“If it turns out that there isn’t any such thing as the child you believed tried to attract your attention, then the sooner we give up all this foolishness, why, the better; you understand, Lanky?” “But if there _is_ such a little girlie, Frank?” “We’ll stay in the game, make sure of that,” replied the other, in a determined tone that told Lanky what he might expect. “Oh! I agree with you all right, about that, Frank,” he observed; “but the question is, how under the sun can we do it? That sly old queen knows how to slip the child away every time we happen to be seen coming around the camp.” “Well, we must make out _not_ to be seen, then, next time,” was the matter-of-fact way Frank put it. “Do you mean we’ll sneak back, and see what’s goin’ on, right now; sorter creep up through the bushes, Injun fashion, and peep, unbeknown to any of the gypsies? Tell me, is that what’s got you, Frank?” “Well no, hardly that, Lanky,” replied the other. “In the first place it’s getting kind of late, and I promised to be home by five, sharp. Then, though perhaps you haven’t noticed it, there’s a gypsy boy trailing us right now. No, don’t turn around and look, because that would tell him we knew all about his following us. Wait till we get to that bend, and then you can see without showing that you’re bothering your head about him.” “Wow! that’s what I call going some, Frank,” remarked Lanky, presently. “You saw him then; didn’t you?” asked the leader of the boys. “Right you are; and he’s certain sure follerin’ us, to see that we don’t play a double game, and sneak back in the direction of the camp,” was Lanky’s admission. “And you can understand that a boy wouldn’t be up to any such trick unless some other person had told him to do it?” Frank continued, with convincing force. “That must mean she did it,” Lanky admitted. “The old queen, and no other. So, you see, we couldn’t turn back now without her knowing about it; and that would give the alarm. Why, by to-morrow morning these same gypsies would be miles away on the road to nowhere; and it’d be the hardest kind of business getting on the track of them again.” “Well, when _can_ we come back?” asked Lanky; “to-morrow afternoon?” “For one, I don’t feel like waiting that long,” the other declared. “Say, could we try it to-night, Frank?” asked Lanky, eagerly. “I’m willing to come,” replied his companion; “if your folks will let you out. Look over here to the right, and you’ll see a little rise of ground. And, Lanky, if a fellow sat on top of that, with a pair of field glasses in his hands, what would hinder him from seeing everything that happened in the camp?” “There’s a clear line between, as sure as anything,” admitted the other. “And if they have their fires going, as they generally do in the early evening, why, the glass would work O. K. I’ve looked through it at the moon, and Jupiter, Venus and that crowd of worlds in the night sky. Is it a go, Lanky?”