ooking steadily into the
eyes of Marcu, he said:

"As I said this morning, Marcu, it is not fair that you should buy wives
from us when you like our women and not sell us yours when we like
them."

"It is as it is," countered the gipsy savagely.

"But it is not fair," argued Mehmet, slyly watching every movement of
his old friend.

"If Mehmet is tired my arms are strong enough to help if he wishes,"
remarked Marcu.

"No, I am not tired, but I should like my friend to know that I think it
is not fair."

There was a long silence during which the boat was carried downstream
although it was kept in the middle of the river by skilful little
movements of the boatman.

Fanutza looked at the Tartar. He was about the same age as Stan was.
Only he was stronger, taller, broader, swifter. When he chanced to look
at her his small bead-like eyes bored through her like gimlets. No man
had ever looked at her that way. Stan's eyes were much like her own
father's eyes. The Tartar's face was much darker than her own. His nose
was flat and his upper lip curled too much noseward and the lower one
chinward, and his bulletlike head rose from between the shoulders. There
was no neck. No, he was not beautiful to look at. But he was so
different from Stan! So different from any of the other men she had seen
every day since she was born. Why! Stan--Stan was like her father. They
were all like him in her tribe!

"And, as I said," Mehmet continued after a while, "as I said, it is not
fair. My friend must see that. It is not fair. So I offer you twenty
gold pieces for the girl. Is it a bargain?"

"She is not for sale," yelled Marcu, understanding too well the meaning
of the oars out of the water.

"No?" wondered Mehmet, "not for twenty pieces of gold? Well, then I
shall offer five more. Sure twenty-five is more than any of your people
ever paid to us for a wife. It would shame my ancestors were I to offer
more for a gipsy girl than they ever received for one of our women."

"She is not for sale," roared the gipsy at the top of his voice.

By that time the Tartar knew that Marcu was not armed. He knew the chief
too well not to know that a knife or a pistol would have been the answer
to his second offer and the implied insult to the race of gipsies.

Twenty-five gold pieces! thought Fanutza. Twenty-five gold pieces
offered for her by a Tartar at a second bid. She knew what that meant.
She had been raised in the noise of continual barg