CHAPTER IV

A MYSTERY OF THE WAGON

The other two boys looked at Lanky curiously, as if to see whether he could be in earnest, or only joking. Lanky was inclined, at times, to show an odd streak of humor, as Frank had long since found out.

But the long-legged chap certainly looked serious enough just then. His eyes followed the line of gypsy vans eagerly. If there was anything that appealed to Lanky Wallace it was a bit of mystery, and he had been known to bother his head for days and weeks over some trifling affair that the ordinary schoolboy would dismiss from his mind with a laugh.

“I tell you she did just what I said, fellows,” he persisted in saying; “held out her hands to me; and if ever there was a look of fear on a little girl’s face, I saw it on hers!”

“Oh, rats!” exploded practical Bones; “you’ve been reading some silly stuff about gypsies taking the children of rich people and holding ’em for a ransom. That might have happened years ago, or perhaps in Old England; but if you think it could to-day, and in America, why, you’re away off your base, Lanky. Reckon you ought to have been born about the year sixteen hundred and seven, instead of in this age.”

Frank, while doubting whether there could be anything in what seemed to be a far-fetched idea of the tall chum, was not so much inclined to “josh” him as Bones had been.

He and Lanky had known of a case where the haunting face of a young tramp had kept both of them guessing for a long spell, and the persistence of the tall chum had in the end brought the truth to light. And through that same dogged perseverance a long-lost son and brother was restored to his family; while Lanky had made a good friend in rosy-cheeked Dora, the pretty sister of Will Baxter.

“Tell me, Lanky,” he said, now, in as serious a tone as he could command, “was the child fair-haired, or a brunette; because, you know, all gypsies are dark?”

Lanky made a wry face, but stood to his guns.

“Sure, she did have a dark little phiz, Frank, that’s right; but, then, I reckon it’s the easiest thing in the world to change the skin, and dye the hair. Why, haven’t you had your hands turn brown with the juice of fresh walnuts every fall, when we laid in our winter stock, and hulled ’em? ’Course you have, and so has Bones here. I tell you, fellows, I’ll never get that look out of my head. If I wake up in the night, bet you a cookey I’ll think of it right away.”

Frank knew the obstinacy of his chum only too well. There never was a boy who would persist more in a thing than Lanky Wallace, though when he had the truth absolutely shown to him he would give up, and admit that he was wrong. Some people who did not fancy Lanky called him pig-headed and stubborn, but those who were better able to judge understood the difference between stubbornness and firmness.

“Well,” said Frank, “if that’s the way you feel about it, Lanky, there’s only one thing to be done. To satisfy yourself, you ought to see the child again. When you find out that she is only a little brown gypsy, sure enough, you’ll sleep easy again.”

At that Lanky smiled.

“I don’t know whether you’re just kidding or not, Frank,” he said; “but I’d just made up my mind to do that same, right now--follow the caravan, and try to get another glance at that face.”

“Well, you do rush things to beat the band!” ejaculated Bones. “We came out on this run to see how the cut-off might be, and to get a point on what we could do over the course; but seems to me running has been about the last on the list with the lot of us to-day. There was that adventure with the bull; and now here’s Lanky gone daffy over the brown face of a baby girl, that just happened to look sad at him after getting a spanking from her ma! Frank, do we go with him, or head off for ourselves right here?”

“Oh, suit yourselves, fellows!” said Lanky, quickly, for he was very touchy, and ready to resent anything like a favor grudgingly bestowed. “Just leave me alone and I’ll show up later.”

Frank, however, realized that somehow his chum was worked up over the matter more than he could remember having seen him for a long time. Perhaps it was the fact that his nerves had been shaken during his recent affair with the bull. Then again, there might be a slight possibility that Lanky was right with regard to the child.

“Oh, that’s all right, Lanky!” he remarked, soothingly. “I’m going where you lead, and if Bones objects he knows what he can do. Not that I take much stock in your kidnapping idea, because such things happen only once in a long time nowadays.”

“But you admit, Frank, that it could be; don’t you?” demanded the other, not at all shaken in his belief.

“Well, yes, there might be about one chance in a hundred, Lanky,” Frank replied.

“And I’m taking the hundredth chance,” said the other, doggedly, as he started off after the gypsy caravan, which had vanished entirely from view around a bend in the road while the three runners were holding this short conversation among themselves.

They sighted it again as soon as they had turned the curve in the road. As if by mutual consent Frank and Bones had fallen back, and allowed Lanky to have the post of honor in the van.

“If she does it again, Lanky,” remarked Bones, jeeringly, “just you give us the high sign; when we’ll jump in, and clear up the whole gypsy tribe, rescue the kidnapped princess, carry her home in triumph and receive a cool million or so from her happy dad, as a reward for our heroic achievement!”

“Oh! splash!” was all Lanky sent back over his shoulder, as he ran steadily on at that telling jog-trot that seemed never to tire the runner.

They rapidly overtook the caravan, for the horses were not trying to make any speed, having come a long distance, it might be, since sun-up; and, besides, the drivers knew they were within a few miles of the place where, once in so often, they made camp for several days, or a week at a time.

Lanky paid no attention to the rear wagons, but passed alongside and kept pushing on. He had eyes only for the most gorgeous van in the whole procession; since it had been at the side window of this he had seen the face that, somehow, appealed to his sensitive heart.

The door at the rear of the high wagon was almost wholly closed, Lanky noticed as he came along, though once he really thought he saw a face, surrounded by coils of black hair, in the opening, which could only belong to a gypsy woman.

He kept his eyes fastened on the side window, for he knew that his two skeptical chums were waiting for a sign and would be apt to decide one way or another, depending on what was to be seen. And, sure enough, a face did appear there, that of a child in the bargain, and a girl, too. But she simply stared at the odd costumes of the three boy runners, and seemed to hold them in the scorn a true gypsy child feels for the house-dweller.

