horses stood ready to draw.

"Eat quickly," cried Marushka. "There is but a crust left, I saved it for you. We go on the road to-day, and hunger will gnaw your stomach before we camp again." Banda Bela took the food, ate it hurriedly, and ran up to Stepan.

"Let me help," he said briefly.

"Who are you and what can you do?" the young chief looked him over keenly.

"I am Banda Bela. I can make music with my violin, swing an adze, cut bowls from wood, drive a horse, row a boat, catch fish, do as I am bid, and keep my tongue silent," he said.

"If you can do the last two things you have already learned much," said Stepan. "Go and help Jarnik load, for he is old and feels himself young."

Banda Bela nodded and went over to where the old man was loading one of the carts. He helped as best he could and soon the wagons were loaded and the camp deserted. The Gypsies had taken the road. It was a beautiful day. The wind blew cool and free from the river, which swept along at the foot of wooded heights, gleaming like glass in the morning sun. Ducks splashed in the water, and now and then Banda Bela saw the waters boil and bubble. Something black would flash above the surface, there would be a splash and a swirl of waters, and the radiating ripples reached the shore as a great fish would spring into the air, flash in the sunlight, and sink into the waters again.

Steamers passed down the stream on their way to Buda-Pest, or towing huge barges filled with the peasants' teams and wagons, loaded with grain to be ground at the quaint water mills, built on piles out in the stream where the current was so strong as to turn the huge wheels quickly and grind the grain, raised on the great plains of the south. To the north the mountains rose blue and beautiful. The boy saw all. His eyes shone; his cheek was flushed.

"Good is the Gypsy trail," he said to himself. "Sun, light, and wind, all free, and I am with mine own people. Life is sweet."

All day long the carts rumbled along. When the sun was high overhead the Gypsies rested beside the river. Banda Bela caught some fish, and Rosa cooked them for supper.

Next day they turned from the river and travelled over the plains. There was no shade. To the right stretched great fields of maize and flax. The dust was white and fine, and so hot it seemed almost to prick their faces like needles. It rose in white clouds around the carts and followed them in whirling columns.

In front of them from time to time other clouds of dust arose, which, upon nearing, they discovered to be peasant carts, driven with four or six horses, for the peasants in this part of Hungary are rich and prosperous. The soil is fertile and yields wonderful crops, though for ninety years it has had no rest, but the peasants are not tempted to laziness by the ease with which things grow. They begin their day's work at three o'clock in the morning and work until eight or nine at night, eating their luncheon and supper in the fields.

Banda Bela saw many of them, fine, tall fellows, working easily and well, but in his heart he was glad that he did not have to toil under the hot sun.

Shepherds were seated here and there in the fields, looking like small huts, for they wore queer conical bundas which covered them from their necks to their knees. These sheepskin coats are worn both winter and summer, for the shepherds say they keep out heat as well as cold.

The shepherds must watch the flocks by day and night, and when the weather is wet they sleep sitting on small round stools to keep them from the damp ground. Toward dark the Gypsy band halted by the roadside, near to a group of shepherds' huts. Here they were to stop for the night and Banda Bela was glad, for his legs ached with fatigue. He had walked nearly all day except for a short time when Marushka had asked to have him ride in the cart and play for her.

The shepherds greeted the Tziganes kindly. Jews and Armenians the Hungarians dislike, but for the Gypsies there is a fellow feeling, for all Hungarians love music and nearly all Tziganes have music at their fingers' ends and in their velvet voices.

The Gypsies pitched their tents and Banda Bela stole aside from the camp to play his beloved violin. He tuned it and then gently ran his bow up and down the strings and began a soft little melody. It was like the crooning song of a young mother to her child. The boy was a genius, playing with wonderful correctness and with a love for music which showed in every note he sounded. The shepherds paused in preparing their evening meal and listened. When he ceased playing they called to him, "If you will play more you may eat with us."

"I will play gladly, and gladly will I eat," he answered, showing in a gleaming smile his teeth, even and white as a puppy's. In the pockets of the shepherds' coats were stored all manner of good things, bacon, black bread, and wine, even slivowitz, the wonderfully good Hungarian brandy, which Banda Bela had tasted only once in his life, but which the Gypsies make to perfection.

The shepherds' camp had a one-roomed, straw-thatched hut, which they used as a storehouse for their coats and extra food supplies. A great well was in front of the hut. It had a huge beam of wood with a cross-piece at the top and from this hung a bucket. The boy drew up a bucketful of the water and found it deliciously cold.

Near the camp was the shepherds' cooking hut, made of reeds tied together and with a hole in the top for the escape of the smoke. The hut looked like a corn shock with a door in one side. This door was open and Banda Bela saw a fire burning brightly, a pot hung over the embers, and a smell of kasa arose, as a tall shepherd tossed the meal and bacon into a kind of cake.

Marushka had strayed away from the Gypsies and now stood beside Banda Bela shyly watching the cooking in silence. She was a quiet little thing, with her golden hair unlike the bold, black-eyed little Gypsy children who rolled around the ground, half clad, snatching food from the pot and gnawing bones like hungry dogs.

"Who is this child?" asked one of the shepherds. "She is no Gypsy. What is your name, child?"

"I am Marushka," she answered sweetly. "Who are you?"

"I am a shepherd," he said, smiling at her.

"Do you tend sheep all day?" she demanded.

"No, once I was one of the juhasz,[2] but now I am past that. I am one of the gulyas,[3] and in another year I shall be among the csikos."[4]

"Where are your oxen?" asked Marushka.

"There in the plain," he said, pointing to what looked like a great, still, white sea some distance away. As he spoke the sea seemed to break into waves, first rippling, then stormy, as the oxen rose to their feet, many of them tossing their heads in the air and bellowing loudly. They were immense creatures, perfectly white and very beautiful, with great dark eyes and intelligent faces.

"There are my children," said the shepherd. "But I am