A MARVELOUS DISCOVERY
Upon reaching the house the Outdoor Girls ran upstairs while the boys
went back to camp to get some things they thought they might need. A few
moments later the girls rejoined them.
"Where shall we go?" Roy, who was leading the van, paused and looked
behind him. "Let's take some different part of the wood--some place we
haven't explored yet."
"If there is any," Allen agreed.
"There is some place, for we have not yet found the gypsies Mollie's old
store-keeper told her about," put in Betty.
"Very well, then, trot ahead, Roy, we'll follow you."
"All right, but don't blame me if we are lost."
"Oh, if there is any danger of that," said Amy, pulling away and looking
back longingly, "perhaps we better stick to what we know."
"Oh, Roy is only talking to hear himself talk," Will assured her. "It
isn't possible to get lost on this island, even if you wanted to. All
we would have to do would be to follow the shore and sooner or later
we'd be bound to come upon 'The Shadows.'"
Amy saw the reason in this and was reassured. "All right," she said;
"but it wouldn't be very much fun to get lost."
"Why not?" demanded Will, and she looked at him in surprise.
"Well, would it?" she asked wonderingly.
"It would be the greatest little lark ever," he said so decidedly that
Amy blushed. "We'd have some excitement for a little while, anyway."
When they had walked a little farther into the woods Roy stopped again,
and, pointing before him, called out: "We have found just the place,
people--it's Arcadia itself."
They crowded about him, gazing in the direction he had pointed out. It
was a wonderful island, this--where you were always stumbling into some
little glade or woodland bower made especially for you. Surely this tiny
garden spot of nature was even more alluring than the famous fishing
pool, and the girls pushed forward eagerly.
"That big flat stone over there will be just the very thing to spread
the eatables out on," said Grace, "and I guess we can all manage to get
around it, too."
"Of course we can," said Mollie enthusiastically. "It's exactly the
right height. Oh, every thing is perfect!"
"If you girls will only stop raving long enough to get us something to
eat," said Will plaintively, "you'll be doing some good in the world.
Gee, but I'm hungry!"
"Poor boy," said Betty, with ready sympathy, "I know just exactly how
you feel, because I'm nearly dead myself. Hand over the basket, Allen,
please, and I'll spread the cloth."
"You bet I will!" said Allen readily. "I'll help you fix things."
"Look out for him, Betty," Roy cautioned. "He's got his eye on the good
things."
"What good does that do?" sighed Allen. "I'd rather have my teeth on
them."
"So say we all of us," laughed Frank. "Can't I help, too, Betty?"
"Of course--all of you," the Little Captain agreed, magnanimously. "Come
on, girls--stop admiring the view and help with these things."
"Oh! will we?" cried Mollie, and all made a rush for the baskets.
"What's first? You've got the table cloth? Well, then the napkins next
and the sandwiches--and the biscuits, and--oh, boys, you never could
guess----" Mollie sat back on her heels and regarded them laughingly.
"Think of the thing you want most in the world," she said. "That's it!"
"There are lots of things I want," Frank began, but Roy interrupted him.
"There is only one thing in the world that is better than anything
else," he said.
"And that?" the others queried breathlessly.
"Plum pudding!" He pronounced the two words with the reverence due them.
Grace stared at him in amazement. "How did you know?" she stammered.
"It's almost uncanny."
"Not at all," said Roy, with a superior air. "It's perfectly simple--I
smelled it."
"Oh, so that was the blithe and savory odor that assailed our nostrils a
short time ago," said Frank. "But my hopes never soared to the heights
of plum pudding."
"And here is the hard sauce," said Mollie, passing it around from one to
the other as though it had been a precious jewel. "Amy made it--all of
powdered sugar--with perhaps a little egg and butter thrown in--and I
know it is delicious."
"You had better put that out of sight till we get through eating other
things, Mollie," Betty cautioned. "The boys will be starting at the
wrong end of the meal."
"Yes, and spoil their appetites," Amy added, while Mollie removed the
temptation.
However, from the way the good things disappeared, there seemed no
reason for Amy's fears--appetites like those were proof even against
plum pudding.
At last the picnickers stretched themselves, replete and happy, upon the
soft grass, to discuss a further course of action.
"What shall we do next?" asked Betty, after a somewhat lengthy pause.
"Are we going to take a walk or swim some more or just stay here?"
"You've got the right idea," Roy commended.
"Which?" she asked, with uplifted eyebrows. "I suggested three things."
"The last of course," he answered, plucking a piece of long grass and
beginning to chew the end of it. "I don't know what you put in that plum
pudding, but it has made me everlastingly sleepy. I'd like to take a
nice long nap;" and a prodigious yawn gave truth to his words.
"How interesting," Grace mocked. "Mrs. Irving warned Mollie that it
might have such an effect--in fact, she said it was too hearty for hot
weather. Behold we have the proof of her words."
"For goodness' sake, Roy, brace up!" cried Will, in a stage whisper.
"Can't you see what you are doing? If you keep this up they won't give
us any more. Brace up!"
Seeing the wisdom of this, Roy did his best to "brace up," but the girls
only laughed at him.