Lanky was grievously disappointed. It seemed that he had been mistaken after all, and, always willing to “take his medicine,” as he called it, he prepared to accept the expected chaffing of Bones in a good spirit. Had that ended the matter, doubtless Lanky would have put it out of his mind for good and all, but as it happened there was a little sequel, and it is often upon these trifles that great events depend.

The three boys had passed the gorgeous van, and were pursuing their way along toward the leading wagon, when a sound came to their ears that was rather significant under the circumstances.

It was certainly very like the cry of a frightened child, quickly suppressed, and yet coming from the identical van toward which Lanky had drawn the attention of his chums.

All of them turned their heads to look, but only to meet the surly frown of the dusky gypsy who drove the pair of fine horses attached to the wagon, which, from its appearance, might shelter the queen of the roving tribe.

Frank knew that for Lanky to make any attempt to interfere with the gypsies at such a time would be the height of folly.

“Go on; don’t stop, Lanky!” he exclaimed, ready to push the other onward if he manifested a stubborn disposition, as though inclined to investigate.

“But, didn’t you hear it?” demanded the tall fellow, irresolutely.

“Move along there!” said Bones, as if in disgust; “why, whatever’s coming over our bold Lanky Wallace, when even the squalling of a gypsy kid gets on his nerves?”

“Go on, Lanky,” said Frank, in earnest tones; “you’ll only make trouble, and get in a fight, if you try anything here. Wait a while, and perhaps you can find out all you want without having a row.”

Realizing that Frank was right, as he generally was, Lanky again started on; but after passing the head of the gypsy caravan he slackened his pace enough to let his chum come alongside.

“You heard that, too; didn’t you, Frank?” he asked, eagerly.

“Of course I did, and so did Bones, because you know he spoke of a gypsy kid crying,” returned Frank, himself more than a little puzzled by now.

“It wasn’t the one at the window, because she was older, and besides, you saw her stare at us,” Lanky continued, in his old argumentative way. “No, sir; that one who started to scream was a smaller child, and must have been the same I saw before. Didn’t I say she held out her baby hands to me? And now, when she begins to cry, that old gypsy crone shuts her off quick. Frank, honest Injun now, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just took her by the throat and choked her to keep her still!”

“Oh, come, now, Lanky, you’re letting that wild imagination of yours just run away with you!” remarked Frank; but the other noticed that there was a serious expression on the face of his chum at the same time.

“You more’n half believe it yourself, Frank Allen, and you don’t dare deny it!” he exclaimed, heatedly.

“Tell me about that, will you?” Bones could be heard saying to himself, as he ran along just behind them, and evidently “listening for all he was worth,” as Lanky remarked later on; for despite his skepticism Bones was himself beginning to feel a little touch of the fever that was working on Lanky.

“Only this far,” Frank went on to say, in response to the accusation of his chum; “there might be something in what you’ve got on your brain. But the chances are ten to one, Lanky, that in the end it’ll prove to be only a little gypsy girl who has been bad and spanked by her ma.”

“Oh, now it’s only ten to one; is it?” demanded the other, quickly; “and a little while back the odds were a hundred to one. Shows that you’re falling to my idea pretty rapid, Frank. Now, I’ve been in gypsy camps heaps of times and so have both of you. Will you promise to give me a straight answer, if I ask you a question?”

“You know I will, Lanky,” said Frank.

“If it’s nothing personal, I’ll promise, too,” came from the cautious Bones, who may have had a few secrets of his own to which he did not wish to confess.

“Did you ever hear a gypsy child cry, either one of you?” demanded Lanky, with a triumphant look on his thin face, as though he felt that this question was what he would call a “clincher.”

Frank paused a brief time as if for reflection.

“I never did!” he finally replied, with emphasis.

“How about you, Bones?” pursued Lanky.

“Oh, well, I don’t remember about it,” replied the other; “but then, what does that prove? I reckon they do yell when they get a lickin’, just the same as other kids; only we never happened to be there when the old lady’s slipper was getting in its work.”

But Frank saw the point Lanky was making, and appreciated it, too.

“I’ve been told,” the tall boy went on to say, “that gypsies bring up their children about like the old Injuns used to do. They learn when little kids never to show what they feel. Never heard of a red Injun boy weepin’; did you, Bones? Well, I guess nobody ever did; and gypsies, they’re about in the same class.”

“Well, and even if that’s right, Lanky, how do we know but what the old queen was givin’ the baby its lesson in keepin’ from cryin’? Sure, somethin’ shut the noise off right quick, I acknowledge that. But you just can’t make me believe in any silly yarn like a stolen child, and such stuff. Bah! next thing you’ll be lookin’ for a strawberry mark on my left arm, and tryin’ to make out I was changed in the cradle.”

But Lanky would not take any notice of these slurs. Frank could see that he was deeply impressed with the idea that the little dark-faced girl at the window of the big van had actually appealed to him for help in her childish way. And, knowing Lanky as he did, Frank felt positive that this would not be the last of the affair.

“He’ll go to their camp and make trouble sooner or later,” Frank was saying to himself, as the three runners neared the outskirts of Columbia; “and I suppose it’s up to me to stick to a chum through thick and thin. Perhaps he’ll be cured if only he can see the kid and talk with the mother. However, I’ve got to back Lanky up, no matter what wild scheme he may hatch in that brain of his. Because he’s a good fellow, and one of the best chums I’ve ever had.”

And so the run over the course of the Marathon race that was to be a leading feature of the athletic meet had been productive of several thrilling incidents that would not soon be forgotten by the three lads who were chiefly concerned.