nglish at the head of the queen's van.

Ruth believed that a searching party had overtaken the Gypsies. She
feared there would be a fight, and she was anxious to show herself, so
that her unknown rescuers might see her.

But she dared not scream. Old Zelaya scowled at her so savagely and
threatened her so angrily with her clenched fist, that Ruth dared not
speak. Finally the old woman opened the door of the van and flung her
down the steps.

The act was so unexpected that Ruth fell into the arms of the crowd
waiting for her. It was evidently ready for her appearance. The boys and
girls, and some of the women, received her into their midst, and they
made so much noise, chattering and shrieking, and dancing about her,
that Ruth was both confused and frightened.

Had she herself shrieked aloud, her voice would have been drowned in the
general hullabaloo. This noise was all intentional on the part of the
Gypsies, for up at the head of the caravan Ruth caught a glimpse of a
big man standing with a stout oak club in his hand and a big shiny star
pinned to his vest near the armhole.

A constable! Whether he was there searching for her and Helen, or was
merely making inquiries about a robbed hen-roost, the girl from the Red
Mill could not guess. There was so much confusion about her, that she
could not hear a word the constable said!

She waved her hand to him and tried to attract his attention. The girls
and boys laughed at her, and pulled her about, and the bold girl she had
seen before almost tore the frock from her shoulders.

Suddenly Ruth realized that, even did the constable look right at her,
he would not discover that she was a white girl. She looked just as
disreputable in every way as the Gypsy children themselves!

The constable came toward the first van. Zelaya now sat upon the top
step, smoking a cheroot, and nodding in the sun as though she were too
old and too feeble to realize what was going on. Yet Ruth was sure that
the sly old queen had planned this scene and told her tribesmen what to
do.

Ruth was whisked away from the steps of the queen's van, and borne off
by the shouting, dancing children. She tried to cry out so that the
constable would hear her, but the crowd drowned her cries.

She saw the constable search each of the three vans. Of course, he found
no girls answering to the descriptions of Ruth and Helen--and it was the
girls that he was searching for. He was Sim Peck, the
blacksmith-con