"That's so, of course," Allen admitted reluctantly. "Just the same, it's a crime to leave a discovery like this without getting to the bottom of it."
"But we can come to-morrow," Betty pleaded. "It isn't as if——"
"Oh, I know all about that," he interrupted. "But we probably can't find the place to-morrow."
"Well, we will have to take our chances on that," cried Mollie, tapping her foot impatiently. "The rest of you may stay here all night if you want to, but I'm going back to 'The Shadows.'"
"Hold on a minute, Mollie, can't you?" said Will. "I wish it weren't so late, but since it is, I suppose we shall have to act accordingly. Who's got the lunch basket?"
"Frank had, the last time I saw it," said Amy, looking about her at the gathering shadows uneasily. "Oh, please let's hurry."
"I forgot all about the basket," Frank confessed. "I think I left it over there behind the bushes."
Allen went with him to find it, while the girls stood huddled together, wishing themselves back at the bungalow. Mystery is wonderful in the glaring sun of noon-day, but in the chill dusk of evening, with a damp mist rising and touching all the land with clammy fingers—at such a time it is not so alluring. All they wanted was home and a fire and a chance to talk things over.
Allen and Frank, carrying the basket between them, soon rejoined those who were waiting at the cave, and they started along the shores of the lake, keeping a sharp lookout for anything that looked like a gypsy.
However, they reached home at last without encountering anything more formidable than their own shadows.