CHAPTER VII--THE YELLOW KERCHIEF AGAIN

School opened the next Monday and the girls of Central High took up their tasks "for the last heat" of the year, as Jess Morse expressed it.

"And I'm glad," she told her chum, Laura Belding, "Just think! next Fall we'll be seniors."

"Wishing your life away," laughed Laura. "We were awfully glad to be juniors, I remember."

"Sure. But we'll boss the school next fall," said Jess.

"We've done very well for juniors, especially in athletics," observed Laura. "Why, practically, our bunch has dominated athletics for a year, now. We made the eight-oared shell in our sophomore year."

"True. And the champion basketball team, too."

"And Eve is going to qualify for the broad jump as well as the shot-put, I verily believe," said Laura. "I'm glad I found that girl and got her to come to Central High instead of going to Keyport."

"She was a lucky find," admitted Jess. "And she wasn't much afraid of those Gypsies last week--did you notice?"

"Of course she wasn't. She told me this morning that the constable over there looked for the camp, but the Romany folk had moved on."

"I wonder if they caught that girl in the yellow kerchief," said Jess, thoughtfully.

"Don't know. But they managed to scare Bobby pretty thoroughly," said Laura. "I never did see Bobby Hargrew quite so impressed."

Jess smiled. "She seemed to know something about you, too, Laura--that Gypsy queen. She knew you had a negro mammy at home."

"I don't know how she guessed that," admitted Laura. "But I believe all that fortune telling is foolishness. If she came to the house and told Mammy Jinny half what she did us, Mammy would be scared to death. We had a good laugh on the dear old thing yesterday. She's had a cold for several days and mother insisted upon calling Dr. Agnew in to see her. You know how Nellie's father is--always joking and the like; and he enjoys puzzling Mammy Jinny. So when he had examined her he said:

"'Mammy, the trouble is in your thorax, larynx and epiglottis.'

"'Ma soul an' body, Doctor!' exclaimed Mammy, turning gray. 'An' I only t'ought I had a so' t'roat.'"

"But Mammy does like to use long words herself," chuckled Jess. "She will remember those words and spring them on you some time. Remember when her nephew had the rheumatism?"

"Of course," Laura replied. "We asked her if it was the inflammatory kind and she said:

"'Sho' it's exclamatory rheumatism. He yells all de time.'"

"But I _do_ wonder," said Jess, again, "if the Gypsies caught that girl. She must have wanted badly to get away from them to have run the risk of being chased by a bloodhound."

"And she was smart, too," Laura agreed. "Running on that wall and wading in the stream threw the dog off the scent."

"If one of us had done such a thing as that when the water was so cold we would have got our 'never-get-over,'" declared Jess.

"I believe you. And a lot of us girls are 'tender-feet,' as Chet says, at this time of year. We have been in the house too much. I tell you, Jess, we've got to get 'em out in the field just as soon as it's dry enough. Bill Jackway is working on the track and Mrs. Case says she thinks we can start outdoor relay practice and quarter-mile running on Saturday--if it's pleasant."

"That's what we have got to practice up on, too, if we want to win the points we need to put Central High at the top of the list," agreed her chum.

"I should say!"

The moment they were freed from the regular lessons of the day Laura and Jess and their particular friends made for the handsome gym, building and athletic field that Colonel Richard Swayne had made possible for them. Bobby Hargrew was very much down in the mouth, for she had gone up against Miss Carrington at several points and the martinet had been very severe with the irrepressible.

"I tell you what," growled Bobby, "I believe that little brother of Alice Long hit it off about right when it comes to teachers."

"How is that?" asked Laura.

"Why, he came home after going to school a few days last Fall, and says he: 'I don't think teachers know much, anyway. They keep asking you questions all the time.'"

"I agree with you there," Jess said. "And such useless questions! Why, if you answered them literally half the time you'd be swamped in demerits. For instance, did you notice that one to-day: 'Why did Hannibal cross the Alps?' I felt just like answering: 'For the same reason the chicken crossed the road!'"

