Sybarina shook her head. “They have returned to their camp.”
“On yonder hillside. Even now you can catch the glow of their campfire. But you shall see them again and you shall make them red of face for the trick which they played on you and your friends, my Romany girls. You would outwit them?”
“We are trying to get home ahead of them.”
“The way shall be made clear to you. Sybarina will tell the Romany girl how to defeat her rivals, to show them that the Romany tribes know the secret bypaths as the birds know the trail to the sunny land when the frost is in the air. Come, child. Come, sit by the fire, while Sybarina tells you that which shall make the way clear.”
CHAPTER XXI—HARRIET PLANS TO OUTWIT THE TRAMP CLUB
A long conversation was held between Harriet and the Gipsy queen, the latter drawing a map on the ground with a willow wand to show the girl the route that she was to travel after the Meadow-Brook Girls had gone on for another day.
Harriet’s eyes were sparkling. She thought she saw a way to outwit the Tramp Club. Harriet was chuckling gleefully when she joined her companions. She declined to tell them that night, however, just what the Gipsy had communicated to her.
“Where shall we sleep to-night?” asked Miss Elting.
“Sybarina says we may have the wagon to sleep in,” answered Harriet. “Shall we use it?”
“No. I think I prefer to sleep in the open,” answered the guardian. “It is not a cool night. Suppose we roll up in our blankets and sleep by the campfire? What do you say, girls?”
“I thay yeth,” spoke up Tommy. “I’ll put my feet againtht the fire; then I won’t have cold feet any more.”
They were sound asleep in a few moments after turning in. Even the Gipsy dogs that had been barking most of the evening, and the crying babies, to whom none of the tribe had given the slightest heed, were now quietly asleep. Sybarina watched her guests roll up in their blankets and nodded approvingly.
“The true Romany,” she muttered. For a long time the old woman sat by the fire, sat until the embers fell together and the sticks began to blacken, when she rose and peered into each sleeping face of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Sybarina then hobbled to her own wagon and disappeared within.
The Meadow-Brook Girls awakened next morning with the sun in their eyes. Miss Elting sat up and called softly to Harriet. The guardian and Harriet rubbed their eyes and blinked dazedly about them. There was something strange about their surroundings, but just what that strangeness was they for the moment did not know. All at once they discovered what had happened. They were absolutely alone, save for their sleeping companions.
