ed at him.

"We are sleepy, too," Amy confessed, "so we won't tell. Besides, don't
you suppose _we_ like plum pudding?"

"Good!" said Roy, leaning back against the tree with a relieved sigh.
"Now we can act naturally."

However, the Outdoor Girls and their boy chums were too active to remain
quiet long, even after plum pudding. Allen was the first to become
restless, and the others soon caught it from him. He rose, went through
some gymnastic exercises, then looked about him curiously. "I wonder if
there are any more places like this hereabout?" he said. "Does anybody
want to take a little tramp and find out? You look about as energetic as
a bunch of turtles. Come on, let's do something."

"Why do something when we can get lots more fun out of doing nothing?"
asked Roy lazily. "What wouldst have us do?"

"I just told you," Allen's tone showed disgust. "Isn't there one among
you with any pep at all? How about you, Betty? You're usually the one
to start things."

Betty looked up at him with a slow, tantalizing little smile. "That's
why I am letting you take the lead this time," she purred. "I thought
I'd wait and see who'd make the first move."

"And I am going to force the second move," and before she could guess
what he was going to do, he leaned over, caught her two hands in his and
pulled her to her feet. "Now, you are going to take a little walk with
me, young lady. If the rest of this lazy crowd don't want to come along,
they know what they can do!"

The Little Captain blinked at him uncertainty. "You might tell me what
you are going to do," she complained. "Look, Allen--you hurt me!"

He regarded the brown little hand, held up for his inspection,
anxiously. "I don't see anything," he said. "But if I hurt it I am
sorry," and he stroked the place that should have been red.

"If you are going, why don't you go?" Grace demanded, then added
meaningly: "I guess they _are_ glad we are lazy."

"Please don't make any insinuations," said Betty, her nose in the air,
but Allen sent a laughing shot back at them before they disappeared into
the denser wood.

"You can eat another plum pudding if you like," he said.

Frank chuckled audibly. "Wise old chap--Allen," he remarked.

"I wish we could take his advice," mourned Amy. "If you boys hadn't been
such pigs, we might have had some pudding left."

"Oh, why didn't you make more?" was Will's uncivil comment.

For a long time Allen and Betty wandered through the w