The girls got into their gym. suits in a hurry and then played passball for a while, and, when well warmed up, went out on the field. Mrs. Case appeared and tried some of the younger ones out in relay running, while several of the bigger ones, including Eve, tried the broad jump, and Laura, and Jess, and more of the juniors trotted around the cinder path.

Central High had to develop a first-class sprinter to win that event at the June tourney, and, as Laura said, "it was a question where the lightning would strike." Every girl who _would_ run--even down to the freshies--was to be tried out. As for the relay races, that was a matter of general interest. To-day Mrs. Case's whistle blew in half an hour, and every girl oh the field lined up for a "shuttle relay"--half of them on one line and half on the other, fifty yards apart.

At the sound of the whistle Number 1 girl shot off across the running space and touched Number 2, the latter dashing back to touch Number 3, and so on until the last girl crossed the line at the finish. This is a splendid form of relay-racing, for it keeps the girls on the alert, and the distance is not too great for any girl, who has a physician's approval, to run.

Mrs. Case, however, was extremely careful--as was Dr. Agnew, the medical inspector--as to the condition of the girls before they entered upon any very serious training. The afternoons of this first week of school were spent in working out the girls gradually, the instructor learning what they really could do. Nor were any of the girls allowed to work on the track, or in the gym., two days in succession.

But Saturday afternoon was devoted to real work and the making up of the relay teams for practice during the spring. It chanced to be a glorious day, too, and the field was well attended. Bobby Hargrew was faithfully practicing for the quarter-mile sprint. She was as fast as anybody in the junior class, and for once was really putting her mind to the work.

"If Gee Gee doesn't hamper me too much with conditions and extra work, maybe I can be of some help to the school," spoke Miss Bobby. "But I can see plainly she's got it in for me."

"That's what the Gypsy fortune-teller told you," returned Jess. "Didn't she warn you to beware of one of your teachers--and a woman?"

Bobby's light-hearted chatter was stilled and she paled as Jess reminded her of the Gypsy woman.

"Pooh!" Laura quickly said. "There is nothing in that foolishness." Bobby had utterly refused to tell them what Grace Varey, the Gypsy queen, had told her in the tent. "She could easily see that Bobby was full of good spirits and that she must always be in difficulties with her teachers--and of course it was safe to guess that she would have trouble with a female teacher. I wouldn't give a minute's thought to such foolishness."

But Bobby would not be led to say anything farther, and was very quiet for a time.

She was with Laura and the other juniors, however, over by the gate, when Nell Agnew made her great discovery. The girls had been playing captain's ball on one of the courts, and they were all warm and tired. Wrapped in their blanket coats, on which Mrs. Case insisted at this time of the year, they were resting on the bench which faced the gateway, and the gate was open.

"My goodness me!" gasped the doctor's daughter, suddenly, "isn't that the same girl?"

"Huh?" asked Bobby. "Isn't what the same girl? You're as lucid as mud, Nell."

"Out there! Quick, Laura--don't you see her?"

Laura Belding craned her neck to see outside the yard. Across the street a girl was passing slowly. They could not see her face, and she was wrapped in a long cloak--or waterproof garment.

"Look at that yellow handkerchief!" exclaimed Jess.

"I saw it--and I saw her face," said Nellie.

"That's like the girl we saw up there on the ridge," admitted Laura, slowly.

"The Gypsy girl!" exclaimed Jess, in excitement.

"It _was_ she. I saw her face," repeated Nell.

"Now, what do you know about that?" cried Jess. "Why, she must have gotten away from those people, after all. I'm glad of it."

Bobby said never a word, but she stared after the yellow kerchief, which showed plainly above the collar of the mantle the strange girl wore. And while her mates discussed with interest the appearance in town of the fugitive from the Gypsy camp, Bobby was only thoughtful.