?"

"Did you hear that, Bessie?" asked Eleanor, by way of answer to the
gypsy girl's question.

"Yes," said Bessie. "I'm sorry you did it, Lolla, because I only wanted
to help your man, and if you hadn't done what you said you were going to
do, and helped me to get Dolly away from him, he wouldn't be in all this
trouble now.

"But you didn't understand about that, and you helped your own people
instead of a stranger. I don't think that's such a dreadful thing to do.
It's something like a soldier in a war. He may think his country is
wrong, but if there's a battle he has to fight for it, just the same."

"But remember that the best way to help John now is to make him see that
he has been wrong, and to try to make him understand that he can make up
for his wickedness by helping us to punish the bad man who got him to do
this," said Eleanor. "That man, you see, was too much of a coward to do
his work himself, so he got your man to do it, knowing that if anyone
was to be punished he would escape, and John would get into trouble.

"John doesn't owe anything to a man like that; he needn't think he's got
to keep him out of trouble. The man wouldn't do it for him. He won't
help him now. He'll pretend he doesn't know anything about this at all."

"I will try," promised Lolla. "But I think John is angry with me, and
will not listen. But I will do my best."

And, after a little while, which the guides used to cook a meal, and to
rest after their strenuous tramping in the effort to find the missing
girls, Andrew told off half a dozen of them to make their way to the
county seat, a dozen miles away, with the three gypsies.

"Just get them there and turn them over to the sheriff, boys," said the
old guide. "He'll hold them safe until they've been tried, and we won't
have any call to worry about them no more. But be careful while you're
on your way down. They're slippery customers, and as like as not to try
to run away from you and get to their own people."

"You leave that to me," said the guide who was to be in charge of the
party. "If they get away from us, Andrew, they'll be slicker than anyone
I ever heard tell of, anywhere. We won't hurt them none, but they'll
walk a chalk line, right in front of us, or I'll know the reason why."

"All right," said Andrew. "Better be getting started, then. Don't want
to make it too late when you get into town with them. Let the girl rest
once in a while; she looks purty tired to me."