ked Betty, idly.

She tossed some sand and little pebbles toward Grace, but the latter had
actually gone to sleep, and the deep and regular breathing of Mollie
proclaimed the same fact.

"Oh, I can't stand this!" the Little Captain cried, a few minutes later.
"I want to do something. Let's go for a little walk, Amy, and let them
sleep."

"All right."

"Will you go as far as the place where we found the--'apples'?" asked
Betty, with a look around to be sure no stray fishermen were in the
neighborhood.

"Yes, if you like."

"Then come on. I want to see if the men came back, and tried to find the
box that was buried in the sand."

It was rather a longer walk than Betty had thought, but finally she and
Amy came within sight of the lone fisherman's hut, and the log that lay
on the edge of the hole in the sand, though the latter, so Betty
expected, would be filled up by the action of the waves or wind ere
this.

"I do hope that horrid old woman doesn't invite us in again," Betty
remarked. "She is a--pest!"

The Little Captain and Amy were walking down the sands, in the midst of
a number of high dunes, or hills.

"There's the place!" Betty said. "It doesn't seem to have been----"

A noise behind caused her to turn suddenly. A scream came to her lips,
but it was choked off by the sudden forward rush of the old crone who
roughly placed her withered hand over Betty's mouth.

"I--I've got her!" she croaked. At the same time a man caught Amy by the
arm, and stifled her impending cry in the same manner.

[Illustration: THE OLD CRONE PLACED HER HAND OVER BETTY'S MOUTH.--_Page
162._

_The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View._]

CHAPTER XXI

ON THE SCHOONER

Betty Nelson was an unusually muscular girl. She and her outdoor chums
had not lived so much in the open air for nothing, and taken long tramps
and regular physical exercise. They had played basketball, tennis and
golf, and though their arms looked pretty in evening dresses, there were
muscles beneath those same beautifully tanned skins.

For a moment Betty was so surprised at the suddenness of the attack that
she could do nothing. She had had but a momentary glimpse of the face of
the old crone, and only for that she might have thought it was the boys,
who had stolen up behind her and Amy, and had put their hands over their
eyes to make them guess who had thus blinded them.

But in an instant Betty knew this was no friendly game. And so, as soon
as she r