"Yes, through a hole. We slid down a sandy hill, and we couldn't climb
back again. We saw a little light over this way and we walked to it and
then we heard some one cry: 'Mamma!' Are there any more little children
here?" Freddie asked.

"Hum! Yes, some," half-grunted the gypsy. "But not your kind. I don't
see how you came here," he went on, speaking to himself, it seemed, for
he did not glance at Flossie or Freddie and there was no one else near
by. The man looked all about the cave.

"Which way did you come?" he asked.

"Back there," and Freddie, who was doing most of the talking, pointed
toward the place where he and Flossie had tried so hard to climb up.

"Come and show me," the man ordered them, and when they walked back with
him, the lantern making queer shadows on the side walls of the cave,
Flossie and Freddie pointed to the place down which they had slid.

"Hum!" murmured the gypsy. "I never knew there was a way into the cave
from there. I must see about that. It wasn't open before. Well, now
you're here I've got to make up my mind what I'll do with you," he went
on, as he motioned for Flossie and her brother to walk back in front of
him. He held the lantern so they could see where to step, but the
earthen floor of the cave was smooth, and the children did not stumble.

"Will you take us back to Twin Camp, where we live?" asked Freddie.
"We're the Bobbseys you know, and we didn't mean to run away again,
though I guess we're lost. My mamma and my papa will be looking for us,
and if you'll take us to the camp----"

"Well, maybe I will after a bit, but not now," said the gypsy, shaking
his head so that his earrings jiggled. "You'll have to stay here with us
awhile. If you went out now, and told your folks you had found us here
we'd all be sent to jail, most likely. I'll see what the others say."

Flossie and Freddie wondered what others he meant, but he did not tell
them. He kept walking close behind them, and there was nothing for them
to do but to keep on.

Suddenly they turned a sort of corner of the cave, and then the children
saw something that surprised them. Seated around a table, on which some
candles, stuck in bottles, were burning, were a number of men. They were
all gypsies, like the man who had met the children farther back in the
cave, and as he walked forward, behind Flossie and Freddie, the other
gypsies looked up.

"Who was calling?" asked one of the dark men at the table.

"These tw