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Rh sweet-grass; making baskets, I guess; there were a lot of them hanging around camp.”

“I thought the queens never did any work,” Chub objected.

“I don’t know. I never saw but one band of Gypsies before; we don’t have ’em out West much.”

“There was one young fellow,” said Roy, “that wasn’t any darker than I am. Dick insists that he is a white person and was stolen when a child.”

“Well, he might have been,” said Dick. “You read about such things.”

“In books,” added Chub—“books like ‘Little Goldie’s Vow,’ you know.”

“What’s that?” asked Roy.

Chub darted a glance at Harry’s disturbed countenance and shook his head.

“Nothing that you should know about, Roy. It’s a novel. When you’re a few years older—”

But Roy threatened him with the contents of his tin cup, and Chub ceased. After supper was over and the things cleaned up they went back to the boat and climbed to the upper deck. The breeze, which had mitigated the heat during the day, had died down, and it was cooler here than on shore.