The roads were so poor that it was impossible to reach Bordeaux that evening, and Mr. Fabian said it would be better to stop at a small Inn in a village, should they find a promising one. Consequently they decided that the clean little inn at Agen would answer their needs that night.

The two cars were rolled under a shed at the back, and the guests were shown to the low-ceiled chambers with primitive accommodations. But the supper was good, and the host a jolly fat man.

While the tourists were finishing their coffee, a little bent man limped into the public room. He had great hoops of gold in his ears, and his costume was very picturesque. After he had been given a glass of home-made wine, he sat down in a corner and began playing softly on an accordion.

He had a marvelous talent for this instrument, and the girls crowded about him, listening intently. Soon the host’s grown daughter came out and danced a folk-dance, and then others danced the old-time French dances. When the American girls were called upon to add their quota to the evening’s entertainment, they gladly complied.

Polly and Eleanor, Dodo and Nancy danced the modern steps so popular with young folks of the present day, and the peasants, watching closely, laughed at what they considered awkward and ridiculous gambols. But the dancing suddenly ceased when a young man called upon the musician to have his fortune told; he held out his palm and waited to hear his future.

Fully two hours were spent in laughing at the “fortunes” the old gipsy man told—for he was one of the original Spanish gipsies, who had wandered to the southern part of France and settled there for life.

The girls giggled and reviewed their fortunes that night long after they had retired. As they had to occupy the two massive beds in one guest-room, it gave them the better opportunity to talk when they should have been fast asleep.

Finally they were ready to sleep and Polly was about to snuff the candle before jumping into bed, when Nancy suddenly whispered: “S—sh!”

The four sat up and strained their sense of hearing. “I heard a queer noise just outside our door,” whispered Nancy.

“I’ll tip-toe over and see who it is,” whispered Polly, acting as she spoke.

“No—no! Don’t open the door! That gipsy may be there,” cried Nancy, fearfully.

But another scratching sound under the low window now drew all attention to that place. Polly slowly tip-toed silently to the open window and tried to peer out. The trees and vines made the back of the garden shadowy and she could not see if anyone were under the window, or trying to get in somewhere else.

The other three girls now crept out of bed and joined Polly at the window. They waited silently, and were soon rewarded for their patience. They distinctly heard voices almost under their window, whispering carefully, so no one would be awakened.

“I think we ought to rouse Daddy, or Mr. Alexander,” said Nancy, trembling with apprehension.

“You run and tell your father, while I get Pa out of bed,” said Dodo, groping about for her negligee.

Meantime Polly and Eleanor watched so no one could get in at their window, and the two other girls ran across the hall to their parents’ rooms. In a short time both Mr. Fabian and Mr. Alexander came in and crept over to the window where the girls had heard the burglars plotting.

Mr. Fabian understood French so now he interpreted what he overheard: “Drop the bundle and I’ll catch it. Don’t make a noise, and be careful not to overlook anything valuable.”

“Dear me! If they are burglars where is the one who is told to drop a bundle? He must be inside, somewhere!” whispered Dodo, excitedly.

There followed a mumbling that no one could understand, and then a splash,—as if a bundle of soft stuff had dropped into water from a height. Immediately after this, the voice from below excitedly spoke to the companion above: “——It fell in the well! Now what is to be done?”

“Goody! Goody!” breathed Polly, eagerly, when she heard how the burglars had defeated their own purpose.

But no sound came from the other burglar who was working indoors, and Mr. Alexander had an idea which he suggested to Mr. Fabian.

“You go downstairs softly, while I scout around up here and locate the room where the helper is working. When I give a whistle it means ‘I’ve got the other feller under hand’—then you catch your man, red-handed, out in the garden, and the girls will rouse the house and we will present our prisoners to the host.”

That sounded fine, so Mr. Alexander hurried to his room for his western gun, and started out to hunt up the indoor worker. Mrs. Alexander realized that he was about to do something unusual, or he never would have taken his big revolver.

“Ebeneezer, what is wrong? Are we in danger of being robbed?”

“I’m going to catch one before we can think if there is any danger, for anyone,” said her husband, going for the door.

“Listen, Ebeneezer! Don’t you go and risk your life for that! You promised to take care of me first! Let Mr. Fabian, or some of the Frenchmen here, try and catch the man!” cried Mrs. Alexander, hysterically, running after her spouse.

But the little man was spry and he was out of the door and down the entry before his wife reached the doorway. There was but one alternative for her, and that was to go to the girls’ room and pour her troubles forth into their ears.

But the four girls were too intent upon what was going on to sympathize with Mrs. Alexander. Dodo merely said, in reply to her mother’s complaints: “Get into my bed, Ma, and pull the covers over your head, if you’re so frightened.”

All this time, the man down in the garden was directing his associate above, and at last the girls indistinctly saw someone slowly descend, what seemed to be a rope hanging close to the side of the house. They held their breath and waited, for Mr. Fabian surely must have reached the garden by this time and would be ready to capture the escaping thieves, before they could get away.

But a loud shouting and a great confusion in the large public room drew their attention to the upper hall, where they could hear what was going on below. Mrs. Fabian joined her friends in the entry at the head of the stairs and they heard the host shout:

“So! You look like a decent gentleman and you creep down here to take my living from me! Shame, shame!”

Then to the horror of the girls, they heard Mr. Fabian remonstrate volubly and try to explain his reason for going about the place so stealthily.

