, why, the better; you understand, Lanky?”
“But if thereissuch a little girlie, Frank?”
“We’ll stay in the game, make sure of that,” replied the other, in a determined tone that told Lanky what he might expect.
“Oh! I agree with you all right, about that, Frank,” he observed; “but the question is, how under the sun can we do it? That sly old queen knows how to slip the child away every time we happen to be seen coming around the camp.”
“Well, we must make outnotto be seen, then, next time,” was the matter-of-fact way Frank put it.
“Do you mean we’ll sneak back, and see what’s goin’ on, right now; sorter creep up through the bushes, Injun fashion, and peep, unbeknown to any of the gypsies? Tell me, is that what’s got you, Frank?”
“Well no, hardly that, Lanky,” replied the other. “In the first place it’s getting kind of late, and I promised to be home by five, sharp. Then, though perhaps you haven’t noticed it, there’s a gypsy boy trailing us right now. No, don’t turn around and look, because that would tell him we knew all about his following us. Wait till we get to that bend, and then you can see without showing that you’re bothering your head about him.”
“Wow! that’s what I call going some, Frank,” remarked Lanky, presently.
“You saw him then; didn’t you?” asked the leader of the boys.
“Right you are; and he’s certain sure follerin’ us, to see that we don’t play a double game, andsneak back in the direction of the camp,” was Lanky’s admission.
“And you can understand that a boy wouldn’t be up to any such trick unless some other person had told him to do it?” Frank continued, with convincing force.
“That must mean she did it,” Lanky admitted.
“The old queen, and no other. So, you see, we couldn’t turn back now without her knowing about it; and that would give the alarm. Why, by to-morrow morning these same gypsies would be miles away on the road to nowhere; and it’d be the hardest kind of business getting on the track of them again.”
“Well, whencanwe come back?” asked Lanky; “to-morrow afternoon?”
“For one, I don’t feel like waiting that long,” the other declared.
“Say, could we try it to-night, Frank?” asked Lanky, eagerly.
“I’m willing to come,” replied his companion; “if your folks will let you out. Look over here to the right, and you’ll see a little rise of ground. And, Lanky, if a fellow sat on top of that, with a pair of field glasses in his hands, what would hinder him from seeing everything that happened in the camp?”
“There’s a clear line between, as sure as anything,” admitted the other.
“And if they have their fires going, as they generally do in the early evening, why, the glass would work O. K. I’ve looked through it at the moon, and Jupiter, Venus and that crowd of worlds in the night sky. Is it a go, Lanky?”
“Put her there, Frank,” replied Lanky, thrusting out a hand with a boy’s impetuosity. “Why, I’d back you up, no matter what sort of a harum-scarum scheme you gave me. But this isn’t anything like that; I consider that it’s the boss idea. Why, we can crawl up there and just watch for keeps, without a single gyp bein’ any the wiser. Call it a go, Frank!”
“Then that’s settled, and I’ll meet you at the big elm at, say, seven,” Frank proposed. “It doesn’t get real dark till after eight nowadays, you know; and we’ll have plenty of time to wander up this road.”
Lanky was greatly pleased over the new development. Coming on the tail of his recent gloom, it was all the more acceptable to him. When he later on parted company with his chum, his last words were:
“Don’t fail to be there at seven sharp, Frank! It’d knock me into flinders if you didn’t show up. I’d be tempted to come alone, and make the try,though chances are I’d only turn it into a foozle by my clumsiness.”
“You can depend on me,” was what the other said, positively.
Frank would have liked to take his father fully into his confidence, and get his sanction for the strange little errand that was about to occupy the time of himself and Lanky that night. But it happened that Mr. Allen had stayed at the house of a friend whom he had been visiting that afternoon; and Frank’s mother was lying down, with a headache; so it seemed that even had he wanted to, he could not have taken either of his parents into his secret just then.
A little before seven he went out, without anyone paying any particular attention to his action. Possibly the mother supposed Frank was going to church, for he and Lanky both sang in the volunteer choir.
But the boy really believed he had good reasons for absenting himself from his regular seat in the organ loft that night. And under his coat he carried the field glasses which he had spoken of to his chum.
Lanky was waiting for him, and kicking his heels against the base of the big tree that had been appointed as a place of meeting.
