"Can't we come, too?"

"We're not afraid of the gypsies--not in daytime."

Flossie and Freddie thus called after their father and Bert, as the two latter started the next morning to go to find the gypsy camp. The night had pa.s.sed quietly, Snap and Snoop were found safe when day dawned, and after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey and his older son were to go to Lake Metoka and find where the gypsies had stopped with the gay red and yellow wagons. They were going to see if they could find any trace of Helen's doll, and also things belonging to other people in town, which it was thought the dark-skinned visitors might have taken.

"Please let us go?" begged the little Bobbsey twins.

"Oh, my dears, no!" said Mrs. Bobbsey. "It's too far; and besides----"

"Are you afraid the gypsies will carry us off?" asked Freddie. "'Cause if you are I'll take my fire engine, and some of the funny bugs that go around and around and around that we got in New York, and I'll scare the gypsies with 'em and squirt water on 'em."

"No, I'm not afraid of you or Flossie's being carried off--especially when your father is with you," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "But there is no telling where the gypsies are camped, and it may be a long walk before they are found. So you stay with me, and I'll get Dinah to let you have a party."

"Oh, that will be fun!" cried Flossie.

"I'd rather play hunt gypsies," said her brother, but when he saw Dinah come out of the kitchen with a tiny little cake she had baked especially for him and his sister to have a play-party with, Freddie thought, after all, there was some fun in staying at home.

"But take Snap with you," he said to Bert. "He'll growl at the gypsy men, and maybe he'll scare 'em so they'll give back Helen's doll."

"Well, Snap can growl hard when he wants to," said Bert with a laugh.

"But still I think it wouldn't be a good thing to take him to the gypsy camp. They nearly always have dogs in their camp--the gypsies do--and those dogs might get into a fight with Snap."

"Snap could beat 'em!" declared Freddie.

"No, don't take him!" ordered Flossie. "I don't want Snap to get bit."

"I don't either," agreed Bert, "so I'll leave him at home I guess. Well, there's daddy calling me. I'll have to run. I'll tell you all about it when I come back."

So, while Flossie and Freddie, with the little cake Dinah had baked for them, went to have a good time playing party, Mr. Bobbsey, with a policeman and Bert, went to the gypsy camp. The policeman did not have on his uniform with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons--in fact, he was dressed almost like Mr. Bobbsey.

"For," said this policeman, whose name was Joseph Carr, "if the gypsy men were to see me coming along in my helmet, with my coat covered with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a club in my hand, they would know right away who I was. They could see me a long way off, on account of the sun shining on the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and they would have time to hide away that little girl's doll, or anything else they may have taken. So I'll go in plain clothes."

"Like a detective," said Bert.

"Yes, something like a detective," agreed Mr. Carr. "Now let's step along lively."

Several persons had seen the gypsy caravan of gay yellow and red wagons going through Lakeport, and had noticed them turn up along the farther sh.o.r.e of Lake Metoka. There was a patch of wood several miles away from the town, and in years past these same gypsies, or others like them, had camped there. It was to these woods that Bert and his father were going.

"Do you think we'll find Helen's doll?" asked the boy.

"Well, maybe, Bert," answered his father. "And yet it may be that the gypsies have it, but will not give it up. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

"If I get sight of it they'll give it up soon enough," said Policeman Carr.

After about a two-hours' walk Bert, his father and Mr. Carr came to the woods. Through the trees they looked and saw the red and yellow wagons standing in a circle. Near them were tied a number of horses, eating what little gra.s.s grew under the trees, while dogs roamed about here and there.

"I'm glad we didn't bring Snap," said Bert. "There'd have been a dog fight as sure as fate."

"Yes, I guess so," agreed his father.

By this time they had entered the gypsy camp, and some of the dark-faced men, with dangling gold rings in their ears, came walking slowly forward as if to ask the two visitors with the little boy what was wanted.

"We're after a big doll," said Mr. Bobbsey. "One was taken from a little girl in our town yesterday. Perhaps you gypsies took it by mistake; and, if so, we'd be glad to have it back."

"We haven't any doll," growled one big gypsy. "We have only what is our own."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Mr. Carr. "We'll have a look about the camp and see what we can find."

The gypsy growled and said something else, though what it was Bert could not hear. The gypsies did not seem pleased to have visitors, nor did the dogs who sniffed about the feet of Bert, his father and the policeman. One dog growled, while others barked, and then the gypsy man who had first spoken made them go away.

"You are wasting your time here," said this gypsy, who seemed to be the leader, or "king," as he is sometimes called. "We have nothing but what is our own. We have no little girl's doll."

"We'll have a look about," said Mr. Carr again.

But though the policeman and Mr. Bobbsey, to say nothing of Bert, who had very sharp eyes, looked all about the gypsy camp, there was no sign of the missing doll. If a gypsy man had taken it, of which Helen, at least, was very sure, he had either hidden it well or, possibly, had gone off by himself to some other camp in another part of the woods.

"If the doll would only talk now and tell us where she is, we could get her," said Bert with a laugh to his father, when they had walked through the camp and come out on the other side.

"That's right," agreed Mr. Bobbsey; "but I'm afraid the doll isn't smart enough for that. Do you see anything else that the gypsies may have taken?" asked the twins' father of the policeman.

"I'm not sure," answered Mr. Carr. "We had a report of two horses missing, and they may be here, but most horses look so much alike to me that I can't tell them apart. I guess I'll have to get the men who own them to come here and see if they can pick them out."

For half an hour Bert, his father and Mr. Carr roamed through the gypsy camp, the dark-faced men and women scowling at them, and the dogs now and then barking. If there were any boys or girls in the camp Bert did not see them, and he thought they might be hiding away in some of the many wagons.

"Well, we didn't find the doll," said Mr. Carr when they were on their way back to Lakeport. "But I'm sure some of the horses the gypsies have don't belong to them. The chief of police is going to make them move away from that camp anyhow, for the man who owns the land doesn't like the gypsies there. He says they take his neighbors' chickens."

Flossie and Freddie, as well as Helen Porter, were much disappointed when Mr. Bobbsey and Bert came back without the doll. Helen was sure some gypsy had it, but as it could not be found, nothing could be done about it.

"We'll help you look for your doll this afternoon," said Freddie to the little girl, into whose eyes came tears whenever she thought of her lost pet. "Maybe you left Mollie under some bush in Grace's yard."

"I looked under all the bushes," said Helen.

"Well, we'll look again," promised Freddie, and they did, but no doll was found.

The next day the gypsies were made to move on with their gaily colored wagons, their horses and dogs, and though they went (for they had no right to camp on the land near the lake), they were very angry about it.

"They said they had camped there for many years," reported Mr. Carr, telling about the police having driven the dark-faced men and women away, "and that they would make whoever it was that drove them away sorry that he had done such a thing."

"I suppose that means," said Mr. Bobbsey, "that they'll help themselves from somebody's chicken coop."

"We haven't got any chickens," said Freddie.

"But we've got a dog and a cat," put in Flossie. "If those gypsies take Snap or Snoop I--I'll go after 'em, I will!"

"So'll I!" declared her little fat brother.

"What'll you do when you get to where the gypsies are?" asked Bert.

"Why, I--I'll----" began Freddie.