The Motor Girls in the Mountains: or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret

There were just two elements that redeemed the camp from its general aspect of squalor and forlornness. One was the fine horses that were scattered here and there, for the gypsy has the keenest eye for a good animal of any trader on earth. The other was the presence of several gypsy girls of a wild barbaric type of beauty, whose flashing eyes and gaudy trinkets contrasted with the prevailing ugliness of their surroundings.

There were a large number of visitors present, due to the proximity of a large town a mile or so away, through which the automobiles had passed just before reaching the camp.

“Here’s the place to have your future told,” said Jack.

“Lucky they can’t tell our past,” remarked Walter. “What a give-away that would be for some of us.”

“I hope you haven’t any deep dark secret that would ‘chill the young blood, harrow up our souls’ if it were told,” laughed Cora.

“Walter just wants to make himself interesting,” gibed Bess.

“Well, whatever I may have been, I’m all right now that you girls have undertaken to refine me,” replied Walter.

“I’m realizing more and more what a tremendous contract it is,” Cora came back at him. “But look at that girl over there? Isn’t she a beauty?”

“She isn’t hard to look at, for a fact,” said Jack judicially, as his eyes fell on the gypsy girl his sister had indicated. “I think I’ll get her to tell my fortune. I want to know whether I’m born to be hanged or drowned.”

“It’s safe to say that you’re booked for a long life anyway,” remarked Paul. “Only the good die young.”

The girl had seen that the party were regarding her with interest, and she came over to them.

“Do you ladies want to have your fortunes told?” she asked with a winning smile that showed two rows of beautiful white teeth.

The girls hesitated.

“Go ahead, girls, and show the sporting spirit,” urged Jack. “You can get the promise of a perfectly good husband for fifty cents. And that’s cheap in these days of high prices.”

“It’s more than some of them are worth,” laughed Belle.

“I hope that isn’t a shot at us,” said Paul. “I’d be a bargain at a dollar.”

“She must have been thinking of that Higby fellow over at Roxbury,” said Bess. “Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, as the gypsy girl started violently and turned deadly pale.

Cora sprang to the girl’s side and put her arm around her to steady her.

CHAPTER VI

A PERPLEXING PROBLEM

The gypsy girl regained her self-control in a moment and gently put Cora’s helping arm aside.

“It is nothing,” she said. “I just had an attack of dizziness. The heat of the sun, perhaps.”

It was evident that this last remark was only a pretext, for a pleasant breeze was blowing and they were standing under a great tree that shaded them completely.

“I hope it wasn’t anything I said that startled you,” said Bess curiously.

“How could it have been?” put in Belle incredulously. “You only referred jokingly to that Higby fellow who nearly got away with Cora’s purse when we were shopping yesterday. I’m sure there’s nothing in that to startle anybody.”

Cora had been watching the girl intently, and at this second mention of the young man’s name she saw a swift spasm – was it of pain or fright or a combination of both? – sweep over the girl’s face.

“Well, never mind,” said Cora briskly, “if you’re sure you’re all right now. Perhaps you’d better have a drink of water. Jack, suppose you go to the car and get one of the drinking cups.”

Jack started promptly to obey, but the girl objected so strongly that he stopped and stood irresolute.

“No, no,” she said, “please not. Only leetle deezy, but all right now,” she continued, dropping into the slipshod gypsy manner of speaking. “Let me tell pretty ladies’ fortunes.”

But just then one of the gypsy men, who had been watching the group sharply, stepped up to the girl and spoke to her roughly in a jargon that the girls could not understand. It was evidently a command, for the gypsy girl turned instantly and went away, disappearing into one of the vans, while the man, after a scowl that included all the party, sauntered away and dropped on the grass beside some of his comrades.

“Well, what do you think of that?” demanded Belle in amazement.

“Just when she had a husband picked out for each of you, too,” chaffed Paul. “But cheer up, girls. We’re here yet. Count on us to the last breath. You can’t lose us.”

“No such luck,” retorted Bess. “But what on earth made that man act that way?”

“It isn’t like gypsies to let good money get away from them,” said Jack, “and they must have seen from our open countenances that we were easy marks and ready to cough up.”

“Jack,” said Walter severely, “please pass up that line of chatter – I mean, please refrain from such vulgar slang. In my unregenerate days I could have stood for it – I mean, endured it – but since I have become refined it hits me on the raw – I mean, it affects me painfully.”

“Oh, stop your nonsense, you boys,” chided Cora. “Can’t you see I’m trying to think?”

“Cora’s trying to think!” exclaimed her irrepressible brother. “Heaven be praised that I have lived to see this day!”

Cora gave him a scornful glance, and Jack sagged down at the knees, pretending to wilt.

“Just how did that girl strike you?” asked Cora thoughtfully.

“A peach,” replied Jack promptly.

“A pippin – I mean, she was very good looking,” added Walter.

“I’m asking the girls,” said Cora witheringly.

