threatening gesture of his uplifted hand.

"Hit me, if you will," she said. "I am not your wife yet, but when I am
it will be your right to strike me if you wish. But I know what you have
done. I know, too, that the Americans know it. Do you think you can
escape from these woods without being caught?"

John stared at her angrily.

"I am going now to the camp," he said. "If. they come looking for news
of the girl, they will find me there, and plenty to swear that I have
been there all this night, and so could not have done what they charge.
My tribe will help me; it is my right to call upon it for help."

"You forget me," said Lolla, dangerously. "I will swear that I saw you
here, where I came to look for you because you had stayed away from the
camp all the night. And when I tell my brothers, what will they swear?"

Again the man muttered something in the gypsy-tongue, but under his
breath. When he spoke aloud to Lolla it was in English.

"They are Barlomengri; they will support me. They will never let the
policemen take me away. They are my brothers--"

"Do you think you can jilt their sister, the girl you asked for as your
wife before all the tribe, and escape their vengeance? Do you think they
will not punish you, even by seeing that you die in a prison, in a
cell?"

And now John, beside himself with anger, fulfilled the threat of his