Ruth did not look at her. She listened intently. There was a heavy,
scraping foot upon the floor below. To _her_ mind, it did not sound like
Tom at all.

She held Helen warningly by the wrist and they continued to strain their
ears for some minutes. Then an odor reached them which Ruth was sure did
not denote Tom's presence in the room below. It was the smell of strong
tobacco smoked in an ancient pipe!

"What's that?" sniffed Helen, whisperingly.

Uncle Jabez smoked a strong pipe and Ruth could not be mistaken as to
the nature of this one. She remembered the two men who had hidden in the
bushes as the car rolled by, not many miles back on this road.

"Let's shout for Tom and bring him in here," Helen suggested.

"Perhaps get him into trouble? Let's try and find out, first, what sort
of people they are," objected Ruth, for they now heard talking and knew
that there were at least two visitors below.

Rising quietly, Ruth crept on tiptoe to the head of the stair. The
drumming rain helped smother any sound she might have made.

Slowly, stair by stair, Ruth Fielding let herself down until she could
see into the open doorway of the dining room. Two men were squatting on
the hearth, both smoking assiduously.

They were rough looking, unlovely fellows, and the growl of their voices
did not impress Ruth as being of a quality to inspire confidence.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

The two men were mumbling together--Ruth could not catch the words at
first. When she did, they meant nothing to her, and she was puzzled.

But suddenly one said in clear, if peculiar, English:

"The old hag bags the best of the loot--always, my Carlo."

The other replied, still gruffly, yet in a musical language that Ruth
could not identify; yet somehow she was reminded of Roberto. He, the
Gypsy lad, had formed his English sentences much as this ruffian had
formed his phrase. Were these two of Roberto's tribesmen?

"I like it not--I like it not!" the other burst out again, in anger.
"Why should she govern? It is an iron rod in a trembling hand."

"Psst!" snapped the other. "You respect neither age nor wisdom." He now
spoke in English, but later he relapsed into the Tzigane tongue. Helen
crept down to Ruth's side and listened, too; but it was little the girls
understood.

The angry ruffian--the complaining one--dropped more words in English
now and then, like: "We risk all--she nothing." "There were the pearls,
my Ca