"No, don't take him!" ordered Flossie. "I don't want Snap to get bit."

"I don't either," agreed Bert, "so I'll leave him at home I guess. Well,
there's daddy calling me. I'll have to run. I'll tell you all about it
when I come back."

So, while Flossie and Freddie, with the little cake Dinah had baked for
them, went to have a good time playing party, Mr. Bobbsey, with a
policeman and Bert, went to the gypsy camp. The policeman did not have
on his uniform with brass buttons--in fact, he was dressed almost like
Mr. Bobbsey.

"For," said this policeman, whose name was Joseph Carr, "if the gypsy
men were to see me coming along in my helmet, with my coat covered with
brass buttons, and a club in my hand, they would know right away who I
was. They could see me a long way off, on account of the sun shining on
the brass buttons, and they would have time to hide away that little
girl's doll, or anything else they may have taken. So I'll go in plain
clothes."

"Like a detective," said Bert.

"Yes, something like a detective," agreed Mr. Carr. "Now let's step
along lively."

Several persons had seen the gypsy caravan of gay yellow and red wagons
going through Lakeport, and had noticed them turn up along the farther
shore of Lake Metoka. There was a patch of wood several miles away from
the town, and in years past these same gypsies, or others like them, had
camped there. It was to these woods that Bert and his father were going.

"Do you think we'll find Helen's doll?" asked the boy.

"Well, maybe, Bert," answered his father. "And yet it may be that the
gypsies have it, but will not give it up. We'll just have to wait and
see what happens."

"If I get sight of it they'll give it up soon enough," said Policeman
Carr.

After about a two-hours' walk Bert, his father and Mr. Carr came to the
woods. Through the trees they looked and saw the red and yellow wagons
standing in a circle. Near them were tied a number of horses, eating
what little grass grew under the trees, while dogs roamed about here and
there.

"I'm glad we didn't bring Snap," said Bert. "There'd have been a dog
fight as sure as fate."

"Yes, I guess so," agreed his father.

By this time they had entered the gypsy camp, and some of the dark-faced
men, with dangling gold rings in their ears, came walking slowly forward
as if to ask the two visitors with the little boy what was wanted.

"We're after a big doll," said Mr. Bobbsey. "One was taken from a l