TER II

ROBERTO, THE GYPSY

Ruth Fielding, following the death of her parents and while she was
still a small girl, had left Darrowtown and Miss True Pettis, and all
her other old friends and acquaintances, to live with her mother's
uncle, at the Red Mill. Her coming to the mill and her early adventures
in and about that charming place were related in the first volume of
this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill."

Ruth made many friends in her new home, among them Helen and Tom
Cameron, the twin, motherless children of a wealthy dry-goods merchant
who had a beautiful home, called "the Outlook," near the mill, and Mercy
Curtis, the daughter of the railroad station agent at Cheslow, the
nearest important town to Ruth's new home. Ruth, Helen, and Mercy all
went to Briarwood Hall, a girls' school some distance from Cheslow,
while Master Tom attended a military academy at Seven Oaks, near the
girls' institution of learning. The incidents of their first term at
school are related in the second volume of the series, while in the
mid-winter vacation Ruth and her friends go to Snow Camp in the
Adirondacks.

Later, our friends spent part of a summer vacation at Lighthouse Point
on the Atlantic Coast, after which they visited Silver Ranch in Montana.
The sixth volume tells of another mid-winter camping adventure on Cliff
Island, while the volume previous to our present story--number seven, in
fact--was entitled "Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm."

This story narrated Ruth's particular interest in Sadie Raby, a strange,
wild girl who ran away from cruel people who had taken her "to raise."
Her reunion with her twin brothers, Willie and Dickie, and how they all
three became the special care of Mr. Steele, the wealthy owner of
Sunrise Farm, is told. It is through Ruth's efforts that the Rabys are
settled in life and win friends.

Now Ruth and her schoolmates had returned to the Red Mill and Cheslow,
and but a brief space would elapse before the girls would begin their
third year at Briarwood Hall; they were all looking toward the beginning
of the fall term with great eagerness.

Had Ruth Fielding been able to think at this moment of the boat's
overturn, or of anything but her uncle's peril, she might have
considered that the possibility of her ever seeing Briarwood Hall again
was somewhat doubtful!

The hurrying water tugged at her as though a hundred hands had laid hold
of her person. She was nearly arm-pit deep