"We are sleepy, too," Amy confessed, "so we won't tell. Besides, don't
you suppose _we_ like plum pudding?"
"Good!" said Roy, leaning back against the tree with a relieved sigh.
"Now we can act naturally."
However, the Outdoor Girls and their boy chums were too active to remain
quiet long, even after plum pudding. Allen was the first to become
restless, and the others soon caught it from him. He rose, went through
some gymnastic exercises, then looked about him curiously. "I wonder if
there are any more places like this hereabout?" he said. "Does anybody
want to take a little tramp and find out? You look about as energetic as
a bunch of turtles. Come on, let's do something."
"Why do something when we can get lots more fun out of doing nothing?"
asked Roy lazily. "What wouldst have us do?"
"I just told you," Allen's tone showed disgust. "Isn't there one among
you with any pep at all? How about you, Betty? You're usually the one
to start things."
Betty looked up at him with a slow, tantalizing little smile. "That's
why I am letting you take the lead this time," she purred. "I thought
I'd wait and see who'd make the first move."
"And I am going to force the second move," and before she could guess
what he was going to do, he leaned over, caught her two hands in his and
pulled her to her feet. "Now, you are going to take a little walk with
me, young lady. If the rest of this lazy crowd don't want to come along,
they know what they can do!"
The Little Captain blinked at him uncertainty. "You might tell me what
you are going to do," she complained. "Look, Allen--you hurt me!"
He regarded the brown little hand, held up for his inspection,
anxiously. "I don't see anything," he said. "But if I hurt it I am
sorry," and he stroked the place that should have been red.
"If you are going, why don't you go?" Grace demanded, then added
meaningly: "I guess they _are_ glad we are lazy."
"Please don't make any insinuations," said Betty, her nose in the air,
but Allen sent a laughing shot back at them before they disappeared into
the denser wood.
"You can eat another plum pudding if you like," he said.
Frank chuckled audibly. "Wise old chap--Allen," he remarked.
"I wish we could take his advice," mourned Amy. "If you boys hadn't been
such pigs, we might have had some pudding left."
"Oh, why didn't you make more?" was Will's uncivil comment.
For a long time Allen and Betty wandered through the woods, seeing
nothing and hearing nothing but the usual sights and sounds of the
forest--and seemingly quite content to go on in that way forever.
It was Allen who first broke the silence. "I wish you would tell me what
you are thinking about so hard, Betty. It must be very interesting,
because you haven't said a word to me since we left that lazy crowd back
there. 'Fess up!"
Betty flushed faintly. "You should never ask what a person thinks about
on a beautiful summer, day when she is wandering through the woodland
with--with----"
"Whom?" Allen prompted softly. "Go on, Betty, finish the story."
"Can't," she smiled up at him roguishly. "It's one of those 'to be
continued.'"
He caught her hand, but she drew it away quickly. "Allen, what's this?"
she cried.
She had accidentally brushed aside some brambles that had caught on her
dress, and there close beside them, so near that she could thrust her
hand into the opening, yawned the cavernous black mouth of a cave.
Allen drew her aside quickly. "Don't go near it," he commanded, in a
tone that made Betty look at him in surprise. "I'm suspicious of these
caves until I have investigated them myself. I am going to have a look,
Betty. You stay where you are."
But the Little Captain had not been so named for nothing. She seized
Allen's arm, and drew him back from the opening.
"Allen, if you go in there, I'm going, too," she cried, her eyes
blazing. "Do you suppose I'm going to stand here, and see you get eaten
up by a--a----"
"A what?" said Allen, putting his hands on her shoulders and laughing
down at her.
"Well, whatever there is in the cave," she finished lamely. "Anyway, I'm
going in with you."
"Betty, do be reasonable," he pleaded, but she flared up at that.
"Do you know, Allen, there is nothing a girl hates more than to have a
boy ask her to be reasonable, when she knows she is? Anyway," her voice
lowered and she pleaded her turn. "Anyway, it's lots worse to see
anybody get hurt, anybody that you like, that is, than it is to get hurt
yourself."
"You little soldier," Allen murmured. "But can't you see, Betty, that I
am here to protect you from danger if there is any--not let you run
right into it?"
"Then there is no reason why you should, either," she said obstinately.
"Will it make you feel any better if we get the others?" Allen asked,
just a little exasperated, for he liked mysteries and hated to leave
them unsolved. "We can get to them in five minutes if we run."
"Yes, that will be better," Betty agreed, seizing the suggestion
eagerly. "But do you think we can find the cave again?"
"Easily," said Allen. "You see, we are pretty near the water right here
and that bent old tree at the edge of the lake--see what I mean?--well,
that's right on the line with the mouth of the cave. I guess it will be
easy enough to find."
So it was settled, and they raced back hand in hand to the spot where
they had left their friends, eager to tell the news.
"So here you are," cried Mollie, at sight of the runaways. "We thought
you were never coming back."
Allen wasted no time, but told his story in the fewest words possible.
They were all tremendously excited, and followed the two adventurers
eagerly as they led the way along the shores of the lake.
"Are you sure you can find it again?" Grace was asking when Amy seized
her arm and pointed out over the water.
"Look!" she cried. "Gypsies!"