The Meadow Brook Girls Across Country Part 33

"Well, what do you think of that?" wondered Fred.

"I didn't think much of it."

"How do you suppose she found out about it?"

"Don't ask me," replied George gloomily. "She said that the Oracle told her."

"You don't believe such nonsense as that, do you?" asked Davy.

"I don't know what to think about it. Gipsies are queer folks. They're too mysterious to suit me. I've got all I want of them. They know too much," declared the captain. "Why, they can read one's thoughts."

In the meantime, Harriet gleefully watched the departure of the boys from the camp. There was laughter in her eyes. She turned to the wagon where her companions were now giving expression to uncontrolled merriment. Few visitors remained in the camp, and these were some distance away.

"Well, I think I have evened up matters with that young man," declared Harriet. "What do you say, girls?" she asked, thrusting a laughing face into the wagon.

"Oh, Harriet!" gasped Miss Elting. "It was the funniest thing I ever heard. And he believed every word of it."

"Why shouldn't he? It was the truth. By the way, Miss Elting-I have collected one dollar of that four dollars and eighty cents that you paid for the melons," said Harriet, extending a hand in the palm of which lay Captain Baker's silver dollar.

"Oh, no, no," protested the guardian, drawing back. "I could not think of accepting the money."

"Why not? I can collect the whole amount in a very short time at this rate," laughed Harriet.

"Oh, darlin'! What a girl, what a girl!" laughed Crazy Jane.

"No. You must not keep it. It does not rightfully belong to you."

"Then if you refuse to accept the money I shall give it to Sybarina.

She'll take it. Trust a Gipsy to take everything that is offered."

Sybarina graciously accepted the money. Her eyes shone as she hobbled over to Harriet Burrell and exclaimed earnestly: "I said you were the true Romany. Now I know it. Did I not tell you the power to foretell both the past and future would come to you unbidden?"

"Yes," laughed Harriet, "but I happened to know considerable about the Tramp Club's affairs particularly since they visited a certain melon patch. Is there any danger of those boys returning to-night?"

Sybarina shook her head. "They have returned to their camp."

"Where are they camping?"

"On yonder hillside. Even now you can catch the glow of their campfire.

But you shall see them again and you shall make them red of face for the trick which they played on you and your friends, my Romany girls. You would outwit them?"

"We are trying to get home ahead of them."

The old woman nodded.

"The way shall be made clear to you. Sybarina will tell the Romany girl how to defeat her rivals, to show them that the Romany tribes know the secret bypaths as the birds know the trail to the sunny land when the frost is in the air. Come, child. Come, sit by the fire, while Sybarina tells you that which shall make the way clear."

CHAPTER XXI-HARRIET PLANS TO OUTWIT THE TRAMP CLUB

A long conversation was held between Harriet and the Gipsy queen, the latter drawing a map on the ground with a willow wand to show the girl the route that she was to travel after the Meadow-Brook Girls had gone on for another day.

Harriet's eyes were sparkling. She thought she saw a way to outwit the Tramp Club. Harriet was chuckling gleefully when she joined her companions. She declined to tell them that night, however, just what the Gipsy had communicated to her.

"Where shall we sleep to-night?" asked Miss Elting.

"Sybarina says we may have the wagon to sleep in," answered Harriet.

"Shall we use it?"

"No. I think I prefer to sleep in the open," answered the guardian. "It is not a cool night. Suppose we roll up in our blankets and sleep by the campfire? What do you say, girls?"

"I thay yeth," spoke up Tommy. "I'll put my feet againtht the fire; then I won't have cold feet any more."

They were sound asleep in a few moments after turning in. Even the Gipsy dogs that had been barking most of the evening, and the crying babies, to whom none of the tribe had given the slightest heed, were now quietly asleep. Sybarina watched her guests roll up in their blankets and nodded approvingly.

"The true Romany," she muttered. For a long time the old woman sat by the fire, sat until the embers fell together and the sticks began to blacken, when she rose and peered into each sleeping face of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Sybarina then hobbled to her own wagon and disappeared within.

The Meadow-Brook Girls awakened next morning with the sun in their eyes.

Miss Elting sat up and called softly to Harriet. The guardian and Harriet rubbed their eyes and blinked dazedly about them. There was something strange about their surroundings, but just what that strangeness was they for the moment did not know. All at once they discovered what had happened. They were absolutely alone, save for their sleeping companions.

"Why, they've gone!" cried Harriet.

"Gone and we never woke up," laughed Miss Elting. "How strange."

"Who hath gone?" mumbled Tommy, sitting up.

"The Gipsies," answered Harriet.

"They must have left in a great hurry, for some reason," suggested the guardian. "I don't understand it. Nor do I understand how they managed to slip away so quietly."

The wagon tracks were plainly outlined in the soft earth and the remnants of the campfire were there, but that was all. Yet it was not all. As Harriet sought to draw on her shoe she felt something hard in the toe. Groping in the shoe with her fingers she drew forth a tightly wrapped paper. Opening this she found a tiny bra.s.s triangle. On it were crudely cut several strange characters.

"How curious," breathed Harriet. "But how did it get in my shoe?" she wondered.

"Look on the wrapping paper," suggested Miss Elting.

Harriet did so. As she looked the puzzled expression on her face gave place to a smile.

"It is from Sybarina," she exclaimed. "This is what she writes: 'A charm for the Romany girl. No harm shall come to her who wears it. Happiness and prosperity shall be hers forever and always. It is the Gipsy good luck charm. Who knows but that, some day, you may wear it as a queen?

Farewell until we meet again.'"

"How strange!" murmured Harriet, holding up the trinket that her companions might see.

"I wonder if it ith a charm againtht bullth?" piped Tommy.

"I would suggest, girls, that we return to our own camp. It may not be there by this time."