He was Roberto, the Gypsy!

CHAPTER XX

HE CANNOT TALK

"Is he badly hurt?" cried Mr. Cameron, who dared not get down and leave the horses just then.

"Don't tell us he is killed, Ruthie!" wailed Helen, clasping her hands and unable to leave the carriage.

The Gypsy boy lay very still. One arm was bent under him in such a queer position that the girl of the Red Mill knew it must be broken. His olive face was pallid, and there was a little blood on his lips.

She dared not move him. She bent down and put her ear to his chest. His heart was beating--he breathed!

"He's alive!" she said, turning to her friends in the carriage. "But I am afraid he is badly hurt. At least, one arm----"

The youth groaned. Ruth turned toward him with a tender little cry. She thought his eyelids quivered, but they were not opened.

"What will we do with him? He ought to be taken to a hospital. Where's the nearest doctor?" asked Mr. Cameron.

"Lumberton," said Ruth, promptly. "And that is the only place where there is a hospital around here."

"Back we must go, then," declared Mr. Cameron, promptly. "We sha'n't see Master Tom to-day, that's sure. You get out, Helen, and I'll turn around."

Helen ran to her friend who still hovered over the boy. At once she recognized him.

"My goodness me! Roberto! isn't that strange? Then he did not go south with the other Gypsies."

"It seems not--poor fellow," returned Ruth.

"Do you suppose he knows all about the necklace--how his grandmother became possessed of it, and all?"

"I don't know. I am sure Roberto is quite honest himself," returned Ruth. "He is not a thief like those wicked men who were talking that day in the old house, and who seem to have so much influence in the Gypsy camp."

"I don't care!" exclaimed Helen, warmly. "I am sorry for Roberto. But I hope father _does_ send detectives after the Gyps., and that they catch and punish that horrid old woman. How mean she was to us!"

"Sh!" warned Ruth.

Roberto gave no sign of returning consciousness now. That puzzled the girl of the Red Mill, for she had thought he was just about to come to.

Mr. Cameron turned the carriage and halted it beside the spot where the boy lay. "Of course you two girls can't lift him?" he said.

"Of course we can!" returned his daughter, promptly. "Oh! Ruth and I haven't been doing gym. work for two years for nothing. Just watch us."

"Easy!" murmured Ruth, warningly, as Helen seized the youth's legs.

"Perhaps he has more than a broken arm."

"But he must be lifted," said Helen. "Come on, now! He isn't conscious, and perhaps we can get him into the carriage before he wakes up."

And they did. Roberto did not seem to be conscious, and yet, to Ruth's surprise, the color came and went in the boy's cheeks, and his black brows knitted a little. It was just as though he _were_ conscious and was endeavoring to endure the pain he felt without moaning.

They got him into the carriage in as comfortable a position as possible.

Ruth sat beside him, while Helen joined her father on the front seat.

Then the gentleman let the spirited team go, and they dashed off over the road toward Lumberton.

At once Helen told her father who the injured youth was. Having heard all the details of his young folks' adventures on the road to Boise Landing, Mr. Cameron knew just who Roberto was, and he saw the importance of learning from him, if possible, where his clan had gone.

"We want to know especially what has become of the old woman--the queen," Mr. Cameron said. "I can't help it, if she _is_ the boy's grandmother, she is a wicked woman. Besides, we want to get back that necklace for Mrs. Parsons."

Unfortunately, it would be impossible for the dry goods merchant to remain in Lumberton to watch the case. He had to return that very evening, and could not spare the time now to see Tom.

He arranged at the hospital for Roberto to be given every care, and left some money with Helen and Ruth for them to purchase little luxuries for the boy when he should become convalescent.

He waited until after the doctors had made their examination and learned that Roberto not only suffered from a broken arm, but had two ribs broken and his right leg badly wrenched.

Mr. Cameron wrote a note to Mrs. Tellingham, asking that Helen and Ruth might visit the hospital every day or two to see how the patient fared.

"Besides," said Ruth, eagerly, "I may get him to talk. Perhaps he has deserted his tribe for good, and he may help us learn about the necklace."

"You want to be very careful in trying to pump the lad," said Mr.

Cameron, with a smile.

He need not have feared on this point, however, as it turned out. The very next afternoon Ruth and Helen hurried in to Lumberton to make inquiries at the hospital. They saw the head physician and he was frankly puzzled about Roberto.

"I thought I had had every kind of a case in my experience," said the surgeon, "but there's something about this one that puzzles me."

"Is he more hurt than you thought?" cried Ruth, anxiously.

"I don't know. It seems that we have found all his injuries that are apparent. But there is one we cannot reach. Something is the matter with his speech."

"His speech?" gasped Helen.

"You have heard him speak?"

"Of course!"

"Then he is not naturally dumb----"

"Dumb?" repeated Helen, in wonderment. "You don't mean that he is dumb?"

"I mean just that. It appears that since his fall yesterday, he cannot talk at all," said the doctor.

CHAPTER XXI