was one of his
greatest delights. "I wouldn't go in anybody's house and deliberately
steal anything, but if somebody is kind enough to do it for me----"

"It will do you as much good as it will them, eh, Frank?" finished Will,
companion in crime.

"I think you are just talking to hear yourselves talk," Grace commented,
and Betty heartily approved. "That's the most sensible thing I ever
heard you say, Grace."

"I'm getting stiff sitting on my heels," Mollie complained. "I wish
those old gypsies would go home where they belong, and let us get up."

"Seventh inning," said Frank. "All get up and stretch."

Willingly they followed his example, but no sooner had they risen to
their feet than they were sent scuttling back again like rabbits into a
burrow. The bushes were pushed aside and an aged gypsy stepped forth
from the opening. With a little gasp of excitement the girls realized
that he was without his heavy pack. Whatever it was they had brought
evidently had been left behind in the cave. One by one they emerged
until their number was complete. The last of the little band, a lad
apparently no more than sixteen years old, replaced the screening bushes
very carefully across the mouth of their hiding place. Then they turned,
and retraced their steps, still speaking that strange melodious tongue
of theirs, until they had reached the shore and departed the way they
had come. It was not till then that the watchers ventured to speak above
a whisper.

"Now for the cave and what it contains!" cried Will, and started for the
spot the gypsies had so lately occupied.

The girls and boys followed him, the former excited yet half fearful.

"Do you think we had better?" asked Amy, as Will pushed aside the
curtain of foliage and peered inside. "It's getting dark, and besides
the gypsies might come back. Please don't, Will."

"Do you mean to say that you girls want us to go home without seeing
what is in there?" asked Frank incredulously. "It can't be done, Amy."

Nevertheless, the boys hesitated before the entrance to this mysterious
hole. After all, it was getting dark and the very blackness of the place
was forbidding.

"If we only had some matches," said Roy uncertainly. "It wouldn't do us
much good to go stumbling around in the dark."

"And I presume Mrs. Irving is back and will be terribly worried," Mollie
added, seizing upon the most effective argument she could think of. "She
told us to be home before dark."

"Yes