The lake sh.o.r.e was just ahead of the fugitives. Ruth had been but a few yards out of the way in her calculations. She and Helen came out upon the beach almost at the spot where the fishing punt lay.

The boat appeared to be sound, and the pole lying in it was a straight, peeled ash sapling, not too heavy for either of the girls to handle.

"Jump in, Helen!" commanded Ruth. "Take the pole and push off. I'll push here at the bow."

"But you'll get all wet!" quavered her chum.

"As though _that_ mattered," returned the other, with a chuckle, as she leaned against the bow of the punt and braced her feet for the grand effort. "Now!"

Helen had scrambled in and seized the pole. She thrust it against the sh.o.r.e, her own weight bearing down the stern, which was in the water, and thus raising the bow a trifle.

"All-to-geth-er!" gasped Ruth, as though they were at "tug-of-war" in the Briarwood gymnasium.

The boat moved. Ruth's feet slipped and she scrambled to get a fresh brace for them.

"Now, again!" she cried.

At that moment a great hound came rushing out of the wood upon their trail, raised his red eyes, saw them, and uttered a mournful bay.

"We're caught!" wailed Helen.

"We're nothing of the kind!" returned her friend. "Push again, Helen!"

One more effort and Ruth was ankle deep in the water. The boat floated free!

But before the brave girl could scramble aboard, the hound leaped for her. Helen screamed. That shriek was enough, without the baying of the hound, to bring their enemies to the water's edge.

Ruth Fielding was terrified--of course! But she gave a final push to the boat as the hound grabbed her. Fortunately the beast seized only her skirt. Perhaps he had been taught not to actually worry his prey.

However, the girl was dragged to her knees, and she could not escape.

The punt shot out into the lake, and Ruth shouted to her chum:

"Keep on! keep on! Never mind me! Find Tom and bring help----Oh!"

The weight of the big dog had cast her into the shallow water. She immediately scrambled to her feet again. The hound held onto the skirt.

The material was too strong to easily tear, and she could not get away.

There was a crashing in the brush and out upon the edge of the lake came half a dozen of the Gypsy men and one of the women. She was the one who had befooled Ruth and Helen into entering the green van the night before. When she saw Ruth's plight, standing in the water with the hound holding her, she laughed as though it were a great joke.

But the men did not laugh. He with the squinting eye strode down to the girl and would have slapped her with his hard palm, had not the woman jumped in and put herself between the man and Ruth. She seemed to threaten him in her own language, and the ruffian desisted.

One of the boys threw off his clothing--all his outer garments, at least--and plunged right into the lake after Helen. The boat had swung around, for there was considerable current in Long Lake.

"Don't let him come near you, Helen!" screamed Ruth. "Use your pole!"

Her friend stood very bravely in the stern of the punt and raised the pole threateningly. The Gypsy boy could not easily overtake the boat, which was drifting farther and farther out toward the middle of the lake.

Some of the others began running along the sh.o.r.e as though to keep pace with the boat. But suddenly a long-drawn, eerie cry resounded from the direction of the camp. The men stopped and returned; the boy scrambled ash.o.r.e and hastily grabbed his clothing. The woman and the squint-eyed man dragged Ruth into the bush.

The cry was a signal of some kind, and one not to be disobeyed. The Gypsies hurried back to the vans, and Ruth did not see Helen again.

All was confusion at the camp. The horses were ready to start, and the movables were packed. The children and women swarmed into two of the vans. Queen Zelaya stood at the door of the other, and the moment she saw that one of the prisoners had not been recovered, she began to harangue her people threateningly.

The squint-eyed man pushed Ruth toward the old woman. Zelaya's claw-like hand seized the girl's shoulder.

She was jerked forward and up the steps into the van. Almost at once the caravan started, and Zelaya pulled the door to, and darkened the windows.

"Quick, now!" she commanded the girl. "Take off your hat. Gypsies have no use for hats."

She seized it and thrust it into one of her boxes. Then she commanded Ruth to remove her frock, and that followed the hat into the same receptacle. Afterward the girl was forced to take off her shoes and stockings.

"Sit down here!" commanded Zelaya, as the van rolled along. The queen had been mixing some kind of a lotion in a bowl. Now with a sponge she anointed Ruth's face and neck, far below the collar of any gown she would wear; likewise her arms and hands, and her limbs from the knees down. Then Zelaya threw some earth on Ruth's feet and streaked her limbs with the same. She gave her a torn and not over-clean frock to put on instead of her own clothing, and insisted that she don the ugly garment at once.

"Now, Gentile girl," hissed the old woman, "if they come to search for you, speak at your peril. We say you are ours--a wicked, orphan Gypsy, wicked through and through."

She tore down Ruth's hair and rubbed some lotion into it that darkened its color, too. She really looked as wild and uncouth as the bold girl who waited upon the queen of the Gypsies.

"Now let them find you!" cackled the old woman. "You are Belle, my great-granddaughter, and you are touched here--eh?" and she tapped her own wrinkled forehead with her finger.

CHAPTER XIV

ROBERTO AGAIN

Ruth cried a little. But, after all, it was more because she was lonely than for any other reason. What would eventually happen to her in the Gypsy queen's toils she did not know. She had not begun to worry about that as yet.

Helen had gotten clear away. She was confident of that, and was likewise sure that her chum would rouse the authorities and come in search of her. Tom, too, was faithful; he must already be stirring up the whole neighborhood to find his sister and Ruth.

How far the caravan had traveled the night before, after the girls had joined the Gypsies, Ruth could not guess. But she realized that now they were making very good time up the road leading to Boise Landing, along the edge of Long Lake.

There might be some pursuit already. If Tom had telegraphed his father, Mr. Cameron would come looking for Helen "on the jump"! And had the searchers any idea the Gypsies had captured the two girls, Ruth was sure that the wanderers would get into trouble very quickly.

"Why, even Uncle Jabez would 'start something,' as Tom would say, if he learned of this. I believe, even if I am not 'as good as a boy,' that Uncle Jabez loves me and would not let a parcel of tramps carry me off like this."

She wiped away the tears, therefore, and in looking into a cloudy little mirror screwed to the wall of the vehicle, she found that the tears did not wash off the walnut stain. She had been dyed with a "fast color,"

sure enough!

"If Heavy and The Fox, or Belle and Lluella could see me now!" thought Ruth Fielding.

Suddenly the caravan halted. There were shouts and cries, and evidently the other vans were being emptied of their occupants in a hurry. Some of the men seemed to be arguing in English at the head of the queen's van.

Ruth believed that a searching party had overtaken the Gypsies. She feared there would be a fight, and she was anxious to show herself, so that her unknown rescuers might see her.

But she dared not scream. Old Zelaya scowled at her so savagely and threatened her so angrily with her clenched fist, that Ruth dared not speak. Finally the old woman opened the door of the van and flung her down the steps.