It was a pleasant journey; the roads were good and the sun shone. They sat with their feet on the shafts, and Dan talked more than he had ever talked before. He told Maggie of his youth and the tents among which he was born; of his half-Spanish mother, who had died in the cold of a snowy winter; and of his father, who had beaten him with a strap till he had learnt to ride better than any of the other boys. She heard how he and his brother got enough money to buy the van and the horses, and how he had met Rhoda at a great gipsy gathering; how she had sung ‘The Wind in the Broom’ for him by a camp-fire when all their companions had gone to sleep; how they had sat till the morning came and the stars went out like so many street-lamps in the daylight. Then he said very little more, and sat with his cap pulled over his eyes, whistling the tune of ‘The Wind in the Broom’ till the journey was done. They had come to an old quarry cut into the hollow of a hill-side. Dan unharnessed the horse, and they began their work. It was getting dark when they heard approaching wheels and saw their friends coming up the winding road. Maggie could hear the Cochin-Chinaman’s hoarse voice proclaiming his arrival and distinguish in the dusk the smaller basket tied on the top step of the van, in which Alfonso, according to custom, travelled alone. The Cochin-Chinaman’s wife, who was greedy, was already making a disturbance and demanding to know how soon they might expect their evening meal. It was late by the time Maggie was able to prepare it. She turned it out in a heap and let the birds loose. They rushed at it, pushing and struggling to get the best bits, the speckled hen screaming to her husband to protect her from the other hens, and to see that she was not robbed of her share. Then Maggie took Alfonso’s little plate, and, putting a few nice spoonfuls in it, went up the van steps. But she opened the basket and looked in, to find that Alfonso was gone. * * * * * Then indeed there was consternation in the camp. Maggie’s tears fell fast and heavy down her cheeks as she sat looking into the empty basket. The whole family came out at her call and stood bewailing itself in different ways. The man with the gold earrings swore, the wife fixed her dark gaze on her weeping servant, and Dan hung about trying to comfort Maggie. But she cared for none of them, and only when the Cochin-Chinaman hurried from his food to her side did she dry her eyes. “He’s gone! he’s gone!” she wailed, “and we shall never see him again. O Alfonso! Alfonso! how I loved you!” “The basket was fastened down when you saw it first, and that shows that someone has taken him. If he had fallen out it would have been open,” said Dan. “I took fine care not to let anyone see him,” observed his brother; “he was too good a bird to run risks with.” At this Maggie started up.