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"What can we drink out of?" asked Midget.
"Have to drink out of our hands, I guess; wish we had a cup or something. Oh, look at that man!"
Midget looked in the direction King pointed, and saw a man seated on the ground, busily working at something which seemed to be made of long rushes of reeds.
"He's making a basket," cried King, greatly interested. "Let's go and look at him."
They trotted over to the man, and King said, politely, "Is that a basket you're making, sir?"
"Yes," came the answer in a gruff voice, and when the man looked up at them, they saw he was a strange-looking person indeed. His complexion was dark, his coarse black hair rather long, and his black eyes had a shrewd expression, but were without kindliness. "What do you want?" he said, still in his gruff voice.
"We don't want anything p'ticular," said Marjorie, who did not wish to be intrusive; "we did want a drink of water out of the brook, but we had nothing to drink from, and then we saw you building a basket, and we just came over to look at you. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, I don't mind," and the man's voice was a little less gruff as he looked at Marjorie's pretty smiling face. Then he gave her another look, somewhat more scrutinizing, and then he looked again at King. "You want a drink of water, do you?" and the look of interest in his round black eyes seemed to become intensified. "Well, I'll tell you what to do; you go right straight along that little path through the grass, and after a few steps, you'll find some people, and they'll give you a drink of water with pleasure, and a nice cup to drink it out of."
"Is it far?" asked Marjorie, for she couldn't see any signs of habitation, and did not wish to delay too long.
"No; 'tain't a dozen steps. Just behind that clump of trees yonder; you can't miss it."
"A farmhouse, I suppose," said King.
"Well, not just exactly a farmhouse," said the man, "but you go on, you youngsters, and whoever you see when you get there, tell 'em Jim sent you."
"We will; and thank you, Jim," said Marjorie, suddenly remembering her manners.
"You're welcome," said the man, and again his voice was gruff as at first.
"Somehow I don't like it, Mops," said King, who had a troubled look on his face as they walked swiftly along the path indicated.
"Don't like what?"
"His sending us over here. And I don't like him; he didn't look right."
"I thought he was very kind to tell us about the farmhouse, and if his voice is sort of gruff, I s'pose he can't help that."
"It isn't that exactly; but I think he's a, -- a -- "
"A what?"
"Never mind; here we are at the place. Why, Mops, it isn't a house at all! It's a tent, -- a lot of tents."
"So it is! It must be an encampment. Do you think there are soldiers here?"
"Soldiers? No! I only wish they were soldiers."
As King was speaking, a young woman came walking toward them, smiling in an ingratiating way. Like the man, Jim, she was dark-haired and dark-skinned. Her black eyes flashed, and her smiling red lips showed very white teeth as she spoke kindly to the children.
"Come in," she said, in a wheedling voice; "come in; I love little boys and girls. What do you want?"
Marjorie began to say, "We want a drink of water," when King pinched her elbow as a sign to be quiet, and he spoke to the woman himself. "We don't want anything," he said, "we're just passing by on our way to Pelton. Good-morning."
Grasping Marjorie's arm he turned to go away, but the woman stopped him, saying, "Oh, don't go so quickly; come in and rest a moment, and I will give you a drink of milk, and then you can go on to Pelton."
"Yes, let's do that, King," said Marjorie, looking at her brother, amazed at his ungracious actions.
But King persisted in his determination. "No, thank you," he said to the woman in a decided way; "you're very kind, but we don't care for any milk, and we must go right on to Pelton."
"And I say you must stay right here," said the woman, in much sterner tones than she had used before, and taking the children each by an arm, she pushed them ahead of her inside of the largest tent.
Chapter V
Held Captive
Then King's fears were realized. He had suspected these people were gypsies, and now he discovered that they were. Inside the tent were three or four men and women, all of the dark, gypsy type, and wearing the strange, bright-colored garments characteristic of their tribe. They did not seem ill-disposed toward the visitors, but welcomed them cordially, and one of the women went at once for a pitcher of milk, and brought it, with two glasses, which she set on the table.
King was not exactly frightened, for they all seemed pleasant and kind enough, but he couldn't help remembering how gypsies were credited with the habit of stealing children, and holding them for ransom. "But only babies," he thought to himself; "I don't believe they ever steal such big kids as Marjorie and me."
King was fifteen, and tall for his age, and as he looked at Marjorie he realized that she was a big girl, too, and he felt sure they were beyond the age of being kidnapped. But as he noted the furtive glances which were cast at them by the gypsies, he again felt alarmed, and glanced at Marjorie to see if her thoughts were like his own.
But they were not. Marjorie was chatting gaily with the good-looking young woman who had brought her into the tent, and she was accepting an invitation to have a glass of milk and a cracker.
As an old gypsy woman poured the milk from the pitcher into the glass, she turned her back to Marjorie, but King's alert eyes could see her shaking a small portion of white powder into the milk.
Like a flash it came to King what it all meant! They were kidnappers, these wicked gypsies, and they meant to put some drug in the milk that the children drank, so they would go to sleep, and then the kidnappers would carry them away!
King thought rapidly. He couldn't let Marjorie drink that milk, -- and yet if he made a fuss about it, they could easily overpower him. He determined to use strategy.
"Let me pass the glass to my sister," he said, jumping up, and going to take the glass from the old woman who had poured it. Unsuspectingly, she let him take it, but as he turned, he stumbled, purposely, against the table leg, and spilled all the milk on the ground.
"Oh, excuse me," he said, politely. "Now we shall have to go without a drink of milk! But we are just as much obliged, and we bid you good-morning. Come, Midget."
Marjorie was at a loss to understand King's actions, but she knew her brother well enough to know that his tone and his look meant that something very serious was the matter, and she was quite ready to obey him without knowing why.
But though he grasped her arm, and endeavored to lead her out of the tent, they were suddenly stopped. Two stalwart men who had been sitting in shadow at the back of the tent came forward, and grasping the children's shoulders, pushed them back into their seats rather roughly.
"You set down there!" said one of the men, "and don't you move till you're told to! We ain't decided just what to do with you yet, and when we see fit, we'll tell you, and not till then, so you just keep still!"
Marjorie suddenly sensed the situation. These people were enemies, not friends! She understood King's efforts to get her away, and she remembered, too, his misgivings as they were on their way across the field.
Moreover, it was she who had insisted on coming, and so she felt, in a way, responsible for what had happened to them. She jumped to her feet as soon as the man let go of her shoulder, and cried, with flashing eyes, "I will not keep still! What do you mean by treating me like that? Don't you know who I am? We're Maynards! We're Edward Maynard's children, -- and everybody loves the Maynards!"
"Oh, they do, do they!" said the man who had spoken before. "Then that's a mighty good reason why we should keep you here a little while."
"Keep us here!" stormed Marjorie, not at all realizing that they were being kidnapped, but merely thinking these people were playing some sort of a joke upon them. "Why should you keep us here? We want to go on."
"You want to go on, do you?" And the man fairly snarled at them; "well, you can't go on, and you may as well understand that! Didn't Jim send you?"