“She didn’t seem to me like a gypsy at all,” answered Bess. “And yet I suppose of course she must be, since she’s here with them.”

“Did you notice the way she spoke when she was off her guard for a moment?” asked Belle. “She said that she had ‘an attack of dizziness.’ Later on, she was a ‘leetle deezy.’”

“Her eyes were blue,” remarked Cora musingly, “and that is something unusual in a gypsy.”

“But her complexion was as dark as any of the others,” objected Bess.

“That might be accounted for by the tan from the open-air life,” replied Cora. “And then, too, it would be easy to color it artificially.”

“I didn’t know girls ever did such things,” interrupted Jack with a pained expression.

“And then too,” went on Cora, unheeding, “when her sleeve fell back, I saw that her arm was white. But what I’m trying to get at especially is whom she looks like. She resembles some one that I’ve seen before, but I can’t remember who it is.”

“What do you suppose made her act so queerly when I spoke of the stealing of your purse?” asked Bess.

“It wasn’t the robbery itself that startled her,” said Cora. “It was the name of the man, Higby. He was mentioned twice, and each time she looked frightened.”

“I wonder if she knows him,” murmured Belle.

“He said there were lots of girls who would be glad of his company,” laughed Bess. “Perhaps she is one of them.”

“There was no liking in that look of hers,” replied Cora emphatically. “It was positive alarm.”

“If a mere man may break into this discussion,” said Jack humbly, “you fair detectives haven’t yet told us why that pirate over there took the girl away from us.”

“That’s easy,” interposed Walter. “He was jealous. It was my fatal gift of beauty that worried him. The girls all fall for it – I mean, are attracted by it.”

“Girls,” asked Cora exasperatedly, “why are those long legs of Walter’s like organ grinders?”

“Why?” asked Belle.

“Give it up,” said Bess.

“Because,” explained Cora, “they always carry a monkey about with them.”

Walter staggered back.

“Stung!” he moaned. “Penetrated, I mean.”

“Well, don’t suffer too much, poor boy,” said Cora soothingly. “If it’s any comfort to you to know it, your two accomplices in crime are just as bad. Women are the only sensible human beings anyway.”

“Are they human?” asked Walter. “I’ve always thought of them as angels.”

“Stop trying to square yourself,” said Paul.

“Don’t knuckle down to them,” Jack adjured him.

“I must,” replied Walter, “or they won’t let me ride with them any more.”

“We’re not going to, anyway; that is, for the rest of this afternoon,” said Cora. “I want to have the girls in the car with me where we can talk over this thing without being interrupted.”

“Shut out from Eden,” groaned Walter bitterly. “You wash your hands of me. You cast me into outer darkness. Just when the better part of my nature was getting uppermost, you put me back into low company. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, girls.”

“Back to the kennel, you hound!” exclaimed Paul, seizing him by the collar. “You might have known that the girls would throw you down. They always do, sooner or later.”

“Well, now that Lucifer as lightning has fallen from heaven,” remarked Jack, “what do you say to hustling along? The afternoon waneth and my appetite waxeth. Dinner at Camp Kill Kare sounds awfully good to me.”

“I suppose we’ll have to,” assented Cora reluctantly; “but I would like to have another glimpse of that gypsy girl first.”

“Nothing doing,” said Jack. “We’re only visitors here anyway, and we haven’t any right to intrude on their private affairs when they show us so clearly they don’t want us to. Ten to one it’s only a mare’s nest anyway that you’re stirring up, sis, about the girl. Probably she’s an honest to goodness gypsy, just like the rest of them.”

“That’s what my common sense tells me,” agreed Cora, “but something outside of common sense tells me that she isn’t.”

“That’s the way I feel about it too,” echoed Bess.

“I too,” agreed Belle. “She may have been stolen when she was a child. That happens often enough.”

“Not so often as it used to,” said Paul. “The telegraph and the telephone make it too risky.”

“Well, how about it?” said Jack. “Are you three Graces coming along, or do we three scapegraces have to wend our way to Camp Kill Kare alone?”

“There she is now!” exclaimed Bess, as she caught sight of the gypsy girl looking at them from the door of the van.

But a wrinkled crone who was sitting on the top step of the van reached out a skinny arm and angrily pushed the girl inside and out of sight.

“They’ve evidently made up their minds that we’re showing too much interest in her, and for some reason they don’t like it,” sighed Cora. “Well, come along, girls. We’ll have to go. But that gypsy girl has a history and a secret, and I’d give a good deal to find out just what they are.”

CHAPTER VII

THE MOUNTAIN CAMP

The Motor Girls, followed by the boys, made their way briskly back to the cars and climbed in, Walter resuming his place with the other boys and Belle going back to Cora and Bess.

