persuaded him against that plan, pointing out that he would be
extremely uncomfortable riding on the trolley car with his clothes
soaking wet. Amy grumblingly agreed to give the stream another chance to
behave itself. By that time they had been walking fully fifteen minutes
and the scene of the accident was lost to sight and as yet there was no
trace of the trolley line. Clint looked at his watch.

"I reckon," he said, "we wouldn't get that car even if we were on the
other side now. The best thing for us to do is hit the road again and
beat it for Wharton on foot."

Amy agreed and they turned their backs on the stubborn brook and set off
across a meadow which presently gave place to a hill-side field
overgrown with bushes and weeds and prickly vines which clung to their
trousers and snarled around their feet. Clint said they were wild
raspberry and blackberry vines and Amy replied that he didn't care what
sort of vines they were; they were a blooming nuisance. To avoid them,
they struck westward again toward a stone wall, climbed it and found
themselves in a patch of woods. They kept along the stone wall, dodging
in and out through the trees, and ascending a hill. Presently it dawned
on Clint that the stone wall, like the brook, was having fun with them.
For, instead of running straight, as one would expect any decent stone
wall to run, it was bending all the time to the west. Clint knew it was
the west because the sun was disappearing there; perhaps _had_
disappeared by now. He acquainted Amy with the discovery and they
crawled across the wall again and found themselves in a worse tangle of
briers than before. But they were desperate now. It was well after five
and the shadows were getting long and black. They were both secretly
rather glad to be out of the woods, although progress through the briers
was far from enjoyable.

Finally Amy, pausing to wrest himself from the frantic clutches of a
blackberry vine, raised his head and viewed Clint solemnly.

"Clint," he announced, "I've got something to tell you."

"Fire away."

"We're lost."

"I knew that ten minutes ago," was the reply.

"Then why didn't you tell a fellow? When I'm lost I like to know it.
It's the--the uncertainty that worries me. Now that I know I shall never
see school and Josh again I feel better." Amy looked about him
appraisingly. "Have you noticed any berries or nuts, Clint? I suppose
we'll have to live on them for a few days."

"You're t