tle while ago, but it
seems to me that you're doing pretty well in that line yourself."

"Oh, it's all right to laugh, but, just the same, I'll bet that when we
get at the bottom of all this mystery, we'll find that the chief reason
Mr. Holmes was in it was that he wanted to get hold of some information
that would make it easy for him to get a whole lot more than it cost
him."

"Well, maybe you're right, Dolly. But I'd certainly like to know just
what he has got up his sleeve."

"I think he'll be careful for a little while now, Bessie. He never knew
that Miss Eleanor had that letter he'd written to the gypsy. And it must
have damaged him a lot to have as much come out about that as did."

"I expect a lot of people who heard it didn't believe it."

"Even if that's so, I guess there were plenty who did believe it, and
who think now that Mr. Holmes is a pretty good man to leave alone. You
see, that proved absolutely that he had really hired that gypsy to carry
you off, and that is a pretty mean thing to do. And people must know by
this time that if there was any legal way of getting you and Zara away
from the Camp Fire and Miss Mercer, he would do it."

"But he didn't get into any trouble for doing it, Dolly."

"He's got so much money that he could hire lawyers to get him out of
almost any scrape he got in, Bessie. That's the trouble. Those people at
Hamilton were afraid of him. They know how rich he is, and they didn't
want to take any chance of making him angry at them."

"Yes, that's just it. And I'm afraid he's got so much money that a whole
lot of people who would say what they really thought if they weren't
afraid of him, are on his side. You see, he says that I'm a runaway,
just because I didn't stay any longer with the Hoovers. And probably he
can make a whole lot of people think that I was very ungrateful, and
that he is quite right in trying to get me back into the same state as
Hedgeville."

"They'd better talk to Miss Eleanor, if he makes them think that.
They'll soon find out which is right and which is wrong in that
business. And if she doesn't tell them, I guess Mr. Jamieson will--and
he'd be glad of the chance, too!"

"Let's not worry about him, anyhow. I hope he won't find out where we
are, too. We haven't seen or heard anything of him since we went back to
Long Lake from Hamilton, so I don't see why there isn't a good chance of
his letting us alone for a while now."

They reached Windsor, the