For some time previous to running across the gypsy camp they had been rising higher and higher into the mountains, and now the road became still steeper. They had to run more slowly in consequence, for although both cars were good hill-climbers, it took a good deal of power to make any kind of speed. Besides, as they got farther into the wilderness, the road was rougher and more neglected. But it was just this wildness they had come to seek, and their spirits rose with the difficulties they encountered.

“You go in advance, Jack,” said Cora, as the road grew narrower until it was difficult for the two cars to go side by side. “Of course, having the faster car, I suppose we ought to show the way, but we’re nothing if not magnanimous. If your car balks we’ll push you along. Besides, you have the map.”

“Don’t worry about pushing us along,” retorted Jack. “Just for that, I ought to shoot ahead out of sight and leave you to bitter regrets when you find yourselves lost in the wilderness. But I’m too noble to treat helpless girls that way, so you’re safe for the present. But beware, woman, of goading me too far! It’s a long worm that has no turning.”

“If you’re as mixed in your road directions as you are in your proverbs, I’m afraid we won’t get to Camp Kill Kare to-night,” rejoined Cora. “But go ahead now like a good boy, and think up some more bright things to spring on us. We want to be by ourselves so that we can talk without foolish interruptions.”

“They want to talk,” muttered Jack. “What a novelty!”

“If women talk a good deal, I notice that lots of men take after their mothers,” replied Belle, as Jack’s car darted into the lead.

“Isn’t it tantalizing,” said Cora to her chums, resuming their interrupted conversation, “that I can’t think just whom that gypsy girl looks like? Don’t you know how it is when you are trying to recall a word or a line of poetry or something, and have it just on the tip of your tongue but can’t quite get it? I feel just that way about this resemblance. I’m perfectly sure I’ve seen some one very much like her. Can’t you girls help me out? We’re together so much, and we know the same people. Put on your thinking caps and see if you can’t give me a hint.”

“I only wish I could,” replied Belle thoughtfully. “There was something a little familiar about the girl, though it didn’t strike me as strongly as it did you.”

“There was a certain look in her eyes that suggested somebody I’ve seen,” said Bess, “but for the life of me I can’t remember who it was. But even suppose we did remember? It wouldn’t prove anything. There are lots of people in the world who look alike and yet who haven’t the slightest relation to each other.”

“I know it,” admitted Cora. “But just the same I have what the boys would call a hunch that in this case it would give us a clue to the gypsy girl’s secret.”

“If she has any,” laughed Bess.

“Get out your crystal sphere, Sybilla, and pluck the heart from this mystery,” smiled Belle.

“You girls can laugh if you want to,” rejoined Cora, “but all the same I’ll think about this and perhaps dream about it until I recall the face I’m groping for.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if we’d have something more practical to think of before long,” remarked Belle, pointing to the sky. “Do you see those clouds coming up there? I’ve been watching them for the last five minutes and they’re getting bigger and blacker all the time. I’d hate to be caught in a thunderstorm.”

“And get into Camp Kill Kare all wet and bedraggled,” added Bess. “Oh, Cora, let’s hurry!”

“It isn’t getting wet that bothers me so much,” replied Cora. “We could put up the top and keep dry enough. But a heavy storm would turn the road into a quagmire, and goodness knows it’s bad enough as it is.”

The boys ahead had seen the signs, and Jack shouted back:

“Give her all the juice she can stand, sis! If the storm only holds off for fifteen minutes we’ll make the camp.”

His own car shot ahead, and Cora threw in the speed and kept close behind. They could hear now faint rumblings of thunder, all the more noticeable because of the sudden hush that had fallen over the forest, as birds and animals and insects sensed the coming storm.

Darker and darker it grew and faster and faster the cars sped along, as their drivers called on the last ounce of speed they had in them. Despite their fluttering of anxiety, the girls had a keen sense of exhilaration in this race with the elements. Their veils whipped about their faces and their glowing eyes and reddened cheeks showed their inward excitement.

A jagged flash of lightning shot across the sky, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. It was evident that the bolt had struck not far off, for a moment later they heard the crash of a falling tree at a little distance to the right.

“Oh, hurry! hurry!” urged Bess and Belle.

“Do you think I’m creeping?” Cora called back. “I can’t talk to the car and encourage it as I might a horse. You’ll notice that the boys aren’t leaving us behind.”

As a matter of fact, the cars were nearly touching.

“Keep up your pluck, girls!” Jack called back. “If this map is all right, we’ll make the camp in five minutes more.”

“If we didn’t have an old tub in front of us, we’d make it in four,” sang out Cora.

“If the rain will only hold off,” murmured Belle.

But the prospect grew ever more threatening. The peals of thunder were redoubled and the lightning played so vividly across the sky that Bess covered her face with her hands.

“Suppose the car should be struck!” she exclaimed.

“If it were, we’d probably never know it,” was all the comfort her sister could give.

Just then there was an appalling roar, and a great tree, split from top to bottom, swayed for a moment and then fell with a deafening crash right across the road, about a hundred feet in front of the leading car.

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