The at Long Lake Part 6 (2/2)

”I heard them two or three minutes ago,” said Lolla, with a smile. ”Stay here, now; hide behind that clump of bushes. I will go ahead and see what I can find. Even if it is some of your friends they would not suspect me; they would think I was just out for a walk.”

So Bessie waited for perhaps ten minutes, while Lolla crept forward alone. But the gypsy was back soon, smiling.

”All is safe now,” she said. ”Come quickly, though, so we shall get behind them and be able to get near the camp. There is a place there where you may hide while I find out what is going on.”

They reached the spot Lolla meant in a few minutes more, and again Bessie had to play the inactive part and wait while Lolla went on to gain the information she needed. When she came back she was smiling happily.

”That John is stupid, though he is so brave,” she said to Bessie. ”He went back there to the camp, and he is sitting in front of his wagon. There is a guide with a gun sitting near him, and my sister tells me that the guide says he will follow him and shoot him if he tries to get away.

”There are many people there, and the whole camp is angry and frightened. The king says he will punish John, but John will not admit that he knows where your friend is. We are safe from him. They will not let him get away for a long time.”

Bessie was comforted by the news. With her captor under guard, Dolly had nothing to fear from him, and, though Peter might be a sullen and dangerous man, Bessie felt that Lolla was right, and that he was too thick witted to be greatly feared.

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.”

”I don't know yet,” said Lolla, frankly. ”If Peter is on the trail it will be harder. I hope he will be inside, so that we can slip by without his seeing us. If he is, and we get by, then you are to wait until you hear me sing. So.”

She sang a bar or two of a gypsy melody, and repeated it until Bessie, too, could hum it, to prove that she had it right, and would not fail to recognize it.

”When you hear me sing that, remember that you must run down and go to your friend. Here is nay knife. Use it to cut the cords that tie her. Then you and she must go back toward the rocks where you went down. And when you hear me sing again you are to go down, as quickly as you can, but quietly, and, as soon as you are past the place where she was hidden, you must start running. I will try to catch up with you and go with you, but do not wait for me.”

”I don't quite understand,” Bessie began.

But now Lolla was the general, brooking no defiance. She stamped her foot.

”It does not matter whether you understand or not,” she said sharply. ”If you want me to save your friend and get back to the others you must do as you are told, and quickly. Now, come.”

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.”

Silently, but as swiftly as they could, they crept past the place, and, when they were out of sight stopped.

”Now, you will know my song when you hear it?”

”Yes, indeed, Lolla. Why, what have you got there?”

”What I need to make Peter come with me,” laughed Lolla. ”See, a fine meal, is it not? I got it at the camp. Let him smell that stew and he would follow me out of the woods.”

Bessie began to understand Lolla's plan at last. She was going to tempt Peter to betray his orders from his friend by appealing to his stomach. And Bessie wondered again, as she had many times since she had met Lolla, at the cunning of the gypsy girl.

Her confidence in Lolla was complete by now, and she did not at all mind waiting as she saw the little brightly clad figure disappear amidst the green of the trail.

It was some time, however, before she heard any signs that indicated that Lolla had obtained any results. And then it was not the song she heard, but Lolla's clear laugh, rising above the heavy tones of Peter.

”Oh, oh! You would give me orders when I bring you breakfast? No, no, Peter; that won't do. Come, she is safe there; come and eat with me, where she cannot put a spell on your food to make it choke you.”

”Do you think she would do that?”

That was Peter's voice, stupid and filled with doubt. Bessie laughed at Lolla's cleverness. Peter, she thought, would be just the sort of man to yield to the fears of superst.i.tion.

”I know she would; she hates us. Come, Peter; does it not look good?”

”Give it to me. There, I'll catch you--”

Then there was a sound of scuffling and running, but Bessie, noticing that it drew further and further away, laughed. Lolla was a real strategist. She understood how to handle the big gypsy, evidently. And a moment later Bessie, her nerves quivering, all alert as she waited for the signal, heard the notes of Lolla's song. At once she rushed down, broke through the tangled growth, and was at Dolly's side, cutting away at the cords that bound Dolly, and, first of all, tearing the handkerchief from her mouth.

”It's all right now, we're safe, Dolly. Only you'll have to come quickly, dear, when I get you free. There, that's it. Are you stiff? Can you Stand up?”

”I guess so,” gasped Dolly. ”Oh, I'd do anything to get away from here. Bessie, look!”

Bessie turned, to face Peter and Lolla, their faces twisted into malignant grins. Lolla had betrayed her!

CHAPTER XI.

THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE.

For a moment Bessie stared at the two gypsies, their eyes glowing with malicious triumph, and delight at her shocked face, in such dazed astonishment that she could not speak at all. She had been completely outwitted and hoodwinked. She had trusted Lolla utterly; had made up her mind that the girl's jealousy was not feigned.

Even now, for a wild moment, the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps Lolla had been unable to help herself; that Peter might have insisted on coming back, and that Lolla was forced, in order to be of help later on, to seem to fall in with his plans.

But Lolla herself soon robbed her of the comfort that lay in such a thought.

”You thought I would betray my people!” she cried, shrilly. ”We do not do that; no, no! Ah, but it was easy to deceive you! When I saw you I knew you would be dangerous. I could not hold you by force until John came, I had to trick you. I thought we would catch you when you went up there. I did not think you would be brave enough to go down the rocks.”

Bessie said not a word, but only clung to Dolly's hand and stared at the treacherous gypsy.

”So then, when you had gone, I had to find you again, and send word to Peter to do as I said, so that we could catch you, and stop you from going to your friends and telling them where we had hidden your friend who is there with you now. Now we have two, instead of one. Oh, I have done well, have I not, Peter?”

Peter grinned, and grunted something in his own tongue that made Lolla smile.

”Tie them up again, Peter,” said Lolla, looking viciously at Bessie, and obviously gloating over the way in which she had tricked the American girl. And Peter, nothing loath, advanced to do so. But Bessie had stood all she could.

Dolly, terribly cast down by this sudden upsetting of all the hopes of rescue that the coming of Bessie and her release from the cords that bound her had raised, was close beside her, s.h.i.+vering with fright and despair.

And Bessie, with a sudden cry of anger, seized the knife Lolla had given her, which had been lying at her feet. Furiously she brandished it.

”If either of you come a step nearer I'll use it!” she said, scarcely able to recognize her own voice, so changed was it by the anger that Lolla's treachery had aroused in her. ”You'd better not think I'm joking. I mean it!”

Peter hesitated, but Lolla, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, urged him on.

”Go on! Do you want me to tell all the women that you were frightened by a little girl; a girl you could crush with one hand?” she cried, angrily. ”You coward! Tie them up, I tell you! Oh, if my man John were here he'd show you! Here--”

<script>