I are hungry, and you want your bone. Take us
out the other way, good Tiger--the other way, dear dog."

She moved instantly toward the little passage; the dog followed her.

"The other way," she said, and she turned her back on the long narrow
passage, and took a step or two into complete darkness. The dog began to
whine, caught hold of her dress, and tried to pull her back.

"Quite right, Tiger, we won't go that way," said Annie, instantly. She
returned into the dimly-lighted room.

"Find a way--find a way out, Tiger," she said.

The dog evidently understood her; he moved restlessly about the room.
Finally he got up on the bed, pulled and scratched and tore away the
straw at the upper end, then, wagging his tail, flew to Annie's side. She
came back with him. Beneath the straw was a tiny, tiny trap-door.

"Oh, Tiger!" said the girl; she went down on her knees, and, finding she
could not stir it, wondered if this also was kept in its place by a
system of balancing. She was right; after a very little pressing the door
moved aside, and Annie saw four or five rudely carved steps.

"Come, Nan," she said joyfully, "Tiger has saved us; these steps must
lead us out."

The dog, with a joyful whine, went down first, and Annie, clasping Nan
tightly in her arms, followed him. Four, five, six steps they went down;
then, to Annie's great joy, she found that the next step began to ascend.
Up and up she went, cheered by a welcome shaft of light. Finally she,
Nan, and the dog found themselves emerging into the open air, through a
hole which might have been taken for a large rabbit burrow.

CHAPTER XLVII.

RESCUED.

The girl, the child, and the dog found themselves in a comparatively
strange country--Annie had completely lost her bearings. She looked
around her for some sign of the gypsies' encampment; but whether she had
really gone a greater distance than she imagined in those underground
vaults, or whether the tents were hidden in some hollow of the ground,
she did not know; she was only conscious that she was in a strange
country, that Nan was clinging to her and crying for her breakfast, and
that Tiger was sniffing the air anxiously. Annie guessed that Tiger could
take them back to the camp, but this was by no means her wish. When she
emerged out of the underground passage she was conscious for the first
time of a strange and unknown experience. Absolute terror seized the
brave child; she trembled from head to f