not
suspect me; they would think I was just out for a walk."

So Bessie waited for perhaps ten minutes, while Lolla crept forward
alone. But the gypsy was back soon, smiling.

"All is safe now," she said. "Come quickly, though, so we shall get
behind them and be able to get near the camp. There is a place there
where you may hide while I find out what is going on."

They reached the spot Lolla meant in a few minutes more, and again
Bessie had to play the inactive part and wait while Lolla went on to
gain the information she needed. When she came back she was smiling
happily.

"That John is stupid, though he is so brave," she said to Bessie. "He
went back there to the camp, and he is sitting in front of his wagon.
There is a guide with a gun sitting near him, and my sister tells me
that the guide says he will follow him and shoot him if he tries to get
away.

"There are many people there, and the whole camp is angry and
frightened. The king says he will punish John, but John will not admit
that he knows where your friend is. We are safe from him. They will not
let him get away for a long time."

Bessie was comforted by the news. With her captor under guard, Dolly
had nothing to fear from him, and, though Peter might be a sullen and
dangerous man, Bessie felt that Lolla was right, and that he was too
thick witted to be greatly feared.

They made the return trip with hearts far lighter than they had been as
they made their way to the gypsy camp. Bessie had seen that Lolla was
afraid of John, though now that he, had been over-reached she was ready
enough to laugh at him.

"What are you going to do! How are you going to get her away, Lolla?"
asked Bessie, as they neared the point where she had first seen her
ally."

"I don't know yet," said Lolla, frankly. "If Peter is on the trail it
will be harder. I hope he will be inside, so that we can slip by without
his seeing us. If he is, and we get by, then you are to wait until you
hear me sing. So."

She sang a bar or two of a gypsy melody, and repeated it until Bessie,
too, could hum it, to prove that she had it right, and would not fail to
recognize it.

"When you hear me sing that, remember that you must run down and go to
your friend. Here is nay knife. Use it to cut the cords that tie her.
Then you and she must go back toward the rocks where you went down. And
when you hear me sing again you are to go down, as quickly as you can,
but quietly, and, as soon as