Then ensued a hurried search. It was unavailing. The girls and boys looked at one another. “It—it’s gone!” murmured Mabel. “And so is that Gypsy girl!” echoed Phil. “I’ll wager she has it! That’s why she didn’t want to stop to tell us fellows our fortunes. She wanted to get away! She had every chance in the world to slip that ring in her pocket when she was in the half-darkness here, telling fortunes. Fellows, come on to that Gypsy camp, and we’ll make her give it up!” CHAPTER III THE DESERTED ENCAMPMENT “Hadn’t we better stop and get one of the policemen?” asked Jack, as he and his two chums sped onward in the now full darkness of the May evening. “No, we can do what we have to do ourselves,” declared Phil. “If they’ve got mother’s ring I’ll take it away myself.” “And she was such a pretty girl too—for a Gypsy,” murmured Blake. “They’ll always take a trinket if they get their hands on one,” declared Phil. “I suppose she saw it glittering there on the table, and while she was holding the girls’ hands, and telling them all sorts of rubbish, she just slipped it away when they were thinking about a dark stranger or crossing unknown water. Bah! It makes me mad!” “And she was such a pretty girl,” murmured Blake. “I wouldn’t have believed it!” “Oh, drop that kind of talk and get a move on!” exclaimed Phil. “It’s quite a ways out to that Gypsy encampment, and she has a good start of us.” “Not so much,” declared Jack. “We came as soon as your mother missed her ring.” “Yes, but we wasted five minutes talking about where it might have strayed to, and another five looking for our hats. That’s ten, and those Gypsies travel light—they’re always ready to make a forced march. Hurry up!” “I still maintain that we’d better take one of our faithful and efficient cops with us,” declared Jack. “Those dark-skinned horse traders are ugly customers, I’ve heard.” “Not when you’ve got ’em where we have these,” declared Phil. “They’ll wilt when we tell them what we want, and give up.” “The worst of it is that we haven’t any proof,” suggested Blake. “No proof! I’d like to know what you call it? Mother left her ring on the table in that little room. The only one in it, besides our girls, was the Gypsy. The ring is gone—the Gypsy is gone—what else can you get from that? Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” “Well, I, myself, think she might have taken it,” went on Blake, “in spite of the fact that she had a nice face. But that isn’t proof. Suppose they say they haven’t it—that she hasn’t it—what are you going to do?” Phil stopped short in his quick walk toward the outskirts of the town where the Gypsy wagons had been drawn up for the last week. “Why—er—why,” he began, “I suppose perhaps maybe we had better take a policeman with us. He’ll be sort of impressive, you see. Yes, I guess we will. Wish I’d thought of it at first. That’s more time we’re going to lose.”