mere suggestion of
leaving that he had resigned himself, and thereafter the sight of his
weekly bill evoked nothing more than a shudder and a prayer--a prayer
that none of his wells would go dry overnight.

But lifelong habits of prudence are not easily broken. The Notch Hotel
was altogether too rich for Gus Briskow's blood, so he sought a more
congenial environment. He found it in the village, in a livery stable;
there, amid familiar odors and surroundings both agreeable and
economical, he spent most of his time, leaving Ma to amuse herself and
Allie to pursue the routine of studies laid down by her tutoress.

Now Ma had not gone wild all at once; her atavism had been gradual--the
result of her persistent explorations. She had never seen a real
waterfall, for instance, and the first one proved so amazing that she
was impelled to seek more, after which she became interested in caves,
and before long her ramblings had taken her up every watercourse and
into every ravine in the neighborhood. This sense of treading untrodden
ground roused in Ma a venturesome spirit of independence, an
unsuspected capacity for adventure, and when the wealth of her
discoveries failed to awaken interest in her family she ceased
reporting them and became more solitary than ever in her habits. Every
morning she slipped out of the hotel, meandered through the grounds
apparently without purpose, but in reality pursuing a circuitous route
and taking sudden twistings and turnings to throw pursuers off the
scent. Ever deeper into the wilderness she penetrated, but with the sly
caution of an old fox returning to its lair, for she was always being
followed by wicked people, such, for instance, as minions of the law,
members of the Black Hand, foreign spies, gen-darmys, and detectifs.
Having baffled them all, she laughed scornfully, flung deceit to the
winds, then hurried straight to the "fastness," and there uttered the
tribal call. At the sound her gypsy band came bounding forth to meet
her, and she gave them her royal hand to kiss, raising them graciously
when they knelt, giving a kind word here or a sharp reprimand there.

They were the fiercest gypsies in the world, and quarrelsome, too. They
were forever fighting among themselves and crying: "Curse you, Jack
Dalton! Take that!" and plunging swords into one another, but they had
good hearts and they loved Ma and were devoted to her lost cause. She
could handle them where others would have faile