Nan of the Gypsies

It was mid-afternoon when Nan saw that the winding downward road was leading into a valley town. It would take the slow moving caravan at least an hour to reach the village, while Nan, on her pony, could gallop there very quickly. Not far below was a dense grouping of live oak trees. She would slip among them on Binnie and then, out of sight of the caravan, she would gallop across the fields to the town. “Manna Lou,” the girl said softly that she need not awaken the sleeping Tirol, “I’m going for a little ride.”

“That’s nice, dearie,” the kind gypsy woman replied. “It will do you good. The sunshine is warm and cheery.”

It was a rough road and the caravan was moving slowly. Many of the fox-like gypsy children were running alongside, and Nan joined them.

She wanted to be sure where Anselo Spico was riding. As she had hoped, he was on the driver’s seat of Queen Mizella’s wagon which was always in the lead.

Running back, she was about to mount her pony when she heard her name called softly. Turning, she saw Manna Lou beckoning to her. Springing to the home wagon, she went inside.

“What is it, Manna Lou?” she asked. “You look so strange.”

“We thought little Tirol was asleep all this time, and so he was, but it’s the kind of sleep that you don’t waken from. Maybe he’s in the gorigo heaven now with Zitha, his mother.”

The girl felt awed. “Why, Manna Lou,” she whispered, “little Tirol looks happier than I ever saw him before. See how sweetly he’s smiling.”

“Yes, dearie, he is happier, for his poor, crooked back was always hurting him, but he was a brave little fellow, cheerful and uncomplaining.”

The caravan stopped and Manna Lou went out to tell the others what had happened. The gypsy girl, alone with the boy who had so loved her, knelt by his side and kissing him tenderly, she said: “Little Tirol, darling, Nan has staid here and put up with the cruelty of Angelo Spico, just to be taking care of you, but now that you aren’t needing Nan any more, she’s going far away. Good-bye, dearie.”

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That night while the caravan was moving at a slow pace over the moonlit road and all save the drivers were asleep, Nan, slipped out of Manna Lou’s wagon, leaped to the back of Binnie and galloped back by the way they had come.

CHAPTER IV.

NAN ESCAPES

All night long Gypsy Nan, on the back of her small horse Binnie climbed the steep mountain road, a full moon far over her head transforming everything about her to shimmering silver.

A bundle tied in a beautiful shawl of scarlet and gold contained all that belonged to her and food enough to last for several days.

Nan was on the ridge of a mountain road when the sun rose, and to her joy saw the village of San Seritos lying in the valley below, and beyond was the gleaming blue sea.

She drew rein and gazed ahead wondering where she should go, when her ears, trained to notice all of nature’s sounds, heard the startled cry of some little ground animal. Dismounting, she bent over the place from which the sound had come and saw an evil-eyed rattle-snake about to spring upon a squirrel that seemed powerless to get away.

Nan, whose heart was always filled with pity for creatures that were weak and helpless, threw a rock at the snake which glided into the underbrush. Then she lifted the squirrel, feeling its heart pounding against her hand. She carried the little thing across the road and placed it on an overhanging limb of a live oak tree.

“There now! Nan’s given you a chance to get away from the snake. That’s what Anselo Spico is, a rattle-snake, an’ I’m trying to get away.”

She was about to mount on her pony when she again paused and listened intently. This time she heard the galloping of a horse. Peering through the trees, back of her, she saw a black pony and its rider fairly plunging down the rough road on the opposite side of the canyon she had just crossed. In half an hour, perhaps less, that horse and rider would reach the spot where she was standing.

Nan’s fears were realized. She was being pursued. The rider she knew even at that distance, to be Vestor, a cruel man who would do anything his master Anselo Spico commanded.

Where could she hide? It would have been easier if she had been alone, but it would not be a simple matter to conceal the pony. Mounting, the girl raced ahead. A turn in the mountain road brought her to a ranch. It was so very early that no one was astir. Riding in and trusting to fate to protect her, she went at once to a great barn and seeing a stack of hay in one corner, she wedged her pony back of it and stood, scarcely breathing, waiting for, she knew not what, to happen.

But, although the moments dragged into an hour, no one came. At last, unable to endure the suspense longer, the girl slipped from her hiding-place, and, keeping close to the wall of the old barn she sidled slowly toward a wide door. She heard voices not far away.

“You ain’t seen nothing of a black-haired wench in a yellar an’ red dress?”

It was Vestor speaking and it was quite evident that he was snarling angry. Nan peered through a knot-hole, her heart beating tempestuously. The gypsy’s gimlet-like black eyes were keeping a sharp lookout all about him as he talked. The rancher’s back was toward the girl. He, at first, quietly replied, but when Vestor took a step toward the barn, saying he’d take a look around himself, the brawny rancher caught his arm, whirled him about and pointed toward the road. “I’ll have none of your kind prowlin’ about my place. You’d lake a look, all right, but I reckon you’d take everything else that wa’n’t held down wi’ a ton of rock.

