loosen the gag. She saw, however, that while it must be making Dolly
terribly uncomfortable, she could breathe, and that it was probably
worse in appearance than in fact. So she leaned down and kissed her
chum, and whispered in her ear.

"I'm going back to Lolla now, dear, but I'll soon be back with enough
help so that we needn't care how many of the gypsies there are near us.
If I stay now I'm afraid they'll catch me, too, and then no one would
know where you were. They can't get you away from here, so you're sure
to be safe soon."

Dolly nodded to show that she understood, and Bessie moved silently
away. But, as she turned down the trail that would take her back to the
spot where she had left Lolla, she had a new cause for fright. She heard
Lolla's voice, raised loudly, arguing with a man who answered in low,
guttural tones. What they were saying she could not distinguish, but
somehow she understood that Peter had come even sooner than Lolla had
feared, and the gypsy girl, at the risk of angering him, was trying to
warn her, so that she might not descend the trail and so stumble right
into his arms.

So, although the prospect frightened her, she turned and made her way
swiftly up to the peak again, determined that if the man should go past
the opening that led to the place where Dolly lay, she would risk the
danger and the difficulty of the rocky descent from the peak itself.

As she hastened along silence fell behind her, and she knew that Peter
must have started. He was whistling a queer gypsy tune and Bessie heard
him pass the partly masked opening that she had herself found with so
much difficulty.