“A pity to let them go,” murmured Nat, “but we’ve got to find the girls.”
“Oh, I would like to go up a tree and stay there,” sighed Tavia, who was still badly frightened.
“Guess we’re all ‘up a tree’ this time,” answered Nat, lightly. “But I’m for the cave. Come along, Ned, and keep your gun handy.”
Tavia followed the boys across the open sward although she trembled so, she could scarcely make one foot step in front of the other. What if men should be in the cave, and pounce out on them!
“You needn’t worry,” Ned assured her, seeing her white face. “There are no more gypsies in this hole. They would have answered the shots same as the others did, if they had been about.”
“Neat little cave,” remarked Nat, as they came nearer the hut. “Didn’t know we had anything like that around here.”
They were now directly in front of the “hole in the hill.”
The top of this cave was covered with grass and ground, so that from the upper part of the hill, where the walk was common, the cave would never be suspected. But that the place was lined with brick and stone was plain to our friends, for they stood now in front of the opening, and this was a perfectly shaped door, surrounded by even rows of bricks.
“An old ice house,” declared Ned. “There must have been a big house around here and this was the ice storage.”
“Yes, there are ruins just over there,” said Tavia, indicating a spot at some distance down a gully.