"Oh, why didn't you make more?" was Will's uncivil comment.
For a long time Allen and Betty wandered through the woods, seeing nothing and hearing nothing but the usual sights and sounds of the forest—and seemingly quite content to go on in that way forever.
It was Allen who first broke the silence. "I wish you would tell me what you are thinking about so hard, Betty. It must be very interesting, because you haven't said a word to me since we left that lazy crowd back there. 'Fess up!"
Betty flushed faintly. "You should never ask what a person thinks about on a beautiful summer, day when she is wandering through the woodland with—with——"
"Whom?" Allen prompted softly. "Go on, Betty, finish the story."
"Can't," she smiled up at him roguishly. "It's one of those 'to be continued.'"
He caught her hand, but she drew it away quickly. "Allen, what's this?" she cried.
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.