“Oh mother!” cried Mabel. “It’s all my fault!”
“Nonsense!” declared her mother, though there was a dull ache in her heart at the loss of her beautiful ring.
“We’re going to get on their trail the first thing in the morning!” declared Jack fiercely. “They can’t get far away—a Gypsy tribe is too conspicuous to hide away very long.”
The boys told of their chase, and explained Phil’s absence, though before they had finished he came in. Then it all had to be gone over with again, so that it was quite late when the five left Mabel’s house.
“Wo-he-lo!” chorused Alice, Natalie and Marie, as they waved good-night to Mabel and Phil. “Wo-he-lo!”
“What’s that?” demanded Jack, rather surprised at the musical intonation of his sister and her two chums.
“The call of our camp,” explained Natalie. “It is made up of the first two letters of the words—work—health—love. Isn’t it pretty?”
“Wo-he-lo! Wo-he-lo! Dogwood! Dogwood Camp! Ho! Ho!”
“Bravo!” complimented Jack. “That will do as a war-whoop to scare the Gypsies—when we find them,” he added more soberly.
“See you at the Academy to-morrow,” called Mabel, as she and her mother and brother went off the steps.
“Wo-he-lo!” gurgled Natalie deep in her throat. She was half Indian, some of her friends used to say, and they often called her Pocahontas. “Wo-he-lo!”
“The call of the camp,” murmured Jack. “I wonder if they really will go off to the woods?”
“We’d have no end of good times if they did,” replied his chum in a low voice. “We could camp near them, go on picnics, off rowing, in a motor——”
“Don’t count too much,” interrupted Jack. “Girls are finicky creatures. They may change their minds half a dozen times before vacation.”
As Natalie’s home was not much out of their way, Jack and Marie went in that direction with her, Blake and Alice going part of the distance.
“We’ll get on the trail of the false but beautiful Gypsy girl after class to-morrow,” called Blake to Jack, as they parted.
“Aren’t they just too dear for anything?”
“That olive brown is so becoming to you, Natalie.”
“Oh, I think it suits all of you as well!”
“Do let your hair down in those two long braids, Natalie, and be Pocahontas,” urged Mabel. “It is so becoming to you.”
“But it’s so hard to arrange afterward,” laughed breath-of-the-pine-tree.