Chapter XVI: The Dead End of Nowhere

Mr. Pinkney and Neale went to work to hoist the motor-car into the road again. No easy nor brief struggle was this. A dozen times Agnes started the car and the wheels slipped off the poles or Neale or Mr. Pinkney lost his grip.

Before long they were well bespattered with mud (for there was considerable water in the ditch) and so was the automobile. Neale and their neighbor worked to the utmost of their muscular strength, and Agnes was in tears.

"Pluck up your courage, Aggie," panted her boy friend. "We'll get it yet."

"I just feel that it is my fault," sobbed the girl. "All this slipping and sliding. If I could only just get it to start right--"

"Again!" cried Neale cheerfully.

And this time the forewheels really got on solid ground. Mr. Pinkney thrust his lever in behind the sloughed hind wheel and blocked it from sliding back.

"Great!" yelled Neale. "Once more, Aggie!"

She obeyed his order, and although the automobile engine rattled a good deal and the car itself plunged like a bucking broncho, they finally got all the wheels out of the mud and on the firm road.

"Crickey!" gasped Neale. "It looks like a battlefield."

"And we look as though we had been in the battle all right," said Mr. Pinkney. "Guess Mamma Pinkney will have something to say about _my_ trousers when we get home, let alone Sammy's."

"Do you suppose the car will run all right?" asked the anxious Agnes. "I don't know what Ruth would say if we broke down."

"She'd say a-plenty," returned Neale. "But wait till I get some of this mud off me and I'll try her out again. By the way she bucked that last time I should say there was nothing much the matter with her machinery."

This proved to be true. If anything was strained about the mechanism it did not immediately show up. Neale got the automobile under way without any difficulty and they drove ahead through the now fast darkening road.

The belt of woods was not very wide, but the car ran slowly and when the searchers came out upon the far side, the old shack which housed the big, red-faced woman, who had been kind to Sammy, and her brood of children, some of whom had been not at all kind, the place looked to be deserted.

In truth, the family were berry pickers and had been gone all day (after Sammy's adventure with the cherry-colored calf) up in the hills after berries. They had not yet returned for the evening meal, and although Neale stopped the car in front of the shack Mr. Pinkney decided Sammy would not have remained at the abandoned place.

And, of course, Sammy had not remained here. After his exciting fight with Peter and Liz, and fearing to return to the house to complain, he had gone right on. Where he had gone was another matter. The automobile party drove to the town of Crimbleton, which was the next hamlet, and there Mr. Pinkney made exhaustive inquiries regarding his lost boy, but to no good result.

"We'll try again to-morrow, Mr. Pinkney, if you say so," urged Neale.

"Of course we will," agreed Agnes. "We'll go every day until you find him."

Their neighbor shook his head with some sadness. "I am afraid it will do no good. Sammy has given us the slip this time. Perhaps I would better put the matter in the hands of a detective agency. For myself, I should be contented to wait until he shows up of his own volition. But his mother--"

Agnes and Neale saw, however, that the man was himself very desirous of getting hold of his boy again. They made a hasty supper at the Crimbleton Inn and then started homeward at a good rate of speed.

When they came up the grade toward the old house beside the road, at the edge of the wood, the big woman and her family had returned, made their own supper, and gone to bed. The place looked just as deserted as before.

"The dead-end of nowhere," Neale called it, and the automobile gathered speed as it went by. So the searchers missed making inquiry at the very spot where inquiry might have done the most good. The trail of Sammy Pinkney was lost.

Neale O'Neil wanted to satisfy himself about one thing. He said nothing to Agnes about it, but after he had put up the car and locked the garage, he walked down Main Street to Byburg's candy store.

June Wildwood was always there until half past nine, and Saturday nights until later. She was at her post behind the sweets counter on this occasion when Neale entered.

"I am glad to see you, Neale," she said. "I'm awfully curious."

"About that bracelet?"

"Yes," she admitted. "What has come of it? Anything?"

"Enough. Tell me," began Neale, before she could put in any further question, "while you were with the Gypsies did you hear anything about Queen Alma?"

"Queen Zaliska. I was Queen Zaliska. They dressed me up and stained my face to look the part."

"Oh, I know all about that," Neale returned. "But this Queen Alma was some ancient lady. She lived three hundred years ago."

"Goodness! How you talk, Neale O'Neil. Of course I don't know anything about such a person."

"Those Gypsies you were with never talked of her?"

"I didn't hear them. I never learned much of the language they use among themselves."

"Well, we got a tip," said the boy, "that the bracelet belonged to this Queen Alma, and that there is a row among the Gypsies over the ownership of it."

"You don't tell me!"

"I am telling you. We heard so. Say, is that Big Jim a Spaniard? A Spanish Gypsy, I mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe. He looks like a Spaniard, or a Mexican, or an Italian."

"Yes. I thought he did. He comes of some Latin race, anyway. What is his last name?"

"Why--I--I am not sure that I know."

"Is it Costello? Did you hear that name while you were with the Gypsies, June?"

"Some of them are named Costello. It is a family name among them I guess. And about that Jim. Do you know that I saw him yesterday driving down Main Street in an automobile?"

"You don't mean it? Gypsies are going to become flivver traders instead of horse swappers, are they?" and Neale laughed.

"Oh, it was a big, seven-passenger car," said June. "Those Gypsies have money, if they want to spend it."

"Did you ever hear of a Gypsy junkman?" chuckled Neale.

"Of course not. Although I guess junkmen make good money nowadays," drawled June Wildwood, laughing too. "You are a funny boy, Neale O'Neil. Do you want to know anything else?"

"Lots of things. But I guess you cannot tell me much more about the Gypsies that would be pertinent to the bracelet business. We hear that the Costello Gypsies are fighting over the possession of the heirloom--the bracelet, you know. That is why one bunch of them wanted to get it off their hands for a while--and so gave it into the keeping of Tess and Dot."

"Mercy!"

"Does that seem improbable to you, June?"

"No-o. Not much. They might. It makes me think that maybe the Gypsies have been watching the old Corner House and know all about the Kenways."

"They might easily do that. You know, they might know us all from that time away back when we brought you home from Pleasant Cove with us. This is some of the same tribe you were with--sure enough!"

"I know it," sighed June Wildwood. "I've been scared a little about them too. But for my own sake. I haven't dared tell Rosa; but pap comes down here to the store for me every evening and beaus me home. I feel safer."

"The bracelet business has nothing to do with you, of course?"

"Of course not. But those Gypsies might have some evil intent about Ruth and her sisters."

"Guess they are just trying to use them for a convenience. While that bracelet is in the Corner House no other claimant but those Gypsy women are likely to get hold of it. Believe me, it is a puzzle," he concluded. "I guess we will have to put it up to Mr. Howbridge, sure enough."

"Oh! The Kenways's lawyer?" cried June.

"Their guardian. Sure enough. That is what we will have to do."

But when Neale and Agnes Kenway, after an early breakfast, hurried downtown to Mr. Howbridge's office the next morning to tell the lawyer all about the Gypsies and Queen Alma's bracelet, they made a surprising discovery.

Mr. Howbridge had left town the evening before on important business. He might not return for a week.