“You keep-a them here—you see? If those kids get out, I knock you good. See?”
Sammy saw stars at least! He would not answer the man. There was something beside stubbornness to Sammy Pinkney. But stubbornness stood him in good stead just now.
“Don’t you mind, Tess and Dot,” he whispered, his own voice broken with half-stifled sobs. “I’ll get you out of it. We’ll run away first chance we get.”
“But it never does you any good to run away, Sammy,” complained Tess. “You only get into trouble. Dot and I don’t want to be beaten by that man. He is horrid.”
“I wish we could see those nice ladies who sold us the basket,” wailed Dot, quite desperate now. “I—I’d be glad to give ’em back the bracelet.”
“Sh!” hissed Sammy. “We’ll run away and we’ll take the bracelet along. These Gyps sha’n’t ever get it again, so there!”
“Humph! I don’t see what you have to say about that, Sammy,” scoffed Tess. “If the women own it, of course they have got to have it. But I don’t want that Big Jim to have it—not at all!”
“He won’t get it. You leave it to me,” said Sammy, with recovered assurance.
The van door was neither locked nor barred. But if the children had stepped out of it the firelight would have revealed their figures instantly to the Gypsies.
Either the women bending over the pots and pans at the fires or the children running about the encampment would have raised a hue and cry if the little captives had attempted to run away. And there were a dozen burly men sitting about, smoking and talking and awaiting the call to supper.