There was no need of urging, for they fairly flew in the direction of her voice. There she was down on her knees before an opening much lower and narrower than the one they had discovered before, but nevertheless unmistakably another entrance to the cave.
"I caught my foot in a twig," she explained, as they crowded around her, wild with excitement, "and I almost fell into the cave." So, as in the first place, the discovery had been made through an accident.
The cave seemed to have been formed in a rise of the ground—it could hardly be termed a hill—and as the young people looked inside, its black interior stretched as far as they could see.
"Who wants to go in first?" asked Amy, her tone low and awed in the presence of the unknown. "The boys will have to stoop to get in."
"I'll go," said Will, pushing his way past them, and in his tone was a ring of command. "Come on, anybody that wants to. I'm going to find what's in this place before it disappears again."
The place had a damp and earthy smell, and Amy drew back uncertainly. "The rest of you go first," she said. "I'll come—later."
Nothing loath, Mollie, Betty and even Grace pressed into the opening after Will, the boys standing aside—this last bit of self-control proving that chivalry was not all dead yet. The first temptation had been to run pell-mell after Will, regardless of girls or any other disturbing element that might be about.
However, as has been said, they allowed the girls to go in first and followed them as closely as they dared, Amy, however, going last of all.
After several feet of back-breaking progress the girls came out into another portion of the cave, where the roof was high enough to admit of an upright position. As they stood up, nerves aquiver with suppressed excitement, Will rushed back to them.
"There is another entrance at the other end," he cried. "That must be the one you and Allen found, Betty. Come over here where you can get more light," he added. "It filters through the leaves and twigs at the opening."