“That’s all very well, but which way is the road?”

Amy considered.  “Search me,” he said finally.  “Let’s play it’s over there, though.  After all, it doesn’t matter which way you walk when you’re lost.  You always walk in circles.  We’ll be back here in a while, Clint.  Why not make believe we’ve walked and are back again?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Clint.  “Come on.  It’ll be dark first thing we know and then we will be in a fix!”

“And I’m getting most awfully hungry,” murmured Amy.  “I shall search for berries as we toil weariedly onward.”

When they at last left the pasture behind them they found themselves in another wood.  Clint leaned hopelessly against a tree and shook his head.

“This has ceased to be a joke, Amy.  We’re just about lost as anything.”

“Right-o!” Then he added cheerfully:  “But we didn’t walk in a circle, Clint.  That’s something.  And that road must be somewhere around here.  When you think of it it’s mighty funny.  There we were with a perfectly good road on one side of us and a trolley line on the other.  We haven’t crossed either of them.  Now where the dickens are they?”

“The way I figure it,” replied Clint thoughtfully, “is that the trolley was a lot farther off than he said it was and that the road turned to the left again after we got off it.  One thing is certain, and that is that if we haven’t crossed it it must be in front of us somewhere, and the only thing to do is keep on going.”

“Until we drop,” agreed Amy.  “I shall begin and look for a nice comfortable place to drop.  Say, we won’t get a thing but hard looks when we get back—­if ever we do.”

“We’ll be lucky if we get off with hard looks, I reckon,” said Clint gloomily.

They went on through the woods.  They were tired now and it was quite dark under the trees and they made slow progress.  Once Clint tripped over a fallen branch and measured his length and once Amy ran head-on into a sapling and declared irately, as he rubbed his nose, that he would come back the next day with an axe and settle matters.  At last, after a silence of many minutes:  “We’re doing it, I’ll bet you anything,” said Amy.

“Doing what?” asked Clint from the twilight.

“Walking in a circle.  We must be.  We’ve been in this place for twenty minutes, at least, and we haven’t found a way out yet.  Which way is it you go when you walk in a circle?  To the left, isn’t it?”

“Right, I think,” answered Clint doubtfully.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s the left.  Tell you what we’ll do, we’ll take shorter steps with our right legs, Clint”

They tried it, but nothing resulted.  It was pitch-black now and, since the sun was gone, getting chillier every minute.  Clint wished he had put on a vest, or, rather, waistcoat.  He was about ready to give up when a patch of grey showed ahead and they made toward it to find themselves at the edge of the wood on a little hill.  Below them spread uncertainly a bare field.  Overhead a few stars shone.  If the road was near it was too dark to see it.  They sat down on the ground to rest.  For several minutes neither spoke.  Then Clint heard a chuckle from Amy.