The Corner House Girls Under Canvas

“Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?”

“I do,” said the older Corner House girl, and she explained why she thought so.

Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix was forever running over there in the car. It did not strain one’s imagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds’ dog and recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severns had been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix might easily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.

“Oh, dear me!” sighed Agnes. “It does seem too bad that one’s very best friends sometimes turn out to be one’s enemies. Who’d have thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?”

“Of course, we don’t know,” admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. “But who else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?”

Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such things and bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collar and made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.

Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; they wanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, for they thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody could take him away from them.

“I didn’t like that man at all, anyway,” Tess declared. “He had red whiskers.”

“Is – is that a sign that a man’s real mean if he has red whiskers, Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.

“It’s a sign Tess doesn’t like him,” laughed Agnes. “But I don’t like that Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?”

“We’re all agreed on that point I should hope,” said Ruth. “But we won’t run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I’ll find some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if he does to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. So now!”

The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about Tom Jonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met. They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondrift bungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.

Neale O’Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper to escort the Corner House girls back to Willowbend Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a nap during the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession, going home.

They went around by the home of the little old woman who lived in the shoe. Ruth and Agnes had been talking with the boys about the mystery of the strange girl who had shared in the adventures of Tess and Dot on Wild Goose Island. They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruth had kept to herself the knowledge of the girl’s identity as the Gypsy “queen.”

“I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach to-day,” Joe Eldred said. “That snaky, scarred-faced fellow was one of them.”

“He’s the ring-leader, I believe,” Ruth hastened to say.

“Can’t just see what they are after, hanging about here,” Neale observed. “There isn’t much to steal. Everybody’s brought just the oldest things they own down here to the beach.”

“And there are no hens to steal,” chuckled Agnes.

“I bet none of them will come near the tents while Tom Jonah is on guard,” Neale added, snapping his fingers for the dog who was running ahead in the moonlit path.

Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled. They had arrived in sight of the queer little cottage where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster. The young folk could even see the drawn shade of the sitting-room window.

“There’s that man again!” exclaimed Agnes.

“What man?” Joe Eldred asked.

“Mrs. Bobster’s mysterious friend,” giggled Agnes. “See his shadow on the curtain?”

“And he’s sitting there with his hat on,” murmured Neale.

But it was Ruth who saw the other – and more important – shadow. This was the figure of a tall man slipping along the outer side of Mrs. Bobster’s picket fence. It was this shadow at which Tom Jonah was growling.

The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and stole in. His furtive movements gave the big dog his cue. He leaped forward, barking vociferously, leaped the fence, and followed the running figure around the corner of the house.

Mrs. Bobster shrieked – the young folk outside could hear her. But her “company” did not move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.

The boys started after the dog. The girls stood, clinging to one another’s hands, at the corner of the fence.

From around the house appeared another running figure; but this was a girl. She flung herself headlong over the fence, and her skirt caught on a picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.

“Oh, my dear!” she gasped. “Where did you come from?”

It was the girl she had first noticed in the train with the Gypsy woman – the very girl who had been on Wild Goose Island with Tess and Dot. It was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the Gypsy queen.

CHAPTER XXIV – BROUGHT TO BOOK

“Let me go! Let me go!” gasped the girl in Ruth’s arms. “He will get me.”

“Who’ll get you?” demanded the wondering Agnes.

“Big Jim, the Gypsy. He’s after me,” said the strange girl.

“And Tom Jonah and the boys are after him,” declared Ruth. “Don’t you fret; Big Jim won’t come back here.”

“Who is she, Ruth?” asked Agnes.

“Never mind who I am,” said the girl, rather sharply. “Let me go.”

“I know why you were lurking about here,” Ruth said, calmly. “You heard that Rosa Wildwood is stopping here.”

“Well?” demanded the other.

“Then you are June Wildwood. You’re her sister. I don’t know how you came to be with those Gypsies, and masquerading as an old woman – ”

“My goodness!” gasped Agnes. “Was she that Gypsy queen?”

“Yes,” Ruth said, confidently. “Now, weren’t you?” to the strange girl. “And aren’t you Rosa’s sister who ran away two years ago?”

“Oh, I am! I am!” groaned the girl.

“Well, Rosa’s just crazy to see you. And your father has been searching for you everywhere,” said Ruth, quickly. “You must come in and see Rosa. There’s Mrs. Bobster opening the front door.”

The shadow of the man with the derby hat on his head still was motionless upon the shade; but the widow had opened the front door on its chain, and now demanded:

“Who’s there? what do you want?”

“It’s only me, Mrs. Bobster,” cried Ruth.

Tess and Dot were already running toward the cottage door. “Oh, Mrs. Bobster!” Tess cried, “here’s the girl that helped us on the island – me and Dot.”

“And my Alice-doll,” concluded Dot, likewise excited. “And Ruthie says she’s Rosa’s sister.”