t than you thought?" cried Ruth, anxiously.

"I don't know. It seems that we have found all his injuries that are
apparent. But there is one we cannot reach. Something is the matter with
his speech."

"His speech?" gasped Helen.

"You have heard him speak?"

"Of course!"

"Then he is not naturally dumb----"

"Dumb?" repeated Helen, in wonderment. "You don't mean that he is dumb?"

"I mean just that. It appears that since his fall yesterday, he cannot
talk at all," said the doctor.

CHAPTER XXI

RUTH INTERCEDES

The two girls did not see Roberto that day, nor for several days
following. The hospital authorities did not think it best to allow him
to be excited even in a mild way.

They sent in such delicacies as the nurse said he could have, and Tony
Foyle was bribed by Helen to get a report from the hospital every day
about the young Gypsy.

The girls kept very quiet about the patient in the hospital. Their mates
knew only that Helen and Ruth had been driving with Mr. Cameron when the
boy fell out of the tree. They did not dream that the victim of the
accident had any possible connection with the pearl necklace that Nettie
Parsons' aunt had lost!

Helen kept her father informed of the progress of Roberto's case, and in
return he wrote Helen that the detectives were confident of reaching old
Queen Zelaya and her tribe.

"But if we could only get Roberto to talk!" sighed Ruth.

"Why, Ruth Fielding! if the poor fellow has been made speechless by
that fall, how _can_ he talk?"

"I know, but----"

"Don't you believe it is _so_?"

"Why--yes," admitted Ruth. "Of course, he would have no reason for
refusing to speak. And they say he has a hard time making them
understand what he wants, for he doesn't know how to write. Poor fellow!
I suppose he never realized before, that the art of writing was of any
use to _him_."

In a week or so the girls were allowed to go to the ward where Roberto
lay. Helen carried an armful of good things for the Gypsy lad to eat,
but Ruth remembered that he had not cared much for delicacies, and she
carried picture papers and a great armful of brilliant fall
flowers--some picked by herself in the woods, and the others begged from
Tony Foyle.

"Taking flowers to a boy--pshaw!" scoffed Helen. "Why, that shows you
have no brother, Ruthie. Tom wouldn't look at flowers when he's sick."

Ruth believed she had made no mistake. When they approached the bed in
which Roberto