The Motor Girls in the Mountains; or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret
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CHAPTER V A GROUP OF VAGABONDS
The two cars rolled along smartly, for the various happenings of the dayhad put the Motor Girls behind the schedule they had hoped to make. Butdespite their best efforts, dusk was settling down and the starsbeginning to peep out when they drove up to the Kimball's Aunt Margaret'sdoor.
She greeted them affectionately, and after they had washed off the dustof travel they were seated at the sumptuous meal she had had prepared inanticipation of their coming. After dinner was over, a number of youngpeople in the neighborhood who had been invited to meet the touristsdropped in, and there was music and dancing. But Aunt Margaret'swatchfulness over her charges prevented this from being prolonged to anunseasonable hour, and by eleven o'clock all the tired travelers weresleeping the dreamless sleep of vigorous, healthy youth.
They needed a good sleep, for the longest lap of their journey still laybefore them. And it was at an early hour the next morning that, after ahearty breakfast and cordial thanks and good-byes to their gracioushostess, they climbed into their cars and drove off.
"Off at last for the Adirondacks!" cried Jack gaily, as he drew in greatdraughts of the fresh morning air.
"And for Camp Kill Kare!" added Paul.
The girls had started off a little ahead of them, but the boys soon drewalongside and Jack signaled for Cora to stop.
"I would have speech with thee, fair maiden," he remarked, as his sisterobeyed.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Cora in pretended vexation. "Here are those rudeboys interrupting us just when we were having the loveliest talk."
"I guess you weren't talking about anything very important," repliedJack.
"No," said Bess, dimpling, "we were talking about you boys."
"And saying what a lovely thing it was to be all by ourselves for alittle while," put in Belle.
"Girls," exhorted Walter solemnly, "remember that if there was an Ananiasthere was also a Sapphira."
"We're not so keen on having a stag party ourselves," explained Jack,"and we thought it would be a dandy thing if one of you girls would comeinto our car and one of us fellows go to yours. That would make life onegrand sweet song."
"It all comes from what Cora said yesterday about the refining influenceof feminine society," said Walter. "I feel the need of that. In fact, Ihave a consuming desire to become refined. And I can't be, as long as Iassociate with these two low-brows. So you'd better let me ride in yourcar."
"And leave us in our native coarseness?" queried Paul. "Not on your life,old man! I need refinement just as much as you do."
"Peace, brethren," interposed Jack. "We'll do this thing on the level. Myclaims to coarseness are just as strong as either of yours, but do yousee me engaging in unseemly brawls? Nay and again nay. We'll pull strawsfor it and may the coarsest man win."
"I don't know that we want any of you," said Cora. "We don't takeincurable cases."
"Don't be too harsh, Cora," said Belle. "You know they say there's aspark of good in the very lowest."
"While the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return,"
hummed Bess.
There were no straws at hand, but some matches served as well, and Walterproved to be the lucky one. Belle agreed to go to Jack's car, and Waltertook her place alongside of Bess.
"Hurrah!" cried Walter, as he availed himself of his good fortune. "I'msaved. I'm doomed to refinement."
"Doomed?" laughed Cora.
"Did I say doomed?" Walter answered. "How careless of me! Of course Imeant destined to refinement."
"I suppose you'll be eating lotus blossoms and water lilies before long,"called out Jack, as the cars started up again.
"Watch me when lunch time comes," grinned Walter. "But I don't mind whatyou fellows say. I've got two refining influences while you have onlyone."
"You need all you can get," was Jack's parting shot.
With merry chaff and banter, the time flew by as though on wings. Theyhad lunch at a quaint little inn by the roadside, and Walter proved thatthe charms of feminine society had not yet begun to affect his appetite.But then, as he explained, the cure would be all the more effective if itwere gradual, and he had plenty of time yet to climb to higher planes.
In the early afternoon they were turning a bend in the road, when Coragave a sudden exclamation.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to a little glade at the right of the road."There's a camp of some kind. I do believe it's gypsies!"
"Guessed it right the first time," declared Walter.
"That's what it is," agreed Bess. "Oh, Cora, don't you think we mightstop a few minutes? I'd dearly love to have a look at them, if you thinkwe can spare the time."
"I'm not so very keen about it myself," said Cora dubiously, for as thosefamiliar with her previous adventures will remember, her experiences withthese picturesque vagabonds had not been devoid of unpleasantness anddanger. "But I'll see what Jack says about it, and if he thinks we havetime, I won't mind stopping."
She hailed Jack, and, after consulting his watch, the latter agreed thatthey could easily spare a half-hour or so for a visit to the gypsy camp.
They drew their cars to the side of the road and picked their way throughthe woods to the little dell where the gypsy encampment lay.
It was a typical camp of those strange nomads in whose blood runs the"call of the wild," and who in their mode of life are almost as farremoved from other human beings as though they lived upon another planet.
There were perhaps a dozen vans, from which came strange smells ofcooking, amid which onion and garlic predominated. Unkempt children intattered clothing played with dogs that seemed to be legion, whilewrinkled and slatternly women sat on the steps of the vans or made theirway through the grounds, whining their requests to visitors to crosstheir palms with silver and learn in return all that pertained to theirpresent and future. Swarthy men, some of them with huge ear-rings andwith sashes and turbans that reminded one of the pirates of tradition,lay sprawled out on the grass watching the throng with eyes that weresometimes indifferent and again sullen and smoldering.
There were just two elements that redeemed the camp from its generalaspect of squalor and forlornness. One was the fine horses that werescattered here and there, for the gypsy has the keenest eye for a goodanimal of any trader on earth. The other was the presence of severalgypsy girls of a wild barbaric type of beauty, whose flashing eyes andgaudy trinkets contrasted with the prevailing ugliness of theirsurroundings.
There were a large number of visitors present, due to the proximity of alarge town a mile or so away, through which the automobiles had passedjust 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 thatwould be for some of us."
"I hope you haven't any deep dark secret that would 'chill the youngblood, 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 haveundertaken to refine me," replied Walter.
"I'm realizing more and more what a tremendous contract it is," Cora cameback 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 hiseyes fell on the gypsy girl his sister had indicated. "I think I'll gether to tell my fortune. I want to know whether I'm born to be hanged ordrowned."
"It's safe to say that you're booked for a long life anyway," remarkedPaul. "Only the good die young."
The girl had seen that the party were regarding her with interest, andshe came over to them.
"Do you ladies want to have your fortunes told?" she asked with a winningsmile that showed two rows of beautiful white teeth.
The girls hesitated.
"Go ahead, girls, and show the sporting spirit," urged Jack. "You can getthe promise of
a perfectly good husband for fifty cents. And that's cheapin 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 adollar."
"She must have been thinking of that Higby fellow over at Roxbury," saidBess. "Why, what's the matter?" she asked, as the gypsy girl startedviolently and turned deadly pale.
Cora sprang to the girl's side and put her arm around her to steady her.