“And those awful men,” gasped Dorothy. “I do believe if they found her they would kill her!”
“Not if we find her first,” grunted Ned, for his load was so heavy he had to talk in “chunks.”
“Does Aunt Winnie know?” asked Dorothy, anxiously.
“Not a word,” replied Nat as he shifted the crate to a change of hands. “And she must not know. We can say we were in the woods and found the stuff all right, but she must not get a word of Dorothy in the cave. She would never trust us again if she did. And to Doro would be assigned a special officer as a body guardian the rest of her days. Now of course, a special officer is all right when a girl picks him herself, but the mammas always make a point of selecting the least attractive, I believe.”
The girls tried to laugh at the youth’s attempt to cheer them up, but it was only a feeble effort that responded.
“All the same, I call it great luck to get the goods,” insisted Ned, “and only for Doro’s scare the game would be all to the goal.”
“Well I wouldn’t want to go through it again,” answered Dorothy, “but having it over I, too, think it is a good thing to get the birds and the silver. I would be almost happy if I only knew about Urania.”
“Now, just as soon as we deposit this stuff safely—the birds in their nests and the silver in the pantry, we will sneak off somewhere, and you must give us the whole story. Then, we will know which way to go to look for the gypsy girl.”
Just as they turned into the path that led up to the Cedars the party met John. He had been sent out by Mrs. White to look for the “children.”
“Oh, here, John, take this bag!” called Ned as he approached, “my back is just paralyzed.”