“Gee! aren’t you late, Frank?” he asked, a little pettishly.
Just then the church clock boomed out the hour of seven, as if saving Frank the trouble of making a reply.
“I reckon I’ve been here half an hour, and countin’ the minutes,” admitted Lanky, candidly, as they started off on a brisk walk.
Evening was just coming on, and there were some clouds covering the heavens as the sun went down, which gave Lanky new cause for anxiety. He would not be happy a single day if things went too smoothly.
“Reckon now there’s a storm just wantin’ to sail along this way, to upset all our calculations about Wednesday,” he grumbled.
“Oh! I guess not,” Frank tried to console him by saying; “weather reports say dry weather and warmer for the whole eastern half of the country for the first three days of the week, beginning to-morrow. I looked it up this morning. Forget it, and let’s think only of what we’re trying to do right now.”
When they saw anyone approaching they stepped into the nearby woods, and let the other pass by. Perhaps this looked a little suspicious, but then Frank was afraid that one of the gypsy men might happen that way, and hurry back with a report thatwas apt to create some little excitement in the queen’s van.
“Aren’t we gettin’ pretty near that little rise, Frank?” asked Lanky, when they had been making progress for some time.
“Be there in five minutes or so,” was the confident reply; for Frank had the happy faculty of taking note of distances, by objects to be seen along the way; and as a rule he was able to tell to a fraction just where he was, when going over a route he had traversed before.
He turned out to be a true prophet, too; for about the time that limit had expired Lanky remarked in a thrilling whisper:
“I can see the rise right now, Frank; we’d better turn off the road, too, because there’s somebody coming with a rig. It might be one of those jockeys from the camp.”
Frank hastened to comply with the suggestion, and they were soon making their way through the woods that led up to the bare mound, which the boys had selected as a place for making their observation.
They crept along with extreme caution, because the camp was not far off, and both of them feared lest a gypsy man might be wandering around about that time, and would discover them unless they used unusual care.
Presently they ascended the little rise.
“Say, this is a good place to see from, all right,” commented Lanky.
Frank, instead of replying, was starting to focus the field glasses on the camp of the nomads, plainly seen through the open lane. Although night had by this time fallen fully, several fires were burning in the camp, and these lighted up the entire place where the wagons and tents were.
The gypsies were either moving about, or else sitting near the fires, evidently eating their supper. Lanky almost held his breath while Frank looked.
“See anything of her?” he asked, finally, unable to hold out longer.
“Take a chance, and see for yourself,” was the reply, as the glasses were thrust into his hands; and there was a note of satisfaction in Frank’s voice that gave the other a thrill.
He quickly held the ends of the twin tubes to his eyes, and ten seconds later Frank heard him chuckle, as though greatly pleased.
“She’s there, Frank, sure as you’re born!” Lanky ejaculated.
“Softly, now, old fellow,” warned Frank.
“You saw her; of course you did, Frank?” continued the tall boy, quivering with delight. “She’s eating beside that girl we met—Mena, the queen called her. There, the old woman is scolding her,Frank! I can see her shaking a finger at the child, and I believe the little thing’s crying, too.”
“What happened?” asked Frank.
“The old queen leaned over and slapped the little thing twice right on her ear. She’s pointin’ up at the wagon right now; and, yes, siree, the girl climbs in, as if she was afraid to stay outside any longer. Frank, that settles it; doesn’t it? The girl is there, we know that now; don’t we?”
For answer Frank clutched his chum’s groping hand, and squeezed it.
“And we keep right along in the game, waitin’ to hear from Mr. Elverson; don’t we, Frank?”
“That’s what we do; and I’m hoping that it comes out just as you’re expecting, Lanky, because you sure have got yourself keyed up to top-notch speed right now. But perhaps we’d better be getting back to town. If we hurried, we might reach there by eight, and lend a hand at that anthem in the choir.”
“Oh! I’m willing, all right, Frank,” declared the now light-hearted Lanky; “we just hit the right nail on the head when we came out here, and spied on that camp. Poor little thing! Say, that old woman’s got a temper, all right; and I reckon that child ought to be taken away from her, even if she doesn’t prove to be the long-lost Effie Elverson. Come on, Frank, let’s run a little along the road.”