She had accidentally brushed aside some brambles that had caught on her dress, and there close beside them, so near that she could thrust her hand into the opening, yawned the cavernous black mouth of a cave.

Allen drew her aside quickly. "Don't go near it," he commanded, in a tone that made Betty look at him in surprise. "I'm suspicious of these caves until I have investigated them myself. I am going to have a look, Betty. You stay where you are."

But the Little Captain had not been so named for nothing. She seized Allen's arm, and drew him back from the opening.

"Allen, if you go in there, I'm going, too," she cried, her eyes blazing. "Do you suppose I'm going to stand here, and see you get eaten up by a--a----"

"A what?" said Allen, putting his hands on her shoulders and laughing down at her.

"Well, whatever there is in the cave," she finished lamely. "Anyway, I'm going in with you."

"Betty, do be reasonable," he pleaded, but she flared up at that.

"Do you know, Allen, there is nothing a girl hates more than to have a boy ask her to be reasonable, when she knows she is? Anyway," her voice lowered and she pleaded her turn. "Anyway, it's lots worse to see anybody get hurt, anybody that you like, that is, than it is to get hurt yourself."

"You little soldier," Allen murmured. "But can't you see, Betty, that I am here to protect you from danger if there is any--not let you run right into it?"

"Then there is no reason why you should, either," she said obstinately.

"Will it make you feel any better if we get the others?" Allen asked, just a little exasperated, for he liked mysteries and hated to leave them unsolved. "We can get to them in five minutes if we run."

"Yes, that will be better," Betty agreed, seizing the suggestion eagerly. "But do you think we can find the cave again?"

"Easily," said Allen. "You see, we are pretty near the water right here and that bent old tree at the edge of the lake--see what I mean?--well, that's right on the line with the mouth of the cave. I guess it will be easy enough to find."

So it was settled, and they raced back hand in hand to the spot where they had left their friends, eager to tell the news.

"So here you are," cried Mollie, at sight of the runaways. "We thought you were never coming back."

Allen wasted no time, but told his story in the fewest words possible.

They were all tremendously excited, and followed the two adventurers eagerly as they led the way along the shores of the lake.

"Are you sure you can find it again?" Grace was asking when Amy seized her arm and pointed out over the water.

"Look!" she cried. "Gypsies!"

CHAPTER XX

DANGEROUS VISITORS

"Gypsies?" Betty echoed. "Where?"

"Can't you see?" returned Amy. "They are fording just as that old man said they could. Oh, what are we going to do?"

The boys had been gazing with interest toward the little group of wanderers, but at Amy's cry they were aroused to sudden action.

"Get to a place where we can see, and not be seen," said Frank. "I'd like to watch this thing through."

"They are coming right this way, too," said Grace, delightfully afraid.

"Oh, what have they got on their backs?"

"Looks like loot of some sort," Will volunteered, peering forth from his tree trunk. "Say, this promises to be a lark, fellows."

"We'd better get back a little farther, if we don't want them to run right into us," Roy suggested. "They are headed this way."

The watchers retreated still farther into the woods until they came to a dense overgrowth of foliage which effectually screened them from prying eyes.

"This is just the thing," Roy exulted. "I tell you we are running in luck to-day."

"I am glad you think so," said Amy. "If one of those gypsies discovered us, I am afraid we wouldn't live long."

"Well, they are not going to," said Roy, overhearing the last remark.

"Don't be a wet blanket, Amy. Anyway, just because they are gypsies they needn't be murderers."

"I'm not a----" Amy was beginning, when Allen hissed a sharp warning.

"Keep still, everybody," he said. "They are not a hundred yards away!"

After that silence reigned, broken only occasionally by a nervous whisper from one of the girls as they watched the approach of the enemy--or so they regarded them--with breathless interest.

There were about twenty in the group, of which the majority were men. As they came nearer, the girls and boys could see how greatly their ages varied. Some were old men with white hair and flowing beards, while others were young striplings scarcely out of boyhood. Their clothes were many hued and picturesque, while each one carried on his back a huge bundle. They traveled along the bank, speaking in a low mellow tone, a language which the Outdoor Girls and the boys had never heard before.

Grace crowded close to Betty, and the Little Captain squeezed her arm reassuringly. "I kind of like them," she whispered. "They look so interesting. They look like bandits or----"

Frank's hand closed abruptly over her mouth--for low as her tone had been the gypsies were near enough now to hear the slightest whisper.

On, on came the little procession so near that the girls, by stretching out their hands, could almost have touched them. They scarcely dared to breathe.

The gypsies moved on for a short distance, then gathered about something the nature of which the girls and boys could not discern. In his curiosity, Allen forgot caution and rising from the protection of the bushes he tip-toed over to a more advantageous lookout. In a moment he was back again on his knees beside the crouching group crying in an excited manner: "It's our cave--the cave Betty and I discovered--they are going into it. Say, I wish we had gone in when we had the chance!"

"I don't," said Mollie, "they might have found you there and knifed you in the back or something."

"Especially something," mocked Roy. But Mollie was too excited to hear him.

"Look!" Grace cried. "Now that they are all inside, you wouldn't know that there was any opening there at all."

"It _is_ tough to have to sit outside and look at nothing," Roy began.

"Don't look at me when you say that," complained Mollie, with a little grimace.

"When we ought to be in there capturing the thieves--if that is what they are," he finished.

"I'd bet on it," said Frank. "All gypsies are born robbers. Just the same, I wouldn't mind having some of their loot."

"Frank!" Grace exclaimed, in a shocked voice. "You know you wouldn't like anything of the sort."