ns, though,
Miss Eleanor. And those people stick together, so that no one would
betray him if he did anything like that. We might be perfectly sure that
he had done it, but we wouldn't be able to prove it."

"I'll speak to the guides and have them keep a good watch in the
direction of Loon Pond, Bessie. There, will that make you feel any
better? And those gypsies won't stay over there very long. They never
do."

"Have they been here before, Miss Eleanor?"

"Oh, yes; every year when I've been here."

"Well, I'll feel better when they've gone, Miss Eleanor."

"So will I. You've made me quite nervous, Bessie. I think you'd better
tell Dolly, and be careful yourself, not to tell the other girls
anything about this. There's no use in scaring them, and making them
feel nervous, too."

"No. I thought of that, too. Some of them would be frightened, I'm sure.
I think Zara would be. She's been very nervous, anyhow, ever since we
got her away from that awful house where Mr. Holmes had hidden her away
from us."

"I don't blame her a bit; I would be, too. It was really a dreadful
experience, Bessie, and particularly because she knew it was, in a way,
her own fault."

"You mean because she believed what they said about being her friends,
and that she would get you and me into trouble unless she went with them
that night when they came for her?"

"Yes. Poor Zara! I'm afraid she guessed, somehow, that I had been angry
with her, at first. She's terribly sensitive, and she seems to be able
to guess what's in your mind when you've really scarcely thought the
things yourself."

"Well, I think it will be a good thing if she doesn't know about this
gypsy trouble, Miss Eleanor. So I'll go and find Dolly, and tell her not
to say anything."

"Do, Bessie. And get Dolly to come to me before dinner. She was wrong to
play that trick with the signs, but I don't mean to scold her. I want to
comfort her, instead. I think she's been punished enough already, if
she's really frightened about that gypsy."

Dolly seemed to be a good deal chastened after her talk with Eleanor,
and Bessie felt glad that the Guardian, though she evidently did not
take the episode of the gypsy as seriously as did Bessie, had still
thought it worth while to let Dolly think she did.

"I'm going to stay close to the camp after this, Bessie," she said.
"And, oh, Miss Eleanor said that there were footprints this morning
near the water that a deer must have made. I