And, after a little while, which the guides used to cook a meal, and to
rest after their strenuous tramping in the effort to find the missing
girls, Andrew told off half a dozen of them to make their way to the
county seat, a dozen miles away, with the three gypsies.

"Just get them there and turn them over to the sheriff, boys," said the
old guide. "He'll hold them safe until they've been tried, and we won't
have any call to worry about them no more. But be careful while you're
on your way down. They're slippery customers, and as like as not to try
to run away from you and get to their own people."

"You leave that to me," said the guide who was to be in charge of the
party. "If they get away from us, Andrew, they'll be slicker than anyone
I ever heard tell of, anywhere. We won't hurt them none, but they'll
walk a chalk line, right in front of us, or I'll know the reason why."

"All right," said Andrew. "Better be getting started, then. Don't want
to make it too late when you get into town with them. Let the girl rest
once in a while; she looks purty tired to me."

Bessie and Dolly and the other girls watched the little procession start
off on the trail, and Bessie, for one, felt sorry for Lolla, who looked
utterly disconsolate and hopeless.

"We couldn't let them go free, I suppose," said Eleanor, regretfully.
"But I do feel sorry for that poor girl. I don't think she liked the
idea from the very first, but she couldn't help herself. She had to do
what the men told her. Women don't rank very high among the gypsies;
they have to do what the men tell them, and they're expected to do all