“That sounds good to me!” declared Blake. “I’m ready for a fracas.”
“Same here,” came from Jack. “Say, I’m glad I didn’t let her tell my fortune. She might have taken my watch while she told me a pretty girl across the water was waiting for me to write to her.”
“Oh, what do you think you are—a lady-killer?” demanded Phil. “If we’re going to do anything let’s do it.”
“How one can be deceived,” murmured Blake. “And she such a pretty girl. She looked something like Natalie.”
“Dry up!” commanded Jack shortly. “You’ve got Natalie on the brain. Come on!”
“I wouldn’t, boys,” advised the officer. “It’s dark, there are any number of roads the tribe could have taken, not to say of slipping off into the woods.”
“That’s right,” agreed Blake. “We didn’t think of that.”
“And making inquiries, and then doubling back in case you’re on the wrong road, all takes time,” went on the policeman. “You had much better wait until morning.”
“I guess that’s right,” assented Phil. “Poor momsey will be wild about her ring, though. Well, back home it is,” and he turned away from the deserted encampment.
They had not gone far on the backward trail ere they heard the tramp of approaching feet on the hard highway, for they were not yet in the district of sidewalks.
“It walks like the Chief,” commented Officer Brady.
“Who’s there?” demanded a sharp voice from the darkness.
“It _is_ the Chief!” the policeman asserted. “It’s Brady, sir,” he added, in answer to a question. “I’ve been out chasin’ after a band of Gypsies.”
“Ha! I’m after the same tribe I guess. Have you seen anything of young Anderson—Blake Lathrop or Jack Pendleton, Brady?” asked the head of the police force.
“Ah! Their folks just telephoned to me about them. Got worried I guess.”
“That’s some of the girls’ work,” was Jack’s whispered opinion.
“Did you get the ring?” demanded the Chief.
“I thought so. Well, it’s too late to do anything to-night. Come back to the station, and we’ll send out a telephone alarm. Anderson!”
“Then come along with me and I’ll write it down so as to have it when I send out the alarm.”
“Then we’ll get back to your house, Phil,” suggested Blake. “We’ll tell your mother and sister about it.”
It needed but a look at the faces of the two lads, as they entered the house a little later, to tell the four girls, and Mrs. Anderson, that their errand had been fruitless.