“We will do nothing sneaky for you at all, Sammy Pinkney!” exclaimed Tess indignantly.
“Aw, go on! You can just as easy.”
“We can, but we won’t. So there! And if you don’t go home with us when the man takes us back in his car we certainly will tell where you are.”
“Be a telltale. I don’t care,” cried Sammy, roughly. “And I won’t say just where we are going from here, so you needn’t think my folks will find me.”
One of the closed vans—something like a moving van only with windows in the sides, a stove-pipe sticking out of the roof, and a door at the rear, with steps—seemed now to be ready to start. A man climbed into the front seat to drive it. Several women and smaller children got in at the rear after the various bales and packages that had been tossed in. The big man suddenly shouted and beckoned to Tess and Dot.
“Here, little ladies,” he said, still smiling his wide smile. “You come go wit’ my mudder, eh? Take you to find the Gypsy women you want to see.”
“But—er—Mr. Gypsy,” said Tess, somewhat disturbed now, “we must go back home.”
“Sure. Tak’ you home soon as you see those women and give them what you got for them.”
He strode across the camp to them. His smile was quite as wide, but did not seem to forecast as much good-nature as at first.
“Come now! Get in!” he commanded.