"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."
"Why not?" he said, his eyes twinkling, for teasing Grace 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.