Mrs. Fabian rushed down the stairs, regardless of her curl-papers and kimono, and the girls followed closely upon her heels. Only Mrs. Alexander remained upstairs under the bed-covers, thinking discretion to be the better part of valor.

The host and some other guests were surrounding Mr. Fabian who tried to explain that Mr. Alexander and he were following burglars who were looting the place. The host smiled derisively, and told his guest to prove what he said was true.

Just then Mrs. Alexander screamed, and came pell-mell down the stairs. “Oh, oh! A gipsy man came out of the girls’ room!”

Everyone ran upstairs to catch the trespasser, but he was not to be found. Then a scuffle, and confused shouts from the garden, reached the ears of the crowd who stood wondering what next to do. A clear shrill whistle echoed through the place, and Mr. Fabian turned impatiently.

“Now you’ve spoiled the arrest of those two burglars. I was to get the outside man when that whistle sounded, to tell me that Mr. Alex had the inside man safely in hand.”

But the shouting and whistling sounded more confused on the garden-side of the house, so they all ran downstairs again, and went out to assist in any way they might.

Someone was hanging on to someone else who clung for dear life to a thick vine that grew up the side wall and over the roof of the inn. It was this rope-like vine that the girls had mistaken for a rope of escape for the thief. Mr. Alexander was in the garden, trying to drag down the escaping burglar, while that individual was trying to climb back into the room whence he had recently come.

Just as the others rushed out into the dark garden to assist Mr. Alexander, another man appeared at the upper window and caught hold of his associate’s hands to pull him back to safety.

“Wait! I get my ladder!” shouted the host, running for the shed. But a howl of rage, and French curses tumbling pell-mell from him told the others that he had gone headlong into a new danger.

Mr. Fabian and the young man-waiter ran to help the poor inn-keeper, and to their amazement they found he had collided with Mrs. Alexander’s roadster which was standing behind the bushes, facing towards the road.

“I’ll turn on the lights, in a moment, and see if all is right,” quickly said Mr. Fabian, jumping up to start the engine.

Before he could switch on the lights, however, a general shout of dismay came from the people assembled under the window, and the three men ran back to see what had happened.

The second-story windows were not more than eight feet above the garden at the rear, as the ground sloped down gradually to the front of the Inn. The first story was very low, too, so that anyone could climb up at the rear without difficulty.

When Mr. Fabian and his two companions reached the scene under the windows, they found three people rolling upon the ground in a tight clutch. The man from the inside of the room who had been finally pulled out and over the ledge; the man who had clung to the vine, for some reason or other, and the third man who had stood at the bottom of the vine and hung on to the climbing man’s heels.

From this mÊlÉe of three, Mr. Alexander’s voice sounded clear and threatening. A deep bass voice gurgled as if in extremity, but the third voice was shrill and hysterical and sounded like a woman’s.

Lights were hurried to the spot, and the three contestants were separated, then Mr. Alexander had the satisfaction of turning to the inn-keeper and saying: “I caught them both without help. I saved your place from being robbed.”

But one of the two captured burglars sat down on the grass and began to sob loudly. The host seemed distracted for a moment, then tore off the big soft hat the gypsy wore. Down came a tangle of hair, and his daughter turned a dirt-streaked face up at her furious father.

“What means this masquerading! And who is the accomplice?” shouted he.

“Oh, father,” wailed the girl. “Pierre and I were married at the FÊte last week, but you would not admit him to the house and I never could get away, so we said we would run away together and start a home elsewhere,” confessed the frightened daughter.

Pierre stood by, trembling in fear of his father-in-law, but when everyone realized that poor Pierre was but trying to secure his bride’s personal effects which she had tied in several bundles, they felt sorry for the two.

It had been Pierre’s idea to dress Jeanne in a gypsy’s garb that no one could recognize her when they escaped, and it was Jeanne who suggested that they use the roadster to carry all her effects, and then Pierre could drive it back and leave it near the inn without the owner’s knowledge.

The father led his two prisoners to the public-room and the guests trailed behind them, wondering at such an elaborate plan for escape when the two had been married a week and might have walked out quietly without disturbing others, at night.

In an open session of the parental court, the inn-keeper was induced to forgive the culprits and take the undesirable Pierre to his heart and home. Then everyone smiled, and the waiter proposed that the host open a bottle of his best old wine to celebrate the reception of the married pair.

“Why did you object to the young man? He looks like a good boy?” asked Mr. Fabian, when the young pair were toasted and all had made merry over the capture of the two.

“He has a farm four miles out, and I want a son who will run this inn when I am too old. He dislikes this business and I dislike farming. So there you are!” explained the host.

“But you won’t have to work the farm,” argued Mr. Fabian. “You have the inn and many years of good health before you to enjoy it, and they have the farm. I think the two will work together, very nicely, for you can get all your vegetables and eggs and butter from your daughter, much cheaper than from strangers.”

“Ah yes! I never thought of that!” murmured the inn-keeper, and a smile of satisfaction illumed his heavy face.

The next morning the young pair were in high favor with the father, and he was telling his son-in-law about various things he must raise on his farm so that both families might save money.

Then the tourists drove away from Agen with the inn-keeper’s blessings ringing in their ears, and after a long tiresome drive they came to Bordeaux. Various places of interest were visited in this city, and the next day they drove on again.

Brittany, with its wealth of old chateaux, was reached next, and time was spent prodigally, that the girls might view the wonderful old places where tourists were welcomed.