"Bessie, are you crazy?" gasped Dolly, as they came into the circle of
light from the fire. "My feet are all wet! Whatever is the matter with
you? You nearly made me smash my camera!"

"I don't care," said Bessie, panting, but immensely relieved. "Sit down
here by the fire and take off your shoes and stockings; they'll soon get
dry. I'm going to do it."

She was as good as her word, and not until they had dried their feet and
set the shoes and stockings to dry would she explain what had caused her
wild dash from the scene of the trap they had laid for the deer, and
which had so nearly proved to be a trap for them, instead.

"If you'd looked up when that powder went off you'd have run yourself,
Dolly, without being made to do it," she said, then. "That wasn't a deer
we heard, Dolly."

"What was it, a bear or some sort of a wild animal?"

"No, it was a man."

Dolly's face was pale, even in the ruddy glow of the fire.

"You don't mean--it wasn't--"

"The gypsy? Yes, that's just who it was, Dolly. He's found out somehow
where we are, you see. It's just what I was afraid of, that he would
manage to follow us over here. But I'm not afraid now, as long as we
know he's around. I don't see how he can possibly do you any harm."