“Glad you find it so funny,” he grumbled resentfully.

“I was just thinking of something,” gurgled Amy.  “This is Saturday, you know, and we always have cold lamb for supper on Saturdays.  I hate cold lamb.”

“I don’t see where the joke comes in,” grumbled Clint.

“Why, I don’t have to eat the lamb, do I?  Isn’t that funny?”

“No, it isn’t.  I could eat cold—­cold—­cold dog!  Come on.  We might as well walk as sit here and freeze to death.”

“I’ve read,” said Amy, “that freezing was a pleasant death, but it doesn’t seem so.  Maybe, though, it’s painful just at first.”  He arose with a groan and followed Clint down the slope.  There were more briers, and now and then they stumbled over outcropping rocks.  The field seemed interminable, but after awhile Clint bumped into a wall.  They climbed over it and started on again.

“If there was only a moon,” said Clint, “it would help some.  You can’t see a blessed thing.”

“If there was a moon it wouldn’t get through the clouds.  It feels to me as if it might rain.”

“You certainly have cheerful thoughts,” Clint grumbled.  “I wonder if it would do any good if we yelled.”

“We might try it.  Suppose we give the Brimfield cheer, Clint.”

“Oh, shut up!  You make me tired, Amy.  Come on, now.  Yell as loud as you can.  All ready?”

“Hold on I What am I to yell?”

“Yell ‘Help!’ you idiot!”

“Oh, all right.”  They raised their voices together in a loud appealing shout.  Then they listened.  Not a sound answered them.

“Once more,” said Clint.  Again they shouted and again they listened.  Deep silence, broken only by the chirping of crickets.

“No good, I guess,” said Clint despondently.

“Nobody home,” murmured Amy.  “Now what?  I’ll tell you frankly, as man to man, that I can’t go on walking all night, Clint.  I’m dog-tired and my left leg’s got a cramp in it and I’m weak with hunger.  Let’s find a cosy corner somewhere and go to sleep.”

“I reckon we’ll have to.  I’m about all in, too.  We’d better find a place where there’s more shelter than there is here, though.  Gee, but we are certainly a fine pair of idiots!”

“We are indeed!” assented Amy with enthusiasm.  “I suppose that the time will come, perhaps twenty or thirty years from now, when we’ll be able to look back on this night’s jolly adventures and appreciate all the fun we’re having, but just now—­” Amy’s voice trailed off into silence.

“Jolly adventures!” grunted Clint.  “Don’t talk rot!”

Five minutes later they stopped.  That is, Clint stopped and Amy ran into him with a grunt.

“I suppose you haven’t got a match, have you?” asked Clint.

“Right-o!  You’re a fine little supposer,” chattered Amy.

“There’s something here and I want to see what it is,” said Clint.  As he spoke he moved forward a step or two and felt around in the darkness.  “It feels like a fence,” he muttered, “a board fence.  No, it isn’t, it’s a house!  Here’s a window.”