“I know the thievin’, lying lot of you. I’d as soon shoot one of you down as I would a skunk, an’ sooner, if ’twant for the law upholding of you, though gosh knows why it does.” Then, as Vestor kept looking intently at the open barn door, the rancher, infuriated by the man’s doggedly remaining when he had been told to be off, sprang toward a wagon, snatched a whip and began to lash the gypsy about the legs.

With cries of pain, Vestor turned an ugly visage toward the rancher, but meeting only determination and equal hatred, he thought better of his attempt to spring at him, turned, went to his black pony, mounted it and rode rapidly back the way he had come.

He didn’t want to be too far behind the caravan fearing that the gorigo police might take him up and put him in jail on Anselo’s offense.

The rancher stood perfectly still for sometime after the gypsy had ridden away, then he also turned and looked toward the barn. Nan had at once sidled to her place back of the hay stack and so she did not see that he slowly walked that way.

Stopping in the door he listened intently. Then shrugging his shoulders, he went into the house to his breakfast. Half an hour later he again sauntered to the barn door. “Gal,” he called. “Hi, there, you gypsy gal! That black soul’d critter’s gone this long while. Don’t be afeard to come out. Ma’s waitin’ to give you some breakfast.”

Surely Nan could trust a voice so kindly. Timidly she appeared, leading the pony who was munching a mouthful of hay. The rancher smiled at the girl in a way to set her fears at rest, at least as far as he was concerned, but once out in the open she glanced around wildly. – “Where is he? Where’s that Vestor gone? Will he be back?”

For answer, the rancher motioned the girl to follow him. He led her to a high peak back of the barn. “You kin see from here to all sides,” he said: “You lie low, sort of, behind that big rock an’ keep watchin’. The scoundrel rode off that a-way. If he keep’s a goin’, you’ll see him soon. If he turned back, well, I’ll let out the dogs.” Nan did as she had been told and from that high position, she soon saw, far across the canyon, riding rapidly to the south, the black pony bearing the man she feared.

She rose greatly relieved. “He’s gone sure enough, Vestor has.” Then, suspiciously she turned toward the man. “How did you know where I was?”

“I saw you go in,” the rancher told her, “an’ I was settin’ outside waitin for you to come out with whatever ’twas, you’d gone in to steal.”

A dark red mantled the girl’s face, and she said in a low voice. “I don’t steal an’ I don’t lie, but he does.” She jerked her head in the direction Vestor had taken. “So do the rest, mostly, but, they don’t all. Manna Lou don’t steal and she don’t lie. She fetched me up not to.”

The girl’s dark eyes looked into the penetrating grey eyes of the rancher with such a direct gaze that he believed her.

A woman appeared on the back porch and called to them. “Fetch the gal in for a bite of breakfast if she ain’t too wild like.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want any breakfast,” Nan said. Then, noting that Binnie was still chewing on the hay he had pulled from the stack, she added, – “I haven’t any money, or I’d pay for what he’s had. I couldn’t keep him from eating it.”

“Of course you couldn’t, gal,” the rancher said kindly. Then, as he saw that the girl was determined to mount her pony and ride away, he asked – “Where are you going to? I don’t have to ask what you’re running away from? I know that purty well.”

The girl shook her head and without a smile, she again said “Thanks.” Then, quite unexpectedly, for the man had seen her make no sign, the pony broke into a run and she was gone.

CHAPTER V.

NAN REVISITS THE GARDEN

For half an hour Nan rode, bent low in her saddle possibly with the thought that she would be less noticeable. Each time that the winding road brought her to an open place where she could see across the valley, she drew rein and gazed steadily at the ribbon-like trail which appeared, was lost to sight, and re-appeared for many miles to the south.

At last what she sought was seen, a horseman so small because of the distance that he appeared no larger than a toy going rapidly away. Sitting erect, the girl gazed down in the other direction and saw the garden city of San Seritos between the mountains and the sea.

“Ho, Binnie!” she cried, her black eyes glowing. “I know where we’ll go. – Back to that beach place where the flowers of gold are.”

And then, in the glory of the still early morning, with her black hair flying back of her, the girl in the red and yellow dress galloped down to the highway and rode around the village, that no-one might see her and arrest her because she was a gypsy.

There were but few astir at so early an hour, but the sun was high in the heavens when at last she reached the little ravine that led down to the sea.

This time she breakfasted alone in the shadow of the high hedge, and the shining white birds did not come.

“Perhaps they only came for little Tirol,” she thought. Then springing up, she stretched her arms toward the gleaming blue sky as she said: “I do want little Tirol to be happy.”