“There she is,” declared Tavia, as a flash of bright skirts darted through the bushes.
“Yes,” agreed Dorothy, “that is Urania, but she has seen us and is getting away.”
“Then I’ll head her off,” said Tavia, making a sudden turn and running in the direction the gypsy girl was taking.
“But you won’t meet her that way,” called Dorothy. “You can’t cross the spring. I’ll go this way. She must either stay in the deep brush, or come out at the end of the path.”
“Oh, I see you know the trail,” answered Tavia. “Well, ‘it’s up to you then.’ I’ll stand guard. And, besides, your shoes are stronger than mine, so a dash through the spring will not give you the same brand of pneumonia that might be ‘handed out’ to me. So long!”
At this the two girls parted, Dorothy taking a roundabout path into the deep wood, while Tavia serenely sat herself down to enjoy a late picking of huckleberries, that were hiding on a bush just at her elbow.
For a few minutes Tavia was so engrossed in eating the fresh fruit she entirely forgot her “picket duty,” and when she finally did straighten up to see where Dorothy might be going, that young lady was not only out of sight, but likewise out of hearing!
Alarmed, Tavia shouted lustily, but no answer came to her call.
“She may not be able to call back without fear of arousing the bad gypsies,” thought Tavia, “All the same, I wish I had seen which way she went.”
With increasing anxiety Tavia waited at the turn of the path. Every rustle through the leaves, every chirp of a bird, startled the girl. Surely this was a deep woods for a young girl like Dorothy to be entering alone. And after Tavia assuring Dorothy’s cousins she would go with her, and look out for her!
Finally, as the minutes grew longer, and no trace of Dorothy appeared, Tavia could no longer stand the nervous strain, and she determined to go straight to the gypsy camp, and there make inquiries.
“What if it does get Urania into trouble,” she argued. “We can’t afford to lose trace of Dorothy for that.”
Quickly Tavia made her way through the brush over to the canvas houses, and there in front of one of the tents she encountered the woman Melea.
“Have you seen Miss Dale?” asked Tavia, without any preliminaries. “She started through the woods and I can’t find her.”