“I wish I had mine now,” replied the other shiveringly.  “I dare say we’re headed in the wrong direction for Wharton.”

“Say not so,” exclaimed Amy, whose spirits were rapidly returning.  “Courage, faint heart!  Onward to coffee!”

For awhile they speculated on the mysterious mission of the two men in the automobile, but neither of them could offer a satisfactory solution of the problem, and finally they fell silent.  Fortunately the road ran fairly straight and they got off it only once.  After they had been walking what seemed to them to be about an hour, although there was no way of knowing, Clint called attention to the fact that he could see the road.  Amy replied that he couldn’t, but in a moment decided that he could.  To the left of them there was a perceptible greying of the sky.  After that morning came fast.  In a few minutes they could make out dimly the forms of trees beside the way, then more distant objects became visible and, as by a miracle, the sleeping world suddenly lay before them, black and grey in the growing light.  Somewhere a bird twittered and was answered.  A chilling breeze crept across a field, heralding the dawn and bringing shivers to the boys.  Soon after that they came across the first sign of life, a farm with a creaking windmill busily at work, and a light showing wanly in an upper window of the house.

“Some poor fellow is getting out of a nice, warm bed,” soliloquised Amy.  “How I pity him!  Can’t you see him shaking his fist at the alarm-clock and shivering as he gets into his panties?”

“He’s lucky to have a nice, warm bed,” responded Clint.  “If I had one it would take more than an alarm-clock to get me out of it!”

“Me too!  Say, what do you think about sneaking over there to the stable and hitting the hay for a couple of hours?  Maybe the chap might give us some coffee, too.”

“More likely he’d set the dog on us at this time of morning,” answered Clint.  And, to lend weight to his objection, a challenging bark came across the field.

“Right-o,” agreed Amy.  “I didn’t want any coffee, anyway.  Isn’t that a sign-post ahead?”

It was a sign-post, looming black and forbidding, like a wayside gibbet, where a second road turned to the left.  “Wharton, 2 M—­Levidge’s Mills, 4 M—­Custer, 6 M,” they read with difficulty.

“We can do two miles in half an hour easily,” said Amy.  “Gee, I can almost smell that coffee, Clint!”

They went on in the growing light, passing another farm-house presently and another unfriendly dog.  The greyness in the east became tinged with rose.  Birds sang and fluttered.  A rabbit hopped nimbly across the road ahead of them and disappeared, with a taunting flick of his little white tail, in the bushes.  Further on a chipmunk chattered at them from the top of the wall and then, with long leaps, raced ahead to stop and eye them inquiringly, finally disappearing with a last squeal of alarm.  A second