The spot which the Gipsies had selected for their camp was an ideal one. On one side lay the road, on the other the brook. It is probable that the band had camped there each summer for a number of years and that their occupancy of the spot had denuded it of underbrush. At all events, it was quite clear of bushes and was just such a place as one would have picked out for a picnic. The trees were scattered, but gave plenty of shade; there was a fine turf underfoot; the road was at their front door and water at their back. There were two big, gaily painted vans and five tents, the latter scattered about apparently at haphazard. One tent, a circular one and the largest of the lot, was set in the center of the grove, and this Chub guessed to be the queen’s apartment. Here and there clothes hung drying or airing from the branches, some bales of hay were piled beside one of the wagons, there was a pungent odor of smoke from a smoldering fire. Chub counted eight horses tethered about where they could crop the grass. Outside one of the tents hung a string of baskets, and in the air, mingling with the odor of the wood-smoke, was a faint perfume of sweet-grass. Each tent appeared to have its own fireplace and commissary. Kettles and pans littered the ground about the piles of ashes, and here and there dried branches were heaped for fuel. It was all rather interesting, and for a moment Chub quite forgot his errand. There were three men, perhaps twice as many women, and several children, the children ranging in age all the way from that of the baby, who kicked and crowed in his mother’s arms, to that of the lad of apparently twelve, who was lazily breaking up fire-wood with an ax at the far side of the camp. The men were frankly idle, sitting with pipes in mouth outside one of the tents. The women, all save the one with the baby, were busy. One was mixing something for supper in a flat tin pan, others were weaving baskets, and another was sewing. Chub had always imagined Gipsies to be rather picturesque folks, with earrings and brightly hued costumes. But there was little of the picturesque about these. The women wore calico dresses of blue or brown, the men were clad in things that would have disgraced a tramp, and the children came into, apparently, whatever was left. Chub, looking them over, decided that the doctor was quite right; they certainly were an evil-looking lot, and he wondered what their course would be if they suddenly discovered him lying here behind the bush. They looked as though they would hesitate at nothing. And just when he had reached that decision, one of the men broke into laughter, the others joined him, and the women smiled in sympathy, the swarthy faces falling into soft lines and the dark eyes glinting merrily. Perhaps, Chub reflected, they were human, after all. This, under the circumstances in which he found himself, was an encouraging thought.